Yoga in Ponti

This is the one-month anniversary of my trip in Indonesia - time has flown!

Today is Sunday. This morning I attended a yoga class taught by a visiting yoga instructor from Jakarta. She is Iyengar trained, and the class was quite different from any I’ve taken before – no flow, but lots of prop poses. The second half of the class the students (who were mostly Indonesian and Chinese women) teamed up in pairs to do some partner yoga exercises. I learned some cool tricks, as did my partner, a young Indonesian man who works at the gym and who was apparently shocked speechless to have me as a partner because he barely said a word during the whole hour we stretched together.

This afternoon I will go to the wedding of a friend of one of my coworkers. The happy couple is Muslim, and I’m expecting this will be very different from any wedding I’ve been to in the past...

Rumah Kos

The most interesting news I have to report is my move to a boarding house – called a rumah kos here in Indonesia. I have been bouncing around between hotels (three of them: one too expensive, one in an unsafe area, and one in an overly run-down hotel) and the SIMPUR office since I arrived in Ponti. All of this movement has inconvenienced me, but is even more difficult for my coworkers who have been kind enough to transport me from location to location every few days.

A few days ago I, along with a cadre of coworkers on motorbikes, went shopping for a rumah kos. We toured about five different options, from the very luxurious (including TV, AC, laundry, and bathroom/shower) to the very cheap (just a small room with one window and a bed). I chose something in the middle – a large room with two big windows, a bed, dresser, desk, and chair.

The mandi (Indonesian bathroom with squat toilet and water to bathe – don’t get me started about squat toilets – see example picture below) is down the hall and laundry is included in the price of the room. My neighbors are friendly – mostly students at the local university – and they think it is hilarious that I’m living in Indonesian-style housing! Plenty of giggles every time my neighbors see me. A very dirty, large irrigation ditch runs in front of the building and I’m hoping it won’t rain too much while I’m in town, because flooding is a big problem here….

The location is excellent – close to the mall (which contains my gym, a grocery store, and a café with wireless access) – and close enough to my office so that I can bike to work in the mornings. And the price is unbelievable – only about $60 USD per month!

The last couple evenings after work I have entertained myself by shopping for things for my room – a desk lamp, fan, extension cord, and the requisite mosquito spray which I dutifully use every evening. Contracting dengue is not on my list of things to do this summer!

Indo Health Care System

Yesterday (Thursday) gets the prize for my most interesting and traumatic day since I’ve arrived in Indonesia.

One of my coworkers and I were returning to the office after running errands, and as we were turning right another motorbike going straight clipped us from behind. We were fine – our bike had no damage. However, the other bike (which was carrying three people: an old man, a child, and a woman) crashed. The woman and child were okay, but the man, who was driving, was knocked unconscious and just lay on the ground.

(Here, I should say that my first day in Ponti I bought a very nice, safe, helmet to guard against accidents like this one).

The accident happened in the middle of a busy intersection. My coworker and I left our bike parked by the side of the road and ran back to the scene of the accident. All my first aid training in the US screamed at me that we should not move the man – he could have spinal trauma. Apparently this sort of training doesn’t apply in Indonesia. Onlookers immediately rolled the man onto his back, and my coworker and I were told to pick him up and put him in a car for transport to a nearby hospital. We basically stuffed the guy into the backseat of the very small car, with me holding his head and my coworker at his feet. The man had obvious head trauma, with a cut above the eye and a bloody nose. By the time we put him in the car, he was partly conscious again and able to hold a tissue to his nose to stop the bleeding.

When we arrived at the hospital, the man was well enough to sit up in the car to be helped onto a stretcher. My coworker and I followed him into the hospital, and I started wondering about the man’s family (how could they know where he was?) and our bike (it was left by the side of the road with the keys in the ignition). Luckily the bike and the family were found – the bike was at the police office, and the family showed up at the hospital shortly after we arrived.

Due to my odd appearance (tall and blond) that was attracting too much attention, my coworkers decided it was best that I leave the hospital so I returned to the office to wait. About three hours later everyone returned and I got a quick lesson in Indonesian culture and medical insurance policy. In an accident, the person who is hurt does not have to pay, even if the accident is his/her fault. For example, if a motorbike illegally turns in front of a car and is hit, the car owner has to pay for the motorbike driver’s medical expenses. Thus my coworker and I are responsible for the old man’s medical expenses. This arrangement seemed odd and unfortunate to me at first; why don’t people have medical insurance? Or maybe the government should pay? On the other hand it is a system based on goodwill, and means that everyone receives treatment regardless of ability to pay.

Luckily health care in Indo is not very expensive – the total hospital bill, including sutures, an overnight hospital stay, and blood-work totals about $100. Everyone here at the office is in a bit of shock, but Indonesian people can laugh about these things no problem so we’ve laughed lots the last day about the string of bad luck many folks connected to SIMPUR have experienced over the last few weeks.

Back to work…this is my last weekend in Ponti, I go to the field next Tuesday or Wednesday. Yahoo!!

US Embassy Jakarta

I spent the last two days in Jakarta applying for a new passport. And to my happy surprise, they love Americans at the American Embassy! Instead of waiting in the hellishly long lines like everyone else (all Indonesian people) I was guided directly to the person I needed to talk to, who happily explained the passport replacement process.

The other folks at the US Embassy were not so lucky. Everyone who applied for a visa had to explain, in English, why the visa was necessary. If the person behind the visa window didn't think the applicant was qualified, she would ask harsh questions in quick succession. Applicants would become flustered, forget their English language, and most visa applicants were rejected. It would have been funny if people didn't look so sad after rejection...

Jakarta was a mini-vacation from Pontianak; vacation came mostly in the form of food. For breakfast I had coffee without sugar and coffee grounds (hard to find here in Ponti), lunch was south Indian, and dinner was exquisite Thai food plus a nice glass of wine. Now I'm back in Pontianak, after my workout at the mall gym, sipping mango juice and steeling myself for a wet ride back to the SIMPUR office -- a rainy night outside!

Matahari Mega Mall

I'm sitting in Cafe "Oh-la-la" in Matahari mega mall on my day off (Sunday). This mall deserves a blog entry of it's own.

The mall is a four-story complex on the main drag in Pontianak, and comes complete with a set of American restaurants (Dunkin' Donuts, KFC, A&W), a movie theater, blasting AC, department store, and target-like shopping center.

The mall is THE place to be on Saturday nights. Last night the SIMPUR employees and myself met at the mall for dinner and window shopping. For dinner we had rice and fried chicken (not my favorite foods, admittedly, but I'm trying to be a flexible eater here) and then went into the mall. It was packed with people. But the funny thing (for me) is that most everyone was just window-shopping, or simply hanging out. Very few transactions were taking place, as far as I could tell.

The best part of the mall is the huge bookstore here. It has a wide selection of books in Indonesian, but the English section is quite small -- mostly cookbooks, a few classics (such as Jane Austen and Shakespeare), and lots of mysteries. So I'm going to read my way through Agatha Christie mysteries this year. The Indonesian books are mostly non-fiction, and of these about half are religious books -- Muslim, Christian, and a few Buddhist books. Reading novels is simply not a big part of life here in Indo. Some of the books made me laugh -- they have an entire wall dedicated to animal husbandry (wanna learn how to breed goats? how about koi? hopefully you speak Indonesian!).

Okay, gonna leave the nice AC mall to brave the heat and walk to the SIMPUR office to retrieve my bike. Happy Sunday!

A Theft

On Friday evening I had a rude awakening to the reality of being a buleh (white person) in Indonesia.

The previous day my friends found and fixed up a pedal bike for me -- a cruiser, with only one gear, a bell, and a nice big basket in front. Friday night I peddled my new bike to the "mega-mall" in town, to find a English book and check out the gym (Planet Fit). I was happy to have the freedom of wheeled transportation; everyone gets around on motorbikes here, so walking is quite unpleasant -- even on the quieter streets I always fear I will be run over by an un-cautious motorcycle rider.

At the mall I signed up for a month membership at the gym. It is a very posh gym, complete with juice bar, six exercise classes each day, lots of cardio machines, and powerful AC. I think it will be my one luxury in Pontianak. After my workout I found a book and some dinner. There is a relatively large bookstore in the mall that deserves a blog of its own -- I will write about that later.

I started peddling back to my guest house at around 10 pm, and arrived at around 10:15. Upon arrival, I realized the gate of my guest house was closed so I parked my bike nearby the gate and left my backpack in the basket while I opened the gate. When I turned around my backpack was gone -- and two men on a motorbike were zooming away. I immediately stopped the first person I saw, a young man on a motorbike, and tried to communicate the theft to him. He understood, and took me to the nearest Internet shop so I could get the numbers for my credit card companies and cancel my cards.

After I made the appropriate calls, I decided to go back to my guesthouse and get some sleep. On the way back to the guesthouse, we ran out of gas (bensin) so we stopped at a restaurant and waited for my friend's friend to bring gas to refill the motorbike. I felt so bad, because gas is quite expensive and I couldn't repay the expense.

By this time it was around 11 pm. Upon arrival at the guest house, to my unpleasant surprise the front door was locked! My new found friend (who worked as a cook in the Pontianak Pizza Hut, and promised to cook me a pizza for dinner the next day) lived next door to the guest house with his mother and little sister. They invited me inside and gave me some water, while we tried to communicate in broken Indonesian and English how I could get into my hotel. I suggested climbing to the second floor, but they vetoed that idea, saying I would be arrested, which was probably true and would be unfortunate due to my lack of a passport, visa, or money (which were all in the stolen backpack).

Luckily the owner of the guesthouse finally returned at about 12:30 pm and let me inside. It's funny, the awfulness of the people who stole my backpack was balanced by the kindness of the people that helped me afterwards.

Now I have to deal with the aftermath of the incident, which means $$ wire transfers, flying to Jakarta to get a new passport from the US Embassy, getting a new Indonesian visa, etc. This will be quite expensive, I think. But right now the thing I most miss are my tennis shoes (which were in the backpack)...I want to take advantage of my new gym membership!

Officespace Indonesia

This is my third day at the office, and things are finally settling down a bit. I moved from the hotel to the office Monday morning, but I cannot spend so much time in one place (morning, day, and night in the same building is too much!) so I found a low-cost guest house nearby with a nice room/fan/shower so I can have some of my own space.

The office is a really nice place, set up in a small house on a quiet street. There is an air-conditioned computer room, a meeting room where everyone hangs out (but don’t think board room – the table is about a foot off the ground, so everyone sits on mats around the table), a kitchen, guest room, living room, and storage room for equipment. Team members arrive at around 8 or 9 am, have coffee, and then start working – but work is mixed with talk and play and fun all day long. The coffee in Indonesia deserves a sentence or two. It is excellent coffee (and super-cheap – about $2/lb) and people mix the grounds with hot water and sugar and drink. A bit odd at first to have coffee grounds in the bottom of my cup, but the taste is excellent so I don’t complain.

Power goes out here on a regular basis, every day or two. The office owns a generator so it is not a problem for us, but it seems bad that such a big city (I think Pontianak is around 600,000 people) has constant problems with supplying electricity to its residents. The blackouts have impeded my visa process – tomorrow I must return to the immigration office for a third time because without power the office couldn’t print my documents yesterday.

We also found out yesterday that Lisa will not be coming to Indonesia this week – she was due to arrive on Thursday, but do to time and cost restraints she decided not to make the trip. So I’m flying solo, which should be okay but the language barrier makes things a bit difficult. Trying to explain the concept of ecosystem services is difficult enough to do in English!

Gotta go pack my stuff for the move to the guest house…

City Expo

The Indonesian City Expo was interesting – all the larger cities in the country set up booths with traditional foods, products (batik, crafts, etc), and information about city history. Most items were for sale. The expo was definitely the place to be Saturday night, as you could hardly move due to the high density of human bodies inside the expo tent.

I have never felt so white in my entire life. People stared at me, took pictures of me, and a TV interviewer decided I was interesting enough to interview. Unfortunately his English wasn’t so hot, and my Indonesian was worse, so I don’t think it was the most smooth interview in history. Pontianak is apparently not accustomed to “buleh” – which literally means “albino” – but now applies to all white people in the country. After the expo I returned to the hotel and immediately fell asleep – I am exhausted from all the travel and excitement in the last month.

Relaxation

Third day in Pontianak, the most relaxing I’ve had for weeks. I was able to sleep in until 8:30 am, (so late!) and had a fabulous breakfast at the hotel. Breakkie is included in the hotel package, and it is truly a meal fit for a queen – fruit, about 7 different main dishes, rice porridge plus fixings, custom omelets, a selection of sweets, white rice, fried rice, coffee and tea.

Indo food is diverse and inventive – sweet with sour, hot with sweet, vegetables with fruits, fruit with meat. Most streets have at least one Padang restaurant, which serves food from Sumatra. Every island, (and if the island is big enough, each region within the island), has specialty foods. Pontianak is heavy on fish, because it is at the junction of a river and the ocean. Yogya’s specialty is cooked breadfruit. The one thing that all Indonesian people seem to enjoy is fried (goreng) food. Unfortunately I’m not down with the fried stuff, so my choices are sometimes limited.

Of course, like everywhere else in the world, certain American chains can be found in this country. The most popular seem to be KFC, Dunkin Donuts, and Pizza Hut. Happily, I have yet to see a Micky D’s or Starbucks in Pontianak, although they can be found in Jarkarta and probably Bali as well. I must be in the boonies when I cannot order a double grande half-caff skim latte!

Kuala Dua

Saturday at Kuala Dua was a fun way to meet the teams and learn a bit about the research that goes on here. At 9 am, a cadre of six motorbikes and five team members swung by my hotel to pick me up and head for the field site. They gave me a helmet (a skimpy thing with no chinstrap) and we were off. Riding behind the driver on a motorcycle is exhilarating at first, with the wind blowing and the world quickly zipping by. After a while, however, I discovered that motorbike riding becomes physically tiring – sitting upright and gripping the bike with my legs takes some strength! The trail to Kuala Dua itself was a single dirt track, wet and slippery from rain, and I thought I was going to fly off the bike or get crushed beneath as we skidded our way along the path. Somehow we made it to the forest unscathed. I vowed to get a good helmet the minute we returned to the city.

Kuala Dua is a research site in a peat swamp forest. SIMPUR HUTAN (the NGO I am working with) bought a small area of land (300 x 400 meters) in the forest, and since buying the area most of the surrounding forest has been logged and then burned for agriculture. The SIMPUR forest is the only standing forest left in the area, and even it was heavily logged until purchased, so it contains very few mature trees. Last December, the burning got so bad that the NGO had to protect its land buy building firebreaks and spraying water on the fire using water pumps.

Peat swamp forest is not a very nice place to work. As you can imagine from the name, it is truly a swamp – walking through the forest is like walking in a massive puddle, and there is no thought of keeping your feet dry. The saving grace of the area was the lack of mosquitoes. Despite the wetness, I enjoyed getting out of the city and seeing green things and hearing birds. The trip to Kuala Dua was research-oriented; we were supposed to help collect litter from litter traps, which must be done every two weeks for carbon sequestration studies in the area. But another research assistant had finished the collections by the time we arrived, so we just walked around the forest and the teams explained the research design to me.

After our time in the forest, we went to the house of the field assistant who maintains the forest area. It is also built on peat swamp, and as far as I’m concerned is not a nice place to live. Because the peat subsides over time, the house is slowly sinking below the level of the peat swamp around it. You cannot walk around without getting your feet wet, and flies are everywhere. The area has been cleared and burned so there are no trees, and the waterway (dug by hand) contains water the color of tea.

On the plus side, we ate some amazing pineapple from a nearby farm. We dipped the pineapple in a mixture of salt and fresh red pepper, so it was sweet and salty and hot all at the same time. After plenty of time hanging out at the house, it looked as if it was going to rain so we hopped on the bikes and drove back to Pontianak. On the way back we stopped for a very asian treat called “es teler”: a bowl of coconut milk, ice (es), apples, jelly, and bread. Very sweet and refreshing after the hot peat swamp forest!

My friends dropped me at the hotel and said they would return at 7 pm to go to an Indoesian City Expo at the mall. More on that later….

Hello Pontianak!

It is 8 in the morning, my first in Pontianak. I’m sitting in a very posh hotel waiting for “the team” (see picture below) to pick me up via motorbike and go to Kuala Dua, a peat swamp forest plot about an hour north of the city where Lisa and her colleagues are doing long-term carbon flux studies.

Yesterday was a whirlwind. After a greeting fit for a king (or a queen, I suppose, given my gender) by the research team of six people, we drove to the hotel, where I dumped my baggage and jumped on a motorbike to get to the immigration office before it closed. My temporary visa expired yesterday, so I had to report to immigration in order to get the permanent version and not be kicked out of the country!

Luckily we arrived at the office in time to do paperwork. The office was trippy – I felt as if I’d stepped into a movie set in Southeast Asia in the 1950s. The building was filled with men smoking cigarettes, men in uniform, and there wasn’t a computer to be seen, only typewriters (and ancient ones, at that!). They seemed confused as to why I was at the office, even after they read the letters prepared by the government offices in Jakarta. Luckily my counterpart Dessy was able to explain my purpose and we spent the next couple hours filling out paperwork in triplicate. Yup – they apparently don’t have photocopy machines in the Pontianak immigration office (even though “fotocopy” stores, the equivalent of kinkos, can be found on almost every street here).

After the immigration office ordeal was over (unfortunately I have to return next week to do more paperwork, but I get a break for now) we motorbiked to the SIMPUR HUTAN (the NGO I’m working with) office. It was filled with people – children, parents, employees – and had a really nice ambiance. I brought “oleh-oleh” (souvenirs) from Yogya with me – little bean cakes, and brem, a fermented soybean snack. Everyone snacked on these treats as I tried to communicate in Indonesian, and as they tried speaking English with me. The office includes an air-conditioned (yahoo!) room for computer work, and a “guest bedroom” where I will sleep once I move out of the hotel on Monday.

To Borneo!

I’m off to Pontianak, Borneo! Unfortunately my flight is delayed (apparently not an uncommon occurrence here). We actually boarded the plane and were on the runway, accelerating, when they suddenly stopped the plane and took us back to the terminal and put us up in a hotel for the evening. Disturbing, but I’m glad they aborted before we took off. Indonesian airlines are not the safest in the world – I think all companies were downgraded to “B” status recently. We fly to Pontianak this morning…

Yogya wrap-up

My last language class finished this morning. After a week of intensive language training I’m happy to have a “break” from formal classes – however, I think my time in Kalimantan (Borneo) will also be intense language training, because almost no one I work with will speak English!

The week has been filled with learning language, but also with learning how to live in Indonesia. One of the newest/most different aspects of living here is the prominence of Islam. The couple I am staying with, Laras and Maman pray five times each day (starting at 4:30 am – yikes!), will not go to a restaurant that serves alcohol, and Laras always wears a head covering in public. Government offices have Friday afternoon off from work/school because Friday is a Muslim holy day, and there are prayer rooms everywhere – office buildings, airports, and homes – so that people can pray throughout the day without too much trouble. And yet everyone seems to coexist happily – on the surface there is not much conflict between Islamic people and others (beside Muslims, most people on Java seem to be Christian).

Out with the gals

Monday evening I went to dinner with fellow students (two women) at Realia. One is doing her PhD in Balinese art, and the other works for the World Bank in Jakarta. We had wine (good wine!!!) at a gorgeous colonial-era hotel. The hotel staff seemed very confused by the wine – our waiter didn’t know how to open a wine bottle, so they had to call an “expert” so that we could enjoy our drink! Wine is apparently not a popular drink among Indonesians– Bintang (the local beer) seems to be the favorite drink. After our wine experience we headed to dinner at a yummy Korean BBQ. I felt spoiled, full, and quite happy after my evening out – my dinner companions (both old enough to be my mother) were kind enough to pay for the food and drink and taxi.

Sunday Shopping

This country is very inexpensive – similar to Thailand. You can buy a shirt, dinner, or a cup of coffee for a dollar. Cigarettes cost less than a dollar and everyone smokes here – I’ve been offered a cigarette nearly each day. Apparently Yogya, the city I’m living in, is a “student city” with more than 40 universities and other post-secondary schools. Thus the place is filled with young people, and is very cheap even compared to other cities in Indonesia.

So…given the cheap prices, last Sunday I was a window shopaholic! Very uncharacteristic for me. The day started when my home stay host (Laras, see pic below) and I biked to a weekly flea market at 6 am. The market was packed with people selling all sorts of junk and food – the most exciting thing in the market was probably a merry-go-round for small children powered not by “on the grid” electricity, but by a man on a pedal bike! I didn’t buy anything, simply took in the sounds and smells.

After the market I decided to get some exercise by riding my pedal bike around the city. I found a bird market (which I didn’t enter because of bird flu – probably not a problem, but why take the chance?), and a traditional market with a variety of spices, batik, modern clothing, and prepared food. Everyone stared, because as far as I could tell I was one of the only “asing” (foreigners) in the place.

After my morning window shopping marathon (in which I bought nothing) I had class at Realia. My teacher, Fajar, invited me to hang out with her after class. She is my age and finishing a degree in accounting/management economics. First we swung by her boarding house (on her motorbike, no less – eek! – they scare me, but I have a feeling I’ll be getting around via motorbike often in this country) and then we drove to the Amplex Mall – same American malls, with expensive clothes, accessory, and food shops. I bought a couple of shirts at the mall. Afterwards, we went to dinner at a little restaurant near Realia called “special sambal” (sambal = chili). Here, we sat on the floor (traditionally, Indonesians sit on the ground to eat) and I ate with my right hand only. I quickly discovered that eating rice, vegetables, and chili with only one hand without making a mess requires more talent than I currently have! My friend finished her meal in about 10 minutes while I spent at least ½ hour eating, due to my poor fine motor skills =)

Bantul

I'm sitting in an air-conditioned cafe called "Parsley" listening to "Fly me to the moon" sung, live, by a young Indonesian woman. She's pretty good...but sadly there is no one here to dance with.

Today is Saturday, and generally we don’t have class on Saturday. However, (playing the committed student) I chose to take four hours of class in the morning because my time here in Yogya is quite short; I leave in five days for Pontianak. After class, I joined three Indonesians who do volunteer work in Bantul, the location of the massive earthquake last year. The volunteer work is participatory video; the volunteers help children age 9-15 create videos of their daily experience. Today the purpose of the visit was to play with the kids and teach them a bit of English.

As we drove to the town, I could see the incredible destruction from the earthquake. Most of the buildings in Bantul are new – built within the last year – and many temporary structures are still being used as houses and shops. All the new buildings are more earthquake resistant than before the quake, built with concrete columns instead of simply bricks.

The children were adorable: very shy at first, almost all female, and all looking much younger than their ages. After introductions we sat down inside, on the floor, and asked each other questions such as “what is your favorite color?” and “who is your favorite singer?” They all have cell phones and were very eager to get my number. The fact that they all own phones is surprising given their 1) young ages and 2) relative poverty. After chatting inside for a bit, and snacking on papaya and chips offered by the parents, we walked around the village. Very green, with fruit trees, goat pens, and gardens scattered between small houses, the area is quite beautiful and peaceful but also very obviously poor.

Tomorrow I wake up very early (5 am) to bike to a traditional market with my homestay “mom”. Afterwards I will try to do some work – I don’t have class until 1 pm, so I won’t be beat/exhausted as I am most every other day after language training.

Sampai jumpa!

Bahasa Indonesia

The last three days have been filled with learning how to speak Indonesian.

I'm a student at a small language school called Realia Indonesia that teaches English, Indonesian, and offers translation services. Each morning I arrive at school at 8 am (a one-minute commute from my home stay across the street) and begin a two-hour, one-on-one language class. Yes -- two hours of concentration! Class takes place in open-air rooms, cooled by fans, and instead of a blackboard the teachers write (upside-down, no less) on paper so that we can take the notes home and don't have to worry about writing ourselves. At about 10 am we get a small break, then two more hours of class. Lunch is at noon, and afterwards we have a final two hour class. After all this learning and thinking each day, my brain hurts but the method is very effective -- I am can now blunder my way through some important concepts such as my name, country of origin, reason for traveling to Indonesia, etc.

The teachers here are very young -- mostly around my age, 23-28 -- and female. They are all French students at local universities, and after the lessons are over they love to tell me about the history and customs in this country. With more than 17,000 islands it is a very diverse place in terms of language and custom and even genetically. For example, most everyone here (on Java) speaks Javanese as well as Indonesian, but in Papua (farther south) many of the people don't speak the national language, but only the local tribal language.

My fellow students are very few -- currently there are only three. One is a man from Australia who works in Kalimantan teaching English to workers at an orangutan rehab center. Another is a man who works for UNESCO, and will be stationed on Papua for two years helping with the HIV/AIDS campaign there. Finally, there is a woman from Germany who is doing her PhD in Balinese art.

After school I return to my homestay house and hang out with my homestay "parents". They are Muslim, very devout, waking up to pray at 4:30 am each morning and many times throughout the day. The woman is my age, and wears a head covering whenever there is a man in the house. She is a teacher at a nursing school. The man is a bit older, and works as a physics teacher and film editor. They are quite sweet, and speak excellent English.

Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta (pronounced jog-ja-karta) is a wonderful change after smokey, busy Jakarta. I'm here for a week to study Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Language) at Realia Indonesia. Upon arrival via airplane from Jakarta, one of the Realia teachers picked me up at the airport, and drove me to my home stay, which is located about 1 minute from the language school.

Sadly, I'll have homework again (and only a few weeks after finishing finals)! But on the other hand I'll be much better at communicating with the many friendly people who live in Indonesia.

Sampai Jumpa - will write more tomorrow after class.
kim

Office-hopping

Monday in Jakarta is a busy day!

I woke at 4 am this morning to singing from a nearby mosque. Not quite as bad as howler monkeys, but enough to keep me awake. Luckily the singers stopped singing at some point before 5am, and so I was able to catch a bit more shut-eye.

At about 8:30am Martin met me at my hotel and we walked to the bus station. Buses here are abundant and cheap -- only about 2,000 rupiah, which translates into 25 cents per ride. The first stop was LIPI, the Indonesian department of sciences. I filled out the same information I'd sent LIPI over the Internet, gave them yet another copy of my passport, and yet another red-backed photograph. They typed two letters for me -- by typewriter! -- one to the immigration office and one to the police station. I was told to take these letters to the respective offices to retrieve paperwork, which I could then bring back to LIPI.

So Martin and I went to the police station, which felt like the DMV, with long lines and bored people. I gave them money, and a copy of my passport, and was told to return the next morning to pick up my police permit. Next was the immigration office, where I felt I was in a movie -- a dark smoke-filled room, a man in a uniform and dark moustache, and me not understanding the language. As with the other two offices, I have to return to immigration tomorrow to get my immigration permit.

Thus I get to take the bus all over town again tomorrow -- this time without Martin (eek!) but I think I'll be okay, as I'm starting to learn some Indonesian. This is an incredibly easy language, especially after Thai! Bahasa Indonesia (as spoken) rarely has a subject, just a verb and object. I'm sure it will get more complicated as I learn how to talk about things in the past and present, but for now I'm happy with "how are you" (apa kabar), "no" (tidak), "yes" (ya), and "bus" (bus).

After all the office-hopping, I decided to be a tourist for a bit and visited the national monument, a ginormous tower built by Suharto in the 1970s. Some call it Suharto's final erection. I can see why -- it is the only building in a huge green square near downtown Jakarta. The only green for miles around, Jakarta doesn't have many parks. While walking to the monument it started to downpour outside -- a true tropical storm -- and I took shelter along with some other tourists underneath a small hut built for construction workers. The construction workers were covered with mud, and looked cold and miserable, but were friendly enough to ask (in very limited English) where I was from and offer me a cigarette. It seems everyone smokes in this country, inside and outside. I smell like smoke always.

Gotta run as my time in the Internet cafe is done, but more tomorrow.

Jakarta

Last night I arrived in Jakarta on a one hour flight from Singapore. It is 7 pm here, exactly 12 hours later than the time in New Haven, and I am admittedly jet-lagged. Travelling from New Haven to Asia was tiring; a total of about 22 hours of air travel, plus all the time waiting in lines, sitting on the runway, etc.

My day in Singapore was fun. The Changi airport is nicer than any I've seen. It is a combination of shopping mall, hotel, tourist agency, food court, military camp, and airport. Why military? All the airport guards (and there are many) carry large machine guns. I wont' try to brink any illegal water bottles on the plane, I promise...

After arriving at midnight I was able to buy a shower and a nap. The shower was nice and the nap even better -- three hours' rest in a dark room with blanket and pillow, with an alarm to wake me after my doze.

Upon waking, I wandered around the airport and discovered that free tours of Singapore are offered each day. So I signed up for a tour. We departed the airport at about 9 am, on a fancy greyhound-type bus complete with tour guide. The group drove to downtown Singapore, which is a strange mix of colonial buildings and high-rise structures. And it is colorful! The windows of many buildings look like a child's crayon box - yellow green blue orange and purple. From the buses we moved onto small boats that drove us around downtown waterways. Not to impressive, but it was nice to get out into the sun for a bit, after all the airport time. We saw the mascot of Singapore -- a lion's head on a mermaid's tail -- representing the fierce- and royal-ness of the country, combined with it's dependence on the sea. At least that's what our tour operator said.

Back in Changi, I found the exercise room and ran for about an hour, and then found a free foot-massager (conveniently placed throughout the airport) and relaxed before my flight to Jakarta.

Martin (one of Lisa's colleagues who works for Simpur Hutan, my NGO sponsor) met me at the airport and helped me get set up with a hotel room and food for dinner. After fighting off sleep throughout dinner, I was happy to return to the hotel and crash for about 12 hours. I have rarely been so tired. Today I woke, showered, and wandered outside to find food and a cell phone. I very much need to learn bahasa indonesia! So frustrating not to be able to effectively communicate with the people who surround me. Once again, just as in Thailand, my blond hair makes me stand out. Kids stare, and adults smile. Oh well.

Now I'm off to find dinner. Tomorrow is visiting LIPI to fill out documents for my visa.