Evening with Ibu Susanto

Last night I had one of those perfectly peaceful evenings. I think I really bonded with my host mom when she acted on my mention that I like pisang goreng (fried bananas) and made a huge plateful for me, and also promised to make them again tomorrow and everyday… Not sure what I got myself into with that. She still thinks I am crazy because she can’t understand how I drink tea and coffee without sugar and comments on this fact several times a day. She ended up showing me her entire batik collection, the fabric colors and designs are absolutely beautiful and I think I will return home with a suitcase full of it. After our tea session I took my Bahasa Indonesia book out to the veranda to study a bit. The sunset was beautiful over the quiet neighborhood and around 5pm the azan (Muslim call to prayer) began its meditative chant. Ibu came out and joined me for a bit and we continued our broken conversation until a street vender biked up with her selection of open Fanta bottles filled with traditional medicines. Ibu got me to try one of the mysterious liquids and I really can’t place the taste of it but it did taste like it could have been made from a medicinal herb.