Another Untraditional Christmas

Almost New Years and I am just getting around to my Christmas update.  Living in Indonesia, an untraditional Christmas can be expected.  I longed to be back in the US as I listened to stories about snow, good food, and skyped with reunited family members.  But the holiday was quiet in Jakarta, families usually use any holiday to get out of the city so it was eerily quiet when I took a taxi to the train station.  We flew past the green lights of an intersection that normally would require at least a 10 minute wait.  I also took advantage of the government-regulated four day weekend and visited a Muslim coworker’s family in Bandung.  Honestly, the train ride itself competed with the fun of the visit.  Either it was one of the most beautiful train ride views I have ever seen, or I am easily impressed by nature after living in Jakarta.  For three hours of winding between forested hills, tiered rice paddies and over ravines, it was the perfect amount of time to relax and pull out a novel.

Once in Bandung, my friend Ari met me at the train station and we headed downtown for some factory outlet shopping that this city is famous for.  I thought it was amusing to compare this to the “factory outlet” shopping we have in the US, that terminology is more accurate here as the factories are located in Asia.  Jakartans and even Malaysians take advantage of the direct AirAsia flights from KL to Bandung and I was told prices go up on weekends.  I was going to call it my Christmas shopping but no purchases were made so Ari directed me to some Sundanese (the main ethnic group of West Java) dishes I should try.  We had a tofu and peanut sauce dish called baso tahu, nasi timbel which is a style of fried chicken and tofu with rice and sambal, and finished with ice cream with durian and chocolate- heaven in a plastic cup, eaten on a stool on the side of the road!

Afterwards we headed to her family’s home where her 3-year-old boy, parents, brother, sister and sister’s family were all hanging out.  While they were certainly not celebrating Christmas it was fun to just be with a family for the holiday.  Indonesians are such welcoming people that I was immediately just one of the family there and was given someone else’s bedroom for the night.  We watched tv and chatted, someone boiled water for me to take a bath and then it was bedtime so everyone else could get up for the 4am prayers.  The day after Christmas we went to the big Sunday market and went out for lunch.  After getting everyone’s stuff packed it was then time for the drive back to Jakarta.  I can’t comment on the view by car as I was of course passed out the entire drive; nothing new there.

Verbal Mishaps

While I was away on my trip, some of the empty rooms in my kos (boarding house) filled up and I returned to a much more lively and interesting living environment.  The new additions are all Indonesian and most are around my age and fun to talk to, eat dinner with and just hang out and participate in Indonesians’ favorite home activity- watching TV.  This development has also been a boon to my Indonesian skills as it expands the contexts in which I speak casually.  I was noticing that my vocabulary leans heavily towards political and development issues.  I could talk for ages about women's health, defending human rights, the plights of migrant workers, government transparency, and a new writing project is set to make me conversational in conflict resolution and community peacebuilding issues.  But I still get stumped when it comes to discussing household issues.  Hence my newest idea: sticky notes around my room labeling everything from curtains to drawers to faucets.  I am committed to balancing my language skills!

However, I fear this is becoming a detriment to my English again.  Friday night I was out at dinner with some American friends and feeling on the spot in the conversation found myself scrambling for the English word that means happening again and again.  The word that came out of my mouth: repetuous.  A couple minutes later I realized to my extreme embarrassment that I meant repetitive, not exactly what you would consider a challenging word.  I am hoping that verbal mishaps like this remain a rare occurrence as I try to maintain some language agility in while devoting myself to learning Indonesian.

A Week in Cambodia

Now back in Jakarta for a few days I have had time to get resettled at work, do laundry, and upload photos to my Flickr account.  Still I keep thinking about my trip to Cambodia when I see Buddhist image or see someone dressed all in orange reminiscent of the monks I saw everywhere during my six day trip.  I have to say that was not nearly enough time to fully enjoy such a beautiful country and hope to return to mainland SE Asia for a trip to include Vietnam and Laos.  I am so glad I went there with my friend Katie who has spent the past year working in Battambang and was patient enough to withstand my ceaseless questioning about Cambodian life. 

We flew into Phnom Penh from Kuala Lumpur last Thursday and checked into this adorable little hotel she had booked for us- across the street from the Tuol Sleng Prison from the Khmer Rouge days, a very sobering place to visit.  While Katie did some errands for the café she is helping open in Battambang, I had all day Friday to explore Phnom Penh and was pleasantly surprised at how livable a city it is and how cool the weather was!  I toured the National Museum, the central market, Wat Phnom, the riverside tourist strip, and the Russian Market, famous for cheap knock offs of Western brand clothing and tons of beautiful silk scarves.  Friday night we caught a six hour bus up to Siem Reap and the sweet digs Katie got us at the Golden Banana.  Maybe resting and taking this easy would have been the best decision for the day before running a 10K, but instead I spent the entire next day wandering around and climbing up temples at Angkor Wat.  There are so many temples and they are all so spread out that everyone rents tuk tuks for getting around.  I was able to see about four of the most popular temples, Ta Phrom, Preah Khan, the Bayon and Angkor Wat just in time for sunset.  They were truly amazing and I relished every time I was able to escape the hoards and wonder at them in peace.  I hope to go back some day and explore some of the more remote ones but I am extremely happy with what I was able to see.

The next morning Katie and I woke up bright and early (even though I was still a tad bit sore from my hiking the day before!), grabbed some bananas, and headed to the race.  Thankfully it started before 7am so the weather was still cool and we were actually shivering on the tuk tuk drive.  As my first 10K race ever it was exciting to run with so many people from around the world and especially touching to see the disabled participants as the race was put on as a benefit for Cambodian land mine victims.  The race path started in front of the main Angkor Wat temple and then meandered through the forest and around a few other temples.

 

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for a little rest and then it was massages and drinks to celebrate my 24^th birthday!  I don’t think I could have spent the day any better.  In the evening we headed to Katie’s home in Battambang for a little more celebrating with wine and a local favorite vegetable curry dish.  Monday I had the whole day in Battambang and we started out with a 30K bicycle tour that visited some local home industries including rice paper makers, a rice wine operation, and a place with the best rice cakes I have ever had.  It was fun to see local life and compare it to Indonesia, Cambodia is definitely years behind in development.

Finally, on Tuesday an early morning bus ride back to Phnom Penh let me see a bit more of the countryside, then I took a quick visit to the National Palace before flying home to Jakarta.  I have never taken a trip with such a packed schedule like this but I am so glad I got to see so much and enjoy it with a friend!

Revisiting Kuala Lumpur

Hello from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and truly one of my favorite cities in Asia.  I came here last February for an extended visa run and this trip has allowed me to explore the city and its surrounding sights a little more.  Primarily when I think of KL though, I think of delicious and cheap Indian food.  After spending my Thanksgiving evening in-flight, as soon as I checked in to my guesthouse here last Thursday, I dropped off my backpack and headed across the street for a 1 am dinner of Masala Thosai.  Delicious.

I came to Malaysia to meet up with my good friend and former co-volunteer in Indonesia, Katie.  I flew in from Jakarta, she from Siem Reap, and we both met at a bus station in South KL to catch a three hour bus up to the Cameron Highlands for a weekend of relaxation, hiking, tea drinking, strawberry picking, cool air, and views of rolling green hills and tea plantations that so sharply contrasted with my last three months in Jakarta.  I will post photos when I get back to Jakarta!

We came back to KL Sunday night for Katie to participate in her VIA conference- I just found out mine will be in Bali in January!  Being here has been interesting to see fellow volunteers that I last saw during our training in Chiang Mai a year and a half ago, and who are coming from working in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar.  While they are at conference and after I submitted my Indonesian visa application to the Embassy here, I have had time to wander the streets of Chinatown, Little India, go running in the park below the Petronas Towers, and visit an amazing Hindu Temple set in some caves just north of the city.  I continue to marvel at the vibrant diversity you can see on the streets of KL at any moment, but would have to look much deeper to find in Indonesia.  Signs here come in four languages, Tamil, Chinese, English and Malay, so that while I know my Bahasa Indonesia can get me by when speaking with a Malay person, Chinese and Indians here usually just want to speak English with me.  I was amazed yesterday, when going out with co-vols how many of our combined languages came of use.  Katie made everyone a little curious as she skyped back home to Cambodia in Khmer, I spoke Malay with the cab driver to get to the Tamil/Malay movie we went to see, one friend chatted up a group of visiting Vietnamese teachers in his fluent Vietnamese, and afterwards at a Chinese restaurant another friend figured out our orders.  I just wish that when we were debating outside a Burmese restaurant that one of the Myanmar volunteers had been there to decipher the menu...

So it is exciting to see so many people come together, especially now that we have each been working in our posts for over a year and have experienced so much.  Getting such a diverse group of people together in a multi-cultural city has made the experience even more interesting.  I am even more excited now to be heading to Cambodia tomorrow to see Katie's life in Battambang and then to see the temples of Angkor Wat and run the Angkor Wat 10K Race on my birthday on Sunday!

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.

Livestock everywhere, must be a holiday

It was almost impossible to miss that yesterday was Idul Adha, the Day of Sacrifice in Islam and one of the most important days of the Hajj pilgrimage. This day is most visibly marked by a nationwide mass slaughtering of goats and cows where families will buy one of these animals and then give away most of the meat to the poor. And remember this is Indonesia, where freezers, if you are lucky to have one are the size of a lunch box, so this meat is eaten immediately!  In local communities, mosques are usually the center of activity and people give according to their individual means so the poor can receive this charity.

The first evidence that this holiday was approaching were the large banners that pop up around town advertising the prices of “korban” (the animals to be killed) and contact number for you to order your own. Soon one noticed that livestock was entering Jakarta from all sides. You might see a truck barreling down the highway with a lone bull in the back, or maybe a goat tied to a tree in front of a shop down town. But most common were the random holding areas where these animals will wait their fated day in patience. I was somewhat surprised to see one pop up in my little neighborhood (it went next to the broken badminton court), but even more surprised to see one in the front parking lot of the National Ministry of Education with about 30 cows. A friend of mine even recounted standing outside of Grand Indonesia, one of the nicest shopping malls in Jakarta, and witnessing a herd of goats run across her path with seemingly no one in charge of them!

The evening azan on the day before also made it impossible to ignore the holiday because it lasted for almost five hours! Now I am not one to complain about a little call to prayer, in fact I think it is a beautiful sound. But I think my neighborhood mosque needs some singing lessons because it is just painful to listen to them struggle through, especially at 10:30pm when I want to go to sleep!

The day of Idul Adha is a national holiday and was a perfect mid-week day off. I avoided any animal butchering and went on a adventure to find some cheap headphones. And it did turn out to be a travel adventure within the city; I ended up taking four different kopaja bus lines that I had never ridden before and befriended a group of giggling 12 year-old girls who seemed to want to escort me between bus transfers.  The trip was a success as I once again can listen to music on my morning runs and I avoided having to see any animal butchering.

Rubber Time

Last week I made the mistake of arriving on time to a seminar. It was scheduled for 9am and my coworker even advised me to leave at 8am in case the traffic might delay my arrival. Following my more realistic estimation, I left at 8:30am and arrived at 8:55am- to a completely empty conference room and overly eager greeters. Should have known this was coming. Jam karet, or rubber time, is pervasive in Indonesian society- even the airplanes are notorious for being late. Last month I was invited to attend Tifa’s Board Meeting so that I could learn more about the grant-making process and I was surprised to realize, when I showed up at exactly 12pm, that even though the meeting was held at fancy Jakarta hotel it could still begin two hours late. Thankfully another coworker showed up on time and we got a head start on the buffet lunch as we waited for the others.

Honestly, by now I kind of enjoy jam karet; the luxury to leave and show up whenever is most comfortable for you without worrying that others will find your tardiness rude. The thing I just can’t understand is why do some Indonesian’s still show up on time and how do you know for sure if an event will be late? No one wants to make the mistake of assuming it won’t start on time but then arrive rudely 20 minutes after an event has begun.

I have found a couple consistencies thankfully. Internal office meetings, never start on time in Indonesian offices; conferences or seminars with attendees from different organizations, also never start on time, and moreover, showing up late is completely fine, as is not silencing your cell phone to a string of text messages announced to everyone by some popular hip hop song or even holding a whispered conversation. I know that this custom hasn’t pervaded the community of Westerners here yet because when I showed up late to a breakfast with friends from the embassy and blamed it on the traffic, my apology was necessary. Beyond that I am still testing this phenomenon out, kind of feeling my way through the dark and trying not to make any blunders.