public transportation

So last night was a bit of an adventure. Starting today, our school is sending out service teams to various places. Some are traveling east to Madura to work with students in a strictly Muslim part of Indonesia. Most are working locally. I will be going with a group tomorrow to an orphanage in Bawen to paint and love on some kids. (But not to paint on some kids.) The other math teacher, Amanda, is heading up the trip, but there are a ton of kids signed up to go, so I volunteered to serve as another chaperone. Amanda heard of some needs the orphanage has, so we decided to go into town after school yesterday to choose paint colors and to pick up some things we thought they could use. For example, there are 120 children and a handful of widows who live there, and they don't have enough spoons at meal time. The kids share their spoons. So we bought them spoons.
Something you have to understand about shopping in Indonesia is that there is no Wal-Mart. Shopping here is like the opposite of Wal-Mart. It is the anti-Wal-Mart. If you need 6 things, you cannot go to one place. However, if you need 1 thing, you will likely go to 6 places. On occasion you will find exactly what you need on the first try. But those are the times when you get what you want off the shelf, and you take it to the cashier, feeling pretty good about your lucky find. But the cashier rattles off something in Indonesian and points you back to the area of the store where you grabbed the item. So you shuffle back there, wondering what on earth she just said to you. A salesperson indicates that you should approach them, so you do, and they take your item and try to find where it came from. Just as you begin to think that they are putting your merchandise back on the shelf, thereby indirectly forbidding you to buy it from them, they will locate the item and its price and then go and write you a sales slip, which they will then hand to you and point back to the cashier. So then you take the piece of paper back to the cashier and pay her. Then you go back to the other salesperson who by now has bagged your item for you and is waiting with a smile on their face for you to come get your crap. Then, and only then, you may finally leave the store.
So anyways, back to last night. Amanda and I bought some things, traipsing all over downtown to find what we needed. I even found a pair of pants! And they fit! Hooray for my first new clothes in months. That's beside the point. Something else you need to know about Salatiga is that all public transportation leads to Ramayana - the biggest store in the shopping district of town. It is the closest thing we have to a department store. And pretty much all of the other tokos (shops) extend down the street from Ramayana for as far as the eye can see. So Amanda and I started at the big R and worked our way down the street getting what we needed as we went into various little tokos. As dusk approached, we realized that we needed to get back to Ramayana in order to catch an angkota home. An angkota is my preferred mode of public transportation, and up until last night, it was my ONLY mode of public transportation. An angkota is a robin's egg blue mini-van type thing. On the inside, it has a low padded bench along the walls and a metal floor. It comfortably seats about 10, if you're OK with cozying up to your neighbor. We fit 21 once. So every angkota has a number painted on the front and back of it, and each number runs a different route (like buses in the states). And no matter where they are coming from, their routes all end at Ramayana.
Angkotas stop running at 5:30, and as darkness approached, we finally realized that it was about 5:23 and we were close to a kilometer down the street from Ramayana. So we start hurrying back up the street. About halfway there, all hell broke loose. And by that, I mean it started pouring down rain. So there we were, 2 white girls, heavy laden with shopping bags full of spoons and things for orphans, trying to run on wet tile sidewalks (which is comparable to trying to run on ice), through the pouring rain, past the beggars beside the road, through some family's dinner on the sidewalk, until we finally made it to Ramayana. We began running frantically around the few angkotas that were left there, looking for the number 9. No such luck. They had all left already. Amanda and I just stood there looking at each other hopelessly, and behind her, through the pouring rain, I saw our salvation, meager as it was.... A becak!
Welcome to Indonesian mode of transportation number 2. The becak (bay-chak). It is essentially a bicycle rickshaw made to seat one (or 2 children) and powered by unfortunate middle aged men smaller than me. We jumped in. It was dry. We did not fit. Half my butt was in Amanda's lap, and both our laps were filled with spoons. I have always been mildly terrified of becaks in general, mostly because they drive right down the street going about 2 km per hour while buses and lorries fly right by them. Having my first becak experience downtown in the dark in the rain did not inspire confidence. Before our driver even had a chance to don his rain gear and begin pedaling, I was begging Jesus to spare our lives. Amanda had a good laugh. As we began moving down the street, it quickly became evident that it was going to take us about 2 hours to get home at this rate. So we decided to look for a dokar.
Mode of transportation number 3. A dokar is a horse drawn covered carriage. And by "horse", I actually mean "unhealthy looking pony that will probably drop dead from hunger and exhaustion at any moment". Looking for a dokar was a trick in itself. Our becak driver had been gracious enough to seal us into our seats. They usually just have a small awning over the rider to keep the sun off. Our guy had huge plastic sheets that he had thrown over the awning and tied underneath the seat after we got in. Amanda was finally able to shove her head out into the rain and did eventually spot a dokar sitting down a sidestreet. So we quicly paid our becak driver, and ran through even more pouring rain down a dark street where we found not one but TWO idle dokars. We quickly assessed which pony was the least worm-ridden, and we jumped in. From there, it took only about 10 minutes and 75 cents each to get home. 10 minutes well spent on discussing politics. 75 cents well spent on not walking through the pouring rain. The end.