gotta love these early morning moments

my question is:

WHERE'S

A

GOOD

GECKO

WHEN

YOU

NEED

ONE?!

temple adventure

the main temple at prambanan
Originally uploaded by i_am_amity

so there was this guy who loved this girl. he was totally crazy about her. she was the most beautiful woman in the land. and he tried and tried and tried to win her heart, but she wasn't really in to him. so finally, as a means of getting rid of him, she told him that she would marry him ONLY if he could build a thousand temples for her in one night only. so he set about his job. he worked furioiusly all night long, constructing different buildings and prayer rooms and pagodas, laying every stone carefully into place. he wanted to succeed so badly that he got spirits from the underworld to come help him. near morning, the beautiful woman woke up and realized that he was almost finished. she got scared. she never expected him to actually finish the temple! so as he was finishing the 999th temple, the lady started to run around town, waking people up, and telling them to pretend that it was morning. and because she was so beautiful, they did what she said. they even lit a huge fire near town so that the roosters would see the light and start crowing. so right before he laid the last stones of the 1000th temple, the spirits abandoned him - they heard the roosters crowing, and they can't be out in daylight, so they had to go. and he lost. prambanan temple still stands as a memorial to his efforts and as a place sacred to hinduism. it has stood since 900 AD. and yesterday, i went to see it. : )

kepada parjo

ini untuk mas andre aja.
karena dia bilang "merdeka" bukan bhs indonesia.
andre = parjo.
parjo besar.
:p

andre,
skarang ada dua blog dlm bhs indonesia!
bkn bohong!

dn aq menulis ini dngn "code".
tdk ada orang d mrika yang bs terjemah online.
ckckckckckckckck.

Thy kingdom come

you ain't seen nothin yet

ORANG TUA-KU AKAN DATANG!
BULAN OKTOBER!
AKU GAK BISA MENUNGGU!
: )

human of the year

lunch time was very, very strange today.
i always eat with the students.
because i guard the girl's dorm food from theft by non-dorm kids.
and i get a free lunch in exchange. :)

i was assembling me a chicken sandwich when glory plopped down next to me.
then he leaned over and dumped a spoonful each of kimchi (korean fermented spiced cabbage), tuna, and fruit salad in mayonnaise on my half-made sandwich!
then he swiped my juicebox and passed it off to another kid who drank the whole thing.
then mr jameson (who guards the boy's dorm food) took pity on me and told me to come drink some of their beverage.
but i think their pembantus put tea leaves in the cold orange juice mix drink.
it made me gag. and mr jameson laughed.
then a little while later, mr jameson invited me to try a cookie he had.
it was a snicker doodle. and it tasted EXACTLY like moth balls.
truly a baked marvel.
i took a bite, threw the cookie back in the bag, then spit my bite back in the bag too.
i exclaimed loudly enough over this cookie that students HAD to try it too.
so mr jameson began breaking them off pieces.
and then, not knowing that it had been in my mouth, he fed the last damp piece to poor unsuspecting won.
i told jameson what he'd done, and we had a good laugh over it. and after she swallowed and asked why it tasted so bad, jameson told her it was because i had already chewed it.

so there we were, all huddled around the boys dorm food screaming and gagging and spraying juice and bites of cookie everywhere. and ye jun actually threw up a little in the grass.

then glory came over and gave me a brand new juice box.
i think he went and bought it from the school snack shop.
my goodness - the boy has a conscience!

lunch today was truly a culinary adventure.

flickr mail

horns
Originally uploaded by i_am_amity

Hello,

I would like to seek your permission to use the picture of the goat (titled Horns) that you have on your profile. I am helping a friend to compile a leaflet about the safe transportation of livestock in Australia. It is not for profit and the leaflet will be distributed to farmers, truck drivers and stock men.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Steve.

(my thoughts: what? hmmmm...... interesting.....)

moon over parma

the fun conversations never end. : p

bethanie: what do you want to be when you grow up?
me: i don't know. probably a cowboy.
bethanie: oh.
me: what do you want to be when you grow up?
bethanie: six.

in makro yesterday (the indo equivalent of sam's club)
charles: hey parji (my slightly offensive nickname given to me by chuck), you need some of these? *points to an enormous bag of adult diapers*
me: WHAT?! NO!
charles: you can plan for 30 years.
me: you're only giving me 30 years til i need some?! until i'm FIFTY?!
charles: *laughs*
me: because if so, mister, i've got news for you! you're a heck of a lot closer to fifty than i am!
charles: no. i'm 26.
bethanie: PAPI! no you're not! you're 78!
charles: YOU'RE 78!
bethanie: no. i'm 4.

at the checkout line, after replaying the above conversation for marie.
marie: bethanie. how old is mommy?
bethanie: uhmmmmm..... 25?
marie: i love you.

marie has always told me about how awkward she feels carrying sammy (her adopted son) around in public. she's a white lady with a very, very dark indonesian baby. often people will ask her rude questions such as why she would adopt/love such a dark baby. these typically come from chinese indonesian people, who take a lot of pride in their lighter skin color and can't understand why a white (high class) person would choose to have a dark (low class) baby. i've always sympathized with her, but yesterday i got a taste of it... i carried baby sammy around most of the day. in makro, in the mall, in the grocery store... and i got so stared at i wanted to hide and cry. i couldn't believe the audacity of people! people would walk right up to me and look down at sammy, up at me, down at sammy, up at me, down at sammy, shake their heads, walk up to someone else, and start pointing and whispering. i am not even exaggerating. this happened multiple times. it was AWFUL! i learned how to say "what are you looking at?" in javanese. too bad it's really really hard to say = "ndeleng apa?" it's good to know these things anyways.

haha. i just asked the cleaning man in my room how to spell ndeleng. and now he's teaching me javanese. i now have the words for eat, drink, write, buy, travel, and look written on a piece of paper on my desk with their indonesian translations. : )

i love how excited people get to teach me things here.
and i wish i could teach people not to stare at me and my sammy.

eating spaghetti

i think my favorite phrase in indonesian is this:
badan saya tidak enak.
my body is not delicious.
(i don't feel good)
and the best word to use is:
nggak.
no.

my favorite food accessory now is:
yellow peppers.
they are great in everything.
or even just mixed in with plain white rice.

my favorite sight lately has been:
the mountain in the morning.
it has been so clear and the mountain has so many folds and hills.
i can see the shadows filling every crack and the sun hitting every rise.

my favorite sound right now is the bamboo man in the morning.
he walks down my street banging bamboo together at 3:30.
this is to wake everyone up so they can eat before prayer.
then they fast until dark.
i don't know why i like waking up to the sound of the bamboo man.
but he is a very comforting sound.

and my favorite feeling is:
falling back asleep, snuggled in my bed, after the bamboo man leaves.

that's why the lady is a tramp

ella fitzgerald is so enjoyable.

yesterday, i ate a bit of lunch which seemed to compound my problems.
so i taught one more period, then got permission to go home at the beginning of 6th period (i don't teach then).
i walked into my house where my pembantu, ibu sri, was cleaning.
she asked why i was home early, and i told her i was sick.
so she made me sit down, gave me a 15 minute back/shoulder massage, then gave me a glass of water and sent me to bed.
i swear, that lady is magic.

i woke up after three hours, feeling even worse, and mostly just laid around all night.
one student brought me over some korean cure-all remedy stuff and made me drink it.
it was quite tasty - like warm, fermented apple juice.
then yohanes came over with some alka seltzer (which he pirated from another ex-pat family for me) and peppermint tea.
so after i drank all my drinks, my stomach was really full.
but after the initial "my stomach is deciding whether or not to (r)eject this stuff" stage, i actually felt QUITE a bit better!

so thanks everyone who prayed for me and brought me medicines. : )
God takes care of me in so many little ways.

if you have 5 minutes to spare, check out this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8206280.stm

best thing i've seen all day.

feeling the love

last night i was hanging out with a couple friends, practicing our english. (yes, "our" english - they were teaching me some things - like past tense for drink. aish.) we had the following conversation.

me: guess what i thought of today?!
dedy: what?
me: i have been here for 2 tujuh belas-es (independence days).
dedy: yeah.
yo: so?
me: that means i only have ONE MORE LEFT!
yo: i can't even imagine the day you leave. that is too sad.
me: i know, right? when i leave, i'll probably cry for a month.
yo: me too...
me: *struck by how loved i am and by what wonderful friends God has given me*

at some point while we were hanging out last night, i got food poisoning. thankfully, not nearly as bad as last time. but i still only slept 3 hours, from 2 - 5. at 5, evacuation of the bowels began. at 6.30, when i realized that this was not going to just go away, i called the principal about 8 times at 3 different numbers from 2 different phones. nothing would connect. i decided that was God telling me to suck it up. i've never had a sick day. why start now? 4 periods down, 2 to go. i think i can, i think i can, i think i can....

i cannot wait for 3 o'clock.

SBY

"After more than four weeks of waiting, finally we can pop the champagne corks or cut the yellow rice cone, and celebrate the final outcome of the presidential election." - Jakarta Post

1. If Americans had to wait 4 weeks for election results, there would be some seriously negative repercussions. Like, someone would wake up with a severed horse head in his bed.

2. Where else in the world are champagne and yellow rice equally valid ways to celebate elaborately?

3. Is there a misplaced comma in there?

MERDEKA!

whoa, nelly

i had an indonesian friend ask me what it means "when australia person say to me 'get away from me you dirty f&^^%$# pirate whore'. is that bad?"

how do you even answer that?

aish.

also, i totally forgot to mention costs when i was regaling you all with tales of backpacking adventures.... one of the best parts of the trip was that we spent 9 days backpacking here for around $75. and what makes that even better is that the train to and from jakarta cost a little more than half that (about $42). and our first meal (we splurged, knowing we wouldn't get good food for awhile) was $5. let me do the math for you. we ate, slept, traveled, and lived off of just about $28 in 9 days. that's an average of $3 and some odd per day for ALL our expenses.

i tell you what... anybody up for some adventuring, get yourself to indonesia, and i'll gladly foot the bill for the rest. :)

oh! also, tomorrow is tujuh belas (lit: seventeen) - indonesian independence day! and indonesians LOVE to party. last night, i went to bed at around 1, and the karaoke was still thumpin in da hood. loud enough that the walls were shaking. the CEMENT walls. the music is still going today, and will be tomorrow as well. accompanied by a variety of fireworks and what sounds like cannon fire.

and yet... on 4th of july when we set off 2 roman candles at 8 pm, the neighbors threw rocks at us and cursed us in javanese. sighhhh... the injustice of it.

as a side note: please do pray for indonesia tomorrow. during the police shootout 2 weeks ago when they uncovered the 600 kilos of bomb materials, they found out that those bombs were set to go off on independence day. and though the police obviously confiscated all the materials they found, top, the man behind it all, is still on the loose. and we do know that they have other safehouses in the area with access to other supplies.

this week (sometime midweek) also marks the beginning of this year's ramadan - month of fasting. from sunrise to sundown (5 am to 6 pm), muslims will not partake of any food or drink for an entire month. this is a really hard time for me as i see the lengths to which my neighbors and many of my friends are willing to go in order to earn their way into heaven.

and now i've been sitting in the dark typing for so long that my eyes hurt. time to go home. until next time. . .

some colors

so in my (rather small) classes this year, i have:
18 koreans
11 americans
3 indians
1 dutch
1 indonesian
1 costa rican
1 chinese
and 3 halfies:
1 singaporean/american
1 dutch/malaysian
1 indonesian/british

39 students.
18 of them are in one class.
the other 21 are divided into 4 other classes.
good thing i like small class size. : )

happenings

well, yesterday marked the beginning of school year 2009-2010.
a day which will go down in infamy...
... as the day the math teacher set her alarm an hour late for the first day of school.
fantastic. i woke up at 7:30.
BUT! - i was at school, ready to go, when the 7:40 start-of-the-day bell rang.
ok, so i was actually arriving at school right AS the bell rang.
but still... impressive, no?

meanwhile, back at the ranch, swine flu has now managed to reach indonesia.
a country in which 95% of its residents don't eat pork.
so i say props to swine flu.
unfortunately it's in central java.
and unfortunately, so am i.
and even more unfortunately, 5 people (recorded) have died so far.

also, if that weren't tragic enough, it seems there's a terrorist on the loose.
definitive test results came out today - it was NOT noordin top killed in last week's gunfight.
also fantastic. one of asia's most wanted terrorists was last seen about an hour from my house.

are we worried? nooooooo.....
top (and other world class terrorists) have been in the area for years.
if they were out to get us, we'd be gone by now.
that's actually a really comforting thought.

ready, set

school starts in 16.5 hours.
i am so ready for this.

teroris

noordin mohammed top. does this name ring any bells?
(i really don't know how much of this yall hear about in america.)

he is from malaysia.
he now lives in indonesia.
he is a genius.
he is a criminal mastermind.
he is a terrorist.
he is indonesia's most wanted man.

he was formerly a part of jemaah islamaiah, the southeast asian faction of al-qaeda.
but he broke away to start a more violent terrorist group.
he was behind the bali bombings.
he was behind the bombing of the australian embassy in 2004.
he was behind the bombing of the jakarta marriott in 2003.
and he was behind the bombings 2 weeks ago.

yesterday morning, we got word that he had been killed.
there was a 17 hour gunfight at a terrorist safehouse about 1 hour from my house.

after the smoke cleared, the police found 600 kg (a little more than half a ton) of bomb making materials in the house. (there seems to be some conflict in the reports i've heard as to whether the materials were found in this house or in another house near jakarta.)
these bombs were to be detonated next week, 17 august 2009.
indonesian independence day.
(fireworks?)
100 kg were going to the president's house.
the other 500 to the presidential palace.
they clearly want him out of the picture.

i was glad to hear that the plan was thwarted.
i was even more glad to hear that noordin was no more.
they estimate that he is responsible for about 250 innocent deaths.

but then last night, we got word that it wasn't him after all.
during the gunfight, he escaped.

i hadn't realized how relieved i was that he was dead.
until i found out that he wasn't.
and then i felt a little guilty.
i don't think i've ever wanted someone dead before.
but indonesia isn't safe as long as he is alive.

the body of whoever they mangled in the gunfight is now in jakarta for testing.
we'll know for sure in a week.
but as for now, they're telling us it wasn't him.

An interesting news article regarding all this: http://www.smh.com.au/world/reports-of-escape-add-to-growing-legend-20090809-ee5w.html

the end of the tales

so to (finally) end my traveling tales, let's move on to suka bumi.

we came down off our mountain after saying many goodbyes at the farm and made the beautiful drive to bandung. someone was kind enough to give us a free ride (score!). on the drive, we came upon a yard that appeared to have about half a dozen white brahma bulls with chains wrapped around their necks connected to metal stakes driven into the ground beside the road. as we passed by, one of them turned around and looked at me - it was a boer goat. possibly the biggest buck i've ever seen in my life. i ACTUALLY thought they were cows. i was in shock. someone explained to me that they use them to have buck fights (the indonesian version of cock fights - which they also have). apparently, there's big money to be made.

shock for the day over, we boarded a bus in bandung and headed 3 hours west to a town called sukabumi. it was on this bus that someone approached nasreen and, speaking to her in indonesian, asked her if i was 12 and if she was my chaperone. his face was priceless when i replied, also in indonesian, that i am, in fact, 23 and HER chaperone. another shock for the day. TWELVE?! seriously??

sukabumi was actually quite uneventful. we took an angkota up a mountain where we camped in a national park. this was the only part of the trip where we actually paid to sleep somewhere - a whole 50 cents per person! we pitched our tents in a clearing in the woods, ate some rice, and pretty much went to bed. it was already dark and about 50 degrees (it was a tall mountain) by the time we got there. and there were leeches and mosquitoes everywhere. this made it even more exciting when i got diarrhea in the middle of the night and the closest toilet (squat pot with no electricity) was about 1/4 km away, across a river.

the next morning, a group of campers (bank employees) from jakarta shared their breakfast and campfire with us, which was a huge blessing! it meant we didn't half to hike 1/2 a kilometer down the mountain to get food. we also got to watch them do aerobics for their morning exercise... humorous. and they got to hear all about my digestive issues of the night before. (you know you've lived in indonesia too long when you don't care that a whole group of strangers are talking about your diarrhea over breakfast.) after breakfast and chatting and aerobics, we decided to hike the mountain to a waterfall near the top. a trail had been blazed (though mudslides made it less than visible in some places), but it still took us about 2 arduous uphill hours to get there. when we arrived, we found a group of about 100 indonesian students there, admiring the beautiful waterfall. they were quickly distracted by us. and we got our picture taken with every single one of them. have you ever smiled so much that your face actually started to cramp? after they all left (big sigh of relief), we lounged around the waterfall area. some guys started a fire, which we took advantage of. it was still quite cold at this point, because the sun hadn't risen over the neighboring mountains yet. after a couple hours, we hiked back down the mountain. between farm work and hiking for 4 hours, we were especially sore.

we packed our things up at the site and went back down the mountain to get some food at the warung makans located there. we were contemplating how to get back into town, as this campsite was far enough outside of town that public transportation was pretty sparse. we had gotten there by commissioning an angkota in town the day before. however, the driver ripped us off pretty badly. he tried to get us to pay $6, but we got it down to $5. we found out later it should have been $2. just as we were contemplating, an angkota pulled up. who should be the driver, but the very same guy who ripped us off the day before! nasreen went over to talk to him, but he refused to give us a ride for less than $4. while nasreen was bartering with him, i asked some of the warung ladies how much a ride should cost. they didn't want to tell me, in case it was different than what the driver said. indonesians stick together. i told them i understood and that it was ok.

driver guy got mad at nasreen, so i told her we had all day and that we could wait. so we waited. a few minutes later, another angkota pulled up, but before nasreen could go talk to him, other driver ran over and they had a nice little chat about who knows what. by the time nasreen got to him, the guy tried to charge her the exact same price as the other guy (who left with an empty vehicle shorly after). we refused. by now, the local ladies were all sticking their covered heads out of their shop doors and asking me for the play by play. one by one they gathered around me and eavesdropped on the conversation between nas and the driver. it was escalating. it ended with nasreen telling him we'd wait, walking away, and the driver screaming at her that she is a whore and probably already slept with every man on the mountain. that got the ladies on our side. they began yelling at him in sunda (which i didn't understand), and they began reassuring us that they only pay 50 cents each and so that's all we should have to pay too. they also said that if he wouldn't do it, another angkota should be coming soon. horray, team!

so we sat. and we waited. and we waited. and we shot darts with our eyes across the way at the driver sitting in his angkota who would occasionally curse us. after about 15 minutes of this, he finally relented and told us to get in. the women all cheered. and right as we climbed in, the next angkota came over the ridge and into eyesight. i began to feel guilty about "breaking" our driver's spirit. i also became afraid that he might try to kill us by driving the vehicle off the side of one of the mountain roads. maybe i'm just paranoid. that obviously didn't happen. but he was pretty disgruntled. i had nasreen talk to him when we got into town. she told him that it wasn't that we minded paying extra, it was that we didn't want to be ripped off or be treated unfairly. and she thanked him for being honest and giving us an honest price in the end. he glared and drove off. oh, well.

from there, we drove into jakarta, got back to nasreen's mom's house at about midnight, then left the next morning at 7 to catch a train back to central java.

for this leg of the trip, i have to give credit where credit is due - pak jayudin. he was the ranger at the site we stayed at, and he helped us in every little thing. it was him who told us how much to pay for the angkota on the way down. it was him who woke up in the middle of the night to come check on us in our tents. it was him who guarded our things when we went hiking to the waterfall. it was him who called his buddy up the mountain and told him to let us into the waterfall area for rp 2000 instead of rp 3000 (we saved a whole ten cents!!). it was him who came to check on us if he thought we took too long getting food or going to the toilet. it was him who gave us his lighter so we could start a fire (which we then broke and he would not accept any money for). he was great and we appreciated him so very, very much!

all in all..... this was an amazing trip. i now know the indonesian words for tent, sand, corn, shooting star, and waterfall. i even learned some sunda! we planted some seeds. we built some relationships. we picked some corn. we got to know each other. we got sore. we got to be a blessing. and through it all, we were blessed.

continuation continued

now feri is standing on the side of the road and we are heading to the closest town.
and we have no clue how to get where we are going next.
so we do what any white travelers in a foreign country would do - we walk up to a group of strangers and ask! (this is pretty much the only way we got anywhere on this trip...)

we eventually made it on the correct bus, which took us back to jakarta, where we met a connecting bus headed to our destination.
interestingly enough, our route took us directly by the jakarta marriott and ritz carlton hotels...
please note that in this section of the telling of my adventures, i won't be naming any places or names.
the town we went to was very heavily (99.9%) muslim, a fact that became painfully obvious when i left the house the following morning to buy water in gym shorts and a t-shirt.
since we had arrived after dark the night before, i hadn't really seen anyone out and about to know that i really needed to cover ALL my skin.
besides walking through town half naked, being white also generated a lot of attention - i was now one of 6 white people in this town of approximately 500,000.
a family affiliated with our school gave us a place to stay that night, and though they didn't have a shower, they heated water on the stove so that we could all clean up a little bit.

the morning after we arrived (i put on way more clothes), we headed up a nearby mountain - to an organic farm!
we drove as far as we could, then hiked up the rocky last kilometer or so.
the next two days were two of the best of our trip...

this farm is owned by an indonesian man (because foreigners aren't allowed to own indonesian land) and managed by a western couple.
it is divided up into "patches" (fields) and they use it to teach indonesians agricultural skills.
there is a person in charge of each patch, and besides earning daily worker's wages, they get a portion of the crop/income after harvest.
so there are managers and there are also field laborers who are divided up to work wherever they are most needed.
everything is done organically and by hand (no machinery besides a weedeater).
oh! and there are also goats (hurrah!) and sheep (boo!) and cats (one is named manis (sweet), not because she is sweet, but because she can eat an entire cob of sweet corn!) and 12 dogs.
they recently got electricity all the way up there, but it doesn't really work most of the time.
and all running water is piped down from freshwater springs further up the mountain. (cold!)

we were eager to work and to do something meaningful with our time, but we were a little afraid that we would just be underfoot and create more work for the already busy laborers.
but as it turns out, we came at the perfect time.
besides many, many fields needing mulched (they use dried, shredded coconut husks/shells), several of the corn fields were ready to be harvested, and there weren't enough workers to get it all off.
the indonesian man who owns the farm also owns several chicken farms, and he goes through 50 tons of dried corn per month (that's a LOT of chickens!)
so the farm supplies him with corn in return for manure for the next crop of corn.
the way we see it, they're giving him corn, then he gives it back a few months later...

so they needed to get ALL the corn out of the fields, husked, shelled, and dried before it rained again.
we spent 2 days doing nothing but corn, corn, corn. and a little mulching.
in pants and long sleeves (because we were working side by side with lots of muslim ladies).
we picked and husked the corn in the fields and threw it in old feed sacks.
then all the feed sacks had to be hauled up the mountain to a flat-ish place where we had tarps laid out to dry the corn on.
it all had to be laid out one layer thick in the sun.
then before sundown, all the corn had to be put BACK in bags and hauled into barns, to be laid out again the next morning.
our hands were raw and our faces got sunburned and our legs and backs were sore as they've ever been.
in exchange, we got free food and a loft to sleep in for 2 days.

i'd say we got the better end of that deal.

i learned a lot about that area from talking to people there.
one of the most interesting things i learned was this: on that entire mountain, there are fewer than 10 believers.

the rest of anyer

and here is the continuation of my not-so-sordid tales....

i left you last time after 1 day in anyer. after leaving the internet cafe and grabbing lunch (which cost $1.30 for ALL four of us), we climbed a lighthouse. once we finally made it to the top, it was fantastic. who ever knew there were old lighthouses in indonesia?

from there, we made our way back to our tents, which had become veritable ovens in the midday heat. we quickly jumped in the ocean where i got my first bath of the trip - i even washed my hair! while in the delightfully cool water, we met a guy named blong. now, mind you, i don't normally make a habit of meeting men in large bodies of water. but we made an exception for him. he was pulling in an inflatable banana boat (a large thing that gets pulled behind a speedboat for tourists to ride on), and we jumped on. our weight caused him to stop hauling and start chatting. he was a senior in high school, same as my 3 traveling companions; however, he was in tech school, learning to be a mechanic 4 days a week and working 3 days a week to help support his family. we all talked until his boss told him someone wanted to actually ride the thing we were sitting on, and he had to go.

later that night, blong and a creepy friend of his (who we met the night before when he came to our tent in the middle of the night) happened to be at the same fried rice stand we were at for dinner. after eating, we all walked back to the beach together. on the way, creepy friend asked if we liked mangos. we all said yes, so blong and creepy guy promptly jumped a fence, scurried up a tree, and started shaking down mangos. stolen mangos. oops. we got about 8 or 9 of them, and carried them back to our tents, where our new friends were kind enough to build us a campfire. while sitting around the campfire eating stolen mangoes and peanuts, a few other friends kind of trickled in and we all just talked and ate together. until feri came. none of us are really sure what transpired here, but the instant feri (the nice guy from last time) and his friends walked up, blong and his friends stood up and made themselves so scarce that we couldn't even find them when we looked for them later. we were surmising about the awkwardness of what had just happened when i realized that our new friends understood more english than they let on. so we began speaking very quickly and in "code". i said that perhaps there was bad blood, so in keeping with the code, we should call the 2 groups "the capulets and the..... romulans?" (i never was a shakespeare fan). the names stuck. we never did figure out what was going on, but we enjoyed our time hanging out with feri. his friends (twins, in fact!) were not so savory, being mildly vulgar and enjoying being around white girls a little too much.... but in a very non-typical indonesian manner, feri was quick to defend us and kept his friends at bay.

as soon as feri and his group of friends left, at about midnight, blong and about 4 other guys materialized out of the darkness and came to join us once again. throughout the next 30 minutes, more and more beach guys came to sit around our campfire until there were about 16 of us altogether. the guys, mostly fishers and squidders, were a bit rough around the edges, but were super excited at the chance to teach us all some sunda words and to learn some english ones. so we sat and talked and chilled some more. until a squid boat came in. all the guys ran over to help pull the boat up on shore, and for their efforts, they were rewarded with 2 squid (this is apparently the unwritten code of the beach). so they ran back over to our fire and one guy began devouring one of the squid raw. he offered me a tentacle, but i declined politely, preferring to NOT have food poisoning for the remainder of the trip. another guy held one over the fire with his hand for about 30 seconds, then pulled out a knife from somewhere and began slicing it up to share with us. it was raw and cold in the middle, but a really fun experience. half baked squid that was alive 2 minutes ago at 1 am on some beach in the middle of nowhere. we stayed up talking a bit longer and got to share with these guys about who we are and what we believe. (they were amazed that the guys were sleeping in one tent and the girls in another...) they all agreed that they really respected us and our faith. (they were all muslim, and one, we think (aforementioned "creepy guy"), was a dukun - a witch doctor) right about then, a spirit decided to show up in the form of a terrifying looking woman sneaking up behind our tents. i saw her first, and all the men ran over to chase her away. and then we went to bed. interesting end to an interesting day.

the next morning, we sadly packed up to leave the beach. feri came to help us and to say goodbye. again the gentleman, he took the bags from the girls and carried them on his motorbike out to the road for us (the beach is about a 300 meter walk through a muddy alley from the road). nasreen and i just looked at each other and were like, "good thing we trust this guy. because there he goes with all our possessions for the next week... wallets... cell phones... clothes..." he was waiting for us at the road when we got there and hailed an angkota to take us to town. it was sad to leave him standing there on the side of the road waving. but more adventures were calling us...

backpackers guide to the galaxy

well. day 3.
we are still alive.
1 train
4 taxis
7 buses
and 3 angkotas later...
we are in a town named anyer, camping on the beach.

adventures really never seem to end.
and i am constantly in awe of the helpfulness of indonesian people.

adam, david, and i took the train to jakarta first where we met up with nasreen and spent the night and a good part of the next day. we visited the oldest and biggest church in jakarta - a gorgeous catholic church - which happens to be right across the street from the oldest and biggest mosque in jakarta. we also visited a national monument called monas, which looks like the washington monument with a fake torch on top.

from there, we took a variety of buses to our current location. people on the bus were very helpful in telling us where we needed to get off and what mode of transportation we needed to take next and how much it should cost (in case anyone tried cheating us because we are white). one kind man even gave us a free ride in his car! we have also eaten 3 free meals at this point.

we were a bit frustrated when we arrived at the beach at anyer yesterday. we pitched our tents, and were approached by a man claiming that we had to pay him 40.000 (about $4) per tent to sleep there. i argued with him, saying that this was a public beach and we shouldn't have to pay anything. but he insisted that because we were too close to his establishment (a small hotel just off the beach) we had to pay for the right to sleep there. we finally talked him down to $2 a tent and paid, mostly because the spot we found was ideal - there were people around to make us feel safe, but not so close as to be intrusive, we were in a high-ish spot away from high tide, and it was a flat part of the beach as well. he then became very kind, told us his name, and said that if we have any trouble at all during the night, we should just call his name and he'll come running. mmhmm. sure.

we also met a super helpful guy named feri. he brought us firewood and offered to help us out with whatever we need. he and some friends showed up later on that night when we built our campfire, and they just sat around and talked with us. well, nasreen did most of the talking, given that she's the only one of us mostly fluent in indonesian... our "neighbors" - the only other people camping on the beach - came over with a guitar and sang us some indonesian songs. it was a really good time of hanging out and having conversation with indonesians. until it started to rain. and our tents aren't waterproof. one guy there offered to let us come stay in his house. no thanks. our neighbors said we could stay the night in their tent. too small. but feri, ever the gentleman, said "wait right here, i'll be back." so we waited. luckily, it wasn't raining hard. when he came back, he told us to follow him with our gear. he had secured a sheltered place for us to stay. a friend of his up the beach owns a little warung/restaurant/place to lounge - little bamboo open-fronted huts on stilts with a tarp for a roof! so we pitched our tents there, and our new "landlord" made sure that nobody bothered us all night. sleeping on bamboo isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but we were dry and we were safe.



we woke up this morning to rain more or less pouring, but even through the clouds and rain and haze, we could see the faint outline of anak krakatau (the child of krakatau) on the horizon! the people here are basically waiting for it to erupt. and when it does, there will be a tsunami here. it's been getting more and more active lately.
our "landlord" and his wife gave us free breakfast this morning (fried bananas!), and they let us use their toilet too. and by toilet, what i actually mean is "shack with a door that doesn't close and a cement floor that you do your business on, then use a bucket of water to wash it out when you're done". some of the same guys from last night came over this morning and helped us move our stuff back to our original camping spot after it stopped raining, and they offered to give us a ride to the warnet (internet cafe) in town, but they only had 2 bikes, and there's 4 of us. so we took the angkota (minibus).

another interesting part of our trip that is noteworthy is the fact that now well into the third day of this trip, i have spent only rp 336.100 (just a little over $30). and what makes this even more amazing is that the ticket for the 6 hour train ride from semarang to jakarta cost 19 of those dollars, and our meal in semarang cost $5. so since actually leaving central java 2 days ago, i have spent 6 dollars total on food, lodging, transportation, and public toilets.

i haven't showered for 3 days now. i am covered in sand. there is a puddle in our tent. i have worn the same pair of pants every day. it is about a million degrees out. but i wouldn't trade this for the world.

i woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting the tarp over my tent and waves crashing on the shore and indonesian men drinking coffee and singing in the warung next to me.

in my backpack is:
1 pair of jeans
2 pairs of shorts
5 t-shirts
1 sweatshirt
1 sarong
a toothbrush
some mousse
some medicine
some underwears

i am ready to backpack.
11 days.
bring it on.

babysitting

bethanie: let's play doctor!

me: ok, i'm dead. gggkkkkaaaackcckckckck.....

bethanie: no you're NOT! you're having a BABYYYYYYY!

me: how can you tell?

bethanie: oh yeah. ummm..... *ponders* open your mouth.

me: ok. aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

bethanie: *shines "light" in my mouth* yup. i see a baby.

me: you can see that from my mouth?!

bethanie: yeah, well.... it goes all the way down. *motions to my belly*

me: i see. can i go home now?

bethanie: no. you're very very very very very very very sick.

me: oh. can i have some ice cream?

bethanie: no. that is very not healthy for you right now. and you have to stay here a long long very long time. so long that... uhmmm... SO long that... well, SOOOO long that it is morning.

me: i have to spend the night here?

bethanie: yes. you still need to be fixed.

me: FIXED? AHH! and that IS so long. can i have some ice cream?

bethanie: no. you can have some chicken.

me: chicken? what kind of doctor are you?

bethanie: i'm putting it in your belly button.

me: the chicken?

bethanie: yes. for the baby. i want to listen to the baby. hold still. *uses fake stethoscope on my stomach* hmmmmm..... yes. you are still sick.

me: the baby told you that?

bethanie: yes. be quiet. i'm still listening. hmmmmmmm...... and you are hungry. eat your chicken.

me: what school did you go to? did you even graduate?!

bethanie: hahahahahahahaha!

everywhere you want to be

traveling to jakarta 8 days after it was bombed: rp. 150.000

spontaneous backpacking tour of west java until the day before school starts: priceless

anniversaries

i totally forgot about this yesterday....
but as of then.....
i have lived in indonesia....
FOR ONE ENTIRE YEAR!

happy anniversary to me!
it's alright if you want to buy me presents.
; )

For those of you who aren't on my email list....

i just got done sending out an informative email about yesterday's bombings, reassuring everyone that i am safe and that jakarta is, in fact, quite far away from me...

i was going to copy and paste it here for anyone who isn't on my sending list, but it won't let me, so oh well. i'll use my blog to complain instead.

since i don't have a tv, and i don't read indonesian quite well enough to subscribe to a newspaper (that's a joke. i don't even remotely speak indonesian well enough to understand half the newspaper.), my main source of news is whatever is online. and given the extreme third-worldness of our interents here, even that is limited. the events of yesterday though have me pursuing the news.

my island was bombed. yeah, it was in jakarta. it was far away. about as far away as new york city is from indiana, in fact. but still. i live here. on java. in the grand scheme.... jakarta is close to home. too close to home. and i won't ever forget where i was when it happened.

two men walked into two hotels and blew themselves up with the intention of taking down everyone they could with them. let me put this into perspective for you - they found one bomber's head in the hotel lobby later. it was all that was left. i was watching tv at the warung yesterday. i was watching people being carried out on stretchers. one guy was black from head to toe and his legs were on backwards from the knees down. one old man had no skin left on him. they were indonesian.

but get this - outside of the indonesian news channels, nobody is talking about the indonesians. EVERY SINGLE other news source i have found (and believe me, i've been monitoring closely) has reported solely on how many foreigners were killed or injured. i have yet to see a report on how many indonesians were hurt or murdered. yes, i understand the international impact of what happened. i get that. but is an indonesian's life really worth any less than an australian's life? than an italian's life? than an american's?

the attack happened IN INDONESIA, for heaven's sake! indonesians got their heads blown off! indonesians got their skin melted off! indonesians got their legs blown backwards! but who will ever know? because who cares?

indonesia? where's that?

winter

well, it's been about 55 degrees every night and morning lately. you might be thinking that sounds great. but when your life has been a steady 75 degrees every day for a year, 55 is like the antarctic. it's amazing how fast the body can adjust to a climate. i have spent the last 2 weeks in pants, sweatshirts, and socks. even in bed. under a thick, thick comforter. evenings are spent under a fleece blanket on my couch drinking tea. today is the first truly warm day we've had for awhile. finally! thank you, God.

some friends of mine are out of town for 6 weeks this summer. i was over at their house eating lunch the other day (we barbequed pork. hooray for generous friends letting people use their house in their absence!). i was looking through some old pictures sitting on their bookshelf.... and i came across a picture of someone i know. the now husband (they were still dating back then) of my flatmate senior year. if i had to estimate, i'd say the picture is at least 5 or 6 years old. it was a little shocking to find that in there. just a photo of him sitting on some cabin steps, smiling into the camera. the world somehow got smaller when i moved to indonesia. btw, floyd, you should ask aaron how he knows the linegars.

we got one new family here last week. another arrives today. it's fun having new people around. no new single teachers this year though.

i have two new neighbors... and i'm getting a new pembantu next week. i'll miss ibu santi, but one new neighbor is bring her ibu with her, and there's not enough work for 2 ladies. our apartments are pretty tiny. my new neighbors are such a blessing... amanda and hannah.

we've already had dinners and late night talks together, and amanda took me out to buy me new dishes for my house. after a year, i can finally get rid of my awful missionary sunflower print dishes. :) i definitely feel like i'm going to have to work hard at being as much of a blessing to them as they already are to me.

oh, remember glory, my TA who i was working with before and after school to prep for the math SAT 2?  well, i got an email from him this morning saying that he got an 800 - a perfect score - on the test!  i'm SO happy for him!  but i'm even happier about the fact that in his email, right after he thanked me for my help, even though i hate waking up early, he said that he knows that all the praise and glory for this accomplishment go to God.  our students are such incredible Godly people, and i love them.

bali mad lib

I haven't written for quite awhile. Long enough that my family assumed me dead or something. Sorry about that. To make up for it, here is a mad lib I created for you all about my trip to Bali 2 weeks ago. Have at it and have fun.

Here's what you need:
1. Day that starts with Sun
2. Two names
3. Mode of transportation
4. Number between 24 and 26
5. Synonym for cold
6. Number greater than 80
7. Place to eat
8. Something that comes out of your body
9. Royal person, plural
10. Verb
11. Animal
12. Day that starts with M
13. Mode of transportation
14. Place to stay
15. Adjective
16. Noun
17. Adjective
18. Place to swim
19. Adjective
20. Country
21. Time of day
22. Noun
23. Noun
24. Something living
25. Number
26. Beverage, plural
27. Adjective
28. Color
29. Number less than 15
30. Noun
31. Island
32. Religion
33. Political view
34. Article of clothing, plural
35. Same article of clothing
36. Color
37. Language
38. Adjective
39. Drug
40. Noun
41. Positive or negative word
42. Feeling/emotion
43. Adjective
44. Name

Last [day that starts with Sun] my friends [2 names] were kind enough to drive Amber and I to the [mode of transportation] station to meet our bus to Bali. Once safely aboard the bus, we traveled roughly [number between 24 and 26] hours before arriving at our destination. The bus, which is usually quite [synonym for cold] ended up being about [number greater than 80] degrees most of the way. They let us off the bus for dinner at [place to eat] and the food looked like rice and [something that comes out of your body]. Needless to say, we didn’t eat like [plural royalty]. Luckily, we were able to [verb] most of the night, which made the trip more bearable, though not very comfortable. I think I would have rather ridden a(n) [animal] to Bali.
[Day that starts with M] evening we finally arrived in Bali. We caught a [mode of transportation] to take us to our [place to stay] in Kuta. After that, the week was much more [adjective]! We ate a lot of delicious [noun] and did lots of shopping! The beach wasn’t TOO hot and we both got [adjective] tans without getting burnt! Our hotel had 2 [plural place to swim] which helped keep us cool too. We met some [adjective] people there on summer holiday from [country].
Bali is very famous for its [time of day] life. I became convinced that while I was there, I had to try at least one club. So try I did. The [noun] and the [noun] were pretty sweet, but it seemed that every [something living] there had consumed about [number] [plural beverage] already. So that was a little [adjective]. I danced briefly, but since I’m [color] that was very short lived. In all, my first dance club experience lasted about [number less than 15] minutes. But now I have experienced a world famous aspect of Bali.
Going to Bali is always a(n) [noun]. It is very different from [island], where I live. First of all, Bali is much more [religion] and [political view]. People wear far fewer [articles of clothing]. Many people don’t even wear [same article of clothing] at all! There are lots more [color] people there who speak [language], which is [adjective]. On a near daily basis in Bali, we were offered [drug] and solicited for [noun]. This is a good place to do what mom always taught you and “just say [positive or negative word]!”
Overall, I always feel [feeling/emotion] going to Bali, and this time was even more [adjective] with my best friend, [name].

whew

so 25 hours worth of traveling later....
we are in bali!!

spent all day on the beach.
no sunburns yet.
hooray for sunscreen!

here til friday, then flying back to sala3.

over the river

so mom and dad are leaving today for england.
amber and i are getting on the overnight bus today to bali.
zach is in florida doing relief work.
kyley is at home running the farm.
i am so impressed by of all of us.

faith in humanity

lots of things going on...

1. i'm reading the koran.

2. amber is still here and we still love each other.

3. we are house sitting for a family while they are away this week. that means we each get our own bed, free wireless internet, satellite tv, and an 800 dvd collection. oh, and the fattest daschund i've ever seen named snuggles and i love her.

4. my computer is old and about to die. i'm in the process of finding a new one. my church is helping me pay for it. i am so blessed.

5. we went to jogja yesterday. to borobudur first. nothing new there, but amber enjoyed the reliefs and statues in this ancient temple. next, we went to pasar burung (bird market). wow. it was like the albion swap meet, but different. it's a ton of little shops that sell things like birds and snakes and lizards and fish and turtles and owls and eagles and rabbits and mongooses (mongeese?). some guy decided he would be our guide (expecting to be paid, of course), so he showed us all around. he taught us all about cock fighting and which roosters are best to buy. he taught us about pigeon racing and how they actually get the pigeons to come home. he taught us about songbird competitions and he showed us a champion songbird that was worth US $5000. it was great. i like birds.

6. then our self proclaimed guide took us behind pasar burung to the water palace. you see, back in the day, jogja was located underneath a manmade lake. the sultan lived in the water palace. he had his own underwater mosque and he had underwater tunnels for all his wives to walk around in so that no other man could see their faces. the sultan himself traveled by boat. very venice. the palace itself is in ruins (the current sultan lives in a much more modern palace), but the mosque has been restored (made of chalk, sand, and egg whites!) and several of the other buildings are still there. as we were walking around, another indonesian man joined us and seemed to want to be our guide. we politely told him that we were just wandering around and didn't need a guide, but he replied, "oh, no, i'm not expecting money. i work here and i live this way. i'll just walk with you." he was a cute old man, so we acquiesced. he led us through a ton of winding streets - all the people who work for the sultan live in little houses on the palace grounds - where little kids were trying to fly kites and women were throwing pans of dirty dishwater into the street. he pointed out to us lots of little things that normal tourists probably never see. then we came to a garden that had a very tall wall running along one side with a bamboo ladder leaning against it. the man motioned us over to the ladder and told us to climb up carefully. naturally, we did. and from the top of that wall, we could sit and see into the (closed to the public) royal pools - where the sultan's wives would come every day. he would meet them there and select which one he wanted to be with that day. it was like looking down into ancient greece. there were beautiful pools (though the murky green water IN the pools left something to be desired) with amazing statues and courtyards and garden areas all around them. after we sat there for awhile (beneath the setting sun, i might add), we climbed back down and walked through more winding streets until we found ourselves at our unofficial guide's house! he offered us drinks and invited us to look around. as it turns out, he and his family are all artists. amber was in heaven and ended up buying a painting from him. : )

7. i have a bike. sort of. tiffany went to cambodia for 2 weeks and let me borrow hers! i have a rough time cornering with a passenger bigger than me. but so far so good.

8. my leg wound is almost all the way healed. i'll have a nice scar for awhile though.

9. i am watching rugby. ns wales v queensland. go, blue!

my leg is an eyesore

an update on the burn on my leg.

it is doing much better now and well on the road to recovery.
travel was rough because it hurt to walk.
i took oral antibiotics for 3 days and kept the wound covered and prayed a lot.
these things combined seemed to do the trick.

it's still pretty ugly looking.
but at least not in a gross way.
the burn was deep enough that it burnt out the hair follicles.
i don't know if those will grow back.
but if not, at least i now have about 1 square inch less of shaving to do.
that will save me a lot of time in the shower.

the trip.

get ready for some long winded accounts of indonesian adventures.

1. semarang.
mega helped me get to the right bus in salatiga, which i successfully managed to get off of in the right spot in semarang to catch a taxi to the airport. unfortunately, i asked the taxi driver to take me to the bendera instead of the bandara, but he knew what i meant. possibly due to my bad indonesian and the fact that i am white, he also overcharged me by a dollar and wouldn't let me argue about it, but oh well. once in the airport, my flight got delayed 3 times, but it was only by 15 - 30 minutes each time. i was doing a pretty good job of keeping to myself and being very very white so nobody tried to sit and talk to me. but that only worked for so long. the man sitting next to me eventually realized that we were on the same 3-times-delayed flight, so he started asking me about where i'm going, where i'm coming from, and where i'm from originally. he didn't speak english, so that was a good workout for me. we had some really good conversation. he asked some really good questions. and i was really frustrated as i was trying to answer those questions - i was realizing that what was coming out of my mouth was NOT actually what i thought/believed. it was just as close as i could come with the language i have. the funniest part was when he asked me what americans think about indonesians, and i had to break it to him that most americans don't know indonesia exists. he was muslim, so we had lots of good talks about politics and religion and obama and work and why i was willing to come to indonesia. as it turns out, he was in semarang for a work trip - he works for pertamina, the government owned oil company, and he and a bunch of other guys (all from sumatra) were there putting on an employee training seminar. so as we were talking, the other guys with him started wandering over to talk to the white girl also. i was quickly adopted as one of their group. they were super impressed by how much indonesian i know, and i was embarrassed by how much i didn't. they taught me some sumatran tribal language and they told me that i'm definitely not a "bule" (whitey). i'm one of them. it was fun. by the end, it was me and 8 sumatran men.

2. jakarta.
when we got to the airport, my sumatran friends invited me to stay in their hotel with them. ummm.... no, thanks. instead, i followed the instructions my student gave me for cheap travel to her house. i found the airport bus, got on, and rode it to the last stop. however, because my flight was delayed so long and the bus sat for almost an hour waiting for passengers (they won't go until they're full), it was by now about 10 o'clock. in downtown jakarta. under an overpass. with the homeless people. trying to look in my backpack. my next instructions were to get on another bus... but as i asked around for that bus, people told me that it had already stopped running. how perfect. by this point i was very near fearing for my life, so against my better judgement, i jumped in the nearest taxi i could find which was so ghetto it had cardboard laid across the seats to keep the springs down. i had the guy take me to a certain mall where i met my student. however, the mall was also closed, but at least i got a good deal on my taxi, and i did eventually find the student. instead of taking me home with her, my student took me to her family's guesthouse nearby and showed me to a room in the back. i slept on a mattress on the floor in a room full of furniture stacked up. i was grateful for a clean bed.
in the morning, i woke up to an indonesian man standing over me going "goot morning, mees, goot morning. mees? mees? goot morning, mees! mees? goot morning....." freaked me out. he left once i woke up. after he turned all the lights in my room on. awesome. so i called my student and went over to her house to have korean breakfast (fish, chicken, red rice, tofu, kimchi) and then we went to a mall to go ice skating. then they drove me to the airport to get amber!
amber made it here safely. her luggage did not. it got stuck in LA due to a delayed flight. luckily, she had one change of clothes in her carry on, and they told her that her baggage would be here the next day. unfortunately, we would not be. so we waited for yohanes to fly in from batam, and when we met up with him, we made a plan. we would contine on to bandung as planned, and come back in 2 days for her luggage. so on to bandung we went.

3. bandung.
the bus we rode took us directly to a mall where we ate, bought a few things (like a toothbrush for amber), and yo's new cell phone got stolen. perfect end to a perfect day. we went to catch a taxi to the places where we were staying and it started raining. then the taxi driver got lost and had to ask directions 5 times. we FINALLY made it to our final destination at almost midnight. we stayed with a wonderful lady named liz, and yo stayed with some other friends in another part of town.
the next morning, we slept in a bit, and then went shopping! bandung is the outlet store capital of indonesia. all the bules go there to shop, because they have western clothes... unfortunately, bandung is 99.9% super conservative muslim and the only change of clothes amber had for the next 2 days was a pair of shorts and a tank top. we made do. i was super impressed by how nice the stores were, by how much they had, and how little stuff cost. i found a couple shirts i liked that i can wear to teach in, but i was having serious issues finding jeans, which was my number one reason for going. we shopped all morning, ate lunch late, then went home for a siesta. after siesta time, amber and i went back out, and at the first store we went to, i found THREE pairs of jeans to buy. that was a huge blessing, as the only pair i have here got a huge hole ripped in the knee several months ago. so i'm caught back up on pants. after shopping, we met back up with yohanes for dinner at this mall called paris von java. it was just about the fanciest thing i have ever seen. there was a starbucks with an open air second floor with a live band playing. so we just sat in the parking lot and listened for awhile... we walked around a lot and window shopped. it was set up a lot like jefferson pointe (for those who know what that is), but it was way bigger and way fancier. it felt like civilization. : )

4. jakarta.
monday morning, we took the bus back to jakarta to see if amber's bag was there yet. and it WAS! unfortunately, the security guards seemed to hate us and gave us a really hard time going in and going out of the airport. oh well. also unfortunately, not everything was in the luggage. as i had feared from the beginning, some things were stolen. the good news is, the only thing that got taken out was one bag of candy.... in light of all the things they could have taken, i'm glad it was only that. since we knew we were going to be back in jakarta, we got our original train tickets refunded, and found plane tickets that were only $5 more. so we flew home from there to solo, an hour south of home.

5. salatiga.
it is so good to be home.
amber slept 12.5 hours last night.
i slept 10.

ada infeksi

my burn is infected.
it is actually pretty gross.
it was fine up until yesterday.
by last night it was emitting heat and hurting pretty bad.
by this morning it was downright sickening to look at.

i got some medicine last night from the apotek.
so this morning i scraped the infected parts off with a knife.
then i cleaned and bandaged it up.

my indonesian friends say to see a doctor.
my white friends say not to.
my indonesian friends say put burn salve on it.
my white friends say just keep it clean with water and let it heal.

who to listen to?
i compromised.
i'm not seeing a dr unless it gets way worse.
but i am taking antibiotics and using a little aloe.
and praying for the best.

rencanaku

so this weekend will be a big one...

first and foremost - AMBER IS COMING!
she'll be staying with me for a month...
yes, yes, i am pretty excited about that.
i mean, it's not every day a girl's best friend comes to visit her halfway around the world!

the tricky part is getting her here.
the jakarta airport could easily be compared to a traveler's hell.
i took pity on amber, and decided to meet her there, as opposed to forcing her to navigate the impossible airport in order for her to get a connecting flight to somewhere closer to me.

so here's what i have to do.
friday, i have to pack up my hiking backpack and walk about a km to the main road.
there, i'll have to stop a bus (hopefully the right one) and take it an hour north.
i need to have them stop at the town circle there, which is where i have the highest chance of finding a taxi in that city.
the taxi will take me to the airport, where i'll fly an hour to jakarta.
once in jakarta, i have to take the airport bus to the end of the line.
after that, i have to walk to another bus station and take that one to a certain mall.
when i am safely in the mall, i am to sms a student from our school who will meet me and lead me to her house, where i'll be staying.
she is korean. her family is korean. she speaks english. her family does not.
her family graciously offered to drive me to the airport the next day to meet amber.
i have given amber VERY explicit instructions on how to get her visa, get through immigration, where to get her luggage, what to do at customs, and where i will be waiting for her.
once i'm with her, we're gonna wait about an hour for yohanes to fly in.
when the three of us are together, we will rent a car to take us to another town where we'll spend 2 nights.
when our time there is up, we'll get on the night train to bring us back to semarang where, hopefully, a car will be waiting to drive us home.

whew. got all that?
i'm still not sure that i do.

i would ask that you please pray for safety and smoothness in all things.
with as many of us are traveling using as many different modes of transportation as we are, there is SO much opportunity for things to go wrong - big and small.
pray that we would be in His hands every step (and every flight and every bus ride and every train ride and every car ride) of the way : )

SIM

i got my driver's license
i got my driver's license
i got my driver's license
HEY HEY HEY HEY!


i hope you like the song i just wrote.
about getting my driver's license.
i've been singing it all day.

the fun never ends

i have an indonesian friend. her name is aya. she is 18 and finishing up high school. she is girlie and boy crazy. her english is equivalent to my indonesian. we really have very little in common. but she likes to hang out with me. probably because i am white. so sometimes we do.

we hung out this weekend, in fact. she wanted to go to a photographer to take our pictures. but i nixed that idea - too expensive. so she suggested we go somewhere and take our own. that's called compromise. she said she was bringing some friends. she also told me to bring my helmet. so she showed up saturday afternoon with 2 high school boys. aya pointed to one bike and told me to get on. i did, and we took off.

so there i was. on the back of some indonesian high school boy's ghetto motorbike. it only had one foot peg for the passenger. balance? rough. and it was tiny, so i was squished up against him the whole time. he spoke no english. indonesian and japanese only. we drove for 45 minutes. i hurt so bad by the time we got there. but the fact that we had taken country back roads with nice views helped. then i burned my leg real bad on his exhaust pipe.

[at this point i need to interject a side note about exhaust pipe burns. they have FINALLY started to put plastic guards on the exhaust pipes of the newer bikes. but on most bikes, the metal exhaust pipe runs exposed along the side of the bike, right where passenger's leg goes. most indonesian girls have a permanent scar on the inside of their right calf from so many burns. i now have two. so imagine putting your hand right on the exhaust pipe of a running car. it burns like heck, right? the nice thing about using your hand is that 1. you can see what you're doing, and 2. the impulse travels pretty quickly to your brain to tell you that something is hurting. when it's your lower leg though, that impulse has to travel so far that by the time it reaches your brain, you are also wondering where that nasty burning flesh smell is coming from. it actually COOKS YOUR FLESH and turns it brown. this is NOT my new hobby.]

back to the story. the place we went to was quite nice. like golf course nice. it was called gua maria (mary's cave). it was apparently some sacred catholic place up the mountain. there were prayer rooms, burial grounds, hanging gardens... and my favorite part - the actual cave in which we found a "replica" of Jesus' tomb. it was so creepy.

the boys were quite charming. they bought us drinks and mostly just left us alone to walk and chat. one boy, bani, is aya's boyfriend. he talked to us a little bit. but atchonk, the boy i rode with, would come nowhere near us. no matter how many times we told him "jangan malu-malu" (don't be shy).

after about an hour, we headed home. but instead of taking the nice, calm back roads, we took the main road. at rush hour. in indonesia. we actually almost died. twice. and our faces were black from bus exhaust by the time we got home.

then aya taught me javanese. i'm learning. little by little.
my repertoire now includes:
thank you
you're welcome
my name is...
whitey
you are very beautiful
i don't want to
who?
what?
tuesday

some useful stuff right there.

and speaking of learning...
i practiced driving a motorbike yesterday.
i'm much better now.
i didn't drive off the road a single time!
and with a passenger too!
i have an appointment with the police to get my license (SIM) tomorrow.

i also made nasi goreng (fried rice) for dinner.
that's gonna need some practice.
it came out a bit on the greasy side.
as in i had to strain the oil off before i could eat it without gagging.
i'll be working on that....

i'm also reading the new testament in indonesian. i've been doing a chapter a day, following these steps.
1. read the whole chapter out loud first, to practice pronunciation and reading speed.
2. read the the chapter again for understanding, writing down any words i don't know.
3. look up all the words i don't know.
4. read the chapter again, translating it aloud into english.

it is really hard.
but i am learning a lot of new words.
some of them are not so useful.
but good to know, nonetheless.

now the cleaning lady is mopping around me.
time to go home.

it's raining men.

so there's several construction projects going on around campus this summer.
one is in the building i live in.
currently, there are 2 apartments at either end of a long-ish building with an empty middle used for storage.
they're working on putting a third apartment in the middle.
so every day except sunday from 7 - 4, my place is swarming with javanese men.
i've joked that for all the singing and chatting they do in javanese, i'm gonna learn it before the summer's end.
too bad i can't really stand being in my house much while they're there.
too much banging and sawing and man-yelling.
and i had to tape my curtains shut so they would stop looking in, so now it's dark in there too.
it's probably ok. keeps me from being too lazy.

another project is going on near the soccer field.
they're working on paving a trail from the school to the field because right now whenever it rains, you have to walk through ankle deep water to get there.
whenever i come to school (so every day), i have to skirt around the guys working there.
and it is always extreeeeeemely awkward.
i'm pretty much used to not really acknowledging men here.
because if i do, they will want to talk, then they will want my phone number, then they will want to get married.
give an inch...
but i feel strange about this. because they're on campus. and i have to walk within a meter of them all. every day.
sometimes there is a guard out there watching them work.
and when he is there, the workers pretty much ignore me completely.
but one day he was not there, and the guys were saying hello and asking my name and being generally very leering.
so i prefer it when he is there. but at the same time, it almost makes it more awkward, because if i were to say hello to them, i would be afraid that he would think i was trying to flirt or start something.
so if the guard is there, i pretty much just feel like i have to keep my eyes on the ground the whole time and never stop walking.
if we were on the street, it wouldn't bother me at all to ignore them.
but here, where i see them twice a day every day... well, it bothers me enough to blog about it, so i guess that says something.
it's just very hard to draw the line between when i need to be polite and when i need to be detached.

switching gears completely....
i mentioned the guards.
usually i refer to them as jagas.
in writing and in talking.
that is the lazy way out.
because in actuality, they are penjaga.

an interesting thing about indonesian language...
you can tell what kind of word something is by how it is put together.
of course there are exceptions, but usually.....
if something ends with -an, it is a noun. (unless it ends with -kan, then it is a verb.)
if something starts with pen-, it is a person.
if something starts with me-, it is a verb.
if something starts with di-, it is a passive verb.

so take for example, the case of the jaga.
jaga is the root word. it means guard.
jagaan is an object that is guarded, typically. the noun.
penjaga is the guard. the person.
menjaga means to guard. the verb.
and dijaga means to be guarded. the passive verb.

so the jagaan is dijaga-ed by the penjaga who menjagas the jagaan.
but now i'm butchering the language, so i'll stop.

indonesian lesson for the day, everyone.

facebook ban? not on my watch.

i heard a rumor this week that the indonesian government is considering banning facebook, citing that its content could cause people to lust, which is a sin.

this ban would really stink for me. so i did some research on it today. i found this article, which substantiates the rumor:

http://www.interfaith.org/2009/05/28/muslim-clerics-consider-facebook-ban/

however, i also found this more recent rebuttal article at cnn.com:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/25/indonesia.facebook.clerics/index.html

it's interesting. what it comes down to is that the indonesian muslim leaders don't want to ban facebook.... necessarily. in the article, they compare facebook to a car or a television. there are good ways and bad ways to use them all. they have outlined what the appropriate (finding old friends) and inappropriate (gossiping and flirting) uses are, and it's now up to each person to see that they are doing the right thing. because it would be a sin not to.

i was thankful to see some mostly clearheaded logic on the part of this nation's leaders - especially when i feel like i see so little of it from day to day.

facebook ban?
not for now.

the following is a copy of a conversation i emailed to my brother earlier today.
i thought it would make a good blog post.

so the other day i was in the mall in jogjakarta. my neighbor wanted a bible in indonesian so she could do some street evangelism stuff, but since she doesn't get out of town a whole lot, i told her i'd pick her up one. so i was in the bookstore called gramedia looking over like the 3 bibles they had mixed in with the 148437 different versions of the al quran (koran). just then, 2 youngish looking guys in uniform came over to me.

guy: excuse me miss, there is a problem.
me: (oh my heavens. i am about to get arrested for buying a bible.)
guy: may i tell you the problem?
me: (NOOOOO!) um, yeah, sure.
guy: because of your hair, we think you are from the countryside. this is clearly not true.
me: (i am so confused right now. laughing nervously) um. ok?
guy: you are from where?
me: america.
guy: you are a tourist here?
me: no. i live here.
guy: well, we think you are from the countryside. this is problem?
me: no. no problem, guys.
guy: (relieved) oh, ok. may i know your phone number?
me: no.
guy: but how to contact so i may see you again?
me: i don't give my phone number to men i don't know.
guy: why not?
*note that it is actually kind of rude to say no here. so i feel like the bad guy*
me: look, um, i could give you my email address instead, ya? *this is my usual out*
guy: you check your email?
me: yes. (i write my email down) so. uniforms. you guys police? military? boy scouts?
guys: (blank look on their faces) um. air force?
me: oh! my brother is in the air force too! in america, of course...
guy: he is a pilot?
me: no. engineer.
guy: we are pilots.
me: cool?.....
guy: that is very wonderful for your father.
me: uh, yeah, well, i guess i hadn't thought about it that way before...
guy: i don't understand.
me: YES! yes.... my father is very happy.
guy: you are very beautiful. may my friend take your picture with me?
me: sure, but then i have to go and meet my friends.

so there's now about 3 pictures of me with the indonesian air force floating around somewhere. i'm sure they sent it to all their friends by this time.

so people taking pictures with me (or with any white person, really) is pretty normal. i really don't think anything of it anymore. i can't even begin to estimate how many pictures i am in with random indonesian people. or how many pictures random indonesian people have taken of me just as i walk down the street or sleep on the ferry. it's great.

here's lookin at you, kid

i definitely spent this morning eating an almond cranberry cinnamon roll (minus the cinnamon) while watching casablanca. for the first time! gotta love summertimes.

in other news, my neighbor, laurel, asked our pembantu to lock up her house and give her keys to the jaga when she left. so ibu santi did. while laurel was still in the house!! my poor neighbor was locked inside her own house for 3 hours today! she is the talk of the campus. even the jaga gave me his rendition of the story this morning!

the looooooove doctor

so my friend tiffany, who is studying language here, is moving soon.
that is a bummer, because right now she lives right across the road from me.
but starting monday, she will be living on the other side of town.
she and i spent most of wednesday and thursday painting her new room.
she's moving in with an indonesian family.
the dad is a pastor, and they have five boys ranging in age from 13 to 1.

i have to admit that both days i was kind of dreading going there.
i didn't want to have to think in indonesian.
i didn't want to have to process indonesian.
i didn't want to have to speak indonesian.
but despite all my pessimism, i was very blessed by the tri family.

first of all, i think i was smiling to myself almost the whole time we were painting because in the other rooms, i could hear the family noises.
i didn't realize how much i missed family.
and i don't even mean my family specifically (i mean, of COURSE i miss them), but rather just the feeling of family.
i miss things like smelling mom cooking something in the kitchen.
or the sound of kids running around, laughing and playing. or screaming their head off because someone stole their toy.
or seeing a guest come to the door and dad welcoming them in to sit and talk for awhile.
it made me really happy just to be in the middle of all that.

yesterday, after we finished painting, we sat and talked and drank tea with them for 2 hours straight.
granted, tiffany did most of the talking, given that she is lebih lancar (more fluent) than me.
but i was surprised to find that i understood about 99% of what was said in that 2 hours.

we talked about everything.
we talked about people we all knew.
we talked about the church in indonesia.
we talked about languages.
we talked about cultures of different countries.
we talked about kids.
we talked about math.
we talked about school.
we talked about our families.
we talked about indonesian tv programming.
we talked about kfc.
we talked about hometowns.
we talked about marriage.

somehow, pak tri and his wife decided that i will marry a javanese man.
so then pak gave us a pretty serious talk about marriage.
and it was really good for me to hear.
his biggest advice was to start praying now that God will send someone with whom we can share one vision and one mission for our lives.
and then when we think we've found that person, we have to pray WITH them for the same thing.
he told us about how he and his wife prayed a lot together before they got married and how they have had a very blessed marriage because of it.
this is the most important thing, he says.
if you marry someone who does not have the same heart as you, your life will be very difficult.
he also taught me some javanese.
now i can at least introduce myself to my future husband in his native tongue : )
baha.

real live

yesterday, i came up to my classroom to drop some stuff off in it.

often, geckos like to hide in the space between the door and the door frame.

so it's not uncommon for them to scurry away as i unlock and open the door.

the same thing happened yesterday.

one was in the space between the bottom of the door and the floor.

and as i opened the door, he scurried off into the corner of the classroom.

i saw just a flash of his tail out of the corner of my eye.

and i thought to myself, "that is a HUGE gecko!"

so i peeked under the desk to get a better look at it.

and what should i find but a very..... angry..... SNAKE!

so i took a picture.

then i went and told yohanes.
he came and looked at it too.
then he called one of the grounds guys over.
he ran off to get something to catch it with.
and he came back with a 10 inch piece of wood and an empty water bottle.
it seems that his method of taking care of the snake was to use the piece of wood to chase it into the water bottle.
not happening.
the snake got really angry and coiled and struck at him several times, mouth wide open and hissing.

i took more pictures.

after about 10 minutes of this, the guy must have decided that the best course of action was to at least get it out of the classroom.
so he chased it out, and continued trying to catch it outside.
shortly, a jaga walked by.
our jagas might not be the most well armed guards in the world, but they all carry some vicious looking daggers.
so mr jaga walked over, whipped out his knife, and in one fell swoop, that snake was history.

i took another picture.

the snake was not all that big.
but in a country where something like 98% of them are poisonous....
well, i was healthily wary.
this was, in fact, a landmark achievement for me.
it was the first time i have seen a live snake and not tried to catch it myself.

EDIT: i showed this picture to an indonesian friend who says this is a cobra.

poisonous, but not highly.

sweet summer time

one more day of meetings!
and summer..... is..... HERE!

ashley left friday.
sabina leaves tomorrow.
mari leaves tuesday.
heather leaves saturday.
laurel leaves in a month.

but daniel comes tomorrow.
amanda's brothers are coming soon.
amber comes in 3 weeks.
and candy might come see me too!

one of the best words to describe this place is....
transient.

and someday, i will be one of them.
but i don't like to think about that.

the thorn

so if i were forced to choose just one student who comes closest to being the bane of my existence... it wouldn't be too hard.
the thing is that at heart, he's a great kid. he's just very.... umm..... well, i don't think words can even describe.
he exasperates me to no end. every day of my life. he is forever trying to distract me, he rarely does what i tell him to, he cannot stay in his seat.... even his mother has come to me to apologize for her son!
that being said, deep down, i love the kid to pieces. i see the way he lives and the way he loves, and i respect him. just not first thing in the morning.
anyways, anytime teachers are in the staff room complaining about students (which rarely happens, by the way), i ALWAYS have a good story to throw out about what this kid did on any given day.
today's story is different though.

i've been sick all week, and insanely busy too.
today was our last chapel, and we spent time together in song and praying for each other and saying goodbyes to seniors and students who are moving away.
i sat up in the upper section of the auditorium by myself, just watching and wanting some alone time to feel sick sitting down (finally!).
at one point, we were asked to pray for each other... so i began praying for certain students that i knew were struggling and other more generic things.
after a few minutes, i felt a THUMP against my side.
i looked up, annoyed, and as fate would have it, it was of course the aforementioned student.

him: miss, why are you all alone?
me: i don't feel good. i might leave early.
him: oh. don't you know you're supposed to be praying?
me: i WAS praying, until i was so rudely interrupted. *said with a bit of an edge*
him: yeah, well, then i'll just pray and i'll go, ok?
me: ...... uh, sure.... what do you want to pray for?
him: well, YOU...
me: really?
him: *sits down* yeah, let me pray for you.

so this boy spent the next few minutes just praying over me. he thanked God for sending me here and for all the work i do and he prayed that i wouldn't be stressed and that God would heal me. he prayed for lots of things. and as soon as he said "amen", he walked away quietly, before i could even thank him. i just sat there and cried, completely humbled and blessed.

it is so amazing to be in a place where my students are not ashamed to publicly lift their teachers up in prayer, where our students wash our feet, where they love to tell us that they love us...

every morning when i wake up, i thank God that He brought me here.... of all the places in the world....

highlights from grading math 7 papers on pythagoras and ancient greece....

*can you tell i saved all my paper grading until the very end?*

"I think some of the stuff was really stupid though like the fact that they couldn't eat beans or they couldn't look into a mirror with a light next to it. That's really stupid and I wonder who made that rule? That is my thought."

"The leader of them was pisistratos. He was taken down twice but yet he still built another settlement. He kept that till he died."

"There was a girl named Theano..... She was a Math Freak like many of them were."

"Now I shall talk about Acusilaus.... His thoughts didn't survive much."

"Pythagoras is a mathematician that is super smart and super awesome!"

"Pythagoras is one of the old mathematicians that had a society."

"They have an equation for this proof, but it is really long and it is confusing."

"Some interesting facts I learned about him are, for example, the striking birthmark on his thy."

"He dieded when he was nintey-nine."

maths

so a couple days ago, i had my algebra II classes do a trig project. they were divided into teams, then they had 3 tasks to complete. first, they had to find the diagonal of the classroom (which can actually be done without trig.) then, they had to go out to the soccer field and measure from one of its corners to something else not in the same plane (like to the top of a tree, for example). then they had to find the angle of elevation of that object. third, they had to find the angle of elevation of the sun (using someone's height and shadow), and then use that to measure the height of something they could not measure directly (the school building, perhaps). then, they could choose to write a 1 page summary of the process and their findings for some extra credit points. i just graded the papers. they are great.


joshua's ends with "I am grateful to have had this experience as it has helped me to further my love of trigonometry which I admire dearly."


carrie's is written in old english style as the quest of three servants trying to please their "benevolent dictator". her description of walking to the soccer field to measure things reads, "Without delay, we, her loyal citizens, set out on this second quest. We traveled the stony paths and the grassy paths in which lay vipers of countless number, and around the despised enemy's fortress which appeared to be unoccupied, but only because the enemy possesses the magic of the Coveted Imaginary Numbers, which is also why the fortress appears to have no walls."

who says math teachers shouldn't assign papers? this has been the highlight of my day.

yellow or green or orange or blue?

highlight number 1. i finally got observed a couple weeks ago by the superintendent, bill. a great guy, by the way. i couldn't ever ask for a better boss. i met with him at the end of last week to discuss the class he observed. he pointed out a couple things i could stand to work on, but that was mixed in with a lot of encouragement. he ended our meeting with, "it was hard to tell that i was observing a first year teacher." that made me feel really good. i feel pretty inadequate as a teacher a lot of days.

highlight number 2. i understood almost all of the sermon on sunday. i go to bilingual church now, which is nice, because everything is in indonesian AND english. i learn a lot. and when i read the Bible these days, i usually do it in indonesian. i memorized the Lord's prayer in indonesian, and i'm working on memorizing all the books of the Bible also. baby steps....

highlight number 3. every morning in spanish (first period), ibu hendri, our indonesian secretary, calls each class to ask for attendance. philip sits closest to the phone, so he always answers it, and the conversation typically goes like this:
philip: hello.
hendri: attendance please.
philip: kelsey's not here.
hendri: thank you.
*hang up*
sometimes, philip spices things up a little bit, answering the phone with things like, "yes, i'd like to order some fried rice. with french fries please." or "welcome to kfc, may i take your order?" or "HENDRI! can you please do a fire drill, RIGHT NOW? we NEED to get out of this class!!" or sometimes he just answers in spanish. today beat them all though. he answered the phone with, "good moooorning, Bu, how are you? i hope you're feeling fine. i'd love to stay and talk, but it's almost 8 o'clock, and i haven't got the time." (in case you don't recognize this, it is a veggietales song. and he sang the whole thing. loudly.) the whole class - and ibu hendri - was cracking up so badly. it was great. hendri thanked philip for the song. we have to be her favorite class to get attendance from.

highlight number 4. no spirits in my house this week. incense is all gone.

highlight number 5. i get a TA (teacher's assistant) EVERY DAY next year! guess who is never grading a single homework? : )

highlight number 6. the 9th graders keep telling me how excited they are that i get to be their math teacher again next year, since i'll be teaching 10th grade geometry.

highlight number 7. i bought amber a plane ticket to come see me! and i had way more money than i thought i did, which was a total blessing. i don't have to worry.


the opposite of a highlight number 1. i think cat is pregnant. i'm sending her to a convent.

the opposite of a highlight number 2. i have to have 3 finals written. before tomorrow.

the opposite of a highlight number 3. i found out that glory can't be my TA next year. i'm gonna miss that kid. a lot.

the opposite of a highlight number 4. school ends next week. that means everyone moves away next week. : (

the opposite of a highlight number 5. it was raining and cloudy and really cold all day yesterday and it was miserable and now i am sick and my throat hurts and my nose will not stop running.

but as always.... the good outweighs the bad.

"I only need to get a 168% on the final to get an A in this class!!" - Michael

"Hannah, can I try your boots on?" (Kang, a boy, to Hannah, who wore go-go boots to school today.)

how plans change

so change of plans for next school year.
i WON'T be teaching AP calc. (a load of stress off my mind)
i WILL be teaching spanish still. (ugh)
i WON'T be teaching 7th grade. (HOOOOORAY!)
i WILL be teaching geometry. (an even bigger HOOOOORAY!)

i was ASKED to possibly teach a photography class.
i DECLINED to teach said photography class.
i MIGHT be mentoring 5 students in photography though.

this will be ok.