Summer Lovin

I realize that summer has been gone for over a month now. But I found lots of pictures of it on my camera this weekend! Previously un-posted pictures. So I decided to un-un-post them!

1. I found lots of pictures of my cat sleeping in my wardrobe thingy. He figured out how to open the door to it, and most afternoons this summer, he would be curled up sleeping on top of the give away pile of clothes on the bottom. I don’t like cats all that much, but I do have to admit that sometimes they do cute things.

2. I went to a Bible study from my church regularly, starting not long before summer break. I love this group of people, and I’m thankful for all the memories we’ve made together and for how I can see God using them to impact Indonesia. Also, that is a sleeping child in the foreground, NOT a dead body.

3. Some random things I found in my classroom.

Exhibit a) A very strange looking dead bug being eaten by ants.

Exhibit b) This drawing on the floor by my desk.

Exhibit c) This student who insisted his outfit did NOT look Amish from the back even after I took this picture and showed him.

4. That jungle fire behind my house. Of course, I thought to take a picture when it was almost burned out, so the picture doesn’t really do it justice, but here it is anyways. My house is to the left of where I was standing when I took this picture.

5. I learned to plant rice! I took a few friends over to Pak Kur’s house and helped him plant his sawah (rice field). He let us plant an entire petak (terraced section).

The petak we planted is the one just above where the men are working.

The young rice waiting to be planted, and the rows we did in one afternoon. We came back the next day to finish the right side.

Walking back into the village, we ended up following this guy, another rice farmer. You can’t really tell from this photo, but the guy is wearing a black ski mask with a baseball cap on over the top of it and carrying a hoe over his shoulder. It was both a little scary and a little funny as well. The lengths people will go to in order to keep “cool”… I don’t understand it.

I love the colors of these little plants that grow on the surface of the already harvested petak.

6. Sister times! I didn’t post many pictures from when she was here, so here they are!!

Soto. I promised dad I’d take sister to HIS favorite soto (chicken and rice soup) restaurant, so here is the proof!

I also took her to MY favorite little Indonesian coffee shop. She begged to go back, so that’s a good sign!

And now for the most photographed thing we did together – the animal market in Ambarawa! This is a scary place for white girls, so I asked my good friend Hotjaga to accompany us. He and his son kindly did, and basically all of the pictures below were taken by one of them. Also, I realize that both of us look real rough and not at all put together in these pictures – that was intentional. The nicer you look, the more unwanted attention you get in this almost entirely male crowd. I don’t get called “sweetheart” anywhere else as many times as I do when I go to this place.

First stop – the cock fights! That’s what that group of men up ahead are all watching. We didn’t take pictures of the fight though since cock fighting is technically illegal and us taking pictures would make everyone involved really uncomfortable and nervous.

Next, the black magic man.

Explaining his palm reading charts. And oh, that cloth bag is full of snakes. We didn’t stick around long enough to see what he did with them though.

Next stop – the poultry barn! All those baskets are full of baby ducks, turkeys, geese, chickens, etc.

On to the goats. This guy really liked me.

And then… The ummm… shoes? Good luck finding a matching pair!

Off to the cattle barns. It amazes me how big of a demand for cattle there is given that most people don’t eat beef (too expensive) and that a full grown cow costs about the same as an average Indonesian’s yearly salary! But there are more cattle at the animal market than any other type of animal.

You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but this guy really REALLY wanted me to take a picture of him with his two cows. He was laughing and talking to me, then as soon as I finally pulled my camera out, he got SUPER serious.

This right here is the record holder for biggest bull I’ve EVER seen on Java. This day was also the first time I’ve seen Herefords here (which I’m assuming these are somehow crossed with).

The random caged animals section. This is where people bring in pretty much whatever they can catch in the jungle and try to sell it.

1. Porcupine. Didn’t even know we had those here.

2. Civet? Maybe?

3. All kinds of birds.

4. Puppies, flying squirrels, jungle cats, and chickens. What a combo.

5. The dumbest looking chickens I have ever seen in my life. The looks on our faces say it all. I love that Hotjaga captured this moment.

6. And my favorite part of the animal market – cobra guy! Basically he sets up a tarp and sits under it with a bag of cobras waiting for a paying customer. The customer pays $2.50 to drink the cobra’s blood. The Javanese have a whole list of ailments that cobra blood will cure. It’s also supposed to make men better in bed, if you know what I mean. So here is the process.

1. Wait patiently for someone to say they want a drink. And he kind of just lets the cobra go wherever. I wonder how many times he’s been bitten.

2. AH! Someone from the crowd shouts that they want it. Put the snake’s head in a vise and cut it off with a meat cleaver.

3. Drain the blood into a plastic cup, add some energy drink, lime, honey, and ginger.

4. Turn the snake’s skin inside out and pull it all off.

5. Slice the snake’s body open and snip out some very important internal part and throw it in the cup o blood.

6. Throw the snake meat into another bag (not the one with the live snakes), stir up the cup and hand it to the customer who takes it like a shot – one gulp – then returns the cup to be used again for the next customer. And repeat…

Here we are watching. Question – who is holding that chicken in the bottom left corner? I have stared at this picture for minutes on end, and I cannot figure it out.  Frankly, it is a little creepy.

Oh, good! Cobra man has a pamphlet!

If you ever come visit me in Indonesia, I promise to take you to the animal market. It is always an adventure!

7. How much stuff can an Asian carry on a motorbike? Here is a win. I don’t even know what he is carrying, but it is a lot of it.

8. Wedding times. This past weekend (I know, not summer times, but oh well), a group of friends went to the wedding reception of another one of our friends. It was the most Western wedding I’ve been to so far in Indonesia. At one point, they made all the single people come stand by the stage, and the bride and groom threw two plush basketballs into the crowd. Our new German friend caught one of them and had to go on stage with the MCs. They asked him several times where he is from, but joke’s on them because HE DOESN’T SPEAK INDONESIAN!

They finally realized this, and the lady MC asked him in English, “Where do you come from?” So after that, they just referred to him as “The German basketball player”. One for two. That’s OK. They were giving away a new cell phone, and the girl ended up winning, but Yona was a good sport about it anyways.

After it got so hot we couldn’t stand it anymore, we all went back to our friend Atik’s house. This is usually where you can find us hanging out on Saturday nights, drinking hot tea and talking together.

One of the best parts of the whole night was when some street musicians came up to the house and started playing, hoping for a few coins, and we took the opportunity to have a spontaneous dance party on the front porch. The pengamen (street musicians) thought it was hilarious and even took a request! Ah, I love my friends!

 

Posting all these pictures has been good for my heart. I have such an amazing life here, and even on the days when I just want to shop at Target or eat a steak, I wouldn’t trade living here for the world!