Sara and Lee . com

Karimunjawa is a beautiful set of tropical islands, a national marine park in fact, just north of the Java island (which, for those not in the geographic know, is the island we’ve called home lo this past year).  It doesn’t make the “to do” list for most tourists, as it doesn’t have a lot of facilities and access is limited.  However, after seeing some of our fellow vols’ pictures and hearing their stories, we were convinced that we had to go.

The first step of our trip involved catching the bus to Semarang, where we would spend the night as a “hopping point” to get to the islands.  As we live a 20 minute walk from the bus station, this was not hard.  We chose the luxury bus, which had AC and a TV.  It was pretty empty, being the luxury bus and all, but it was a nice break from having chickens sitting around you for hours.  And, it was only $1 more than the regular bus.  Sometimes when you’re on vacation, you have to think in American dollars….  Unfortunately, the AC-ness of the bus was a bit extreme and I was actually cold to the point of pain.  I spent most of the trip curled in a shivering, heat-conserving ball trying to sleep. 

Once we got to Semarang, we decided to immediately search for a boat ticket to Karimunjawa.  We went to the Pelni (official national boat company) office and were told there was no boat.  Standing in the office, Lee placed a call to the office (to the employee standing 100 yards away) and was told that there was a boat.  He went to the desk and mentioned that he had just called and been told there was a boat.  Apparently, though, the person who had talked to him on the phone thought he meant a _different_ Karimun, and in fact, there really was no Pelni boat.  There was, however, a private boat.  You could buy tickets for it on X street.  But the ticket guy didn’t know a) the name of the place to buy tickets or b) its address. 

We took to the streets, baggage in tow, and finally found a taxi to flag down.  We told the driver the street name and he started off.  As we got closer he asked “What is the address?”  “We don’t know”  “What is the name?”  “We don’t know”   He could have been a real jerk about it and driven us around for an hour pretending to look for it (and oh, the tens of dollars he could have raked in!) but instead he was nice enough to take us to the street it was on and drive slowly, helping us look for it.  Good thing, too, as he was the only one who saw it – a tiny sign for what turned out to be a booth in a convention center or something like that building.  There was nobody at the booth, but once the security guards heard that we wanted to buy tickets they told us to wait a moment and called the guy who runs the boat.  Though he was “on vacation” he made it to the office in 10 minutes just to sell us tickets.

The next morning caught a cab to the harbour, arriving a nervewracking 5 minutes before our boat was set to depart.  Some helpful vendors told us that we would have to run to catch the boat, and when Indonesians tell you you’re late for something, you know you’re _really_ late.  The boat ride was fun, 2-3 hours of plush seats and A/C, plus the opportunity to walk/lurch around on the deck and admire the ocean.  For entertainment, there was a TV playing oddly-chosen movies (who wants to see a movie about sharks attacking when you’re in a tiny boat on the sea?) and somewhat provocative music videos from the 90s. 

Eventually we reached our tropical island paradise destination which looked….exactly like a tropical island paradise should look.  We weren’t sure where to stay on said island, so we allied ourselves with some Indonesian tourists from Jakarta who had commissioned a van to take them around to various hostels.  As the van was full, we shared the single front passenger seat.  Not wanting to be too “rich American-y”, we chose a hostel without A/C, figuring “How bad could it get?”  The first night on the island was spent in misery, a fitful 6 hours of 10 minute dozes interrupted by the whine of mosquitoes and much tossing, turning, and jockeying for a position that would allow access to the stale breeze provided by the room’s tiny fan.  We “woke up” in the morning at 6AM, as electricity stopped then (electricity was only available during the night pretty much anywhere on the island), and took inventory of the damages.  I had 30 mosquito bites on ONE KNEE!  That afternoon, after returning sunburnt from snorkelling, we somewhat ashamedly switched to a more luxurious place, which, though it lacked western-style toilets, had AC, TV, beautiful rooms, and well sealed windows and doors.   This was kind of a big deal, as the island really only had the one main village and everyone seemed to know what we were doing at all times.  We got asked many times “Oh, so you switched hotels” and it seemed like the little family-run hostels were all joined against the fancier hotel that we switched to….but sometimes you just have to do what’s best for you and not care what others think I guess.

After snorkelling, and after switching hotels, we noticed to our consternation that the large boats, one of which we had counted on bringing us back to the mainland, were no longer in the harbour.  We asked about this and were told that indeed, there would not be a boat for another 2 days.  Though the evidence was against us, we showed our brochures, which clearly stated that there should be a boat ready to leave the next morning.  No such luck. (we later found that the schedule had changed…it was clearly posted in a tiny booth near where one would buy return tickets)   It is perhaps a reflection of how long we have been here that we seriously contemplated taking a tiny fishing boat back, like the wooden kind that can only hold maybe 6 people.  Luckily, there were none available for the next day, so we were forced to stay on the island.

None of the above makes Karimunjawa sound particularly attractive I suppose, and maybe that’s for the best, as I’d hate to see it spoiled like Bali from too much tourism.  However, in the interests of accuracy and honesty, here are the other parts.  Before going there, I never realized that sand could actually be so white, or that there were so many blues in the world, or that the little-used crayola “sea green” of my youth is actually an accurate portrayal of one of the many greens found in the sea.  Nor did I understand that all these things seen together, whether from a boat or from a cliff, are incredibly, vibrantly awe-inspiring.   Nor did I expect that shop owners and local English teachers, people we’d known for maybe minutes, would invite us into their home, delighted with the chance to speak with us (though I guess I _should_ have expected that, given the way some people in Yogya are).  There aren’t bars on Karimunjawa, the place only has 1 “restaurant”, which really is more of a food stall, electricity is for the nighttime only, etc – but when you have entire beaches and roads and cliffs to yourself, surrounded by tropical beauty….it’s definitely worth it.

A few weekends back, two of Lee’s coworkers decided to take us to Dieng, a mountainous farming town with Yellowstone-esque geysers, very old hindu temples, and multicoloured lakes. We’ve been wanting to go there for a while, but as it’s 3-4 hours away (and more by bus!), just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Our original plan was to spend a whole weekend there, ie spend a night, but the pesantren guys seemed to think 1 day, albeit 1 long day would be enough, and we figured it was so nice of them to offer that who were we to turn up our noses?

Our guidebook said that clouds roll in by noon, so we were happy to hear that our “guides” wanted to leave at 6AM. What we did not realize was that they would want to stop for breakfast at a small town on the way, visiting a friend’s food stall and taking a stroll around the tiny town square. Then there was a traffic jam due to a religious presentation in another town, made all the worse by the fact that I had a slight hangover from trying some locally brewed kahlua at another volunteer’s birthday party the night before and was miserably (though not pukingly) carsick. We finally reached our destination at 11AM….and by destination I mean the near-but-not-in-Dieng house of someone who used to study at the pesantren.

Lee and I were chomping at the bit slightly at this point, but sat politely, drank tea, ate crackers and other snacks, and chit-chatted. Then we all went to a tea plantation and played in the tea fields (apologies to the major corporations that own these fields – we undoubtedly trampled some of the plants, especially during the part where a certain Pak R decided we should get a picture of him “swimming” in the tea). I was a bit disappointed to see that the mountains were mostly obscured by clouds and fog…and we hadn’t even been to Dieng yet!

Then it was back to the house again for lunch (cooked by the wonderful and generous mother of the friend who used to study at the pesantren) and relaxation. As we sat watching TV, we noticed that Pak R was taking a little nap, so Lee and I let ourselves doze a little too. Little did we know that this would make our hosts think that we needed a rest. Suddenly we found ourselves herded into a bedroom and told that we could rest there, that someone would come knock when it was time to go.

But….but…..we didn’t need a rest! We were just resting to kill time! We wanted to go to Dieng! Neither of us was able to sleep. Lee alternated reading the personal ads in an old copy of the local paper with staring malevolently at the ceiling and muttering about how he came to Dieng to look at ceilings. I, still feeling ill, sat uncomfortably trying to gauge whether it would be suitably polite to make an emergency run to the bathroom, or whether I should just try to tough it out and wait for the knock. Finally, an hour later, there was a tapping at our door. Our hosts seemed surprised that we hadn’t slept. It became clear that they were just waiting for us to nap, that really they had been ready to leave ages ago. We felt bad. Even when we’re all speaking the same language, sometimes it’s hard to communicate effectively!

Then it was finally on to Dieng. At this point, noting the clouds and fog, my expectations were quite low, but what I didn’t realize was that Dieng was _above_ the clouds and fog. We saw the multicoloured lake, and the mirror lake, and the geyser pools, and the temples (though the temples were “seen” at dusk). Our friends-turned-guides did helpful things for us such as:

Negotiating our admissions fares: Many tourist attractions in Indonesia have different prices for domestic and foreign guests. First our friends tried to say that we were like Indonesians because we had lived there so long. When this failed, they mentioned that Lee taught at the pesantren. Strangely, this held enough sway to cut the two of our fares in half, or sometimes to cut _all_ of our fares in half. But of course we weren’t allowed to pay any of them….

Keeping us from falling into the bubbling, boiling-hot sulphur pools. Strangely, though Yellowstone’s Old Faithful has set walking paths and guard rails around it, its tropical cousin in Dieng has no such thing. The whole area was a giant free for all, with some dangers detectable only by carefully listening for the hissing of scalding steam. Yes, I dipped my finger in one of the smaller sulphur pools. Yes, I know it was wrong of me. But it was also wrong of the Indonesians before me to dump their cups and wrappers into the little bubbling pool. Maybe any pH I added will help to neutralize the trash.

Making sure that we were well-fed…and that the food would follow us home. What are two people supposed to do with 50 green onions? Or 100 potatoes?

Keeping us entertained with stories/anecdotes that could aptly be titled: “The first time I saw a naked woman bathing in the river,” “Burning trash is a Javanese tradition, even in nature areas” and “Please change the channel, I only like to watch this bra commercial when I am alone.”

We could have gone there on our own, seeing things at our own frenzied pace, making sure we saw everything that the guidebook suggested. But it wouldn’t have been the same. And it wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

I typically try to keep my birthday a secret, as I feel uncomfortable being the center of attention, and I hate inconveniencing people.  Most years I’m content with a a bowl of Chinese long-life noodle soup.  Occasionally Sara convinces me to let people take me out for lunch or dinner.  But I really prefer to keep it low-key.  I really wanted to keep it secret here where local tradition seems to involve pelting the birthday boy or girl with cake, eggs, flour and anything else that may be hurlable.

This year I told Sara it’d be nice just to go out for dinner and then watch Spider-man 3 at the local mall.  I thought a movie would be a nice treat, and while the $2 ticket is expensive by Indonesian standards, there is no first-run theater in the U.S. with prices that low.

But there were other powers at work, scheming and planning surprises.

Think back to high school Spanish/German/French/etc… After “What’s your name?”, and “Where are you from?”, and “Do you like eating carne asada?” what is among the most common of questions?  “When’s your birthday?”, right?  I answered this frequently during my first weeks of teaching at the Pesantren.  I thought nothing of it, or at least nothing more than that the students wanted to practice their English.  I should have known better.

On my birthday, I left later than usual, and to make up for the late departure, I put on my pedaling after-burners at cut my 40 minute bike commute down to a record 30 minutes.  Sweaty and shaky from the express commute, I was ready to take a quick bath and run to class.  Before I could enter the teacher’s office, Maulina, one of my students, yelled out from the second floor, “Mr. Lee can you help me?” I tried to explain that I wanted to take a bath first and that I was late for class.  She told me that this was really important and that it would be quick.

Perhaps my guard had been let down by the beta-endorphins flowing through my body.  Had it been another student I might have been more suspicious.  But Maulina often asks me for help and is often filling out paperwork for an exchange program to the U.S.  Upon hearing my, “ok” Maulina’s face lit up and then she hurried back into her classroom.  I ambled up the stairs and entered the classroom.  I was greated with a loud reception of 11th grade girls laughing, applauding, and yelling “Happy Birthday Mr. Lee!”

They presented me with a hand-drawn birthday card and a small slice of cake with the words “Mr. Lee” spelled out in gum-drops, and immediately launched into chorus, singing happy birthday songs in both English and Indonesian.  The girls then urged me to sit down and eat the cake.  My hands were trembling partially from the surprise, but mostly from the exercise.  As the entire class watched me eat every bite, they asked me questions like “How old are you?”, “Have you taken a bath yet? – Ha, ha you stink.” and “Why are your hands shaking?”.  In Indonesia no physical defect goes uncommented.  No less, I was especially touched by this gesture, and I was both glad and disappointed that they had decided not to pelt me with cake.  I think the stricter rules of a Pesantren and an inate respect for teachers prevented anything truly destructive from happening.

Later that day, while walking back to the office from my class, I walked by some girls from the aforementioned class.  They giggled and asked if I was looking for my bike.  Not knowing what they were talking about, I said no and continued on my way.  Before I got into the office, I saw my bike had moved from it’s normal parking place and was under a stairwell.  The bike lamp was blinking and my helmet was missing.  I was touched by this innocent attempt at malevolence.

That night Sara and I went for our dinner/movie date.  Throughout the evening (and the days leading up to my birthday) she kept apologizing for not planning anything and for not baking me a birthday cake.  I kept reminding her that there was no point baking a cake for two, and the night out was all I wanted.  We went for a dinner of tempeh, sambal and rice, hopped a becak (a kind of rickshaw with the bicycle in the back) to the mall, and watched Spidey save New York City once again.  Exactly what I wanted.

The next evening Sara and I had meditation practice at our silat friends’ house.  It was our usual Thursday evening routine.  Sara had arrived there before I did.  When I arrived I went through the usual greeting and shaking of everyone’s hands.  Mas Widodo wished me happy birthday.  I asked how he knew, and he said that Sara had told him.  I thought nothing of it.  I was then whisked into the kitchen to eat dinner.  Shortly after, we proceeded with practice as usual.  About mid-way through practice Mbak Lia came and pulled Sara out of practice saying she needed her help getting dinner.  We hadn’t seen Lia in a while so I thought nothing of this.  After practice finished up, I got a phone call from Sara saying that Lia’s motorbike had broken down and they needed her boyfriend to come help.  Sara added that I should come too, so that she wouldn’t have to wait alone.  My brain must have surrended all semblance of common sense since leaving America.  This seemed perfectly reasonable.  Mas Hendri and I hopped aboard his motorcycle and went looking for them.  When we couldn’t find them, I called Sara to ask where they were.  She passed the phone to Lia, and I passed it to Hendri.  Then Hendri and I wandered a bit more.  I kept my eyes peeled the whole time, looking for Sara and Lia.  No luck.  Finally Hendri said that we should go back to the house first.

When I walked in there was a huge cake with candles lit.  A group of 20 plus silat friends wished me happy birthday.  I was totally surprised and had not seen any of it coming.  Even with a slip-up from Sara’s co-worker the day before, who asked Sara, “The cake will be delivered?”.  Fortunately for Sara, I had deduced none of this.  The silat family had put together a table of dinner to go with the cake, and then they presented me a beautiful becak made from silver-filagree (a Yogya specialty) along with a card signed by everyone.  Sara and the others had been planning this for at least a week, and I was pleasantly surprised.  What I was not privy to until then, was that Sara had been spending many hours changing and rechanging the cake order and trying to make sure everything was perfect.

After eating dinner and cake, Sara gave me a hug and then took my wallet and glasses.  By this point, I was not so naive and knew full well what was coming next.  Mas Eko implored me to take a seat on the far side of the yard, so that they could “take pictures.”  Everyone was beaming and before I knew it I was getting pelted by plastic bags filled with water.  Some popped, some didn’t.  Soaked and smiling, I was given a change of clothes and then told that they wanted to do much worse, but Sara didn’t want them to mess up Mas Sigit’s house.  No less, I feel like this was a kind of initiation, and for a change, I felt like one of them.  Some actions cross all cultural-boundaries.

So, when’s your birthday?

I would be lying if I said there was no cheating in the American school system. There is a fair amount, despite the efforts of honor committees. I recall my days at the Colorado School of Mines where “spiking”, copying someone else’s work, is formally defined in the student handbook. To elaborate further there was “cold spiking” – copying without comprehension, and “warm spiking” copying with attempt at comprehension. While I never cold spiked, I had on occasion warm spiked a homework problem. I absolutely did not partake in or encourage cheating on tests though.

American students when cheating are subtle, almost professional about the task. They know the stakes are high and if caught cheating they could fail the test or be expelled. Last semester, I was quite surprised (even though I had been warned) to see the opposite behavior in the Indonesian schools. Indonesian students show none of the restraint or subtletly that is the hall mark of a good cheater. They yell across the room, they pass papers back and forth, they mime the answers. When I was tasked with proctoring exams last sesmester, I felt appalled and could hardly contain my discomfort. I knew better than to rip papers or to yell, but I felt powerless, especially because I had co-proctors that carried on like nothing was going on. In a bout of desperation I wrote on the whiteboard in Indonesian and English, “If you’re going to cheat, cheat so that I don’t know you’re cheating.” This was received with a round of guffaws. Teachers and students explained that it was part of the culture. I tried, to no avail, to say it still was not right.

Subsequent conversations have confirmed it is indeed woven tightly into the culture. Every Indonesian from every walk of life has admitted “Of course I cheated in high school.” This behavior starts early too. When Sara and I were taking our survival Indonesian language lessons, the 5 and 7 year old son and daughter of the family we were living with felt compelled to help us with our homework. They would give Sara the answers (not necessarily correct), and then read them aloud, so I could copy. We started making fake homework to oblige them.

After my initial whiteboard explosion, I caused a bit of uproar at the pesantren. The next day there was an emergency teacher meeting to go over test proctoring procedures. This didn’t really stop anything. These were just semester exams and not the official “national” exams. I continued to play my same game of getting people to quiet down, but I really didn’t stop anything.

When gave exams for my own classes I said I would give extra credit to the entire class if they as a class didn’t cheat. It only worked with the most motivated class, the one that didn’t really need extra credit. The rest of the classes squandered away their free points.

I was asked to proctor final exams about a month and a half ago for the graduating seniors. Like the previous semester there was no curbing their cheating. But I found it amusing that the school’s administration felt the need to send a pair of teachers around to frisk the (male) students for radios, cell phones, and other electronic devices that could be used to cheat. I thought saracastically to myself, “what about just getting the students to shut up and look at their own papers.”

These past couple weeks, I have been proctoring final exams for the 10th and 11th graders. The 11th graders are my students, so I know most of them by name. I’ve given up on stopping the cheating outright. Now, I treat it more as a game to amuse myself, and maybe the students. I smile at them to let them know I caught them. I stand between corroborating parties. I just try to make it difficult.

Speaking of difficult, “I often ask the students why they are talking.” They usually respond in Indonesian, “Mr. Lee, ini susah!” which translates as “Mr. Lee, this is hard!” So there you have it, Indonesians cheat on exams because the test is hard. Somehow I don’t this excuse will fly when I take my first round of graduate school mid-terms this fall.

A common topic on this blog has been (and may continue to be) our general confusion and lack of knowledge about planned events.  It’s sort of difficult still, even though our Indonesian has gotten better, there are a lot of people who speak primarily in Javanese, and we’re still pretty hopeless when it comes to understanding that.  Two weekends ago we were invited to join a ritual with the silat group.  Here’s the general gist we were able to get:

We are going to xxxxx for a ritual.  There are big storms there and problems with swirling wind, so we will go and perform this ritual to help the people there. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(that last part representing what type of ritual it would be, maybe something about who had invited us, etc.  There were lots of “ngeng” and “ong” and “po” sounds.  At one point I think I made a rude smirk but nobody noticed.)

We gathered the following morning and Lee asked Mr. A, one of the Silat guys, “So, where are we going today”  “Boyo Lali” (this means “Forgotten Crocodile” in Javanese.  Kinda makes one feel lame for living in a place named “Fort Collins” or “Boulder”)  “What area is that in?”  “Well, I was supposed to go once, but the trip didn’t happen”  “Hmmm, is it to the north?  Or the south?”  “Like I said, I haven’t been there yet.”  “Right.  Is it far from here?”  “You see, I don’t know, because I have not been there yet.”  Much laughter ensues, possibly the embarrassed kind since nobody likes to admit that they have no clue where they are going.  Later, another silat member was asked where we were going, and he didn’t know either.  Someone must have though, as we eventually piled into a van and hit the road.

After over an hour of driving (to the East, for the record, and maybe the North too), we found ourselves in the town of Boyo Lali, and then through Boyo Lali heading for an old temple in the villages.  It became clear that at this point, nobody knew where we were going.  At each road intersection (roads mostly unpaved, flanked by grass taller than I am and/or bamboo trees and/or other menacing plants), we would wait for a motorbike to come along, then flag down the driver and ask for directions to the temple.  Then, after driving maybe 100 meters, we would ask people sitting in their yards for the same directions.  It would not be exaggerating to say that we asked more than a dozen people how to get there, over a distance of less than a mile.

I thought maybe that was an isolated incident, but then yesterday Lee and I had the good fortune to be invited to the home of one of our friend’s parents.  Afterwards, we were going to hit the town to hang out….and then the conversation veered into Javanese so that’s all we understood.  I hopped on the back of the motorbike of our friend’s younger brother and asked him, as we sped along, where we were going.  He laughed and said “I don’t know, I’m just following my sister.”  And then proceeded to tell me about times when you must wear a helmet on a motorbike vs times where it’s really not necessary at all….but that’s another story.