Ibu and bapak, my Indonesian parents

Yesterday I made a visit to my previous residence at Sumi’s house to spend some time with her elderly parents and get my motorbike washed at her nephew’s bengkel around the corner.  When I moved out last month, ibu and bapak told me I had to come over frequently and I have kept my promise visiting every once in a while to chat and let them feed me (if you tallied up everything they have ever said to me, the most common phrase would undoubtedly be “makanlah!” eat!).  They really are the sweetest old village folk and have always been so generous with sharing their home and food with me, putting up with my preference for oatmeal over rice for breakfast, my late (6am) mornings, cup after cup of, egad, unsweetened black coffee, and my bizarre love of reading.

As I crouched on the kitchen floor helping, i.e. watching, ibu chop up vegetables and fry whole fish with a bright red chili paste, I entertained her with stories of my new place.  Our conversations are very simple but also very genuine, she likes to ask me about my "village" in America and tell me what it feels like getting old.  I told her how since there are a lot of trees at my new place it is significantly cooler, we connected over the power outage from the day before that had affected both our parts of town, and I told her how I missed their washing machine because hand washing clothes is hard work that I am not accustomed to.  She agreed with my first two points but then took an unexpected turn and insisted that hand washing was better anyways, “it gets the clothes cleaner.”  Cleaner than with the machine? Really?  Now, I have become accustomed to her seemingly unreasonable rejections of modern conveniences, boiling water to drink instead of using the 5-gallon/30 cent water dispenser in the house and cooking rice outside over a fire because it saves electricity from using the rice maker.   

She also frequently challenges my purchases, “How much did you pay for those mangoes?”  “60 cents a kilo,” and her shocked reply “I can get mangoes for 50 cents in the villages!”  I did somewhat redeem myself when she approved of the motorbike I bought for a “good price.”  But anyways, I could barely believe my ears are she argued the benefits of hand washing- this is a tiny 72-year-old woman mind you.  She may be inexorable when it comes to housework but I didn’t go on to tell her how I caved to the convenience of a laundry service shop on my ride to work.  After a good home-cooked meal and watching some of the popular Indonesian dating show Take Her Out Indonesia with the family, I got on my bike and promised to sleep over next time I visited.