magic

whew, long weekend of teachers meetings over.
we fit in almost 20 hours of meetings between friday and saturday.

i must have been really out of it the first day.
i managed to drink half a thermos of chai before realizing that the milk i made it with was rotten.
i was actually chewing it without stopping to ask myself why i was chewing my beverage.
and then i felt sick all afternoon.

i was initially embarrassed by this.
but then i realized what an accomplishment it was.
i mean, not everyone could do that.
so then i was kind of happy about that.
after i stopped feeling sick, that is.

Whew

this entire week has been go, go, go. and little else. i just realized that by saturday, i will have spent an approximate total of 5 hours at home this week (excluding sleep times). and almost half that was on monday. aish.

shot to heck

as in my grammar.

things i now say include the following:
"i will gonna. . ."
"i have so many works to do."
"homeworks"
"oh, i already get used to that smell."
"durians"
"one time, when i am still little. . ."
"that can be jam karetted." (let's go late)
"i did never want to."
"ok-lah"
"i still cannot eat the durians."
"why your shoes are dirty?"
"when you will come over?"
"why there is eggs in my refrigerator?"
"where we are going?"

sometimes i will start a sentence, get to the middle, realize how bad it is, then stop talking and just hang my head in shame.

for real

conversation yesterday:

yohanes: hey, can you check and see when the academy awards are on?
me: uh... how?
yohanes: just watch for a commercial for it.
me: what channel?
yohanes: i don't know. like star world or e! or something like that.
me: great. when are they on?
yohanes: wednesday.
me: ok. i'll check.

conversation today:
me: you wanted the academy awards, right?
yo: right.
me: sorry, i didn't see any commercials for them. i wasn't home much last night.
yo: it's ok. they're probably not on yet.
me: but aren't the awards tonight?
yo: no.
me: you said wednesday.
yo: wednesday, march 7th.
me: WHAT?!
yo: you have to plan ahead for these things!!!
me: not THAT far!
yo: yes, that far! and since you have tv now, it is your job to keep all of us informed.
me: "all of us" being......?
yo: me.......... and myself.
me: riiiiiight. so what channels?
yo: star world and e! and channels like that.
me: of course. ALL the channels i watch regularly anyways.
yo: right. it's your job now.
me: uhmm... i have a month and a half. i'll start looking in like 5 weeks.
yo: no! plan ahead! remember?
me: no.
yo: it's your responsibility!
me: no.
yo: (yelling as i'm walking away) I'M COUNTING ON YOU!

ke madura lagi

conversation yesterday.

jesse: so are you planning on going to madura with us this semester?
me: no. yes. uh... maybe. i don't really know yet.
jesse: oh, ok.
me: i guess that's coming up quick, yeah? like in a month.
jesse: next week.
me: oh. really? well, are you asking because you need more adults?
jesse: well, so far, it's just me and david.
me: kim isn't going?
jesse: no, she's not strong enough to make that kind of trip.
me: so no female chaperones?
jesse: that's kind of why i'm asking.
me: oooh.
jesse: so you're pretty undecided about it?
me: yeah. i really.... umm... don't, like, uh, want to go back there. ever. but i've been praying about it.
jesse: just because of the culture or because of something that happened there?
me: yes. more just a mix of everything. the culture. the way i was treated. the way i saw other girls treated. being the only female adult. everything that happened. last time was... horrible.
jesse: oh.
me: i guess this is what it comes down to: i want to serve. i'm here to serve. this is a service trip. but this is not the service that i feel called to or service that i am comfortable with. i guess i've been praying about that. i mean, is service something that should be comfortable? but i do know that i'm not the kind of person who can just sit down and start a conversation with a stranger. that's not how i'm wired. and that's so much of what this trip is about. just starting conversations, building relationships, finding open doors. but on top of all that, all those conversations are in a language i'm only half fluent in.
jesse: yeah, i understand.
me: so let's see what happens over the next couple weeks. i guess if you need me to come, i'll come. and if i'm not needed, then i'll just have to pray and see what i feel led to do.
jesse: yeah, well..... that's the thing. i kind of need you to come.
me: then i guess i'm coming.
jesse: is that ok though?
me: yeah. it'll be ok. plan on me coming.
jesse: thank you!
me: (big sigh) guess i'm going back to madura.

newnewnewnewnew

soooo... i am currently sitting on my couch (that still smells like cat pee) in my apartment surfing the net and watching according to jim on tv.

i'm kind of bored with the internet right now. and i really hate according to jim.

but it's the principal of the matter.

I HAVE INTERNET AND SATELLITE TV!

who knew being a missionary could be so good?

next on my list: a hot/cold water dispenser.
then maybe a microwave?

Rain, rain

It rained so much this weekend. And it seems like it made a special effort to only rain when I was somewhere where I couldn’t get away from it. By this morning, I had only one pair of pants that were dry (out of 5 pairs).

Yohanes had a guy building a guitar he designed in the next town over, Ambarawa. But the guy turned out to not be the most honest guy. He kept giving Yo an “It’ll be finished by” date, then we’d drive there to pick it up, and he’d have some story fabricated. And he would sometimes even go in his house (his guitar building shop is attached to the back of his home) and grab one of his little kids to hold while he made up lies about how his kids were sick so he couldn’t finish or some such. It was really frustrating, but Yo, being Javanese, insisted it wasn’t a big deal. I know he was really disappointed every time we went there and his guitar wasn’t done though. The boy eats, sleeps, and breathes music. Designing and building his own guitar is a dream that has been a long time coming. 

Well, I told him that at the very least, he needed to go see the guy and get his materials back. We had taken over some really nice pieces of wood and strings and a pickup and other stuff for this guy to use to build the guitar. I told Yo that if he didn’t, this guy was just going to use it to build someone else’s guitar. So we went yesterday morning. Right as we were getting into town, it started pouring, so Yo put his rain poncho on, and I ducked under the back of it. I hate doing that though, because then my view is reduced to the road whizzing by beneath my feet and it makes me a little dizzy.

We got to the guitar maker’s place and found that the body had been constructed. We thought that might be the case, so we had brought along a guitar case that fits on like a backpack (for easy motorbike riding!). The rain let up a bit, and we decided to leave with all of Yo’s stuff, which the guy grudgingly gave back to us.  Of course, as soon as we started moving, it started raining again. And of course, the rain poncho went over the guitar which was strapped to my back.  No protection for us!

The drive home was a bit terrifying. In some places, the water on the road was so deep it was over the tops of our feet. In other places, there were mini mudslides over the roads.  That road is really bad and full of potholes, but even those are impossible to avoid when there is so much muddy water rushing across/down the road that you can’t even see the pavement.  The 15-20 minute drive took us almost an hour as we made the whole drive going about 10 kph or less in places.  Every car that went by, naturally, sprayed water up at us, so water even got UP our helmets!  A huge tree branch fell and almost hit us, and lightning was striking and thunder was BOOMING. We weren’t even halfway home before I had so much muddy water in my eyes that my vision was so blurry I could barely see. I was sure thankful that Yo was driving.  He did a fantastic job, even avoiding a truck that pulled in front of us (we almost slid out on the river-like road trying to avoid it!). 

By the time we got home, we were literally drenched. There was not a part of either of us that was not soaked, except possibly the VERY tops of our heads.  Even the money that I had in my pockets  (which I was sitting on) was dripping water when I pulled it out!

(Notice the mini puddle in the crease)

When we got back to my house, I was not too keen on walking through my entire house while leaving a massive puddle with every step. So I snuck into the alley behind my house, stripped down, threw everything on the clothesline, and THEN went inside. While back there, I found my cats huddling, terrified, wet, and shivering, in a sink.  So I carried them into the house with me to find a dry place. Naturally, power was out. Taken down by the storm, no doubt.

I dried off and got changed real quick – right into my flannel PJ pants and a warm sweatshirt, and i curled up on the couch with a good book under a fleece blanket.  It was only a couple minutes before cat jumped up on the couch with me. I thought she was looking for some reassurance that she was NOT about to get electrocuted to death, so I started to pet her while she kind of stared off into the distance.  And then I felt something warm running down me. Siiiiiiiick. Out went the cats. Time for another wardrobe change.

(This is how much my cat peed. Correction, this is how much cat pee made it AROUND me and onto the couch. My clothes and my fleece blanket were all pretty wet. And of course, this is the middle of only three cushions, so I could no longer lay on my couch to wait out the storm.)

So. No electricity means no hot water (no hot shower), no music, no TV, no movies. Cat pee on the couch means no more snuggling with a book. The only other seating options in my house are the toilet, the tile floor, or the kitchen table. (But can’t flush the toilet, and the floor was covered in muddy footprints and the remainder of the cat pee that came out when I threw cat off me.) No electricity also means no water to wash my couch/floor with.  So I decided to SMS Marie to see what she was doing. But my phone had gotten so wet that it didn’t work right. The screen was full of water and the keys were all jacked up.  AND it was still pouring down rain.

Luckily (and unfortunately) the same thing happened to Yo’s phone, so after the storm, he came to get my phone and he took both of them to the repair shop. In the meantime, I am using some old PDA he managed to acquire somewhere. But the stylus thingie is missing, so I have to use my fat fingers on the tiny touchscreen.  It’s amazing how much damage one day of rain can inflict.

(View of rain through my front door. It may not seem like much, but the ground here is made to SOAK UP moisture. I’ve only ever seen my front yard flood like this once – when it rained for almost 24 hours straight. This was only after about an hour of rain.)

hospitals

last night i had my first experience with indonesian hospitals. i'd heard a lot of stories, but i had never been to one myself. i guess i should probably start by saying that it was only to visit someone else. nothing to do with my health (or lack thereof, which i guess is usually why people go there).

we had our first solafide meeting of the new year. i almost always go with yohanes since we live very close to each other and solafide is across town. no sense taking two bikes. also, one - if not both - of us almost always has to play guitar. and it's hard to carry a guitar and drive at the same time. so having a passenger helps.

anyways, after sf, yo wanted to go visit his uncle, who has been in the hospital for nearly a month now. he's not very old (maybe mid fifties?), but it seems like his body is shutting down. his kidneys have stopped working, and there must be some other problems too, because the family has been donating blood, which is constantly being dripped into him via an IV line. yo asked if it was ok with me to stop by, and i told him that was fine since it would be a new cultural experience for me! i'm SO thankful that i have the ability to see things that way.

hospitals here aren't so much places you go when you're sick. they are more like places where you go to die. and so your whole family goes with you. and by family, i mean everyone. and everyone you have ever known will come to visit you expressly to shake your hand and say goodbye.

yo's uncle is in his own room, which you enter directly from outside the hospital, kind of like a motel. if nobody had been staying in that room, it would have been completely empty, save for the old sink along one wall. it was all white - white tile floors and cement walls painted white with one flourescent light bulb in the ceiling. the uncle was sleeping in a metal hospital bed that appeared to be about 60 years old. there were no machines and no beeps - only a couple of IVs taped into the backs of his hands.

the family has definitely nested. there were 6 members of the extended family sitting on mats on the floor by the foot of the hospital bed. there was a coffeemaker there along with boxes of food and bottled drinks. there were tons of pillows in one corner, indicating that at least one person is sleeping there every night. since the uncle was sleeping, we visited with the family. i got asked twice if i'm SMA (still in high school). sigh. they gave us food and green tea and told me that i'm very pintar (smart) in bahasa indonesia. don't i wish.

mostly, everyone was speaking javanese, which i will never in my life understand more than a few words of. at just about every break in the conversation, someone would look at me to ask if i understood, and every time, i would shake my head, and every time, they would all chuckle at me.

after about 15 minutes, right as we were getting ready to leave, someone noticed that the IV drip with the blood had stopped. so they got a nurse who came in VERY keras (loudly), yelling all kinds of "how are you doing today?"s and "why aren't you better yet?"s. then she flicked the bag of blood. and when that didn't fix the problem (shocker), she grabbed uncle's hand and wiggled and jammed in the large needle stuck in the back of it. i cringed. then she kind of shrugged and said it was fine. the uncle had been laying on his side with his back to me, but someone in the family announced that a bule (white person) had come to visit him. he got himself turned over far enough that he could reach his hand out, quivering, to shake mine. he was a cute old guy. but his upper arm, near the shoulder, was about the same size as my wrist. he has withered away to something resembling pictures i have seen of concentration camps in 1944. this full grown man now weighs no more than 50 pounds.

right after i shook his hand, yo shook his hand and told him that we were leaving so he could rest more. we headed out the door. but uncle wasn't about to let me go without saying goodbye (even though i thought i already had. apparently, i was only saying hello the first time around.) he let out some unintelligible shriek and stuck his hand out to me again. so i had to go back in and shake his hand one more time.

at the same time, i wished him selamat ulang tahun (happy birthday) and cepat sembuh (get well soon). even though i know it was not a happy birthday in that hospital bed and that he will not be getting well soon.

(near) birth and (near) death

the youngest child that charles and marie have is caleb. i love all their kids immensely, but caleb and i have bonded in some strange way, which is unusual for me and babies that young (3 months). i like them when they have personalities and can say ridiculous things when i ask them questions like “if you were a hypochondriac, what disease would you think  you have?” three years old is best. caleb is the product of a rape and his mom didn’t want him. charles and marie got him at one month old, sick and malnourished. he’s made such a turnaround, you can hardly recognize this as the same baby who came to them 2 months ago.

whenever i’m at their house, caleb just watches me. no matter where he is and no matter where i am. his big brown eyes follow me and his little mouth works and works like he’s having a silent conversation with me. and if he’s ever crying, he stops as soon as i pick him up, and he’s the most content baby in the world then. i can just let him lay in my lap and he’ll gaze up at me and smile for no reason at all.

two nights ago, i was over there talking to marie. i was sitting cross-legged, and caleb was nestled in my lap with his head in the crook of my knee. i wasn’t really paying attention to him; he was just laying there. i happened to look down at him at one point, and he was staring right into my eyes, grinning his little toothless grin. for some reason, i just started to laugh – and then he joined in! a baby belly laugh! and most importantly, his first laugh EVER! and from then on, every time i laughed at something, he laughed along with me. it was SO cute! but then marie told me that babies don’t normally start to laugh  until 5 months. caleb is only 3 months, and because of how hard the first third of his life was, he has every reason in the world to be developmentally behind. but my baby laughed! : )

(caleb smiling up at me and looking vaguely cross-eyed)

i was over babysitting the kids tonight while charles and marie were in smg trying to get some visa stuff worked on. ugh. documentation related things here are awful to sort out. i won’t even go into all that. they got back around 9, and i jumped on my bike to head home. i had gone to tennis lessons for an hour and left the kids with the helper and then went straight back there after. so by 9, i hadn’t eaten anything except some rice, hadn’t showered, hadn’t been home since 7 this morning, AND it was raining. i was ready to be home. so admittedly, given the inclement weather, i was probably going just a little bit faster than i should have. (disclaimer: i’m not particularly reckless though. i realize that with a motorbike, if there’s a wreck, i’m the goner.)

anyways, i was coming up on an intersection, and i saw car headlights coming towards me, but suddenly, the car pulled in front of me, across my lane, to turn on a side street. i figured i had two options. 1. lay the bike down or 2. slam into the side of the SUV. luckily, my brain goes into overdrive in these situations. in the matter of about 1.5 seconds, i realized that there was a bike behind me. laying down was not a viable option. i’d likely take him out too. i noticed the color and make of the car pulling in front of me. a gold kijang. i also noticed that it was backlit, meaning there was another car behind it – traffic coming from the other direction. i also realized that jamming on the brakes would do no good since 1. i was too close already and 2. the road had water sitting on it.

in this state of brain overdrive, i saw an opening and i took it. my first instinct had, in fact, been to lay on the brakes (though not all the way). since the car was moving forward across my lane, i couldn’t swerve in front of it. but behind it… now there was the opening. i knew there was a car behind, but i didn’t know how close. i took a shot. reflexively, i let off the brakes. swerving on that much water WHILE holding the brakes would be disastrous. and i shot through the hole behind the turning car and in front of the car behind it. there was a split second that flashed before me in slow motion in which i actually thought i was going to hit BOTH cars, they were that close together (welcome to asian traffic), and i can just about swear that i saw my left handlebar pass THROUGH the back of the kijang.

i somehow managed to shoot through that hole. and by “somehow”, i actually mean “by the grace of God.” after gulping down a huge, shuddering breath of air, the first thing i did was yell, “THANK YOU, GOD!” and then i almost burst into tears. almost.

in my own “i can do no wrong” mind, i like to blame the other guy who used no turn signal and pulled right in front of me. maybe he didn’t see me. maybe he was exercising his right to the road as the bigger vehicle. either way, i just keep imagining the surprise of the people in the second vehicle (a black avanza, for the record) when a white girl burst into their sight from around the back of the car in front of them. i’m sure i looked like a frantic deer in headlights. a frantic, wet deer on a motorcycle carrying a tennis racket in headlights. now, there’s a pretty picture.

speaking of pictures, i drew one for you.

car two was actually a little closer to jerk, as he had already started to pass. but you get the general idea.

some lists.

i went to indonesian church this week. i understood about 90% of the sermon. but this is what i took away from it:
1. we are all just like chickens. we wake up, make noise, eat food, and go to bed. until we get our throats cut.
2. marriage is like living in hell.

i watched the golden globes last night. it was a good reminder of why i left america. things that annoyed me:
1. avatar. which is essentially pocohontas, but in the future. (http://failblog.org/2010/01/10/avatar-plot-fail/)
2. people who wear sunglasses indoors. especially with tuxes.
3. face lifts. or: the ladies with the plastic faces.
4. the haiti ribbons. what are those even for? did they DO anything? or are they just "supporting haiti" by wearing a red ribbon? because that makes a difference...?
5. "we have the best job in the world. we make entertainment." - james cameron. because, yah, that matters.
6. being ridiculed and told i was too ignorant and backwoods because i didn't recognize sophia loren and martin scorsese. or just about anyone else for that matter.
7. sophia loren.
8. dresses designed specifically to frame outrageous boob jobs. i was actually watching the awards with a muslim friend. a guy. and it was strange. probably even awkward. sometimes it's really easy for me to see why muslims hate us.
9. avatar.

decisions i have to make soon.
1. am i going to keep going to the chicken/marriage is hell church? it was easy to understand the language. but i really just don't fit well in indonesian churches. but are we called to fit? should we be able to worship in comfort? i also don't like the only white/western church in town. this sunday was the first time i've been to any church in almost 2 months. i want the fellowship. i miss the corporate worship. but i have yet to find a church where i ENJOY the fellowship and the worship.
2. summer plans. i was going to come home this summer for the wedding of my bestest friend in the whole wide world. but the wedding is getting pushed back to at least this fall for financial reasons. disappointing, but understandable. so my summer that i thought i would be stateside for is now wiiiiiiide open. i'm seriously contemplating going to sumatra and working for awhile. maybe up to aceh, but probably mostly in the medan area. i also would like to visit singapore and/or malaysia while i'm here. just because.
3. i have some decisions to make about modern conveniences. since melissa is moving to kopeng this week, she's been giving me several things to keep and/or store for her. she's moving from a large house to a tiny room that one bed and a lemari (dresser) will barely fit in. since her current house also serves as a guesthouse for visiting missionaries and an office/home base for members of her org, she didn't want to leave many things there for people to help themselves to. therefore, i am getting a 32 inch flatscreen tv, a modem, a dvd player, and a wireless router. so as long as i can get someone out here to get it all set up, i should have wireless internet and satellite tv in my house sometime this week or next. i suddenly feel thrust into the 21st century. but at the same time, i feel a little hesitant. i like that i've gone a year and a half with no television or internet at home. mostly, i just like being able to drop that piece of information to random people and watch the shock register on their faces. that's right, i'm cool, i don't have a tv. or a microwave. or internet. or consistent hot water. or AC. or a car. i'm carrying my cross. anyways, i don't even know where any of this stuff is gonna fit...
4. tennis lessons. do i want to continue them past this month? it's $35/month for 2 hours a week of practice. i had my first lesson last night. all in indonesian. my arm hurts pretty bad today. i only hit 2 people with the balls. unfortunately, my teacher told me that i play tennis like i should be playing baseball. you're supposed to "push the ball" not "hit the ball". he kept remarking on how strong i am and how i need to be less strong. from one end of the court of the indoor gym, i was hitting tennis balls that were slamming into the wall behind the opposite side of the court without ever touching the floor. hmmmm. it's definitely good exercise, good language practice, and i really like my teachers. but is it worth the money?
5. cats. so far, the options seem to be these: keep them or dump them. sigghhhhhh. neither one is appealing.

a year of change

the coming 6 months or so are going to be hard. our community is a very fluid, very transient one. people come. people go. some stay 2 weeks. some stay 2 years. not many stay very long. already, in only a year and a half of living here, i've built some deep relationships and solid friendships with people only to have them move away. peco was probably the first of my close friends to leave. and that was really, really hard for me. it was a good lesson for me though. i've always been the one who gets to leave and go on adventures. and now i know what it's like to be the one who has to stay.

this year will see a lot of my close friends moving away.
1. gt and wiwik were the first to go, last week.
2. tomorrow, melissa will be moving to the farm about 40 minutes up the mountain.
3. tiff is going to another island for a few weeks to visit tribes and to evaluate if she would like to live/serve there. if yes, she'll be packing up her things and moving shortly. and even if she decides it's not for her, she will be moving from down the street to a boarding house across town.
4. peco is in thailand right now. when he gets back, he may be moving from 2 hours away to a different island.
5. yohanes and ratna will hopefully be moving to join gt and wiwik at the farm on sumatra in june.
6. the linegars (my adopted family here) will be moving to another island this summer.
7. all the seniors will be leaving in may. several of them are more than just students to me.
8. amanda, my friend and confidant (also, the only other math teacher!), will be returning home at the end of this year.
9. almost a third of our staff will either be returning home or taking a year of furlough after this school year ends.
10. two awesome people that i met just last week are leaving this week, jim and christen. i connected with and have immensely enjoyed getting to know both of them over the past several days.

wow. reading back over that is depressing.

the beauty of this is that i have lifelong relationships with people who are going out from this place to serve all over indonesia. God is doing awesome things here. also, all those places are now potential vacation spots. : ) and whenever someone leaves, someone new comes to take their place. it's not always single people my age. but it's always exciting to see who God brings here.

i've heard people here bemoan the fact that the transience of our community has caused them to become somewhat hard hearted. i can see how it would be hard to want to build more than just a casual relationship with someone who you know will be leaving soon. but i've never felt that way. it's not always easy for me to feel close to people, and when those people come along... well, it's worth it. part of that might also have to do with the state of denial i live in. when i meet people, i refuse to think about them leaving because i don't want them to leave. so if i don't think about it, it doesn't hold me back, right?

even so, it's never easy to be the one who gets left behind.

oops, i did it... for the first time

i believe i previously mentioned the guy who stayed in my house for a few days while i was out of town, no? well, he must have been having some serious health issues because in three days, he managed to nearly wipe me out of toilet paper. and besides what was already on the roll, there were two new rolls under the sink. when i came home last week, there was a partly used roll on the dispenser. i, never having fathomed that a man could go through two and a half rolls in three days, thought nothing of it. until that roll was nearly gone. then i decided to check and see how much i had left. imagine my surprise when there was NONE. so i went the last three days with a strict "one square per sitting" rule. mostly because i was too lazy to drive to town to buy more. also, because it has been raining pretty much every afternoon, and who really wants to go out in that?

one last reason has to do with the fact that i tend to do most of my shopping at a store called ada baru. and i hate parking there. the facts are these:
1. the store has a parking garage type thing behind the store. you have to pay rp 500 (a nickel) to park there. you are given a receipt which you then have to hold on to and present it to another person on your way out. i don't know what happens if you lose said receipt. i've always been too scared to find out. maybe there is a dungeon. but the worst part is that the garage is pretty small and always very crowded with a tangle of motorbikes. i look around until i find a spot, i manage to wedge my bike in, and i turn it off. and almost EVERY TIME (there has actually only ever been one time that this has NOT happened), a gentleman will come up to me and tell me in indonesian that i should park "over there" which he will indicate with either a wave of the hand or the chin. so i then have to restart my bike, unwedge it, move it to a new location, and rewedge. i have never understood the logic behind this. there probably is none.
2. the other option is to park in the street in front of the store. there often is no parking available. and if there is not, then you have to drive like a billion kilometers to get around the back of the store to get into the parking garage. if you do park in front, it leaves the bike open to getting hit by a car or getting stolen. also, if i were to leave my relatively nice helmet there, there's a strong chance it wouldn't be there when i get back. so then i have to carry my helmet with me while i shop. and, as i mentioned earlier, it's usually raining, so no chance for a dry bike when you're done. and one last thing - there are guys here called parkirs. they "help" you park and unpark. mostly, this means standing beside you and blowing a whistle to make it look like they are stopping traffic (no traffic actually stops) and then you have to pay them rp 500 if you are driving a bike or rp 1000 if you are driving a car. i consider this a moral atrocity. why should i pay someone to do the nothing that i could do myself? (*note* some parkirs are actually helpful. for example, after eating nasi goreng last week, the parkir actually untangled my bike from those around it and backed it out for me and then took his shirt off and used it to dry my seat (it had been raining while i ate). some will hold your helmet. some will put cardboard over your seat if the sun is blazing so the seat doesn't get too hot. however, roughly 98% of parkirs are useless.)

at any rate, my entire monologue above has nothing to do with my actual story, which is toilet paper. i finally broke down last night, and 15 minutes before closing time, i went to ada baru to buy me some tp. and crackers. i wasn't at home before i left, and because it was a spur of the moment decision (due to a break in the rain), i only had a rp 20,000 bill on me. so i couldn't park in the garage. i didn't have a 500 coin to pay with. and i didn't want to get change for a 20 in units of 500. so i had to park out front and then plan my shopping in a manner that would give me a 500 coin as change to pay the parkir (quite a task when half the items on the shelf aren't labeled with their price). turns out, there was tons of parking. i parked in a nice, wide open stretch along the sidewalk, nodded toward the guy selling cds on the sidewalk, went in, got what i needed, and brought my total to rp 19.250. sweet action. (funny thing is that there is no rp 50 coin, but stores still price things in units of 50 or smaller. the smallest coin is rp 100.)

i left the store, walked over to where i had parked my bike, still in a nice, wide open spot, got on, and tried to start the bike. the key wouldn't go in. i tried again. and again. and then i noticed that the cd guy on the sidewalk was laughing at me. so i looked at him, shrugged my shoulders, and said "apa?" (what?) chuckling, he pointed a little further down the sidewalk. sure enough, there was another bike, identical to the one i was currently sitting on. except that one was wedged so firmly in between two other bikes that it could hardly be seen. so i jumped off the bike i was on, hoping desperately that its real owner wouldn't appear, and managed squeeze onto the other bike. my bike. all the while, the cd salesman was stopping people on the sidewalk to tell them what i had done, and they would all sit there laughing and motioning towards me while speaking in javanese with whoever else would listen to them.

feeling a little foolish, but relatively unflustered, i looked up and down the sidewalk to find the parkir, but i didn't see one. i thought i was free and clear. i strapped my helmet on, backed the bike into traffic, and was all set to take off when a man ran over to me, blew his whistle once, then held out his hand. dang parkirs.

i got home to find my neighbor attempting to throw my kittens over the wall to the language school. she hates them. they wake her (and nobody else) up at night. so they slept in my bathroom. then i almost threw up about 43 times as i tried not to gag over the cat poop smell while i brushed my teeth before work this morning. at least they were good and only went in the shower, which was super easy to clean out. but still. anybody want a kitten?

Bali proper?

i was watching never been kissed for the first time last night. random.
if you haven't seen it, it's about a reporter who goes back to high school undercover to write a piece about "today's youth" (the movie is from 1999).
overall, it wasn't that great, but there was one scene that made me laugh.
i even went online to get the script so that i don't misquote it.
it's when she goes to her first period class and is asked to introduce herself to the class.
this is what happens:

josie: my name is josie geller. i'm a high school student. i'm from. . . (at this point, an attractive guy walks in and she has a flashback to a guy she liked in high school). . . billy?
teacher: excuse me. you live in billy?
josie: b-bali. uh, billy bali. um, it's a suburb of bali proper.
teacher: bali! the island nation of bali! fascinating!

BAHA! so all in the matter of about 30 seconds, bali goes from being a large city to being its own country. the sad thing is that i wouldn't have even known any different had i not moved to indonesia.

cyberstalker

yesterday at teacher meetings, we were given the names of all the prospective teachers for next year so that we can see what positions may be filled and start praying for those people.

i've been cyberstalking. trying to figure out who they are. i want to see their faces. naturally, i started with facebook. there is one will phillips who is considering coming to teach science. do you even know how many will phillips there are in the world? a lot. as i was scrolling through the search results, i found who i desperately hope is the will phillips that will be living here next year.

i think it goes without saying which one caught my eye.

Monsters

Yesterday, GT needed to meet with the people at the farm up the mountain, but he didn’t know the people or the way, so I drove him up there. Since it would be inappropriate for us to share a bike, we each drove our own. He always teases me about driving a Beat (a relatively girlie bike with a small engine) and how I’ll never be able to keep up with him.  Once we got back to Salatiga though, he told me that I drove so much like an Indonesian that it’s scary! In a weird way, that was quite a compliment to me. But wow. Look out America… Me in my ‘85 Silverado zipping around semis on the right on I69 around a blind curve! Oh, wait… I sold that truck before I left. Danget.

I got back from our drive last night, and almost immediately got an sms from Mel asking if I want to take tennis lessons. My new motto has become “why not?!” So guess who is taking tennis lessons starting next week? Yup. I’m totally gonna get my teeth whitened and start running around in white tennis shoes and tiny pleated skirts with cable knit sweaters tied loosely around my shoulders. Oorrrrrrrr not. The situation though is that Mel pays for a month of tennis lessons in advance, but she’s moving to the farm this week, which is about a 40 minute drive up the mountain. So I’m finishing out the already-paid-for month with her instructor. And if I like it and can actually hit the ball, I may continue. I met and talked to her teacher last night for like 45 minutes (in Indonesian!), and he seems like a really cool guy. He’s a Christian, and he’s been teaching tennis for 15 years. He started teaching as a way to put himself through college! I’m a little nervous that I’m going to break someone.

it seems that little yohanes has acquired a large number of durian lately, and several friends gathered last night at his place to consume them. i can tell who my true friends are by who invited me and who didn’t. the people who didn’t invite me, of course, are my friends. i went over after tennis and after the durian had all been eaten. unfortunately, the stink still lingered. but we sat in yo’s front yard with a guitar singing songs in english, indonesian, and javanese. i love my friends. yo had been babysitting and playing my guitar over christmas break, and i finally got that back from him last night.

so i came home, plopped down on the couch, and started playing guitar for the first time in three weeks. i played through a couple songs, then happened to look up to see a worm crawling across the kitchen floor. now, this may not seem like a problem, but these worms are scary. when it rains out, they often will wriggle under my door and around my floor for awhile where they eventually die. (i don’t know why they come into my house. there is no dirt on the floor. through no fault of my own, my house is really, really clean.) if the worms are little, i just let them be. but if they are big, i try to get them out. i don’t want to accidentally step on them. there really is nothing like worm between your toes on a summer evening. the only problem with getting the worms out is that when you touch them, they stiffen their bodies like a stick and start maniacally flipping themselves end over end until you back off. every time one comes in my house and i contemplate throwing it out, i imagine myself touching it and it opening its mouth and another much LARGER worm with tentacles and teeth swooping out of its mouth, grabbing me by my arm, and slowly devouring me, limb by limb as i struggle and scream but nobody hears me. until there is nothing left in my house but a lone cricket chirping and a seemingly harmless earthworm wriggling across the floor. i drew you a picture. i wish real bad that i was a cartoonist right now.

so anyways, this was a pretty large earthworm of nightcrawler proportions. and i didn’t want it in my house. and i decided i had to get it out. so i set my guitar down and went over to get it. and then i thought to myself, “my… that very large worm has a pink tongue. and it is flicking it in and out of its mouth…”  yeahhhh… about that… there was definitely a baby snake. in my house. after i took a picture (see below) i quick grabbed a garbage can and put it over the snake to contain him. but then i noticed that the garbage can was a plastic woven thing and that the gaps in weave are like 4 times the diameter of the snake. that wouldn’t do. so i grabbed a tupperware-type dish from under the sink and put it over the snake. my plan was to ask the guard to come kill it. but it was scaryjaga at the back gate and i didn’t really want to ask him to leave his post and come in my house. so i slid the lid under the bowl and managed to get the snake inside of it. then i carried it, shaking, out to the jaga who yelled in surprise when i showed him. then a long discussion ensued about what to do with the captured snake. first he wanted to know if the snake crawled in there by itself. um, no. then he decided he should kill it or else it might kembali (come back). then he told me i need to close my doors. but i told him that snakes can get under it. so he decided i should get my door fixed so it goes all the way to the ground. then he asked if i needed the dish the snake was in. i said i wanted it, but if it was impossible, ga pa2 (no problem). so then he decided that he didn’t want to kill the snake because he would be kasihan (an expression that kind of means to pity someone/something) so he was going to carry it away and set it free. so out the back gate he went. a few minutes later, he returned with my dish and told me that he let it loose by the language school. haha. joke’s on them. then, mr jaga proceeded to regale me with tales of all the biggest snakes he’s seen around here in his lifetime. for the biggest one, he used his arm to demonstrate. that is a big snake. he saw it near my house. but years ago.

they say the smaller a scorpion is, the more poisonous it is. i wonder about snakes.

first day back and already. . .

me: define circle.
luke: three point one pi squared radius divided by two.

jordan: do you miss david?
me: yes.
jordan: let's have a memorial service.
(david moved to america over break)

big sigh

there is a job opening.
for a math teacher.
at my school in africa.
the superintendent emailed me.
and asked me to apply.

siiigghhhhhh...

showdown

here's my showdown with the monkey who tried to steal my ice cream.

he was dumb and i didn't like him.

also, he didn't get my ice cream. or my bag.

i've had a few share-worthy adventures since being back in town.

as stated previously, i only slept the entire first day back.

but the second day, i went up the mountain to visit a farm/school near kopeng. it's run by a christian indonesian family who all speak near perfect english. the mom is a math professor at a local university! the school is a boarding school for poor high school students from all over indonesia. they come to live, work, and go to school on the farm. they are assigned an area to work on, and besides doing their schooling, they are in charge of maintaining their area of the farm. they get to keep the profit from their crop. some work on the mushroom farm, some work with livestock, some work in the fish hatchery, and some work in the crop fields. they grow all kinds of things there, and they also work with local farmers to improve their farming methods and improve their product. they also do a lot of experimentation to come up with different kinds of foods to make with their produce! things like pumpkin cinnamon pretzel twists! by the time each student graduates, they have a trade that they can continue if they choose not to go onto college. melissa is going to be moving in with them up there to help teach english and to work on the farm, but mostly to continue her study of indonesian language and culture. i have to say, after being there and meeting the people, i'm quite jealous. i'm contemplating moving in with them after mel moves out in may, because their school year doesn't end until july. we'll see what works out.

the head of the school, samuel, is also a pastor in sala3 and is trying to start a homeschooling program here in town. he homeschools his youngest child, and his oldest is currently attending high school in idaho. after just 1st semester in the states, she has the highest GPA at her school. i talked a lot to samuel about the various things he's involved in, and he asked me if i would be willing to help out with some things such as teaching english and helping to start this homeschooling program. i'm excited about that. homeschooling isn't common here in indonesia, but it's slowly making its way here from australia. i'm also excited just to have these opportunities to help and to serve.

another great adventure came yesterday evening. some of us decided to go out for nasi goreng (fried rice). my friends knew of a fantastic place that i had never been to. it was under a tarp on the sidewalk, and there was one older gentleman sitting there making nasi goreng to order. it was raining, so we all huddled together under his tarp on a small wooded bench. the guy looked at me first and asked "pedas apa?" (what hot?) knowing all the words but not understanding the meaning of a question is one of the most frustrating things i've encountered in learning language. as i was trying to decipher what "what hot" could possibly mean, melissa shouted out "sepuluh!" (ten!) the kind old gentleman promptly proceeded to grab ten cabe (reputably one of the hottest peppers in the world) and throw them into the skillet. after mashing them up and frying them in oil, he added the rest of the ingredients: noodles, rice, chicken, garlic, more oil, water, soy sauce, and msg (definitely one of the healthiest dishes in asia!) as i watched in shocked horror. yeahhhh.... i decided to be a brave girl and try it. definitely lit my lips on fire with the first bite. and then ate two more bites before i could go on no farther. i felt bad though. i couldn't waste an entire bowl of rice in front of this old man and my indonesian friends. susu took pity on me and ate the entire bowl for me while ariel ordered me a new bowl with only 2 cabe. thanks, guys. you probably saved my life.

i spent wednesday babysitting 8 children under the age of 8. while it was pouring rain outside. in a house with no windows, doors, or electricity. speaking of which, charles and marie moved. ironically, to a house with no windows, doors, or electricity.

it was so hot in gili that now i'm freezing in salatiga. it's been rainy and cold all day. right now, i'm wearing jeans, socks, two shirts, and a jacket.

i got a box in the mail today! from one ruthie jacoby. it totally made my day. i never thought i would be so happy to get clothes from goodwill's half off saturday sale! they still even smelled like goodwill! also, ruthie sewed me a dress! a beautiful, white dress that i adore! thanks, ruthie. : ) and thank you dan for the awesome ccc cd that i put in RIGHT AWAY. ironically, the first song i clicked on was "home". and i sat there and listened to it while the rain absolutely poured down outside my door.

ok. that's all for now.

holidaying

so now that i’ve had some time to be home, relax, and catch my breath, i will regale you with tales of adventures. but only minimally. i don’t really feel like writing (gasp!), so instead, i’ll rely more on some colorful pictures.

the entire first day of vacation was spend simply getting to our destination. we took a car to jogja at 6 am where we boarded a train to surabaya. our flight from there to lombok had been delayed 7 hours, so we spent some time in some of the biggest malls in asia. luggage included. ugh. we had fun taking taxis around town since yo always invented colorful tales about who we were for our taxi driver. peco, mel, and i were quite the characters, depending on what taxi we were in. i don’t condone lying… but telling tales is fun. we all did an awesome job acting out whatever yo told the taxi driver about us.

much later that evening, after a flight, a car, a boat, and much walking, we made it to our bungalows on gili air where we spent the next 6 glorious days. it was incredibly hot there, but we made the most of swimming, snorkeling, relaxing in the shade, and eating tons of good food. we visited a sea turtle nursery and walked all the way around the entire island while there.

a baby sea turtle!

my view while snorkeling.

the four of us were traveling with a family with 2 young children. unfortunately, both kids got sick while we were there (one had an ear infection and one was teething), but in spite of all these things, we had an awesome time and we were all safe and (relatively) healthy!

new years eve was fantastic and might actually be my favorite holiday of the year these days, surpassing even fourth of july! our hotel served us a free dinner of baked fish and papaya curry and vegetables and rice. we stayed up talking and playing games for hours and we knew the new year was here when fireworks started going off all over the island. shortly after that, yo, peco, mel, and i decided to go for a swim. at 1 in the morning. in the ocean. beneath the full moon.

i even overcame my irrational fear of coral and dove in! it is basically impossible for me to sink in saltwater, so i just floated around in the ocean on my back watching the moon and thinking about God and all the good things He does. until peco and yo realized that neither of them could float without sinking, so they decided that i wasn’t allowed to either.

after swimming, everybody was pretty tired, but i tried to convince them to carry on last year’s tradition of staying up for the first sunrise of the year. they got a little cranky with me at that point, so i was the only person to stay up all night. i sat in a hammock for the remaining hours before dawn. and it was totally worth it!

first picture of the new year

after i showed the guys my pictures and told them how awesome the tidepools were at 5 AM, they asked me to wake them up the next morning for the second sunrise of the year. i was happy to acquiesce. we found all sorts of cool stuff! it always amazes me how big the world underwater world is and how most people never even get to see it.

a sea krait! one of the deadliest snakes in the world! it swam right up to me!

buddies

underwater plants

some strange kind of starfish?

gathering things in the coral at low tide

second sunrise of 2010

on 2 january, we took a boat to lombok (the island in the picture above, across from gili) and from there, got on a bigger boat to bali. from the big boat, we had 2 dolphin sightings!

once we got to bali, we rented motorbikes to drive ourselves and all our luggage to our house in ubud where we spent the next 2 nights. ubud is one of my favorite places to visit. there is only one downside to ubud, and that is the large monkey forest there. while walking by one day, a monkey ran out and jumped on my head and tried to steal my ice cream. but luckily, i’ve had tons of practice with monkeys, and he didn’t get any of my tasty treat.

ubud road, near the monkey forest

the guest house we stayed in basically transported me back in time. the house was owned by a family who rented it out to visitors. so i had lots of fun exploring all the desk drawers and bookshelves! it was right on the edge of the sawah (rice fields) and the house was made of wood, and it was all open air. electricity was an obvious afterthought. there were old black and white photos on the walls of white people (possibly the house's owners/builders?) being carried through the balinese jungles on the shoulders of scantily clad natives. because of its locale, we had to scare away snakes and lizards on a regular basis, the house smelled like cow manure, and there was a rooster who crowed for us every morning. naturally, i loved it. the bathroom was open air as well, and though it was secluded from the outside, we quickly realized that the shower could be seen clearly from several places in the house. showering itself became an adventure! but i have to say, that shower is probably the best one i’ve ever used. maybe it was just because it was the first fresh water i’d had in a week. also the first warm water… but i like to think it was the exhiliration of being buck naked outdoors with the sun shining on my face while i shampooed.

outdoor shower!

me and mel’s bed. thank God for mosquito netting!

it is worth mentioning that while in ubud, we got to eat some of the world famous balinese suckling pig (babi guling). we also got to eat at an organic restaurant – VERY hard to come by in indonesia – and we even ate real mexican food! one of our last stops there before heading to kuta was the lotus temple. it is one of many ancient hindu temples still in use on bali. and everybody knows that old temples are always very photogenic.

the lotus temple

if i had to pick a favorite hindu god, it would be him.

since we had to fly out very early in the morning on the 5th, and because the airport is very far from ubud, we decided to spend our last night in kuta – the shopping/party center of bali. we loaded up and got a car to drive us there, but once there, we had no plans. and since it was the holidays, hotels were either very expensive, very full, or both. after hauling all our luggage around for over an hour, we finally found a dive hotel that charged $12 a night. it was so bad that the proprietor was actually surprised that we were staying there and told us that maybe we should check out some other hotels before making a decision. but we were exhausted and hungry and decided to stay. after dumping our stuff, we headed to hard rock on the beach to eat dinner! i have to say, after living in indonesia for a year and a half, a $15 burger with bacon and real cheese and french fries is so worth it. even in spite of the guilt of knowing that in salatiga, that money would feed me for 2 weeks. while there, we met up with some other friends and ended up staying up all night (which worked out well since i was pretty scared of the bed in my hotel room and the sign hanging above it that read “please remember that you are responsible for your own security while sleeping”).

the next morning, we boarded our plane back to jogja, then bussed back to sala3. i didn’t realize how tired i was until hotjaga opened the back gate for me and tried to have a conversation with me about my vacation, and i couldn’t say a single intelligent thing. i came inside, showered, and promptly fell asleep for 18 hours.

gosh, i love vacation.

happy new year

home again.

feels good.

i stayed up all night to see the first sunrise of the year. again.