walking

when you own a motorbike, it's easy to forget the joys of walking everywhere. to get in touch with that long forgotten aspect of days gone by (and also because i was a little stir crazy and needed some exercise) i went for a nice long walk last night out through some villages and back home again. i realized that i've been taking my new form of transportation for granted. i do enjoy walking, but i had forgotten about the leering men with their scooter gangs parked on street corners saying things like, "what is your name?" and "i love you, meester!" and creepy men trying to sell me "meatball" soup (i use the term "meat" incredibly loosely) and little children hiding in trees screaming racial slurs at me in javanese. they don't really mean it as a racial slur, it's just the only word they know for a white person.

the good news is that back when i used to walk everywhere, i didn't know any racial slurs to yell back at them, especially not in javanese.

but now i do.

so the trees yelled at me.
i yelled back at the trees.
the trees went deathly silent.
i stopped.
i started to get worried.
did i really offend them?
then the trees erupted in laughter.
and i kept walking.