and the great experiment begins

tomorrow is a new month. a month in which i will be experimenting. out of necessity.

and that experiment is named: how little money can i live off of for a month?

see, due to some money troubles in korea and that place being WAY more expensive than i anticipated or was led to believe, money is tight. this also has to do with the fact that i only get paid once every three months. my next paycheck comes 1 october. so this is the last month of the july-october pay period, hence the tightness. this entire month (august), i have meticulously kept track of every rupiah spent in order to better budget what i have left.

grand total: 1,963,775
translation: about $200

how much money i currently have to live off of for the next month: 1,200,000 (about $120)

i just got finished looking over the last month's expenses, and here's what i spent my money on. (btw, i've never done anything like this before. it was interesting.)

fun/leisure/entertainment: 69,000 ($7)
food: 518,200 ($52)
transport (including gas and upkeep for my bike): 53,000 ($5)
school supplies: 14,400 ($1.50)
bills (LPG, water, electricity, internet, house helper, mail, etc): 1,062,575 ($100)
phone: 102,000 ($10)
tithe: 150,000 ($15) (less than what i should be giving, i know)

ok. i know i can live on less than this. first off, almost HALF of my bills expense was due to me getting slammed with a $50 charge when i came back from korea. who knew i had to pay to get back into the country?! also, i pay my helper $10/week to buy food for me at the market. so my food total should be closer to $40. that extra $12 came from eating out about twice a week. should be stocked up on school supplies. and now that we have a third person living in the building and i FINALLY got her internet up and running, that bill will be split 3 ways instead of 2. and someone was stealing phone minutes from my cell phone, but i think i finally got that blocked.

the bottom line is that i think i can make it. and still afford to have $7 worth of fun this month.

now for those of you who might be worried about me, don't be. God always meets all my needs no matter what. AND if worse comes to worse, i can try to find a way to use my credit card here, which is linked to my american bank account. it just stinks because i lost my pin number and it charges me an arm and a leg for a cash advance. but i had trouble using it in korea, so i ended up having to withdraw money from my indonesian account from an international ATM i found there (praise God for that or i'd have had NO money), which is why my indonesian account is just about empty.

i'm excited to see how this works out. sometimes i feel bad that i already live off of like twice as much as my indonesian friends do. they don't have internet bills or house helpers or pizza once a week.

and also, i'm excited to use this as a way to save money. because the more money i save now, the more i'll have when i come home next summer. and the more money i have when i come home next summer, the more places i can go and the more people i can see!

the down side to this is that i smell like a hobo. i've cut out nonessentials such as deodorant and bodywash. i mean, i live in a third world country, right? good thing i still had a bottle of shampoo and some bar soap.

look what i did!

since i’m the yearbook teacher for this year and since i have never even opened photoshop in my life, i decided to “join” graphic design class, taught by our new girls’ dorm dad – a professional photographer!

i’ve been busy the past few weeks and haven’t had time to ask the teacher if he minded if i sat in, but i finally had a chance to talk with him this week, and he said he’d love to have me. so today was the first time i sat in. i was nervous that i’d be behind after missing the first 5 classes (it meets twice a week), but i managed to keep up.

this here is what i made.

i’d imagine that if you’re at all familiar with photoshop or graphic design, this probably looks like something a 4 year old retarded kid could make in their sleep. but i’m quite happy about it.

because when i started, there was only a white screen in front of me.

ramadan. the holy month.

so all my "cousins" (neighbors of the dominant religion) are fasting this month. well, almost all of them. apparently you can get special exemptions. anyways, because they have to abstain from all earthly pleasures during daylight hours, they wake up at 3:30 or 4 in the morning to eat breakfast so they can fast all day. well, until sundown, when air raid sirens sound all over town letting people know it's safe to eat again. back to morning time though. usually, there's someone who goes around each neighborhood at 3:30 beating a drum or banging a piece of bamboo on everyone's gate to wake them up. after the first day of this each year, i sleep through it. we're well into the second week now...

and apparently, someone decided that banging things wasn't loud enough. someone RIGHT. NEXT. TO. MY. HOUSE.

i woke up very suddenly, panicking, in the pitch dark at 3:30 this morning to the sound of bomb-like fireworks being set off by my neighbors. imagine my discombobulation.

once i realized it wasn't a terrorist attack and got my heart rate back down, i fell back asleep for 3 hours.

siiiiiigh....

new experience. but not necessarily a good one.

alright. so pretty much everyone drops their bike at some point. i mean, if you let the thing lean too far one way or another, it's just too heavy to hold up. and down it goes. and it always happens in front of lots of people. doesn't matter if you're indonesian or foreign, it's gonna happen.

i have seen SO many people drop their bikes, and i have prided myself on the fact that i have been driving motorbikes for over a year now, and i have NEVER dropped one, never wrecked one, and never been stopped by police for anything. sparkling record.

until the one fatal error...

i was driving home from bible study, and as i got close to home, it started raining. ugh. rain? in august? dry season? well, that's a different story. i was one street over from my street. i could go to the end of the street, take a right, and drive down that road til i meet up with the end of my street, and take another right to get to my house, essentially making a giant U and backtracking in the process. but it was raining and ick, so i took the short cut.

the short cut is scary. it is a TINY footpath that goes down a ravine, across an even narrower little bridge over a river gorge that is known for being demon possessed (my neighbors say that the spirits that were in my house a year ago came up from this river), and back up the other side of the ravine. the shortcut ends immediately outside the gate to my house.

so due to the rain and me not wanting to be in it any longer than necessary, i shot down the little footpath. i didn't take into account that the path is bricked over. and that all the bricks are mossy. and that mossy bricks on a steep downhill slope turn to ice when rained upon. i realized my mistake immediately upon hitting said downhill slope, scary river gorge below. back brakes: on. front brakes: on. bike: accelerating downhill rapidly.

now would also be a good time to mention that the trail takes a slight left hand turn before meeting with the bridge. and if you don't make the turn, you miss the bridge. and then... well... not pretty.

so i've got both feet on the ground. no good. felt like ice skating. my bike is going too fast to make the turn. but i can't slow down.

dramatic enough?

in retrospect, it was probably only by the grace of God that right as i hit the turn, my back end slid around to the side and the bike dumped. i had my feet down already, so i didn't go down with the bike. it kind of just fell between my legs and laid where it fell.

i was expecting the commotion to bring people out of their houses to see what had happened (indonesians love a good tragedy), but thankfully nobody was there to see. i picked the bike up, pointed it at the bridge, and went across, praying that i'd be able to make it up the other side. it took some work, but my good ole bike made it up the slippery uphill slope.

then i swallowed my pride and asked the guard at the gate to grab a flashlight and check my bike for me. he'd notice dings and scratches that i probably wouldn't. i told him what happened, and after asking about 50 times if I'M ok, he did a thorough once over on the bike and couldn't find a scratch anywhere. so he made sure once more that i was unharmed, reminded me that the roads are slippery when it rains - in indonesian AND english because he's THAT good, and sent me on my way.

won't be making that mistake again.
and my record is now tarnished. boo.

possibilities

just an hour ago, i had my eyes opened to a need/mission field right here in salatiga. the local university here attracts students from all islands of indonesia. salatiga is a veritable melting pot. it's great living here and being exposed to so many different cultures, all without leaving town. the university is a christian university, but 90% of the faculty are muslim, as are many of the students. they have openings in the mathematics and education departments for foreign teachers. and i was kind of halfway offered a job. as in, "i'll throw it out there and if you're really interested in pursuing this, come talk to me."

if i were ever to do that, my "salary" would be more than cut in half (the salary is $1800/year) and i'd have to move out of my aparment (that i live in for free) and into a boarding house (where i'd have only an 8 x 8 bedroom that i'd pay rent for). so what's the draw? the potential mission field. it was a christian friend who talked to me about it. and that was how he laid it out.

right now it seems ridiculous. but the idea is there, planted in my mind. let's see if it grows now.

wow, yesterday

i kind of feel like i ended last school year and went straight into gallavanting all around the orient then came home just in time to be thrust directly back into a new school year. i'm not complaining. i'm not stressed. but i am busy. just the right amount of busy. besides being at school from 7 until 3 or 4 every monday through friday, each evening seems to have its own event. some regular, some not. monday has indonesian bible study. tuesday has single white girls bible study. wednesdays are a variety, depending on the week. thursday has indonesian english language fellowship. fridays i now help out at the coffeeshop until closing time. saturday evenings are always spent with my indonesian friends. and of course there's church on sundays.

sometimes a girl just needs a break. so the past few saturdays have been that for me. i've been sleeping in. not on purpose. but i've found that after the weeks i have, if i don't set an alarm, i actually sleep about 12 hours straight. amazing. my saturdays as of late have involved pajamas until 2 o'clock, french toast for breakfast on my front lawn at noon, multiple movies, an attempt at reading jane eyre, and other forms of general laziness. it's great.

yesterday was no different. until about 7 o'clock. my indonesian friends and i weren't meeting for dinner until 8 (re-read the first paragraph if you've forgotten what saturday nights are for), so my laziness was extending extra long. though i have to interject here that i did work out and shower. have you heard of the shred? it's about as pleasant as its name would indicate. anyways, at about 7, girl cat (yes, that's her name. her brother is named boy cat. though my neighbor calls him "mr chubbins", a name which i cannot abide.) thought it would be an awesome idea to catch a bat, NOT kill it, bring it into my house, and let it loose under my bed. maybe she was trying to be friendly with the bat - i mean, they DO like dark places, and under my bed is the most cave-like place in my house. when i saw her let herself in the front door and race into my bedroom with something in her mouth, i couldn't quite tell what she had. in fact, i didn't know what it was until i stuck my head under my bed and a bat flew out at me! some minor screaming may or may not have been involved on my part. i closed the cat and bat in the bedroom and came back out to the front room to plan my course of action and write a facebook status indicating that my cat had brought a bat into my house. of course.

first things first, i grabbed my camera and went to take pictures of this live bat in my house. then i shut them back in my room and pondered some more. i considered asking the jaga for help, but last time i did that, he almost got fired (not my fault). and i figured i am like 1000 times its size (the bat, not the jaga... but now i have funny mental pictures), so i should be able to take care of it myself. i thought back to the time i had a snake in my house and decided to replicate my capturing method, which was to throw a tupperware dish over the top of it, slide the lid underneath, then carry it outside. girl cat seemed perturbed that i took her playmate away. bat seemed perturbed to be inside my tupperware. i was just generally perturbed. oh, and jaga seemed perturbed due to all the screaming and me throwing various animals out the front door. but he never said anything or asked about it.

anyways, THAT adventure over, i settled back onto the couch with my laptop on my lap (hence the name) looking for some song chords. after about 20 minutes of this, my laptop started moving ever so slightly. then i realized it wasn't my laptop moving, it was i who was moving. right as i was mentally running through lists of diseases that could cause this involuntary movement, i realized it wasn't me so much as my couch that was moving. well, that's odd. so i smsed yohanes, "did you feel anything? i think i just felt an earthquake." he replied, "no. kmu gila." (you're insane.) i didn't think much of it until 30 minutes later when we all met for dinner - and my friends were talking about the earthquake in jogja 30 minutes ago.

i figure i've lived here long enough. it's about time i get a live bat in my house. and it's SURELY about time i feel an earthquake. i'll just add those to my list of life experiences and stories to tell my grandkids someday.

and as a footnote, jogja is safe. i haven't heard an official report yet, but from students who live there, friends who were there for the day, and other various people at church, they estimate it was around a 5 on the richter. there was some minor panic in the malls and some nightmares on the part of my students who lived through the devastating jogja quake years ago. but everyone is safe and sound this time around. alhamdulillah.

quotes of the day

"you're too skinny to hug!!!" - christy (a senior)

"kamu harus belajar bahasa jawa. ya, karena bahasa jawa dipakai di sorga." (you have to learn javanese. yeah, because javanese is what's spoken in heaven.) - aswan

fish fry – indonesian style

sunday, some friends decided to have a fish cookout, and they invited me along! it was an all day process that started at 5 am when aswan went to market to buy the fish. he and i are both opposed to lake fish, so i strongly encouraged him to lick each fish before purchasing it to make sure it didn’t taste like rawa pening, the sewage catching swamp lake outside of town where most of salatiga’s fish are caught, and the number one reason why i don’t eat fish in salatiga.

i asked him about the fish when i saw him at church, and he assured me that he only bought ikan laut (sea fish). but he said that even though he got there at 5, there were only small ones left, so he bought several.

dinner time came, and i arrived across town at the house aswan (as of 2 weeks ago) shares with two new friends in salatiga – a newlywed couple, mas brili and tante (i don’t actually know her real name because everyone just calls her tante, which means aunt!) from manado. everyone was already there, hard at work. the women were in the kitchen making the sauce, rice, and veggies, and the men were on the front porch cooking the fish. everything was under control, so they put me on photography detail!

the prime ingredient for the fish sauce was cabe – hot peppers! i was also designated taste tester... a dangerous job in this kitchen!

tante also added hot onions, garlic, and salt to the sauce, then ground it all up happily! btw, STANDING too close to this made my eyes water and my throat burn.

veggies – for a well balanced meal. i don’t actually know which leaf this is. we eat a lot of different kids here, and once they’re boiled, they all look the same to me.

sylva was in charge of washing the rice to get all the stones, dirt, and bugs out! and ya, this is a normal thing to do.

the biggest fish, ready to be eaten!

mas brili was in charge of keeping the coals live and flipping the fish over. he’s also the expert at knowing when they’re cooked all the way through. not a single one of those fish were undercooked!

arai and sylva getting more fish ready to be cooked.

the finished product.

but wait! – don’t forget to add a healthy dose of the hotter-than-hades sauce! i’m amazed this stuff doesn’t leave acid burns on the fish.

something else important to remember is to always ALWAYS pose with the food before eating it. this is a MUST.

now THIS is the finished product! you’ll be happy to hear i made it through my fish with only 3 glasses of water! and one of those was because sylva ran out, so she drank my glass while i wasn’t looking.

enjoying our fish together! oh, see those tissues in the foreground? they got those out specifically so people could wipe the sweat off their faces due to the spicyness of the fish. no joke.

something i love about my friends and about indonesia in general is the unity in diversity. each person sitting around our makeshift table represents a different tribe. but it doesn’t matter... because we’re all indonesian.

: )

pacuan kuda

this is something i’ve noticed (which has nothing to do with the rest of this blogpost): in my group of indonesian friends, there are many who are loud and dramatic and like to dominate a conversation. and there are three of us who prefer to watch the conversation swirl around us. those three are me, atik, and hotjaga. often, atik doesn’t get to hang out with us, and so there have been many occasions where hotjaga and i have been able to have some good conversations while all our friends are screaming and carrying on rambunctiously about something totally different.

because of these many conversations, hotjaga knows that something that i miss from home is being around animals. he also knows that i have two horses in america and that when i was little, i reallyreallyreally wanted to be a jockey when i grew up. of course, that phase probably only lasted about 2 weeks, but i still remember it.

and because he knows that, hotjaga invited me to join his family last sunday at the horse races outside town! i got to watch several different heats of various distances. i sat RIGHT beside the track, and for the first several races, i was right in front of the starting gate. cool stuff. i was also right beside about a dozen 8 year old boys who were having the time of their life.

they especially enjoyed the part where the crazy muslim lady thought it would be appropriate to strip to her underwear and dance for us between races. the officials carrying the sticks didn’t find it so amusing when they chased her off the grounds.

hotjaga ended up with my big camera for most of the day. he really is getting to be quite the pro. i quickly slipped into the mindset of “you see one horse race, you’ve seen them all.” not to say that i was bored, but photographing them got old, horse after horse after horse. anyways, here’s some snapshots of the event, most of which were taken by pak hot.

down the homestretch!

ok, so this horse is pretty much amazing. almost as amazing as the expressions on the 3 guys in the background.... (read the next caption)

this guy was easily the tiniest horse in the race. he looked like a donkey about to try and race thoroughbreds out there when they walked him to the start gate. when the race started, his gate DIDN’T OPEN, but they didn’t call a mis-start. he finally forced his way through after the other horses were about 5 – 8 lengths ahead and he took off... and never slowed down. they went once around the 1000 meter track, and he won by about 3 lengths. hero for the day.

the ladies and i sitting in front of the trophy booth! oh, and zidan... he’s not a lady. : )

one of the first pictures hotjaga took with my camera. i love this capture...

notice anything funny about the horse second from left? i laughed when i saw this...

sabarrrrrr! false start!

hotjaga and i

after the race, we went to one of the local stables/farms and they let me walk one of their yearlings.

back to living for the weekends

well, one week of school is over with. i had something suspiciously flu-ey for the first 2 days, but i pushed through and yesterday and today were much better! i'm really enjoying my classes so far. i love my kids. all of them.

but as much as i love school, the REAL fun - and all my freedom - comes on the weekends! this weekend started out with a housewarming party for an indonesian friend... we even had nasi kuning (yellow rice)- real party food, and delicious too! and we even got to eat it after everyone finished getting their picture taken with it. geez... asians. as usual, i was the only white person there. i'm getting more and more used to that to the point of where i don't often notice. tonight, it was made pretty obvious when someone thought it would be a great idea to play "the star spangled banner" on their laptop at full volume then try to get me to stand up and sing it for everyone, since, after all, it's my national anthem. haha... um... no, thanks.

however, i DID get up and sing after that when i went just down the street to meet a bunch of friends for karaoke! i got to be there for almost all of the new teachers' very first indonesian karaoke experience. priceless. i just got home from that, voice hoarse and dancing-on-the-furniture muscles sore. typical...

tomorrow a few friends and i might drive to semarang on motorbikes to see a movie. but for now, i can hear my cats meticulously knocking things over in my bedroom, where they shouldn't be in the first place since i found i'm allergic to them and allergy medicine does nothing to help. so i'm gonna go get that situation under control...

epiphany in the shower

has it really been more than two years
since i graduated college?
sold my things?
packed my bags?
and kissed my family goodbye?

a question...

yesterday, i posed this question to my students in all my math classes:

and i gave them these instructions: write a 1 – 2 sentence answer to this question and bring it to turn in tomorrow. you can write whatever you want. if you think math and God aren’t connected, that’s fine! - but explain why. you can’t just write, “there is none.” it doesn’t have to be long and complicated, but give it some thought.

today, i read the following 37 answers...

now, i don’t know if anyone besides me actually read all 37 of those or not. it’s kind of a long read, i know. but if you did (and maybe even if you didn’t), here’s a couple things you should know.

1. of the 37 kids who answered the question, 25 of them don’t speak english as their first language.

2. of these 37 kids, 9 of them don’t even claim Christ.

and yet, they know... oh, how they know...