My "Friends"

Yes, although I am slowly getting to know people here and consider them friends, I enjoy my aqquaintances. Small interactions with them make my whole day brighter.

The guys I call “my guards” work at the apartment complex all the time and live here. It is a different work ethic. Instead of working really hard and having days off, they work a little but are on-call all the time. In my American way, I might prefer the first. I asked one guy if he gets bored, and he said yes and that he never gets to see his wife who lives 5 hours away! Personally I would be complaining, but I am sure I don’t know the whole situation.

Another guy I see every night. He is the strong, silent type. He smokes and watches the neighborhood but I also saw him playing with the dog, jumping over her head doing karate kicks. He is young and athletic.

The third guy is the chubby guy with only one functioning eye. He likes to sing and talk to the other guys outside my window usually starting around 5 or 6 am. This morning, I woke up to someone on my porch singing “pretty woman”…and then something unintellible to my ears. It was a nice way to wake up.

They notice when I need things and install them in my room. In the last few weeks, I have gotten a plug-splitter, a toilet paper roll-holder, dishes, a map and a tourist book of Yogya. They know exactly when I leave and have already cleaned my room by the time I get home, sometimes only an hour or two later!

My other friend is one particular becak driver who wears a safari hat and hangs out in my neighborhood. He always waves and asks me where I’m going (like “how are you?” here) and never asks me if I want a ride. I like it because I have to turn down what seems like hundreds of becak drivers if I walk anywhere.

Another friend is the lady at the corner shop. She does brisk business but always says hello as I walk by. I think she could tell I was sick and hungry when I got here because she asked me to sit a few times and fed me this sweet papaya one time. We always compliment each other on each other’s clothes.

Ramadan and School Aniversary

Ramadan just started. Most of the teachers and students are fasting, and the whole town is quieter in general. Many of the small food stalls and restaurants are closed during the day. Usually, there are dozens of glasses of lukewarm overly-sweet jasmine tea in the teacher’s lounge, sitting ready for parched teachers. The tea has been moved to an unassuming thermos. The school canteen is completely closed. My apartment is right next to an elementary school and, although young children are not required to fast, the number of food vendors has dwindled to 2-3. I like the quiet feel of the streets and that I can actually walk down the sidewalk without having to switch to the street every few yards because of restaurants. I like seeing women go to pray in extra-long knee-length white gilbabs. I am enjoying Ramadan. And there are definitely places to eat still.

We are on a very modified schedule at school. Instead of 45 minute periods we now have 30 minute periods, that’s not counting the time it takes the students to migrate to class. By the time they all show up, the class is half-way over and nothing has been accomplished. In my opinion it seems like they should have less subjects in a day instead of trying to have the students go to every class.

Speaking of the students, I am very impressed by them. My school is one of the most expensive to attend, although it is a public school. The students pay directly instead of taxes going toward education. Some of the students commute an hour to get to school, or some have moved to Yogya simply to study and their parents live in other parts of Java. This is serious stuff! Oh, and they absolutely LOVE their school. Even the 10th graders I have chatted with are thoroughly entrenched in extracurriculars and friendships with their classmates.

Padmanaba had their school anniversary 2 weeks ago. I was invited to a dinner for the alumni and current teachers. Everyone sat on bamboo mats in a circle; the centerpiece was made up of about 10 plates of decorative nasi kuning (yellow rice) in points thanking god for the school. The students created beautiful and different types of nasi kuning and had a competition to see whose was the most unique. I had to walk home with one of the teachers to get my camera because I was so impressed by their designs!

The alumni were wearing beautiful batiks and scarves. My counterpart said the alumni are still very involved in the school and actually vetoed a plan the school had to get new tile.

The next day involved me coming to school at 7:15 am and therefore I didn’t have time to eat breakfast and was pretty groggy. They had a show of many of the students who do some kind of military practice every night and every student had special uniforms for this day. They did marches and a flag-raising and some readings. This was interesting but all the teachers were crowded together and I was HOT! All the lady teachers were wearing long sleeve shirts with thick polyester, ill-fitting suit jackets. They seemed to be fine but I know I would have passed out in one of those! I am really glad they didn’t think to have one tailored for me.
After this, the students changed into outfits according to class. I was sitting in the meeting hall and kept seeing students walk by in kimonos, bath towels, etc. and started to wonder. I knew there was a parade but I thought they’d be wearing their school uniforms! I walked over to the window and saw kids in the most imaginative outfits! One group was the funeral attendees...they wore black on top and batik on the bottom with dark glasses and carried urns. Another group was the babies…they had pacifiers, their hair in pigtails, another group was the barely out of the shower group. Some of the boys wore a towel on bottom with a mandi bucket tucked into their waist and shampoo still in their hair. I walked with the “back to the 80s group” who sang popular 80s songs. One of their leaders was wearing aviator sunglasses a woman’s spandex swimsuit in horrendous poop browns and track shorts worn way too high. It was really fun! We wound around different parts of the town and people got their cameras out to record the strange site. The students handed out paper cranes and candy to people on the street and becak drivers, curled up in their becaks. We paraded for two hours…all 800 students and many of the teachers.

Jamu

Jamu is an ambiguous term for a whole bunch of natural cures and teas for health. I had some in Jakarta and got to read the back of some of the packages. Let me tell you, it can cure some serious things like “bad smell,” menstrual irregularities, a post-childbirth vagina, and a big gut. I learned the last from one of the guys who works at my place. He pointed suggestively at my stomach as he said the jamu he had could cure cancer AND obesity. He’s a chubby guy, so I wanted to ask if he had been using it sporadically.

The first jamu I tried had a strong turmeric taste and was bright yellow. I wasn’t a big fan of the taste and didn’t know what it would cure. I evened it out with a gingery-sweet jamu…again not sure what this medicinal drink was for, but I do know ginger is a digestive aid so I figured it couldn’t hurt. At that point, my language skills were quite skeletal.

Smoke Signals

I do miss the smoking laws in the US. Here, it is acceptable to get out your kretek (clove) cigarette and smoke it in close proximity to someone else, not usually worrying if you exhale in their face. Oh you feel like a smoke at the mall, why not? What about the teacher’s lounge…sure! How about on the steps of the school if you’re a student? On the weekends, hey, why not?! There does not seem to be a smoking awareness, although the cigarette ads abound with huge warnings including the perchance for “impotensi” that cancer sticks might cause. None of the guys that I know seem to be concerned. I just hope none of them have been smoking AND having free sex because that seems like a sure way to blunder down the “not-satisfying your wife path” (see Steve’s blog), But luckily, there are also some cures.

Food, My New Love

So my new love comes in many different forms, but is usually dripping with palm oil, unfortunately. I would like to take the opportunity to write about some of my favorite foods in Indonesia, and Yoyga.

I have very rarely had a good, non-greasy Nasi Goreng (fried rice), in fact, sometimes I have had a Nasi Goreng a la grease, which consists of a few grains of rice and some cabbage floating in tablespoons of oil. The only way to even attempt eating this is to hold your spoon of rice at an angle and wait for excess grease to drip off the side before sticking the gooey mess in your mouth. That’s why, when I found a place DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM MY SCHOOL to eat good nasi goreng, I was almost ecstatic. This place also has air conditioning and delicious drinks, such as a lemon squash, which consists of lemon or lime juice, palm sugar, ice and soda water, which you can mix to your discretion. Delicious! They also have es teler, which is an icey drink with chunks of jackfruit, durian, avocado, rambutan all with a sweet, juicy base of something sugary. But I’ve discovered that I like es campur better (which just means mixed ice) because it has a coconut milk base and other delicious chunks of fruit, coconut, and rice flour dessert items. Yum.

The teachers at my school always bring back oleh-oleh from various trips around Java, Oleh-oleh is like a little present from a trip, expected and highly coveted even after a very short outing, sometimes after a trip to the grocery store! (My guards asked for oleh-oleh after seeing me carry in a bag of groceries, then suggested that I should get some chocolate the next time.) One of the English teachers brought deep-fried tofu to share and I had a piece. It tasted very good but as I was eating a 5-inch squirt of oil escaped while I ate a 2-inch piece! Luckily no one saw that or when I surreptitiously washed my grease-soaked fingers.

Indonesia is the birthplace of tempeh and it figures because I have never had more delicious tempeh. I’ve had it with Gudeg, a dish native to Yogya. This meal consists of chicken cooked in an unripe jackfruit curry with coconut milk and sugar and chilies. Yum.

The other night some friends and I ate a restaurant here that had 4 rooms, each with it’s own music style. We chose the gamelan room. This restaurant had delicious Indian fusion meals served with chutneys in small banana-leaf pouches and delicious banana lassis. Imagine eating all this delicious and well-presented food while listening to soft, Javanese gamelan in a beautiful open restaurant.

Mysterious Illness Leads to Incredible Svelteness

So, excuse the lack of writing, but I had the kind of boyfriend I’m sure some of you can relate to. I call him the parasite…somebody who didn’t want me doing much but going to sit on the toilet after the smallest “meal” (such as 2 crackers with peanut butter and jam). At first I thought he was cute…I had no other friends and he thought I was cute too. But then he tried to change me. This guy also didn’t think much of me going out with strangers…he wanted me at home…with him, usually knocked out on the bed for hours. I didn’t know what hit me but I think it was him. This was a pretty abusive relationship. If I was gonna’ eat, he wanted me on the toilet right afterwards. The upside of this abusive relationship was it got me looking rather svelte, slim, slender. You’re smart people, you get the idea. He didn’t want me goin’ to no doctor, either, and he certainly wasn’t down with hospitals either.

Luckily for him, my new acquaintances were nice but shy and also had very busy schedules outside of teaching. They didn’t notice my shrinking stomach and my desperate retreats to the john.
When I started blatantly steppin’ out on him, eating bowls of $.25 Mie Ayam (chicken soup with noodles and greens) and drinking $.10 Jus Jeruk Panas (hot lime tea), he tried to stomp down my insubordinance but the more I used the toilet the more my spirit rebelled. I rediscovered my independence and my love for eating. I took a lot of vitamins and drank a lot of electrolytes. He slowly faded into my past, just another loser boyfriend although I did feel more aware during my period of continual hunger…the imposed fast gave me a new level of understanding about the world. But the relationship was short and I am grateful for that because I do love food and the way it nourishes my body.