Lord Willing

So here's what I got.... 2 June, flying out of Indo to Singapore where I have a 15 hour layover from 1 PM until 6 AM the next day. Because the layover is so long, for only $15 extra, I get to stay in a 4 star hotel in the main shopping area of Singapore. I also get free shuttle service to/from the airport. So hurrah for that!

Bright and early the morning of the 3rd, I fly to Tokyo, where I only have a 50 minute layover. Hopefully I don't change planes. Then I should be in Detroit by 2 PM and so should my family!

I follow the same path on the way back to Indo. But that time, my layover in Sing will only be 6 hours, midnight until 6 AM. So I opted for no hotel. My airline provides a free lounge with a sleeping area in the airport, so I should be good to go. The next morning, I take 45 minute jump on the first flight back to Jakarta. Aswan is going to buy me a ticket from Jakarta back to Central Java later. Indonesian tickets are the opposite of American ones - prices fall the closer you get to the date. They're still around $60 right now, but you can get them for $20.

For my less.... um.... international friends, let me explain to you how amazing these tickets are.

1. I bought them THREE WEEKS before my departure date. Prices should be sky high by now because it's peak months and because of Libyan oil and all that. But what I was able to find - and on my first try - was still within the price range that the school will pay for (after I work here 3 years, I get a free ticket home, up to $1650).

2. In the whole trip, I only have one domestic flight. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is for two main reasons. One is that domestic flights in third world countries are basically awful. On all Indonesian flights, if I want to carry more than 40 pounds of luggage, I have to pay ridiculous overage fees. So I'll only have to do that once. The other is customs. The normal route home is to go from Jakarta to Hong Kong or Taiwan, then jump over to LAX, and from there head to the airport closest to your home (O'Hare for me, typically). But this means that since LA is your port of entry, when you land there, you are responsible for getting all your luggage, taking it through customs so your things can be rifled through, repacking, then carrying ALL your 100 pounds of luggage to your next gate to re-check it in so you can continue on your journey. However, my port of entry is also my final destination. So I DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT! This is a HUGE blessing when you're a white girl traveling alone.

3. Every airline I fly on (3 different ones) allows 100 pounds of luggage and two carryons. A lot don't these days without paying huge fees of $100 or more. Given that it's the first time in 3 years that I've come home, I kind of have a lot of luggage (expect presents!). So this is great news.

4. Did I mention that I get to stay at a FOUR STAR HOTEL in Singapore, which is like the nicest country in the world? For FIFTEEN DOLLARS?! I have been dreaming of going there, if only for the airport. It has a swimming pool, a movie theater, the tallest slide in Asia, indoor malls, etc. All for free. But I get the airport and so much more. I'm actually more excited about a 15 hour layover than anybody in their right mind should be.

So yeah... That's the plan. I arrive in America on 3 June and I leave for Indonesia on 27 July. I leave Indonesia on 2 June and return on 29 July. Three days of travel isn't bad. At all. I'm definitely thanking God for these tickets! Even though Aswan didn't get a visa, it doesn't mean that God isn't taking care of us, even in the little details!

Thanks, Anna

Remember that post awhile back with pictures I'd taken on a recent drive to Kopeng? One of them included a view of Elephant Hill, though I claimed I couldn't see the elephant.

Well, thank goodness for Anna, because her mad Photoshopping skills cleared that right up for me. : )

Yesterday

Yesterday was both brilliantly beautiful and heartbreakingly awful. Tuesday night, I started feeling a little under the weather with a sore throat and didn't sleep well. I woke up feeling kind of mentally hazy on Wednesday morning but made it to school wearing the correct color for my field day team (the 12 of us were the polka-dot team). We spent an hour in the air conditioned school auditorium where I sneezed nearly non-stop as we watched skits and sang together as an entire K - 12 school body to start the day. Then we spent from 8:30 til 12 playing a variety of games outdoors. I had an awesome team of kids who worked together and even EXCEEDED the maximum number of points possible for the day! The little kids were cracking me up and the older kids did an awesome job of looking out for them. And the weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was sunny and breezy and gorgeous. It was also the third day in a row we had with no rain!

During our 30 minute snack break around 10:00, I managed to sneak away and call Aswan, hoping that his interview would be finished. It was. His visa was denied. After I got over the initial 5 minutes of feeling crushed, I was fine. We knew chances were slim anyways. The reason they gave him for being denied was that he didn't provide convincing evidence of a desire to return to Indonesia (thus becoming an illegal immigrant) after his visit. There are pros and cons to him coming and also to him staying. So though we're a little disappointed, we're alright with the outcome.

Having the distraction of field day and lots of little kids to keep track of kept me from dwelling on it, so the timing was actually better than I expected - I had been dreading all these things hapepning on the same day.

Field day lasted until 2:30, but I got permission from the powers that be to excuse the yearbook team from the after-lunch portion of the day so that we could work. We were in the freezing cold computer lab from 12:30 until 9. It was awful. I just got sicker and sicker throughout the day, watery eyes, runny/burning nose, man voice, blurry vision, sore throat, mildly dehydrated from the morning, but water hurt my throat, etc. We had no dinner, so we were extremely hungry. Four students had to leave before 5, so that left four of us to finish everything.

I spent about the last 5 hours there fighting a bad, grumbling attitude. I mean, I wasn't supposed to be teaching that class in the first place. And each time I would check in with the students throughout the year on the progress of their pages, they'd tell me they were finished. They spent a good part of the year on Facebook and watching Lady Gaga on Youtube. So now we were all having to pay the price. I managed to keep my mind out of that gutter most of the time, but it got harder and harder as time wore on and my stomach got louder and technology kept failing us. Two pages that had already been completed somehow got deleted by the network server and had to be remade. Some pictures were missing. Some weren't in the right place. As I proofread pages (which had ALREADY been proofread and corrected by the principal), I was finding names mis-spelled, grammar errors, lots of small inconsistencies, etc. Then we realized that we didn't have anything with enough capacity to transport 135 pages of Photoshop files to the printer. After several moments of panic, we ended up using one student's 160G iPod. But the school computers wouldn't read it. So we had to use my laptop to hack onto the server, connect her iPod to my computer, and use that to transfer the files. But it too failed three times, and I ended up having to reformat her iPod (thus deleting all her files off it) before I could put anything on it. We finally got it to work and went home. Finally.

I came home, ate dinner, and went to bed before 10. Some days you just need to.

Today I have a fever and I am sweating bullets, but I only have to teach 3 classes, so it's all good.

This Week

End of the year. 2.5 weeks left of school. Here are the things that I HAVE to do this week, no negotiating.

1. Edit and finish the entire yearbook by Wednesday so we can get that sucker off to the printer. We have a LOT of details and editing to finish up. Planning on some late nights in the computer lab this week.

2. Aswan leaves tonight for Surabaya and his visa interview is on Wednesday morning (Tuesday night for my American readers), so we're trying to make sure all those last minute preparations are taken care of

3. Tutoring twice, as usual.

4. TESOL. I've got to write a formal lesson plan for a listening lesson before Wednesday plus all the regular tasks for this week, the 4th week of the class.

5. I'm supposed to do a brief (6 song) concert at a local restaurant this weekend with a girl I know. I'm playing guitar and singing harmony. It's fun, but she wrote all the songs herself and doesn't actually have music written down for any of them. So I'm trying to figure out all the chords plus memorize all the lyrics. Before Saturday. We started practicing yesterday.

6. I've got a seminar I have to go to at church tomorrow night at 6.

7. All school field day is on Wednesday, which is fun, but it means leading a team of 10 or so K-12th graders all day and making sure they are good and are having fun.

8. Teacher appreciation dinner is this Saturday.

9. Meeting with my co-host and the organizers of the Senior/Parent banquet (which will be held next week), because we are supposed to be MCing the entire event but so far have no clue what is going on.

10. Buy plane ticket(s)!!

11. Write the Pre-Calculus final so I can give it to my principal for approval.

12. Buy tickets for the senior parent dinner/banquet thingie.

13. Make a dentist appointment for sometime in the next 2 weeks.

14. Wash my motorbike. It is an eyesore right now.

15. Oh, and (because I know you really care to know), my period should start any day now.

Can I just say AAAAAAAAARGGGGGHHHHHHH!

But I know I'll make it. With as much sleep and as many liquids as possible. : )

GOOD NEWS!

NOBODY GOT KILLED! The day after the accident, I scoured online newspapers in Indonesian (and there’s not very many – certainly not one from my small town) until I eventually found the crash mentioned. Apparently it was big enough to be newsworthy an hour and a half away from here.

The article, translated into English, reads more or less like this:

Jaka Purwanta (37), the driver of a semi loaded with steel, can finally breathe free. After a little more than 1 hour wedged in his vehicle after it hit another semi, this citizen of Polanharjo, Klaten succeeded in freeing himself safely after the accident at the Kauman intersection, Wahid Hasyim Street, Sidorejo district, Salatiga, Thursday (5/5) at around 8:45 PM.

The victim only suffered minor injuries in his leg and was rushed to the Salatiga hospital. The accident happened because the semi, driven by the victim, experienced brake failure. While moving downhill, someone tried to block the wheels of the 35 ton truck. But because the rock used was not strong enough to withstand the speed of the truck, it continued to roll down the Solo-Semarang road.

From the opposite direction, another driver, Mulyadi (54) of Ungaran, Semarang was trying to pass a stalled vehicle. The two vehicles were coming toward each other until finally they crashed. At the same time, an Isuzu Panther, driven by Dedy (32) of Debong Wetan, Dukuhturu also became involved.

The front end of the Panther was smashed. The co-driver of the semi loaded with steel, Lestari (51) said that before the accident, the overloaded vehicle experienced brake failure.

"My truck was chocked, but it didn't stop it. I was safe because I was outside the truck," he said. The accident attracted the attention of the people nearby.

The Salatiga Police chief, Mr Kusdiantoro testified that the evacuation process took about 1.5 hours. According to Kusdiantoro, the accident happened because the semi was overloaded. The total load was 35 tons.

To untangle the traffic jam on the Semarang-Solo road, many traffic officers were called in to direct traffic. Vehicles from Solo were diverted to downtown Salatiga. Conversely, traffic from Semarang was rerouted to the Jetis gas station.

 

So... yeah. That’s the story. And in case it wasn’t clear, the co-driver of the runaway semi was the one who tried to chock the wheels. He had actually jumped out of the truck and thrown a cement block under one wheel, but the truck kept rolling. After I read the account, I remembered another detail that I had forgotten in the aftermath – I almost hit that cement block! I had been grumbling about what idiot would leave a cement block in the road when the sound of the crash almost knocked me over. The Panther was the car that I had seen... I’m still not clear on exactly how it was involved in the accident, but the driver was OK, as was the driver of the other semi.

On a slightly lighter note, the original article, in stating, “From the opposite direction, another driver, Mulyadi (54) of Ungaran, Semarang was trying to pass a stalled vehicle”, uses the verb “menyalib” which means “to crucify”. I was very confused while trying to translate this. Why was the other driver trying to crucify the stalled semi? I thought there must be another translation than the one I knew, so I looked it up. Nope. Only “to crucify”. I finally had to ask a friend (who laughed at me for a long time  before answering), and he told me that in context, it meant that he was trying to pass! THAT makes so much more sense...

Also in the good news department – BOYFRIEND GOT HOME TODAY! He made it safely at 6 am and I had lunch with him after he woke up. : )

Translating

The other night I had my first public translating experience. I think it's a pretty widely known fact that translating things from your second language into your first language is infinitely easier than translating things from your first language into your second language.

Anyways, there was a get-together at church the other night. An evengelist (and the spiritual mentor of my pastor) from America was here to share with us. She was an older lady, Christie Moore, from Idaho. But she'd brought a younger lady, Suzi, with her. At the beginning of the meeting, they asked Suzi to get up and share a little bit about herself. Suzi doesn't speak Indonesian. But the worship leader at my church, Kak Salim, is an English teacher and his English is really good. So Pastor Sam asked him to come translate for Suzi.

But Salim was like, "No, she should translate. Have her do it. She needs practice."

"She" being me, of course.

I tried to decline, telling Salim that he's the Indonesian so he should translate into Indonesian, not me. I had a lot of excuses, but it got to the point of where everyone there (about 40 people) were clapping and cheering my name. So I could either acquiesce or make a big refusal scene. So I walked to the front and grabbed the microphone and smiled wryly at Suzi.

As it turns out, she is everything I don't know how to translate - from the Pacific northwest, wants to get her doctorate in geology, specializing in volcanoes. If she'd been from the southeast, getting her masters in climatology, I could have translated it. But I made it through with a little "creative Indonesian". I just said she's from Washington State and she studies geology (which is geologi in Indonesian, so my creativity worked - just say it with an Indonesian accent!).

I did just fine until she got to the part about how after she arrived in Indonesia, she was just asking God why he sent her here. She didn't understand what her mission was, other than to accompany Christie, but she believed that God had a bigger purpose. I made it through all that...

THEN she went on to say, "But I've discovered that this trip isn't only about what I can do for you, it's also about what you all can do for me."

You could have heard a pin drop as everyone shifted their eyes to me, waiting with bated breath for the translation in a language they could understand. And I just stood there with my mouth open and no sound coming out as my mind raced to find SOME WAY to translate something that makes perfect sense in English to something that didn't sound condescending or imperialist in Indonesian.

Finally, all I could say was, "Uhmmmmmmm.... Salim?"

Everyone laughed as Salim came to translate this last line. I felt better though when he had to ask her to repeat what she'd said and even he had to think about it for a second. Once he translated it, it made perfect sense. He said something to the affect of, "God has shown me that this trip isn't just for me to serve you guys, He brought me here so that you all can minister to my heart as well."

I think in any other place I might have been embarrassed. But I wasn't, not in the slightest. And that's how I know that my church is more than just my church. It's my family. And I had honestly never thought about that before.

Not A Good Night

*I need to preface this by saying that I am not 100% sure of everything I saw tonight. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and as I think back over it, things that I didn’t really see when I was there, I “see” in my memory. And things that I thought I saw there don’t really make sense as I think back over it. Intrigued? Read on...

I just had one of the top 10 most horrifying experiences of my life. And I don’t mean that figuratively, like, “Oh there was a snake in my bedroom!” That’s scary, but I’m talking about beyond that, on a whole new level.

I had gone to Aswan’s house to check on things (since he’s in Jakarta for the week) and make sure everything was all locked up nice and tight and that the roof hadn’t leaked TOO much with the torrential downpour we had from last night until this afternoon. On the way home, I have to take the main road through town and pass through two stoplights. At the first one, I have to turn right. At the second one, I go straight. Aswan kind of lives down an alley off said main road, so as I was leaving his house, I pulled out of his alleyway and into traffic. I could see the first light from there, and I saw that it was green, so I sped up. Indonesians have these handy countdown timers on nearly all their traffic lights, and I saw that I had only 11 seconds to make the light. I went even faster. Then I realized that I probably wasn’t gonna make it, and I didn’t want to cheat death, so I came to an abrupt stop RIGHT as the light turned red (even though 2 people behind me still went through). Remember, that since we drive on the left side of the road, if I want to turn right, I have to contend with cross-traffic. I was kind of kicking myself for not just going when I had the chance. But oh, well.

So I waited the 18 seconds it took for the light to turn green again, and I continued on through the right turn. Not too far ahead of me was a truck that had squeaked through at the tail end of the last green light. He was hauling something heavy, so not going anywhere too fast. I went to pass him on the left, between the truck and the curb. It was dark, and I was focused on making sure I didn’t drive into any of the holes along the curb that open into the sewer while also not sideswiping the truck, so I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. It should make sense then that I heard it before I saw it.

It sounded like someone shot off a cannon right beside my head. The sound alone was almost enough to knock me off my bike. I’m amazed it didn’t. It reminded me of the time lightning struck my house while I was inside it. My mind jumped to a semi I had seen stopped in the road on the way to Aswan’s house. I knew it wasn’t far ahead of where I was then. It was a semi that must have stalled, because they just left it parked right in the road (we don’t really have shoulders here and houses go right up to the edge of the narrow sidewalk). My first thought was that they were trying to restart the semi and it had backfired REALLY loudly. Until I looked ahead and saw that it was snowing. You know how sometimes it takes your mind a split second to piece things together, but how every thought that flashes through your mind in that split second is so perfectly preserved in your memory? Yeah, it took that split second for my mind to realize that it wasn’t snow. It was thousands of tiny shards of glass flying through the air reflecting off of people’s headlights. Two trucks had a head-on collision and from what I could see, there was a car in between them. I wasn’t so close that I was in any danger, but from my side, I was the closest person to the accident. If I hadn’t waited that extra 18 seconds... If I had just gone through that red light...

The first words out of my mouth were, amazingly enough, Indonesian. “Oh, Tuhan.....” (Oh, Lord) I quickly pulled off onto a small side street, praying out loud in an unconscious mix of both languages. People started to swarm the street, running toward the accident.

I was torn. I can guarantee you that I have had more medical training than any other person at that crash site. But at the scene of an accident, the richest (or richest looking) person is often held financially responsible. And if you are white, you are the automatic winner. White people here are taught to avoid accidents. Don’t get involved. I parked at the entrance to the side street (about 45 feet from the crash) for I don’t know how long, watching to see if I could tell how bad the situation was. To see if there was a justifiable reason for me to go over there. But there were so many people, it was hard to tell much of anything. I don’t know how many vehicles from the other side were involved. I could just see the two trucks and the car. I could also see the parked semi from earlier.

What had happened (best guess) was that the truck in front of me didn’t even notice the parked semi. People drive slowly and without headlights all the time here, day and night. The parked semi was facing the opposite direction, thus in the opposite lane, as us. So the truck in front of me thought he had a clear shot, no reason to even slow down. But the light just up ahead (the one I have to go straight through) had just turned green. I’d imagine that the car came through the light, came up behind the stopped semi and didn’t look before pulling over into the other lane, into oncoming traffic. There was another semi behind that car that would have been accelerating through the stoplight. It probably just followed the car.  The truck in front of me smashed into the car full on and the semi behind the car couldn’t stop in time.

I stayed at that intersection until the police came and people started scattering. I don’t know what the outcome was. I didn’t really want to see either.

The funny thing is that at the time, the noise of it kept echoing in my ears. I didn’t even register all the flying glass. But now that I’m at home, that’s all that keeps replaying in my head in slow motion. Millions of little glass snowflakes flying through the air, reflecting light in all directions.

I don’t know what happened to the truck I was passing. After I stopped, that truck wasn’t anywhere. It’s like it vanished. Maybe God put it in my way so that I couldn’t go too fast. Also, when I think back, I can see the color of the car that was in between the semis. If it was smashed between the two semis, I shouldn’t have been able to see it that clearly, right? I feel like I can’t trust my memory. One thing I didn’t see was the driver of the parked semi. He had been standing immediately behind his truck when I drove by the first time. I remember him because he startled me – I didn’t see him standing there in the dark until I was right on him. I looked him in the eye as I drove past.

Indonesia Implications

Implications of Bin Laden’s death for Indonesia
Sidney Jones, Jakarta | Wed, 05/04/2011 11:00 PM | Opinion

Osama bin Laden is being hailed as a hero and martyr by radical groups around the country, with the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) holding a program of “gratitude for service” later today at its headquarters. Demonstrations against the US by other groups are planned. The question is whether there will be more serious consequences, and three come to mind.

One: a temporary shift back to foreign targets. For the last two years, Indonesian extremists have moved away from attacks on the West, symbolized by iconic brand names of American hotels and fast food chains, to hits and attempted hits on local targets, especially the police.

This was a direct result of anger at Detachment 88 for arresting and killing so many mujahidin after a training camp in Aceh was broken up in February 2010, but it also reflected recognition that international targets had no general recruitment value: Few Indonesians saw the logic of killing foreign civilians to avenge Muslim deaths in Iraq
or Gaza.

Bin Laden was such a powerful symbol and so revered in the extremist community, however, that calculations of costs and benefits may be overridden by a felt need to respond somehow to his death. The ubiquitous television images of cheering Americans may strengthen that resolve.

As we wrote in a Crisis Group report last month: “No one should conclude that targeting of foreigners is gone for good. One lesson from this report is that there is a constant process of adaptation, and developments in the Middle East and Pakistan, as well as within Indonesia, could produce new strategic directions.” Bin Laden’s death could be one of those developments.

Two: possibility of revenge attacks. While the possibility of revenge attacks is real, it is not a simple matter to pull them off. Planning an attack takes time, so the danger is less likely to be in the coming days than in the coming months or longer, giving police more time to get wind of a plot. Indonesian extremists also do not have a successful track record in this regard.

Police operations in Poso, Central Sulawesi, in January 2007 killed 14 local fighters and led to demands within the movement for retaliation, but no group had the capacity to respond. The execution of the Bali bombers in November 2008 led to massive demonstrations at their funerals, but no counter-attacks, despite widespread fears.

The fastest retaliation thus far was the Sept. 22, 2010, attack on the Hamparan Perak Police station, North Sumatra, in which three policemen were killed.

It came only three days after police killed three suspects they were hunting for the Medan bank robbery. But the fugitives already had arms, motive, target and opportunity. Putting all that together for a response to Bin Laden’s death may not be so easy.

While that may be somewhat reassuring, it is also true that there are five or six constellations of possible perpetrators, and only one of them needs to be successful.

Three: Strengthened attachment to al-Qaeda. Another possible consequence of Bin Laden’s death is a strengthened attachment of Indonesian extremists to al-Qaeda, both to the idea and to specific parts of the network.

A succession of Southeast Asia extremists have tried to set up local affiliates of al-Qaeda, based more on shared ideology than direct institutional linkage. At the time of the second Bali bombing, Noordin M Top called his group al-Qaeda for the Malay Archipelago.

By 2009 and the Jakarta hotel bombings, he was calling it al-Qaeda for Southeast Asia, even though a Malaysian named Mohamad Fadzullah Abdul Razak (since arrested) was using the same time a year earlier for a completely different group that wanted to send fighters from Malaysia to southern Thailand.

In early 2010, the alliances of extremists that set up the camp in Aceh began calling itself al-Qaeda for the Verandah of Mecca, a common term for Aceh.

By the admission of one participant, the name was in recognition of Bin Laden’s leadership of the global jihad rather than anything more concrete. Finally, only a few days ago, a statement appeared on radical websites here, again in the name of al-Qaeda for Southeast Asia, praising the April 15 suicide bombing at a police station mosque in Cirebon, West Java.

Obviously the idea of al-Qaeda still resonates, to the point that most self-respecting jihadi groups want to identify with it.

But there are also more substantial links. On Jan. 25 this year, Umar Patek was arrested in Abbottabad, the same town where Bin Laden was living. It was probably not a coincidence (indeed, may have been part of the same operation).

Indonesian authorities need to be asking Patek, who remains in detention in Pakistan, exactly what the nature of his communication was with the al-Qaeda organization and who else from Southeast Asia is actively working with al-Qaeda in propaganda, training, or even operations.

In his desire to work with Bin Laden, Patek, a former Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) member who was one of the original Bali bombers, follows in the footsteps of Hambali, the JI leader detained in Guantanamo whose relationship with al-Qaeda until his arrest in 2003 is outlined in a recent WikiLeaks document.

But he is not the only one. Muhammad Jibril, founder of the ar-Rahmah publishing company and arrahmah.com, was in regular communication with al-Qaeda’s media outlet in Waziristan.

And other parts of the radical network in Indonesia are in communication with the radical Yemen-based preacher, al-Awlaki, who is active in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The death of Bin Laden could lead to a renewed push to bolster these ties or to an intensified propaganda campaign based on al-Qaeda materials, especially from AQAP, translated into Indonesian.

There is thus no reason to believe that the security situation in Indonesian has in any way been significantly improved by the killing of al-Qaeda’s founder.

The good news, if there is any, is that none of the groups that have emerged over the last two years have shown the kind of technical capacity that Noordin M Top used to such devastating effect. No one, however, should be celebrating the end of terrorism in Indonesia.

The writer is senior adviser at the International Crisis Group.

I Love Old People

So I'm sitting in a computer lab. At a nearby computer is an older Indonesian man sharing a computer with an American high-schooler. They're speaking a mix of Indonesian and English. Translated fully, their conversation for the last 15 minutes has gone something like this:

Old man: I need to know how to get to ____________ (the name of a store).
Student: Well, where is it?
Old man: I don't know. I need to know how to get there. Use the internet and tell me how to get there.
Student: Okaaaaaaay.... Let's try Google maps.
Old man: OK. Good idea!
Student: So where is this place?
Old man: Indonesia.
Student: Right, but do you know what town it's in?
Old man: Magelang. (About an hour away from here)
Student: OK. Let's type in Magelang.
Old man: No, no, you're spelling it wrong. MAG-UH-LANG. M-A-G-E. E, not A. Spell it right.
Student: Okaaaaay.... Mag-UH-lang.
Old man: Where is it? I don't see it.
Student: Hold on. I'll zoom in on Magelang.
Old man: Alright. Show me where it is.
Student: Wait. Where's Magelang?
Old man: Go down..... Down more.... Now go east... NO! NO! That's west. Go east. OK. Down some more. A little more. No, upupupup! Go up! Ah, there it is! Zoom in, I can't see anything.
Student: Hold on (waits for image to unblur).
Old man: OK. Now where is it?
Student: Well, do you know what road it's on?
Old man: If I knew, I wouldn't have to find it. Zoom in more.
Student: Um... OK. (zooms in)
Old man: I can't see anything. Use the real life. Maybe I can see the store.
Student: Satellite view. Coming up. (switches)
Old man: What is that white stuff?!?
Student: Clouds.
Old man: WHY ARE THERE CLOUDS?! Doesn't somebody try to ERASE THE CLOUDS?!?

The kid keeps turning around and giving me pained looks. Out of respect for my Javanese elders, I am doing my best not to laugh out loud.

Can I Just Say...

... OHMYGOSH.

Just listened to Obama’s speech live online. Unfortunately, halfway around the world, I got the news a bit late and only managed to catch the very end.  “And... God.... Bless.... AMERICA.” Thanks for that, Obama.

Praying for no repercussions in this part of the world....

No, Really...

I just sent a text message to my boyfriend (en route to Jakarta for the next week) telling him I'd just killed a snake in the dark near my house. He wrote back, asking what kind of snake it was. This was my reply:

Coklat n cilik. Mgkn 15 cm. It might be cacing but it moves like snake so i just kill it just in case.

Coklat is Indonesian for brown.
N means and (obviously).
And cilik is Javanese for small.
Mgkn is short for mungkin which is Indo for maybe.
Cacing is Indonesian for worm.
And you can probably read the rest.

People sometimes ask me curiously how many languages I speak. I usually answer "none". They laugh at me. But I'm pretty sure it's the truth. I am no longer fluent in any language.

Cats

Last night girl cat somehow got locked in my house when I closed up for the night. She prowled around quietly for the first few hours, her presence unbeknownst to me. This lasted until 2:20 when she decided she REALLY needed to go outside. I'm glad she didn't take a dump in my kitchen or pee on the couch and all. But still, there might have been subtler ways to get out.

She is smart enough to know that I am the only creature tall enough to reach the door knobs, so obviously, she had to wake me up. This involved her climbing up on my desk (which is immediately beside my bed), crawling as close to the edge as she could, which placed her basically right beside my head, and HOWLING in a very panicked manner.

There is nothing in the world like being jolted awake by a car alarm going off in your bedroom at 2 AM. Better yet though is being jolted awake in such a manner and finding a pair of eyes gazing into yours, just inches from your face.

Mas Bowo

Last night I got home after fellowship and one of our 3 single guards opened the gate for me. I'd heard a rumor going around that he was getting married soon, but I also know that in the not too distant past, he had been "close" with another (different) girl who I am friends with. So as he checked my bag and opened the gate for me, we had the following conversation.

Me: So I heard you're getting married. Is it true?
Him: *reduced to shy giggles, which was really cute* Yeaaaaah……
Me: Congratulations! Shake my hand!
*Handshake*
Him: Thanks.
Me: So when's the wedding?
Him: Maybe July. (Indonesians usually set the date about 2 weeks before the wedding)
Me: Wow! How long have you guys been dating?
Him: About 3 months.
Me: Three months?! You move fast!
Him: Yeah, this is from my parents. (It took me awhile to decipher that comment. Like they are paying for the wedding? Or SHE came from his parents - he's marrying his sister? Finally, I realized that he was saying it's an arranged marriage. Or at least a pressured one.)
Me: Ooooooh….. So how do YOU feel about it?
Him: Huh?
Me: I mean is it only your parents who want you to marry her, or do you want to too?
Him: Oh, yeah! I really like her. I'm happy.
Me: OK. Good.
Him: Actually, she was Muslim, but since we started dating, praise God, she became a Christian!
Me: (Knowing that lots of people "change" their religion just to please in-laws, spouses, etc) Do you think she's truly changed in her heart?
Him: I believe she has really changed. She reads her Bible every day and asks me questions about it so I can explain it to her. She's really seeking to know God more and more every day.
Me: That's awesome! I'm glad that God is using you in her life!
Him: Yeah, her whole family is Muslim still though. They live about 4 hours away. Her sister runs a Muslim community there.
Me: How do they feel about her conversion? Do they still accept her?
Him: Yeah, they're OK with it. Maybe they will know God too.
Me: That would be great! I hope so…
Him: Yeah.
Me: Well, congratulations again!
Him: *Twitterpated grin* Thanks!!

9th Grade. First Period.

"Good morning, Miss. How do you do?" - SoonHyung. Kind of made my day.

Fantastic...

Boyfriend is supposed to come home from his trip today. I don't really know what time. And I have all the keys to his house. And his cell phone died at 7 this morning because he forgot to pack his charger.

And just now I read in the news that there were 2 earthquakes in the town he was in. The first was a 6.3 on the Richter at 1:40. The second was a 5.0 at 2:30. They were supposed to head out of town at 1, but given the total disregard Indonesians have for doing anything on time, chances are slim that they actually left at 1.

Also, did I mention HIS CELL PHONE IS DEAD?!!

Hoping this is not a panic-worthy moment.

*edit* After posting the above, I remembered that like 4 days ago, Aswan used my phone to call someone. And that someone happens to be on the same trip with him. And the number was still in my phone. So I was able to sms them. They were still there when the first quake hit, but somehow they never felt it. Currently, they're about 3 hours from home. All good news! Puji Tuhan.

An Odd Sighting

Earlier today, I was driving to pay my internet bill. And as I was leaving, I pulled out into traffic behind a pickup truck. Nothing unusual about that. Except for the FULL GROWN HORSE standing in the back.

Oh, Ibu

Even though we're on holiday today, we had Ibu Sri come in to work (she's the "helper" for my apartment building - all 3 of us share her!). I didn't care so much about getting dishes done or floors cleaned since I'd been keeping up with that on my own over the weekend (I try not to let myself get TOO spoiled by her that I forget how to clean up after myself). I wanted her to come so I could learn to cook Indonesian. Yeah, yeah, I've been here 3 years and I cannot make a good Indonesian meal. I've gotten pretty good at making American food with Indonesian ingredients and other invented foods that are a blend (or maybe a clash) of cultures. But a straight up 100% Indonesian meal? I can't. But I want to be able to when I'm home this summer.

So I wrote down some ideas last week of foods that I could probably hunt down ingredients for in America. Some of these are my favorite foods, some are Aswan's favorites, and others are just traditional Indonesian foods that I'd like to be able to cook for my family! I had 6 or 7 foods on my list, and Ibu and I hit 2 of them today. I can now successfully cook fried rice and 4 kinds of sambal (Indonesian hot sauce made with a pestle and mortar). I really love getting to spend time with Ibu Sri. She is truly an amazing woman. She was born into Islam, but converted to Christianity when she was younger. She has shared her life story with me before, sometimes tearfully. It hasn't been easy. But through it all, her faith is SO strong!

It's always funny to hear what she thinks of Americans. Here are some misconceptions she had that came up.
1. All Americans are Christians.
2. Americans don't get sick. They die of old age.
3. Americans are in general very healthy because they eat such good food and exercise a lot.
4. American children never have birth defects or mental handicaps.

So we talked about all these things. Now she knows... It's amazing what a limited view TV can give of things. It's a good reminder to all of us not to believe everything we see!

HOLIDAY!

I lovelovelove having holidays. I am extremely productive and I love it. For example, Saturday I rented a car and went to Jogja with my lovely driver, Aswan, to buy all my gifts for coming home. And if you’re reading this, there’s probably something for you. In spite of getting a flat tire, rain most of the day, and everyone and their cousin being in Jogja for the long weekend, I got basically ALL my shopping done! Everything I bought fills up one entire suitcase!

Aswan left yesterday for Cilacap. The Alcatraz of Indonesia is there. There are just under 1000 prisoners there (from estimates I’ve heard) from 20 different countries – most are in on charges of drug trafficking which is punishable by death here. So if they’re in prison, they got off easy. Through various prison ministries, about 600 of the prisoners are Christian, and so about 18 people from 4 churches are going there to have Easter with them, boyfriend included. He left yesterday after church and will be gone until late Tuesday night.

Anyways, that’s not why I’m writing this. I found a bunch of old pictures on my phone, so time to upload them!

These first 4 pictures are from a day a few weeks ago when I realized that an Indonesian friend who goes to college here in town has NEVER in two years been up the mountain. So a few of us went for a drive to get some fresh air, sunshine, and to take Liz on a new adventure!

(Looking down on the valley. The small mountain in the middle is named Elephant Hill. I don’t see it.)

(PERFECT weather for a motorbike trip!!)

(Some clouds moving in over the pine forests at the top of Mount Merbabu)

(A restaurant I ate at that serves a Cappucino Keju Float – That’s a cappuccino with ice cream and CHEESE on top! Indonesians love it. I doooooon’t.)

(I found a whole stack of Miley Cyrus clothes in a store nearby. I was cracking up to see it here!)

(I have not yet been able to bring myself to try this one... It’s at Pizza Hut!!)

(Close, but no cigar. “I would give my right arm to be ampidextrious”)

(Is anyone else disturbed by the brand name “Homy Ped”? For children’s shoes?)

I love not going to work.

Wake up @9:30.
Eat some homemade granola and milk.
Online for an hour or so.
Take a shower for 45 minutes.
Eat lunch @12:10 - Toasted poptarts and a raspberry and honey milkshake.
Work on TESOL for an hour.
Take a nap @1:30 because it has started raining.
Wake up when it stops raining @4:30.
Work on TESOL for another hour.
Watch the first half of Mulan after finding it online while organizing all my paperwork (note to self - I NEED a filing cabinet) and my crafts rack.
Go out to dinner with boyfriend (after not seeing each other for 2 days) at our new favorite place @6. We each ate a chicken breast, a plate of rice, the BEST sambal (hot sauce) I've ever had, tempe, tofu, and drinks. Just under $4 total.
Back home @7.
Work on TESOL for a couple more hours while boyfriend works on translating and editing various things. I like working with our laptops side by side at the kitchen table.
Boyfriend goes home @9-something.
Watch the rest of Mulan while knitting the best scarf so far.

It’s Been Too Long

So here’s a newsy post. First of all, my birthday was on Saturday. I’m now 25. Yes, yes, getting old, I know. A quarter of a century and all that. I have some lovely friends who made my day extra special. First of all, Aswan drove an hour both ways in the pouring rain on a motorbike to bring me a birthday pizza from Pizza Hut. The pizza made it home in perfect condition, miraculously. (On the topic of boyfriend, I have decided that he is MacGyver. I broke my laptop last week. And he fixed it. With only a pair of nail clippers. I still have no idea how he did that.) Yohanes came over and baked me a pecan pie with the last of a bag of pecans someone from America had sent him. Aswan and I baked strawberry shortcake. And Sylva came over to help us eat it all!

They HAD to light the candle on my table and make me pose while they sang Happy Birthday about 5 times.

Yes, yes, I love my friends. I am blessed.

Yesterday I got home from work and found a note from Ibu Sri informing me that there was a snake behind my house earlier in the day and she was scared so she made the guard come kill it for her. All she said was that it was a green snake that wanted to come in my house. I get visions of a snake knocking on the door asking, “Ibu? Can I come in?” Anyways, I asked the guard about it later, and he confirmed that yup, there was a 5 foot long green snake and he killed it. Ever the hero. But seriously – FIVE FEET? Yikes.

Besides murdering random animals and/or small children in my house while I am out, my cats have also taken to sleeping in very weird places/positions. I really don’t know what is up with them.

Girl cat curled up with my pants.

Boy cat asleep in my bed.

He woke up and we had to have a talk about the fact that I am allergic to him and he is not allowed to sleep in my bed.

We FINALLY finished the visa application process, and Aswan will travel to the embassy on May 11th to have his interview with the consulate. Please pray that this will go well!

My TESOL class started up again this week. The final week for that happens to be the final week of classes at school. Which also happens to be the week I will be packing up to go home. Ugh. In order to organize my life a little bit for the upcoming 6 weeks of crazy hectic madness, I resorted to making a giant calendar and hanging it on my living room wall to keep myself to a schedule. Normally I just remember dates and times in my head. But there’s way too much in the next 6 weeks. I’m gonna fail at life if I don’t have this stuff written down somewhere!

If you ever feel like you need a little ice cream, head on over to my place. I ordered 2 liters (half a gallon) for my birthday, to go with the strawberry shortcake. The store was sold out, but said they could deliver 5 liters for only a little more money. I was reluctant, but my desire for ice cream won out and I agreed. They showed up 30 minutes later with an 8 LITER TUB of ice cream. That’s 2 gallons. It was an act of God that the thing even fit in my freezer, and half my freezer tenants have taken up residence one floor down in my fridge.

On the topic of food though, Ibu made granola from scratch today. Nothing better... I ate it for dinner with some fresh milk I bought and the leftover strawberries from the shortcake (which, as you can see, were less than appetizing four days later).

Once more on the topic of food, I wrote some recommendation letters for a certain student awhile back. She gave me a surprise thank you present today in the form of a whole bag of Kopi Luwak beans! If you don’t know what luwak coffee is, watch Bucket List. It is supposedly the most expensive coffee in the world, which is ridiculous since it’s made from poop. I’ve never tried it though. Looking forward to it!

Sadly, I’ve caught 4 students cheating this week. Mostly just copying homework, which isn’t as huge of a deal as like cheating on an exam. But cheating is cheating, and so there have been some rough consequences. Two students have been very forthcoming and honest about what they’ve done, accepted their consequences and moved on. One I will be confronting tomorrow. And one is flat out refusing to accept the proof that we have against him – but his story has changed 5 times now which makes it seem less than legitimate. He is harboring a LOT of anger toward me, because he sees me as the instigator of this whole incident. He asked me after school yesterday how long I will continue to victimize him before I am satisfied. (I caught him plagiarizing a paper 2 weeks ago) I am so not prepared to deal with this level of anger. It’s been rough. He did come in after school today to apologize for some things that he had said to me. But he still maintains that he did nothing wrong and will not confess to anything. We (the principal, superintendent and I) are the bad guys for not trusting him. I used to have a very good relationship with this student, and it’s been really hard on me to realize that he no longer wants anything to do with me. Please pray that God will work in this student’s heart over the coming days and weeks!

One more thing before I go. Local elections are coming up, and every year I marvel at the ridiculousness of Indonesian campaign posters. But this year, I’ve found the one that beats them all. Who wouldn’t vote for this guy? Just look at how moist his lips are.

“The time is prosperous. Striving together for Salatiga.”

Death and Dying and Such

I've never been a fan of funerals. I'm eternally grateful that I was 18 before I even had to attend one. As much as I hate funerals, viewings are worse. Especially when it's someone in your family. I remember my Grampa's viewing. We all stood beside our Grampa's dead body and smiled and shook hands with about elleventyjillion people attempting to offer consolation of some kind, though everyone knows that's not really possible.

My dad explained to me that viewings are a way to say goodbye. I don't get it. Who wants to remember someone they love as cold, dead and in a box? And let's not even mention all the makeup. The funeral service is sometimes a little better. You get to hear lots of people say nice things about the person who died. I remember hearing people tell great stories of my Grampa that I'd never even heard. But still. Grieving is bad enough. But having to do it in front of everyone you've ever known? 100 times worse. And THEN you have people who come to your house, so everything has to be clean, and you have to have food, and you have to be polite, when you just want everyone to go home so you can take a nap and cry some more.

I dislike Indonesian funerals even more. I understand the necessity of most of it, but still... For Muslims, the body should be in the ground within 24 hours of death. So when someone dies, the family has to clean, cook and rearrange their entire house (for seating space) because everyone and their cousin will be there within minutes. The body usually never leaves the house (until burial, of course). The family prepares it and sets it out for display somewhere in the house. The street gets shut down, because chairs and awnings are set up there for all the guests. At the designated time, the body will get put into a simple wooden box (if it hasn't been already) and carried to the closest graveyard.

One of my good friends lost her mom this morning. She'd been sick for about 6 months now. Really sick. So I went to their house this afternoon. The small house was packed with family and mourners, though her mom had only died a few hours before. After greeting the ENTIRE family, the first thing they asked me was if I wanted to go see the body. I politely declined, as this tends to really weird me out. I mean, what are you supposed to do upon seeing a dead body? Say something to it? Remark about how it looks? Nod solemnly?

Anyways, I stayed in the front room and talked to people for about an hour before I had to head back to school, glad that I had avoided having to see/touch her dead mother (normally they put the body in the front room, like as a centerpiece). My luck quickly ran out. A guy I marginally know sat down next to me and was showing pictures he had taken. Of the dead body. Yes, Indonesians tend to take LOTS of pictures at funerals. I didn't even know how to respond to him. And then when I was leaving, I was looking for my friend to say goodbye and happened to poke my head into the room where the body was. And guess what? Mom was laid out ON THE KITCHEN TABLE. I really hope I didn't make a face of any kind, because everyone in the room was looking at me at that point and asking who I was looking for.

When I die, I don't want to be cremated. But I don't want people to have to sit through a funeral service on my account either. Just donate my organs, throw the rest of me in a box, and bury me. Put up a simple headstone so someday my great-great-grandkids can come to that place and sit in the grass that grows over my bones and wonder about what kind of life I lived so many years ago.

What Do Korean Rednecks Say?

Somehow, all the stars and planets aligned today and for the first time EVER, all my classes have a test on the same day. Which means it’s a pretty lazy day for me. Just monitoring tests all day. Of course, I’ll have a lot of grading to do later, but so far, it’s good. I actually just got done grading 9th grade Algebra 2 tests. This chapter was over statistics and surveying methods. We spent a few days learning about flaws in surveys that can cause them to be biased and about how and why you can’t trust every statistic/survey you see. For 3 questions on their test, they had to label survey questions as biased or unbiased, and if the question was biased, they had to explain why and offer a better solution. On the test of one of my VERY Korean students, I found this gem:

Number 7. It’s biased because it’s a pastor asking people and they might be influenced to lie and say yes. So the offered solution is, “A redneck at a pizza place asks, ‘Y’all read your Bibles ‘veryday?’”

While I was grading this test, others were still finishing theirs. I had to try very hard not to laugh out loud. In fact, I had to clap both hands over my face, which luckily only drew attention from one student trying to beat the bell.

This one is a winner. Where does he even come up with this stuff? Do they have rednecks in Korea? And do they say “y’all”?

Ignorance Isn't Always Bliss

I know I've jokingly referred to smoking as the national sport of Indonesia - but this news article I recently read REALLY puts into perspective how widespread smoking really is here.

JAKARTA: An Indonesian woman exhales cigarette smoke into the mouth of a gaunt, naked patient at a Jakarta clinic, where tobacco is openly touted as a cancer cure.

The Western patient is suffering from emphysema, a condition she developed from decades of smoking. Along with cancer and autism, it’s just one of the ailments the Griya Balur clinic claims it can cure with cigarettes.

“I missed this,” says the woman, a regular customer, with an American accent, as Phil Collins’s “I Can Feel It” blares in the background.

Griya Balur would be shut down in many parts of the world, but not in Indonesia, one of the developing-country new frontiers for big tobacco as it seeks to replace its dwindling profits in the health-conscious West.

Long traditions of tobacco use combined with poor regulation and the billions of dollars that flow into government coffers from the tobacco industry mean places like Griya Balur go unchallenged.

The “treatment” for the emphysema sufferer includes the blowing of smoke from “divine cigarettes” infused with “nanotechnology” to remove their cancer-causing “free radicals”, through a tube into her diseased lungs.

Smoke is also blown into her ears and nose, while she holds a cup of aspirin over her right eye. The Phil Collins music, it seems, has no curative properties.

Griya Balur founder Dr. Gretha Zahar told AFP she had treated 60,000 people with tobacco smoke over the past decade.

With a PhD in nanochemistry from Padjadjaran University in Bandung, West Java, Zahar believes that by manipulating the mercury in tobacco smoking can cure all diseases including cancer, and even reverse the ageing process.

“Mercury is the cause of all illnesses. In my cigarettes — we call them Divine Cigarettes — there are scavengers that extract the mercury from the body,” she said.

On her website she says she does not need to subject her theories to clinical tests or publish them in peer-reviewed journals, nor does she have the money to “fight” with “Western medical scientists”.

Zahar’s claims were recently presented to the Constitutional Court where farmers and legislators from the tobacco-growing hub of Central Java are challenging a law that recognises the leaf as addictive.

Aris Widodo, a pharmacology professor at Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, told the court that he had never heard of anyone dying from smoking.

On the contrary, he said, smoking was good for you.

“Smoking can eliminate anxiety, sharpen concentration and calm the nerves.

It’s a good cheap alternative to other expensive drugs, like Valium,” he said.

Tobacco is addictive and harmful to health, but Indonesians are taking up the habit in ever larger — and younger — numbers, cheered on by the tobacco industry’s aggressive marketing.

Addicts puff everywhere from beauty salons to dentist’s waiting rooms.

Parents give cigarettes to toddlers to keep them quiet. Cigarettes are handed out to teenagers along with concert tickets. Laws banning public smoking are rarely if ever enforced, and tobacco advertising is ubiquitous on the country’s roadsides and television screens.

Cigarettes cost about one dollar for a pack of 20, yet they are often the second biggest item of household expenditure after food for the Southeast Asian country’s poorest families.

According to the World Health Organisation, smoking rates have risen six-fold in Indonesia over the last 40 years. Smoking kills at least 400,000 people every year and another 25,000 die from passive smoking.

Yet Indonesia is the only country in Asia not to have ratified the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which sets policy recommendations and benchmarks for countries concerned about the health impacts of smoking.

Indonesia’s biggest cigarette manufacturer, PT HM Sampoerna, is an affiliate of Philip Morris International. British American Tobacco bought Indonesia’s fourth largest cigarette maker, PT Bentoel, for US$494 million in 2009.

The government reaps about seven billion dollars a year in excise taxes from the industry, which employs scores of thousands of people around Temanggung in Central Java.

Anti-smoking activists say industry players are dusting off their old marketing playbook to obscure the science and paint smoking as cool, masculine, glamorous and even healthy, especially to women and children.

During deliberations of smoking regulations in 2009, a clause stating tobacco’s addictiveness went missing from the final draft. The government said the omission was a mere oversight and later reinserted the clause.

Health ministry official Budi Sampurno was questioned but he maintains that tobacco companies had nothing to do with it.

“Never. Is there any proof? We have never been approached by tobacco companies. That is not legal practice,” he said.

Dr. Hakim Sorimuda Pohan, a Democratic Party legislator who helped draft the Health Law, said there was no doubt big tobacco was behind the shenanigans.

“They did the same thing in 1992. Tobacco companies successfully had the same clause omitted from the law,” he said.

-AFP/ck

Via http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/lifestylenews/view/1122255/1/.html

What Do I Make of THIS?

Well, I just got home. It's about 10:20 PM.
I smelled something weird when I walked through the door.
As I walked to the lightswitch on the far wall, I tripped over several shoes/sandals. Odd that they would be strewn across the floor.
Got the light turned on and instantly noticed two things.

1) The blood all over the kitchen floor.
2) The two cats sleeping very contentedly on the couch.

Have my cats committed a crime while I was out??

Today Was A Good Day

Today started off with church, as any typical Sunday does for me. I walked in and ducked into the middle section, back row with Oma Ayu, because Pak Filemon was already doing the opening prayer. When he was done, he decided that today, all the kids should sit in the middle section, so the rest of us had to move to other seats. The other people scrambled and secured seats in the left and right sections, so that by the time I grabbed my Bible and stood up, Pak Filemon was smiling at me and saying, "Up here! Right in front! Sit here!" So I was the ONLY person sitting in the front row. I felt especially conspicious, because they project the song words on the front wall, and I was now effectively blocking the view of like 4 village ladies sitting behind me. Great - let's put the tallest person in front.

Indonesian churches are odd in that the pastor doesn't always preach. In fact, in my church, the pastor only preaches about once a month. There are so many pastor-less churches and home churches in the area that our pastor spreads himself pretty thin. This is both a good and a bad thing. Anyways, today, Ko SiuSiu was preaching. I am typically anti Ko SiuSiu when it comes to preaching. He has this habit where he has his sermon, which lasts about 15 minutes. Then he decides he hasn't talked long enough, so he just stands there and talks for 30 - 45 minutes longer. Last time, he was preaching on fasting. And then he spent a solid 30 minutes talking about how much porn street kids in Semarang see, according to recent studies. Today was really good though. It was about expressing our love for God in our praise. Which is funny, because Indonesians are like 10 times more expressive than Americans anyways, IMHO. But he had some really good points that hit home, and after he preached, we continued singing, putting into practice what we had just heard. It was awesome and very well done!

Anyways, after church, Aswan and I met up with some friends for a breakfast of Chinese noodles. Later, we came to my house and decided to go for a walk. We ended up walking to the outskirts of town, through rice fields with all the inhabitants of the shacks there standing outside and grinning toothless grins at us as we walked by. Pretty sure they don't get many white people in those rice fields. We slipped and slid in the mud and chased lots of lizards! Eventually we came to a pretty wide river and thought we'd have to turn back, but we followed it through a forest and ended up at a tofu factory! By then, we had our bearings and knew the way back home, but right then it started raining! I didn't mind, but Aswan was feeling self conscious, because Javanese people don't go in the rain like ever. It will make you sick and you will die. They don't let kids play in the rain either, which is kinda sad. Anyways, Aswan was sure that people thought he was crazy. "You can play in the rain because you're white. They all think I'm crazy though, because I'm Javanese!" Haha... We eventually made it back to my house where the guard at the gate had a good laugh at us, and we hosed the mud and grit off behind my house.

After that ordeal, Aswan was really tired, so he decided to take a nap on the couch since it was still raining outside and he didn't want to drive home. But after about 5 minutes of tossing and turning, he looked at me with big eyes and said, "I don't feel good. Can I sleep on your mattress?" How could I resist that? He ended up crashing in my bed for 3 hours while I worked on making a photo album for my gramma and read Hunger Games, which is an addicting trilogy, by the way. When he woke up and stumbled back out to the front room, all he could talk about was how "nyaman" (comfortable) my mattress is. Indonesians use thin foam pads to sleep on which eventually they get squished down super thin and are not comfortable at all. I spent a month sleeping on one in Sumatra, and it was so bad that after about a week, I started sleeping on the floor instead. I don't think Aswan had ever slept on a spring bed before. Seriously, he brought it up at least 5 times over the next hour with comments like, "Wow, my back feels so strong now" and "I like how it pushes on my butt" (He meant that he didn't just sink into/through the mattress... It supported his weight. Haha!).

I made him (and he wanted to) watch a documentary I'd recently found about the Westboro Baptist Church (you know, the ones who picket soldier's funerals), "The Most Hated Family in America". It was done by the BBC, and it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I had to explain a lot of the culture/language to him, but overall, he got the gist of what these people are about. He was just as amazed as I was. Crazy people! And it makes me sad that right now, they are the loudest voice of "Christianity".

Anyways, after that, we were super hungry. The only thing we'd eaten in the past 26 hours was the noodles earlier. So we cooked dinner together (which is code for "we heated up leftovers") and ate a menagerie of foods - chili, white rice, chicken with spicy sauce, chicken pot pie, eggrolls, etc. Then we read for awhile. BTW, I really love having a boyfriend that I can just sit on the couch and read with. He actually owns more books than me. It's great.

The rain let up while we were eating, so after reading for a little bit, he decided to head home. Of course, as soon as he was walking out the door, it started pouring again. Good thing he brought a rain jacket!

Anyways, that was my day. And I just realized that it's all about my boyfriend... But I don't really post much about him usually. And today, he was the reason that my day was so good. So I'm posting this anyways. Just don't think I'm obsessed.

*+%$*#@%@#$%&!!!

Yeah, that pretty much sums up how I feel today.

Boyfriend left at 8 this morning to drive an hour and a half to Solo to the Permata bank to pay his ridiculously expensive visa application fee. Two hours after he left, I got an email stating that the US Embassy in Indonesia as of today is no longer operating until further notice.

I did some further research (AKA - I Skyped my dad and asked him what the blazes is happening) and found that apparently there is no budget plan for 2011. It is due tomorrow. And until one gets approved, embassies, national parks, and the Smithsonian have no funding.

You would think that massive amounts of stupid would prevent people from being eligible to hold a government office, but apparently not.

God is still in control. He is bigger than the embassy. He is bigger than Obama. But I am still incredibly aggravated.

And luckily, the person boyfriend was supposed to go with was 2 hours late, so I caught him before he even left. Oh, and the US government WILL help me if I a) die, b) get arrested, or c) if my child is kidnapped. But that is all they will make themselves available for.

Students are kind of nervous. Most of our students end up going to college in America, but this year, most of them are not American. They have all been accepted into American colleges (one to Columbia even!), but they currently can't apply for student visas.

Here are some quotes I found on cnn.com regarding this issue.

"'While nothing will be decided until everything is decided, the largest issue is still spending cuts,' Michael Steel said." (Genius quote of the day. "...nothing will be decided until everything is decided...")

"The president noted the mechanism of shutting down government operations have started in case a deal proves elusive, which he said would hurt federal workers, people who rely on government services and the nation's economic recovery." (So an elusive deal would hurt those who rely on government services... And shutting down every US embassy in the world accomplishes what?)

"'For us to go backwards because Washington couldn't get its act together is unacceptable,' Obama said." (Finally! Something I agree with!)

A Spiritual Day (But Not the Good Kind)

The title of this post describes my yesterday. Nothing necessarily happened to me, but the day was a good reminder that Satan is alive and well in this country. I had three main reminders of this.

1. I went to Aswan's house after school to pick some stuff up from him. I could tell he'd had a bad day, and he started to tell me about it. The night before, he'd had a bad dream, so he woke up feeling out of sorts. Shortly after waking up, he got a call from his older sister saying that their mom had a sum of money stolen from her. I won't tell you how much, because it will probably seem insignificant to you. But calculate how much money you make in a month. And that's proportionally how much she had stolen. His mom is not well off. She runs a little warung (kind of like a mini restaurant) with only one table on the sidewalk selling nasi pecel, a rice, tofu, and vegetable dish. So losing a month's wages - which she had been saving for a LONG time - is a huge blow.

But here's the part that gets me. Three men came in a car and ordered pecel. After they ate, one of the men asked if she had a cigarette. She told them that she doesn't sell cigarettes. So one of the men replied, "No problem. I can take you to the market to buy some." One of the men must have had some kind of dark power, because at this point, Aswan's mom says she was hypnotized. She vaguely remembers getting in the car with one of the men. Apparently, he drove her to the market where she bought 4 cartons of cigarettes (something she would NEVER do). Once she bought the cigarettes, the man left her there and drove away. At that point, she snapped out of whatever spell she was under and realized she was standing in the middle of the market holding boxes of cigarettes. So she had to walk back to her warung which, luckily, wasn't far. Once she got there, she realized that all her money (which had been in a hidden place) had been stolen by the other two men. The men were nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, this kind of stuff happens all the time. People invite Satan into their lives so that they can have power like this over other people. Theft is never ok, but what especially irks me is that these guys came in a car - which usually means they are pretty well off - and stole a month's wages from an amazing woman, struggling to put food on the table.

2. Last night, I went to Solafide (English language fellowship). At the end, we were sharing praises and prayer requests and GT (did I mention that my good friend GT moved back to Salatiga from Sumatra?!) asked for prayer for his mother in law. She had a stroke several years back and has been bedridden ever since, but she's been getting a lot worse lately - part of the reason he and his wife (and their new baby - CUTEST THING EVER!) moved back. A lot of older Javanese people will invite "spirits" to live in them to give them a long life, beauty, strength, etc. But this becomes a huge problem when the person is ready to die - the spirit often won't let them. They die long, slow, painful deaths as the spirit slowly releases its grip on them. I've seen it happen twice already. We believe this is what is happening to GT's mother in law. Every time people come to pray for her, she goes into fits, to the point of where they have to stop praying because they are afraid for her. The spirits need to be cast out of her so she can die, but how can they cast the spirits out if they can't pray for her or declare the name of Jesus in her presence?

3. After all that, I got home last night, and one of my favorite guards was at the gate. He opened up the gate with his usual goofy grin and asked, "Are you scared of ghosts?" I said no, but he didn't believe me. So I explained that I don't really believe in ghosts, which - in the American definition - are people who died then came back to life as evil spirits (that was the best way I could explain it in Indonesian), but that I DO believe in Satan. But I don't have to be afraid of Satan because I have Jesus and He's bigger. So the guard finally believed me and was telling me that the night before, there had been a demon at the gate. Right outside my house. I was like, "Oh, great...." We actually did have a really good conversation about it though. And then we started talking about helmets. I don't really know why.

So yeah. Today, boyfriend was on his way to Solo to pay his visa application fee - because you have to do it at one specific bank - when I got an email notifying me that the US Embassy is closed until further notice. Thank you, U.S. government for finding it more beneficial to beat dead horses than to actually make some real decisions. Visa process at a standstill until further notice (which hopefully comes soon enough that we can still apply). And I can only get American assistance if I die, get arrested, or my child is kidnapped. Perfect. *rolls eyes*

The Sun Stayed Out!

Yesterday, the sun was out ALL DAY. So after work, I smsed boyfriend, “Does this mean we get pizza?” to which he replied, “Ayo!” (Come on! Let’s go!) So I changed my clothes, grabbed some moneys, and we set out.

A perfect evening for a motorbike trip! If anything, the sun was TOO bright.... I tried to take a picture of the coffee plantation we drove past, and this is how it turned out!

We didn’t take into account that we’d make it there in under an hour and that neither of us would be hungry at, oh, 4:45. So we decided to head to Carrefour (Indonesian Wal-Mart) across the street first. I saw bins of clothes on clearance and started digging through them to see if there was anything that would fit. And much to my amusement, I think I found the entire Miley Cyrus winter line. But then under THAT, I discovered..... OLD NAVY TANKTOPS! For $3 each. Cheaper here than they are in America. Things only got better from there. In the toy section, I found plastic dishes with lock on lids for 60 cents. The funny thing is that until now, I never questioned why they were in the toy section... Then in the kitchen section, I found a REAL cutting board! No more of this moldy slab of tree I’ve been using for 3 years! They also had CHEESE. Wow. So yeah, Carrefour before pizza was a good time.

Before I forget, I have to interject here – this particular Pizza Hut has VALET PARKING. We are talking fancy dinner here, people. The funny thing is that the entire parking lot only holds about 4 – 5 cars and all the parking spaces are approximately 2 car lengths from the valet dropoff.

So anyways, I spent $22 at Carrefour and got: 4 Old Navy tanktops (blue, white, purple and pink), baby wipes (because our faces felt nasty from driving in rush hour bus/truck traffic), 3 nice plastic dishes for leftovers, a bag of mini cheese wheels, a 3 pack of sponges with built-in brillo pads on one side, and an awesome looking wooden cutting board.

Then we had a delicious dinner of meat lovers pizza and came back home just in time for Aswan to be able to visit with some friends who used to live here but now live on Papua. (They’re back in town for a conference).

Oya – two other highlights (or humorous moments) of the evening...

1. My house helper left me a note yesterday, and I wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to get at. Sometimes it’s hard to see through the culture and know what people are REALLY trying to say. So I brought the note with me and showed it to Aswan at dinner to ask his opinion on how I should reply. He explained what she meant and gave me some advice on how to respond to her. I was like, “Well, if she means that, then why doesn’t she just SAY that?” And he replied, “It’s OK, babe. She just doesn’t understand our culture.” Hahaha... I think that dating an American is making him forget – HE’S JAVANESE TOO!

2. A friend from church who is still in college SMSed both of us while we were at dinner last night to advertise a fundraiser she’s doing for something for her university. They are selling brownies. According to the message, flavors include: red rice, cheese, durian, chocolate, jackfruit, strawberry, pineapple, fruity taste, jambu, mango, passion fruit, soursop, apple, corn, peanut, tiramisu, orange, banana, mint, red bean, tape (it’s a fermented Indonesian food), lychee, blueberry, caramel, and special. After all those flavors, I can’t imagine what could be so special about special. So what do you say? Anybody want some brownies? Red bean flavor, maybe?

April!

This past weekend was the Jr/Sr Banquet, our version of prom. Each year, the Junior class plans and throws the event in honor of the Seniors. The Sophomores also attend to (hopefully) learn what to do/not do next year when it’s their turn to plan! I am the Junior class advisor this year, but this class is AMAZING and I did virtually nothing in the planning of this event. They did an awesome job... Hats off to the juniors!! During the entire 3 hour event, I managed to take about 6 pictures. Highlights include....

The horrifying “artwork” on the main floor of the hotel where the event was held. When you first enter, you are met by two BRIGHT red naked butts. Come around the front, and they’re STILL buck naked! According to the plaque, this apparently represents cold, greed, and power. On the left, you have a Dalmation dog leading its owner on a leash. I have no clue what this one represents. Also, on the right, you can see frames with large rocks hung in them. Fascinating.

This is JooHyun, one of the Seniors (and my TA!) explaining to us at dinner why cow’s milk is dangerous. Apparently, “when you milk a cow with the machine and you put those sucky things on, it gives the cows blisters on their parts, and then those blisters pop and cow milk that you buy in the store has PUS IN IT!”

Eventually she had herself so worked up that she was laughing hysterically, crying, and gasping for breath all at once, much to the amusement of the rest of us trying to eat our dinner. Aaaaand everyone at the surrounding tables.

The winners of the “Cutest Couple” award. They’re not dating, but we’re all hoping.... Haha....

Sunday was spent in a near coma state. Except for that one part of church where they decided to start celebrating birthdays... During the month that my birthday is in. So in an unprecedented move, me and 5 other people had to stand at the front of the sanctuary while the congregation sang “Happy Birthday” in English EIGHT times. Then Pastor Sam prayed over us individually and that was nice.

Yesterday, I saw a picture of some REALLY delicious looking pizza on the internet on accident. And I realized that I haven’t had pizza for 2 months. So I made a deal with Aswan that if it isn’t raining one day this week after school (chances are slim), we are taking the motorbike to Semarang to get pizza (1.5 hours away!) at PIZZA HUT! It tastes just like American pizza if you avoid the stranger flavors.... Corn Flakes, Potatoes and Mayonnaise, Sardines, etc.

Today is Monday... Back to school. Normally it’s raining by lunch time. Today it wasn’t. At about 2 o’clock, I looked out the window and noticed the sun was still out! I can’t remember the last time that happened!

I got excited. Until I walked back to my desk and happened to look out the windows on the other side of the room....

Oh, man..... Right now, it’s 3. I can hear thunder, but I also see lots of blue sky. So we’ll see how things are looking around 4ish.

After snapping those pictures, I sat down to grade homework. On a geometry test, I found this gem:

Have to say that one made me laugh. Then, in a stack of papers (yes, I make my math students write papers), I found this...

In case you can’t read it, it says, “I forgot about the paper. I hope this cat lightens the mood.” Well, if nothing else, they make me laugh! : ) 

Golly.

Today I am teaching 7 periods.
We have a 6 period day.
I am a superhero.

Just kidding.
One teacher went to the embassy to (hopefully) obtain a visa for his (Indonesian) wife and their daughter to go to America this summer.
So I'm teaching my classes plus 2 of his. Twice today, I'll be teaching 2 classes at the same time.
I so could have done the one room schoolhouse thing.