Sara and Lee . com

Last night at Lee’s silat school there was an activity that involved being in the mud in the rain.  For many (though not me) this activity involved various degrees of rolling around in the mud.  By the end, Lee’s gray shirt had a nice dark brown camouflage pattern on it.

One of the others then said “Mrs. Sara, you will have extra laundry tomorrow” Laugh laugh laugh.  I looked at him, puzzled.  “What?”  “You will have to work hard to clean Mr. Lee’s shirt”  Ah.  Ha ha ha.  “No, I do not wash Lee’s laundry”  Lee chimes in “It is not her job to clean my messes”  A cultural lesson imparted.  One should never assume that the female bule does all the domestic tasks.  Now the guy probably pities the heck out of Lee, like why did he get married then, if not to have someone to do his laundry?

(but of course sometimes I do Lee’s laundry, and if he asked nicely, of course I would clean his muddy shirt.  sssshhhhhhh……)

**Author’s note:  Should a tornado come to where I live or work, fear not friends and family, I have a plan that involves taking shelter far from windows, just like all the tornado drills in school taught me **

Angin besar.  Translation:  big wind, or, as we would call it in English, a tornado.  Yogyakarta had its first tornado last night, or at least the first tornado any of my coworkers have ever heard of here.  It was nowhere near we live, but seemingly a rather easy walk from my office.  

I was teaching English class today and my coworkers had very little interest in my _totally awesome_ lesson on prepositions.  Instead, they talked a lot about tornados in Indonesian.  The good news is that unlike in the US, the tornado did not attack a mobile home park, so though many houses were damaged and people were hurt, nobody was killed.  My coworkers encourage me to go over and see the damaged roofs, the massive tree that was felled, and the huge advertisement sign that came down.  We’ll see.  I feel like gawking at other peoples’ misfortune is sort of a no-no when your skin color already sets you apart as filthy rich and privileged.    

As this was Yogya’s inaugural tornado, there was of course no tornado alarm.  One of my coworkers lives right near where it hit, so I asked her how she knew something was amiss.  She said she heard it and ran outside, originally thinking it was a plane going down.  Not a bad assumption here I guess.  Another coworker saw what she thought was trash flying everywhere – turned out it was pieces of someone’s roof.   They both lamented the fact that they had not gotten any pictures of it.

Pictures?  But really guys, what should you do in a tornado here?  I drew a picture of a house on the board and showed that in tornado-prone Michigan, we would go into the basement if there was a tornado.  Then I erased the basement.  No such thing here.

Here are the three suggestions I got:

1.)    You should run far away

2.)    You should put on a helmet….then maybe run

3.)    Afterwards, you should just laugh, because really, there is nothing you can do

So there you have it.  Oddly, their suggestions do not really worry me; in fact, they seem almost practical and make me like my coworkers even more than I already did.  Maybe some of their adaptability is rubbing off on me.  And now I’m going to go seize the moment….there may be next-to-nothing I can do in case of a tornado, but I can certainly go find and eat a giant chocolate bar in the rain to make myself feel good about it.

You might be wondering, gosh Sara and Lee, what do you normally do on your weekends, those two long days you get every single week to explore Indonesia?  Well, sometimes we run errands.  Sometimes we go to events.  Sometimes we even go on little trips to nearby towns.  This past weekend was the Chinese New Year, so you would think that we might have gone to an event…maybe to a chinese temple.  Or watched a lion dance.  That would have been nice.  This weekend, Lee and I went to the post office.

We wanted to send some letters, as well as some rather large packages to family (yes family, there’s packages a’comin — and you _better_ be appreciative!).  As said packages were large, we decided to take a taxi to the post office.  Problem #1 — the taxi driver decided that since we were foreigners, he would take us the long, indirect, loopy way to the post office.  I think it cost an extra 30 cents.  Grrr….I hate him.

The post office is a huge building, really pretty.  As you enter, you are met with a gentle hum of conversation, punctuated by the abrasive screech of a fleet of dot matrix printers (labels are important!) and the thwap of  mallet-like objects that serve as stampers (official seals are important too!)  Inside are an array of counters, 10 at least, each clearly labeled with their specialty.  Regrettably, the majority of these counters are closed at any given time (given our sample set of two visits).  Luckily the employees make up for this by actually being eager to help, so all you have to do is look bewildered and lost and they close in to answer questions.

Question number 1 was “How much is it going to cost to send these monstrosities to the US?”   We now know that there are two options for large package sending, express and biasa (biasa = normal, more apt translation = boat).  MOST foreigners, we were told, choose express.  We asked how much express would cost and were told that it would be a whopping $250 for the packages, translating to more than our combined monthly salaries. Now, ok, I know it’s a long way, but come on, the contents of the packages only cost half that!  Still, despite the quick trip to the convenient onsite ATM that it necessitated, we agreed to do “express”.  It has a nice ring.

Unfortunately, when the employee actually went to process the packages, after we had waited in line, after we had filled out the usual package sending forms (contents?  drugs…cross cross….crafts), we were told that they were too large, and that the shipping price would follow some crazy formula that rendered the cost more like $400.  Absolutely positively out of the question.  For that kind of money, I could eat at McDonalds every day.  This meant that we would have to go to the OTHER post office a few blocks away.

A few blocks, no problem.  Except that during the hour that it took us to determine that our packages would have to travel by sea, the skies had opened up.  Thunder, lightening, downpour.  Our boxes got slightly soggy just thinking about going outside (er…maybe it was from all the rain that was blowing into the building through the perpetually open door), which meant we had some time to kill, 90 rainy minutes.
We decided to take care of the other part of our errand, mailing letters.  Slim, lightweight letters, should be easy.  I licked an envelope to seal it and found that, wow, Indonesian envelope glue doesn’t have that gross taste!  Oh, but the envelope also doesn’t close….because there is NO GLUE on it.  Oh.  In the center of the giant post office room was a pyramid shaped station, four little triangular cubicle areas arranged around the peak, the pinnacle, a dish of bluegreen goo known as glue.  The way to seal an envelope is to dip your finger in the glue, smear it on the envelope, and press.  Glue here is called “lem”.  It rhymes with phlegm for a reason.  There is nowhere to wash your hands.  Blech.

That done, we sat and chatted with folks until the rain let up, then headed to the other post office, which was much smaller and had only two counters, both open.  It turns out that sending things by boat costs only 1/4 of the express price — possibly because it takes 4 times as long.  One of our packages was 5.5 kilograms, just missing the 5kg cutoff for a lower price.  The woman at the desk was very concerned by this…how uneconomical!  She suggested that we cut the box open and take out a few things to bring it in line.  Very nice of her, but we declined.  In order to ride the boat, our boxes had to be wrapped in old white plastic woven rice bags, which were sewn on for protection.  The post office has several employees (well, maybe they’re more like independent contractors, who knows?) for whom this seems to be their only job, sewing bags onto boxes.  I have to say, the boxes looked pretty cool all wrapped up like presents.  I hope they travel ok.

And after a bus ride home, that was the end of the adventure.  We spent Saturday from 10AM to 4:30PM stuffing, taping, and sending packages.  We spent the Sunday recovering.  I can’t wait to see what NEXT weekend will bring….

I used to wear a watch every day here; I stopped only when I got a sunburn and it irritated my arm.  During that time when the red turned to blisters turned to peeling turned to tan, I realized that a watch is completely unnecessary, and actually quite ridiculous for me to wear, given that it can sit safely in my wardrobe keeping the ants company instead.  

Do I need to wake up early in the morning?  No need for a watch, I have the 4AM call to prayer from the local mosque (stone’s throw from house), not to mention it’s 4:30 cousin from a slightly more distant mosque (2 blocks from house).    A religious snooze alarm system if you will. 

An hour later, I have a built in husband alarm clock.  He tries to be quiet when he wakes up, but what can you do when your every move causes the bed to crinkle loudly?   Maybe we should take the original plastic covering off the mattress.   Maybe.  But it seemed like such a good idea to leave it on to preserve the resale value….

Do I need to shower around 7AM?  No problem, just listen for the guy delivering newspapers to come by (KO-ran!  KO-ran!).  8AM, time to leave the house?  The delightful tune of the milk and yogurt guy lets me know I’m running a few minutes late.  

Is it lunchtime?  If I hear the noontime call to prayer from any of the 3 mosques near work, I know the answer is a resounding yes.  Feeling sleepy in the afternoon?  Well, if I hear another call to prayer I know it’s time for my 3 o’clockish gritty-with-sugar tea break.  

Do I want to leave work by 5PM?  Listen for the yogurt/milk guy again (he sure gets around town…unless there are two of him).  Or, listen for the tap of spoon on bowl that signals the bakso cart (bakso = meatball soup – but with meatballs that make hotdogs look fresh, natural, and unprocessed)

Missed 5PM?  No worries, there’s another call to prayer around 6.  And then another at 7:30, signalling that if you want dinner and haven’t eaten yet, you’d better get a move on or there won’t be vegetables left at the nearby food stalls.

Somewhere between 9 and 10, a fried rice cart comes by the house (Tok!  Tok! Toktoktok!)   The sound elicits a pavlovian response.  Gotta love that MSG.

Between 11 and midnight, the first English-language movie on Trans TV ends, and the second starts.  For example, last night Notting Hill gave way to Dino Croc, both classics in their own right.

And of course, if I should happen to fall asleep sprawled on the 1 inch thick pad-sprouting-stuffing on our hard tile floors, there are two options to wake me up.  The first?  Yowling street cats who come in our windows at night to go through our trash whenever they think we’ve eaten meat.  The second-and-less-common, nature’s terrifying alarm clock, a nice stiff 2AM earthquake, reminding me that really, I should be planning English lessons and not sleeping….and that I should be wearing a helmet at all times.

The other day when many of my coworkers were out of the office sick, there was much discussion among those who remained about the cause of their illness.  Diarrhea.  But from where?  When had it started for person X?  Person Y?  What had they eaten?  Even after those affected returned, I still hear “diare” thrown around in the main room from time to time; I think it’s still a hot topic of conversation.  Today everyone was talking about how another of my coworkers is in the hospital now.  I was worried, I could not understand the full conversation, but I know that the hospital in Indonesia is generally the type of place you go only for emergencies.  Or to die.  So I asked, why is person Z in the hospital?  The answering words were too difficult to comprehend.   My puzzled look was met with a hesitant English description  “She has to have surgery….something with her anus.”  Me “Oh.”  Pause.  “Well good, it is not life-threatening.”  I managed not to laugh, but now that I hear other coworkers describing coworker Z’s condition on the phone (to WHOM I wonder?) I can’t contain myself.  Sheesh.

Lee’s silat group here has started doing daya batin, or “inner power” training. I’m not much of one for the fighting aspect of martial arts (though it would undoubtedly benefit me to learn a little self-defense one of these days), but I figure as long as I’m in Indonesia, maybe I should look into becoming more innerly powerful, maybe to sort of balance my weak physique. According to a paper someone wrote about silat and inner power (the only paper I could find about it in English), the belief is that

by combining regulated patterns of physical movements with specific breathing techniques, humans can activate, increase, and utilize the potentially huge reservoir of power that is believed to exist within each individual. This power can be applied in numerous ways, such as for repelling attackers without the use of physical force, healing oneself and others, heightening sensory perception, clairvoyance, performing extraordinary physical feats such as breaking hard objects, and spiritual enlightenment.

What’s not to like? The thing is, I am a naturally skeptical person. Open-minded, I like to think, but just….skeptical. I like proof of things. I like things to happen for understandable reasons. My mind doesn’t generally wrap itself well around spiritual things, even if I would *like* to believe in them.

I went to daya batin practice last night having pretty much no idea what was going on. It was meditation, that was clear, and I know enough Indonesian to follow basic commands, like how to position your arms and legs, when to breathe, whether to close your eyes, etc. I didn’t understand the part about what I should be feeling though, or about what was actually supposed to be happening, physically or spiritually.

At some point during the meditation, there was a weird tingling in my spine and my hands started to shake a little. Being me, I attributed this to poor posture or something, and once I started to think about it a lot, it went away. When the meditation was done, the leader guys asked what we felt. I stayed quiet, but was amazed to hear (and see through their pantomimes) that some of the other people felt the same things! Apparently that was what you were supposed to feel. It has to do with the movement of energy (qi) in your body, directed I guess by your breathing and position. So I’m still skeptical but….maybe this is real?

Note: While this post is posted under Lee’s name, the subject matter’s awesomeness is too awesome to be limited to one author. Thus it should be noted this post is a joint effort between Sara and Lee.

The equator has fascinated mankind with its mysterious qualities for centuries. This line is immune to changing seasons with the omnipresent and omniradiant sun ever shining down. This line boggles man’s sense of gravity. And this line, when peeled off of a globe, renders the spherical orb into two useless cardboard hemispheres. Lee did this repeatedly as a child – much to his parents’ annoyance. Unfortunately, the United States is terribly deprived of equatorship, and before coming to Indonesia neither of us had ever been afforded the opportunity to witness this magical line first hand.

Before going to our VIA conference in December, Sara noticed the equator went right through Sumatra near the town of Bonjol, just a bit north of Bukittinggi. We figured this would be as close as we were ever going to get to the equator, so we really had no choice in whether or not we would visit. It was a matter of destiny.

During conference we kept mentioning to the other volunteers that the equator was just 50 kilometers away. No one seemed impressed. Our fearless program director showed us pictures of the official equator monument in too-far-away Pontianak, Kalimantan, Indonesia. At least through all this discussion, we learned the Indonesian for equator is “Khatulistiwa” which I think is Arabic for the same concept. Armed with this word we started asking locals if there was a Equator monument in not too far away Bonjol. Nobody gave a good answer. Some said “yes”, some said, “no”. We finally consulted our trusty Lonely Planet Guide and found an entire sentence dedicated to the nearby equator monument. Lonely Planet called it….tacky. We beg to differ. As you’ll learn later, it’s not tacky, it’s tackily awesome.

Armed with this knowledge we separated from most of the other beach-and-snorkelling bound volunteers (plenty of time for that after The Equator, yes? Yes!) and headed to the Bukittinggi bus terminal to find the bus that would take us to the equator. Amazingly enough we had developed an entourage. Fellow volunteers Mona and Steven had agreed to come along. This is the kind of support seen only in epic tales.

Bus terminals are a huge hassle in Indonesia. All the drivers/conductors/bag carriers/taxi drivers/everyone else assumes they know where you’re going and they start asking if you want to go there “Danau Toba!? Danau Toba!? Danau Toba!?” When you tell them no, they change the venue “Padang!? Padang!? Padang!?” Nobody seemed to be yelling “Khatulistiwa!? or Bonjol!?” Lee started asking different bus drivers if they went to the Bonjol or the Khatulistiwa. Then some started replying “E-kwah-tor, E-kwah-tor. Yes, yes E-Kwah-tor.” We got on the bus and then it just sat there.

Buses in Indonesia have an annoying habit of not leaving when you want them to. If there are lots of people the bus can leave in as short as 10 minutes, but usually it takes much longer. Unlike in the US where transportation arrives and leaves according to a schedule, the drivers here wait until the buses are filled to capacity. Only then do they start to think about leaving.

Throughout the day, Lee kept chanting “The Equator!” (often accompanied with a pumping of the fist) to make sure all of us were properly psyched for the trip. Some might have considered it obnoxious, but it certainly passed the time as we waited…and waited…for the bus to start moving. When the bus was full it finally started moving (to the tune of Lee’s frenzied equatorial mutterings), but slowly. Even though it was full we kept stopping to pick up more people. It took 20 minutes just to get out of the Bukittinggi city limits. Meanwhile, the conductor collected our bus fare from Steven. Unfortunately Steven never got his change even after asking repeatedly. The difference wasn’t huge (roughly equivalent to one US dollar), but it’s annoying to be ripped off so blatantly. The other passengers are no help, laughing at the “bules” in some sort of implicit allegiance with the shady bus operators.

Once we were out of town things started picking up and we were driving through lush jungle and canyon lined roads, the most beautiful we had seen in Indonesia even if we did sleep through most of them. Two hours later we were fully alert and passing through Bonjol, afraid that we had somehow managed to sleep through the equator, that the driver had forgotten to tell us where to get off. We needn’t have worried; it is obviously so popular a destination that he knew exactly where we were going. The only mysteries once we got there were 1) Why did nobody else disembark at the equator and 2) Why were we the only tourists there, far outnumbered by the t-shirt vendors who immediately swarmed us as our feet touched the ground? This was a tourist trap in the most literal sense of the word.

Selanjutnya… (To be continued….)

Last night Lee had to fill out a form for his Silat friends, and attach a passport-sized photo. When he handed said form over, there was some silent scrutinizing. Then muffled snorts. Then all out laughter, passing around of photo, and one word. Gemuk. Or, as we Americans would say, FAT. Yes, Lee has lost weight since coming here (and now looks slightly emaciated), but regardless, it’s not exactly the type of thing we point out when we see pictures of people, “Wow, you sure were fat then!”

I’ve lost weight too, though not as noticeably as Lee. However, the other night, some people we had _just_ met dropped by the house to visit. We offered the “This was our life in Colorado” photo album for them to browse and when they came upon a picture of me, they asked “Who is this? Is it your sister? Your cousin?” Upon hearing that it was me, one of them looked very concerned and said “But I did not know…you were so fat!” There you have it. Ah….cultural differences. Thanks a lot friends and family for not telling us before that we were fat  If there’s anyone out there with an eating disorder thinking of coming to Indonesia, don’t do it!

I have been very careful with my shoes here, especially after two pairs of Lee’s got stolen. My shoes NEVER sit outside the house, they sit on a shoe rack well inside the front door, NOT near a window. The problem, it would seem, is that sometimes when we are home we leave the front door open. Even though we only do this when we are home and sitting in the living room, my shoes disappeared. My Merrells. I love those shoes. So comfortable, so cushiony, so perfect for any type of hiking. *sniffle*

I noticed this morning that they were gone, as I went to put them on for a 3 day trip I am taking for more “Outbond” (ropes course) activities with my coworkers. It will be cold where we are going, and wet. It would be great to have close-toed hiking shoes there, but now all I have are sandals. Sigh. Good thing I recently saw Fight Club for the eleventy seventh time and know that freeing myself from pesky material possessions is important.
Of course, the half hour I spent looking for them meant that I was too late to take the bus to work and had to get a taxi. I was in a slightly foul mood as I walked to the road to get a taxi, and when a guy came up and offered to take me there on his motorbike, I said no. Here’s the condensed version of my interaction with him (there is a lot more of me saying “no” that I left out since it was boring at the time and would definitely be boring in writing)

“Where are you going?”

“To the bus” (ok, ok, so I lied to him about this….it is so embarrassing saying I am taking a taxi.  It’s a sure sign of rich spoiledness)

“I will take you to the bus”

“No, thank you. It is more healthy to walk, it is not far”

“But I will take you to the bus now. Let’s go”

“No problem, I will just walk”

“Let’s go, I will take you”

” Would it be free?”
“Yes, free. Let’s go”

I get on the bike. After all, it’s the middle of the day, in my own neighborhood where everyone knows me and would stop him if I screamed, and it’s going to be a lot faster than just arguing with him for the next 10 minutes.  Besides, I sensed that there was no way for me to win this argument.

“Would you like to see my house? It is far from here.”

“No, I must go to the office”

“Ok, but you should visit my house later.”

“Ok, later!” (this comment clearly said in a vague I-will-never-go-to-your-house way)

We get to road. I get off bike.

“Maybe I should take you to your office”

“No, it is too far and I do not have a helmet”

“I will go to your office, no problem”

“Sorry, it is not safe without a helmet, but thank you”

“I will get a helmet. Wait here”

“No, I will take the bus”

“It does not matter.  Let’s go”

(I am finally getting exasperated) “It is very nice to meet you but now I will go on the bus”

I start walking quickly down the road, toward the place with the taxis, wondering what I am going to do if he follows me.  How will I explain that I am taking a taxi?  Luckily when I look back I see his bike parked at a shop and figure he has given up.  I duck into the taxi place (otherwise known as the extremely posh and expensive Hyatt hotel — one night there costs twice what we pay per month in rent).  I get in a taxi and finally am able to relax except….when we come to the road, there is the guy again, driving by slowly with a huge grin and a newly-borrowed spare helmet, obviously looking for me again.  Sheesh!  I felt like a little kid who had done something bad as I slumped down as far as I could in the taxi seat and held my backpack over my face.   The driver looked really confused about why I was laughing so hard, but it’s sometimes it’s absurd situations like that which make being here so worth it….definitely the kind of thing I would trade a pair or two of shoes for.