Jambi comes to Jakarta

This last weekend I got to spend time with my oldest Indonesian friend Sumi when she came to Jakarta after attending a conference in Bogor. I didn’t really know what we would do when we met up, but when she said she needed to come by my place first because she had luggage I knew at least that meant she would be staying at my place. We went out for dinner Saturday night and ended up catching the new Harry Potter movie, though since we bought our tickets late, we had to sit in the front row with our necks crooked the whole time.

But it was fun to catch up and just chat with my old roommate/coworker; it was also good for me- a whole 40 hours of non-stop one on one Bahasa Indonesia conversations. It made me think back to when I was new in Jambi and we spoke mostly English with me trying to squeeze in my Bahasa to practice. Everyone at my office told me I would be fine in a few months and sure enough I was despite personal disbelief, and now I wouldn’t even try to speak to them in English. It is also really comfortable to speak with Sumi because she knows my ability more than anyone and our conversation is really smooth. Often when I speak Bahasa with an Indonesian who doesn’t know me, they are so surprised that I can speak their language, and they have their few lines of English prepared, that they are awkward to speak with in the beginning and aren’t really in the “listening to a bule speak Indonesian” mode.
Sunday we went to Blok M, one of the more massive shopping malls frequented by the Indonesian middle class. I found a blouse for $5 and a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim for $3 and called that a pretty successful afternoon. For lunch we grabbed some ayam penyet from a roadside warung and then went back to rest a bit- the heat had been pretty brutal. Dinner was also street food and I really enjoyed this return to more traditional Indonesian life with her after having such a crazy hybrid lifestyle in Jakarta. I also really enjoyed being the host after all that Sumi has done for me. When Monday morning came I helped her catch a bus to the airport and promised I would come back to visit Jambi again in the spring.