Signs through the wires

Last night I realized the usefulness of having inadequate home lighting. My lack of spacial observation almost allowed me to completely miss the 7.6 earthquake that shook my town from west Sumatra last night- and again this morning. Fortunately my experienced housemate Sumi knew to look to the light bulb hanging from a wire that serves as sole light source for our kitchen. Sure enough, the light bulb was swaying back and forth- obviously signaling an earthquake- and Sumi ran out to talk to our neighbors who had felt the quake and were eagerly calling family members and family living in Padang. The earthquake, however, has disrupted communication services and with the death toll rising as more bodies are uncovered from the rubble there is a sense of worry even here in Jambi. I had been wanting to visit Padang, a city famous for its spicy, curry cuisine and nearby distinct local cultures, and the earthquake seems to have brought me my first opportunity earlier than expected. PKBI will be sending a small relief team to bring supplies and administer health services and I will be tagging along to help if possible. It seems we are just waiting for "the call" and until it becomes safe enough to travel there.

Reemerging post-vacation

Ramadan is over and I have returned to Jambi and its Internet access after two weeks traveling around the funny shaped island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. My flight home Monday morning was filled with many Indonesians who were also wrapping up their holiday from work and school that celebrated the end of Ramadan. I will try to write a quick overview of my trip and you can check out the photos that illustrate it. I started my trip in Sulawesi by meeting my friends Katie and Sarah, two other VIA volunteers, at a rundown hotel in Manado, North Sulawesi. From there we took a thirty minute boat ride to Pulau Bunaken, an island famous for its amazing diving and diverse sea life. The five days we spent there at a little homestay/diving outfit was almost paradise: diving twice a day, great snorkeling, fun locals, strong palm wine, good weather, and no links to the outside world. In the five dives I did I saw several turtles, white-tipped reef sharks and enough new kinds of fish to bore you completely. While we could have stayed there our whole vacation, the price tag as well as other sights to see called us away. Next we went to Tangkoko Nature Reserve where a few guided treks led us to sightings of hornbills, black macaques, tarsiers and a viper. The village Batuputih where we stayed was basic but charming, especially when we went and swam in the ocean with the locals and consented to take photos of the over-eager children. From there we headed to Tomohon, rightly known as the city of flowers, where we climber a volcano, visited a sulfur lake and wandered through the local market that was rumored to sell bats and dog meat, unfortunately we only saw grilled rats...

Our early morning flight the next day took us to the far south of the Sulawesi, its capital Makassar. Katie and I spent the day hanging out with Sarah and her local friends until our night bus carried the two of us up to Tana Toraja. This city didn’t even feel like Indonesia, its unique culture and bizarre funeral traditions were completely different from anything I had previously experienced. Our first day there we rented motorbikes and met a local guide Johnny who took us to a few funerals that turned out to be much more like weeklong parties for all of the surrounding villages. The first one was more intimate and we were invited to watch up close and take photos of the dancing, traditional costumes, procession of visitors and their gifts of live pigs, and a cockfight we were informed is actually illegal. The next funeral was of a much wealthier family so in addition to pigs, there were many buffalos- even two rare, expensive albino buffalos that all of the locals were gossiping about- and a deer! Since the traditional animal slaughtering was planned for the following day, we settled in with some guests to a lunch of rice, marinated chunk of pig fat, and freshly boiled buffalo meat- all eaten by hand out of a banana leaf of course- and washed down with continually refilled cups of palm wine. The next few days Katie and I went by motorbike and foot to continue exploring the different villages with their interesting architecture and curious locals, we visited a village weaving center and hiked to the top of the nearby Mt. Sesean to enjoy its amazing view. While all of the locals were extremely friendly, the time for our night bus back to Makassar and my flight home eventually came and after splitting our last pitcher of palm wine, Katie and I headed home.

Back in Jambi now and after a couple days of work I am still wondering how things are supposed to change after the end of Ramadan. The pace hasn’t quite picked up as I expected it to because Monday we all got off work early to go door to door visiting friends as part of the Idul Fitri tradition, and yesterday we got off work early to see a cheesy love flick with coworkers. However, I was still given a few tasks: to start a blog for the organization, some translation work, and plan the bi-weekly English lessons I will be giving to the staff. We will see how time brings the office back to work but right now I am ok to just rest and do laundry finally.

Me as entertainment

I have already accepted that I am a strange sight in this part of Sumatra but the other night my presence proved to be the biggest source of entertainment yet for my whole village at the local mosque. To go along with my attempt at fasting, Sumi thought it was a good idea to take me for evening prayers at the mosque by our house. Putting on the white sheet-like draping that only allowed a small part of my face to peek through, I was presentable to enter the mosque trying to blend in with the crowd of ghost-like women. However, just the small bit of my face gave away my foreignness and I quickly had hordes of little girls giggling, staring, and trying to sit close to me, completely distracted from their prayers. Eventually the women caught on to the children's excitement and one woman invited me to share her prayer rug. Not wanting to disappoint, I left my safe position in the back of the mosque. Sumi soon came over to show me how to follow along in the series of bows, kneeling, bending over, and standing that constitutes one "round" of prayers. With eleven of those in between preaching I was quite exhausted by the end. The little girls also had no desire to follow prayers with me there and they kept whispering to ask my name, where I lived, where I was from, it was quite hilarious. While I may not return despite Sumi's offer it was quite a warm and insightful experience to join so many Muslim women in the important evening prayer during Ramadan and feel apart of my little community. Now more people know where the buleh (foreigner) lives and I have had a little group of girls stop by our house nightly to see kakak Jenny (older sister Jenny).

I'm so hungry!

Since I arrived in Jambi during the middle of Ramadan everyone around me has been hinting that they would love it if I also took part in the ritual of fasting. Getting the hint pretty strongly from Sumi, I started fasting a couple days ago and its affects have really surprised me. The first day I went without food or water from 4am in the morning when we finished eating the morning meal, sahur, until after 6pm when the call to prayer signaled that everyone is allowed to eat dinner. Despite my efforts, I got a horrible headache by the afternoon from what I think could only be dehydration. Not wanting to go through that pain again, the next day I promised myself a little water after the midday prayers. I made it through the day with half a cup of water and surprisingly the hunger from fasting has not really bothered me at all. I am attributing that to skills learned from meditation that I should just observe the hunger and not let it affect me negatively.

To break our fast, my coworkers and I went out to dinner to a nice Minangkabau restaurant with staff from the PKBI headquarters in Jakarta that had come in for meetings that day. I thought it was really interesting how the women all sat at one table and the men at the other. The men were also dressed traditionally and the women took turns leaving the table to go pray at the nearby mosque. The food was amazing and it was quite funny to eat with my coworkers while we all used our hands to pull fish from bones and mix the curry into our rice, not quite the same as an office dinner in the US!

But the one thing I am enjoying about fasting is the sense of community between everyone who is enduring the same challenges. I also have a little more respect for the lack of work that has been getting done and the number of naps being taken on the office couch; by the afternoon it is hard to do much more than just sit and relax. I am looking forward to tonight when I will try out going to the nearby mosque for evening prayers with Sumi.

From the rice paddies to the market

Last night I went for a little jalan-jalan (walk) with Sumi around our village. There is a large area of rice paddies close to our house and also some peanut farming (another one of her aging father’s hobbies in addition to the four chickens he keeps in the backyard). I took my camera with me to get some photos of our house and the village but I ended up attracting a lot more attention. I was surprised by the villagers’ actual desire to have their photo taken! Everyone wanted a photo of them and then one with me but they do not actually smile in photos which I thought odd.

This morning I accompanied Sumi to the local traditional market, what an experience! It may take a while to get used to the constant stares from people wherever I go but I tried to not let it distract me from all the activity going on. Lining each side of the narrow road were sun-toughened women who gaurded tarps spread out in front with goods brought from the farm. The brightly colored piles of chilies, vegetables, fruits, spices, and buckets of live fish were intriguing and I poked around at the ones I couldn't identify. Later we cooked some of the fresh vegetables we bought with one of grandpa’s chickens from the backyard. And I think tomorrow we are going to visit grandpa's peanut farm so I can learn about harvesting peanuts.

Photos of my daily life

This is the house I am living in with my co-worker Sumi and her parents. There are chickens in the back (one of which we ate last night) and the dirt road where I am taking this photo from goes deeper into the village and towards the rice paddies nearby.
This is my sparce but comfortable room just off from the living room. I finally got a dresser yesterday from the woman who kept saying "tomorrow, tomorrow." This seems to be the typical attitude in Indonesia.
This is Sumi when we went on a little walk through the rice paddies near our home and chatted with the farmers. She is sitting in one of the huts that the farmers spend their days in as they watch their rice and protect it from the birds.
Here I am at the tempeh factory by our house, they make it in these long tube shapes and wrap it with banana leaves before taking it to the market to sell. The market-ready tempeh is to my right and on the table is a plate of fried tempeh. I got to try some freshly fried that was still warm before we bought some to take home, delicious!
This is Sumi's sweet old mother who until this moment when she asked me to take a photo of her had pretty much not responded to any of my attempts at conversation. She has definitely warmed up to me now and we do our best at communicating even though she is usually just telling me to eat more.
Here I am with our neighbors across the dirt road. I had been taking photos of my house when they asked me to take their picture and then wanted a picture with me in it. Notice how no one is smiling, turns out it is more than normal to have a serious expression for photos in Indonesia.
Here is my office with its sign identifying it as part of the International Planned Parenthood Foundation.

Here is a side view of the office with the motorbikes, one of which I ride on the back of to work and around the city with Sumi.The inside of the office is pretty small with about six staff (that is my empty desk on the right), but there is a larger meeting room, a health clinic, and two other related NGOs that have their offices upstairs.