so i found myself in a bit of an interesting situation this week.
a situation that i was none too fond of.
the men of our school (teachers, parents, students, and guards alike) were playing a soccer game tuesday evening, as they do every tuesday evening, against an indonesian team. i, having nothing else to do with my evening and being a soccer fan, decided to sit out and watch them. some indonesians were there watching the game, but i didn't see anyone from our school out there, so i just sat down in the grass at one end of the field to watch. all was going well, and we even scored a goal. then two young looking indonesian guys walked by me and were making cat calls and trying to ask me questions as they passed. this is normal. all the time. i ignored them. which is the necessary response.
they sat down a few meters away from me, and they alternated between watching the game, chatting together, and hollering things at me. i continued to ignore them and pretended to be far more engrossed in the soccer game than i actually was. they apparently took that as an invitation to come sit with me. and not even beside me. but directly in front of me and in my face.
so sigh. i was hoping for a quiet evening of enjoying soccer. but, trying to be somewhat optimistic about my current situation, i decided that at least i could practice some indonesian with them. they spoke no english besides "yes" and "no".
admittedly, the indonesian practice was good. they taught me some new words. i got to practice what i know. i asked them some questions. whenever they asked me a question i didn't want to answer, i just pretended i didn't understand. "do you have a boyfriend?" "what is your cell phone number?" "what is your last name?" "where do you live?" "do you live alone?" "do you like javanese men?" wow. so we kind of just sat there by the soccer field chatting and half watching the game still.
one of the guys seemed quite decent and sat a few feet to my right. he was very polite and respectful of me. the other guy, not so much. he sat as close to me as he could without actually touching me, and kept finding reasons to put his hand on my leg or my arm or to try to hold my hand - behavior that would be uncomfortable and unwanted between strangers in america, and behavior that is outright indecent and unacceptable here. he was also telling me that i am beautiful and he loves me. i kept telling him he didn't and stop touching me.
by this point, i was pretty uncomfortable, but i was faced with a problem. i couldn't go home. my house was immediately behind me, in eyeshot of where we were sitting. and i did NOT want this guy knowing where i live. i didn't have my keys on me, so i couldn't get in anywhere at school. there were also no other whiteys in sight. so as i was formulating my escape plan, a third guy came.
this guy won the prize for most redneck indonesian i have met. he was wearing torn up jeans and a supremely faded black v-neck t-shirt, which was obviously being used to conceal something. he was shorter than me, had a mullet, a pot belly, some seriously screwed up teeth, and a moustache badly in need of trimming.
the other 2 guys introduced us and we shook hands, as is custom. he plopped down with us and the guys began asking me if i like to smoke and drink. i just kept saying no over and over and over in response to all their questions. old guy pulled out a pack of cigarettes and asked if he could smoke here. i told him it wasn't allowed, since we were on the school campus. so he pulled a bottle of nasty wine out of his pants and asked if he could drink. i again told him it wasn't allowed. so he popped the lid off and they passed the bottle around. they tried to convince me it was nonalcoholic. but i could read the label. and i could smell their breath. i may have been homeschooled, but i'm not THAT naive.
less than 2 minutes after the lid came off the bottle, an on duty guard came over on some completely unrelated business. polite guy shoved the bottle of wine down the collar of his shirt. but apparently his one swig had gotten to him, because he left the neck of the bottle completely sticking out of his collar beside his head. these guys could have been on an episode of cops. the guard immediately saw it, asked what it was, and then asked them to leave. as they were getting up, i declared very loudly, "saya bilang tidak boleh!" (i said you weren't allowed!) oh, if looks could kill....
as they left with their... umm.... beverage.... i was silently thanking God and mr jaga for saving my evening. naturally, as my luck would have it, they came back about 3 minutes later, apologizing for having to leave me alone earlier. thanks, guys. what gentlemen.
pretty much as soon as they sat down, i realized that i could no longer sit there. i had to get away. so i excused myself, claiming that there were lots of mosquitoes, and i had to go home. and i just started walking. i walked to the back gate. i walked out the back gate. i walked down the street. i walked to the coffeeshop. by the time i got there, i was pretty worked up. to the point that i was shaking all over.
because really. the way they were behaving around me and treating me..... that was NOT ok. it was not decent. it was not culturally appropriate. and there was nothing i could do about it but walk away. and plus, i began to be afraid that the jaga might have thought they were my friends and/or that i was drinking with them, since we were all sitting there together. i told charles and marie (my friends who own the coffeeshop) what happened, and they were pretty mad about it too, but they had to leave. so charles made me go sit in the coffeeshop with their new employee (and my good friend), yohanes kecil, and tell him the story over again.
so i did. and he got angry too and apologized about a million times. i was pretty sick of talking/thinking/being worked up about it, so we started talking about music (his favorite subject) while he cleaned and closed up. then he declared that he was taking me home and making sure those men were not still there.
so we jumped on the vespa and drove home. my knight in shining armor.
i went and found the jaga the next day and after apologizing for my not-good-indonesian, i explained to him that i wanted him to know that those men were not my friends, i did not know them, and i was not drinking with them. he kind of just laughed the whole thing off dismissively, so i'm not sure how my explanation went over. but really? defending my honor in a language i barely speak... HARD!
i'm still pretty burnt up about the whole thing. and i almost vowed never to so much as look at an indonesian man again. but that's a little ridiculous. maybe just not at sporting events. and definitely not ones with bulges under their shirts.
other highlights of that day: sharon had a baby boy! hurrah for chase michael!
also, i made my first GOOD batch of rice. it wasn't damp or sticky or soggy! it only took 9 months.... but i think i know the trick now.
in other news, today is election day (primaries). the presidential election will be on july 9. indonesia has 38 political parties, so whoa. earlier this week they decided to declare today a holiday, so things are pretty much shut down, minus all the people rushing around to their hometown to vote before the polls close at noon. sheesh.
No comments:
Post a Comment