Things and Things

Thing 1. This was our Thanksgiving evening.

Thing 2. As of November 27th, as close as we can figure, Aswan and I have been dating for one year! I spent the whole day working on my TESOL final paper. Seventeen pages, baby! Turning it in today. Anyways, unbeknownst to me, while I was working on my paper all afternoon, boyfriend went all the way to Semarang to buy me a pizza from Pizza Hut because a) he wanted to do something to celebrate our anniversary and b) he knew I was a little homesick because of not being able to be with my family on Thanksgiving.

Thing 3. I just found this bug outside the girls bathroom. At first it seems insignificant. But then it begins to seem like some kind of mutant scorpion bug. So I took lots of pictures.

Boxes

I have this tradition of sorts that mandates that any package received after Thanksgiving must be saved for Christmas. Usually it's only my mother who mails such packages, but I know a couple other people have recently sent things as well (HOORAY!), so I just want to check and see if there is anything in the aforementioned packages that needs to be extracted immediately. This might include things that will break down into a puddle in extreme humidity or might otherwise go bad and/or melt if left to sit for a month.

So if you mailed me a package recently, could you kindly comment and let me know? Terima kasih banyak (many thanks)!!

Holidays

My five favorite holidays are:

1. Fourth of July

2. Thanksgiving

3. New Year’s Eve.

4. Pi Day

5. Idul Fitri

I’ve only ever spent three Fourth of Julys away from home, but this will be my fifth Thanksgiving overseas. It’s hard to feel like it’s really the Thanksgiving/Black Friday/Christmas season when you wake up sweating at 6 AM to this:

It was so bright and sunny out! My room just filled up with curtain-filtered sunbeams, and it was all but glowing when I got up this morning. I like waking up on sunny days.

On a side note, remember how my camera broke? Well, I gave it to Hotjaga, because he is the master of fixing everything broken (even the Christmas lights that my cats chewed through). It took him about 4 days, but he was finally able to fix it completely! Good as new! He gave it back to me yesterday morning when I was on my way to school. He had originally told me that he was giving up and giving it back to me, so I thought it was still broken. Then he told me to open it up, and it worked!! So I took his picture and almost gave him a hug before I remembered that he’s a married Muslim man and I probably shouldn’t, even if he is my good friend.

Indonesians hardly ever smile with their teeth, but when I took this picture, he was laughing at my reaction to my camera actually being fixed, so I got a real smile! He must have taken a few pictures himself while he was working on my camera, because I found a picture of my apartment on it, taken from the vantage point of the jaga post at the gate.

See what I mean about it not feeling holiday-ish? It’s so GREEN!

Anyways, happy second best holiday of the year, everyone!!!

The Spot. I am on it.

There is this one worship leader at my church who really likes to sing songs 8 times in a row. And I'm not even exaggerating. Verses, chorus, bridge... all of it. Over and over and over. Sometimes it drives me nuts. This morning we were on the 6th round of "Dimuliakan, ditinggikan", when I started to feel really queasy and short of breath and my vision started going black around the edges. So I sat down and lip-synced the next three rounds. At least that song isn't a long one. Then pastor got up front and burst into a rendition (in English - I have no clue why he does this, because most people in my church don't understand or speak very much English) of "Jesus, I believe in You" as he does EVERY TIME HE PREACHES. So I sat through that too, and by the end of the song, I was thinking I was going to throw up (not because of the song, though I am pretty sick of it) and had a pounding headache. So pastor finished his super emotional rendition of the song (three times through), and then started preaching.

The sermon was on the power of thanksgiving. Right as soon as he said that, I remembered that I was supposed to call my family while they were at Thanksgiving dinner at gramma's house before I went to church. I must have been starting to be sick last night because I left a candle burning all night long on accident. I get really forgetful when I don't feel good. Anyways, right then, I grabbed my phone to text dad to ask if they had already left gramma's house. As I was texting, I felt Aswan jab me with his elbow. I looked up and realized that everyone in the congregation was looking at me expectantly, including the pastor.

Know how even when you're not paying attention to something, your mind kind of backlogs everything that's going on around you, and if you think for a second, you realize that you actually did just hear what was going on? Well, I am happy to report that just in the past couple months, I've been able to do that in Indonesian. It used to be that I had to really, really focus on everything that was being said because the second I spaced out, I would miss everything. But now I can kind of be half focused and still keep up. So anyways, I realized that pastor had just asked me what the population of the US is. Uhhhh.... I have no clue, and I told him so. So he asked me again. Yeah, I still didn't know. Not even ballpark. So he went on with what he was talking about (which was how all Americans have a whole holiday for giving thanks). Aswan whispered, "How can you not know the population of America?" So I replied with, "Do you know the population of Indonesia?!" He said, "Of course." And then he told it to me, but I forget.

Dad replied to my SMS saying that they'd already left, so then I had a stomach ache, a headache AND was feeling bummed that I forgot to call my family for Thanksgiving dinner. Laaaaame.

Pastor was still talking about how about 250 million Americans (he made up a number and went with it) celebrate Thanksgiving every year and how great that is that they all love God enough to have a whole holiday just to thank Him. I'm thinking, "Mmmhmm... That's what the holiday is about these days... The whole population of the US thanking God. Riiiiight..." And of course, right at that moment, he said to ME, "Can you please come up to the front and tell us about Thanksgiving? In Indonesian, please". And he stands there, smiling, holding his microphone out to me expectantly. I asked if I could do it from my seat, but he told everyone to cheer for me to get me up to the front, so you know I had to go to the front then. Peer pressure and all that. So I'm thinking he's asking what Americans do for Thanksgiving. But no, I get up to the front, and he says, "Tell the people the history of Thanksgiving!"

So I did. And I made it through explaining how people came from England and lots of them died because of how cold winter was and because they didn't know about the crops and animals there. And I talked about the Indians and how they helped them and there was a great feast and all that. There was one other white person there too, and I got her to come up front with me and feed me information. Because like I said, when I'm sick, I forget stuff. And I'm not fluent in Indonesian. So it was a lot easier to have this girl (who is new here and doesn't speak much Indonesian) feed me stuff in English that I could just translate instead of having to remember the story and form translatable thoughts on my own. She's studied a lot more history than I have too, so through her, we got to share about how George Washington made it a national holiday, then Abraham Lincoln reinstated it as a holiday after the Civil War.

When we finished, I asked Aswan if he understood it, and he said it was really clear and that we'd done a great job.

So today I had my first experience speaking to a congregation in Indonesian. The funny thing is that I don't get nervous about speaking in front of large groups in Indonesia the way I do in America. You'd think I would, Indonesian being my second language and all. But it really doesn't bother me so much. So there's an up-side.

So This is Still Happening

Went outside to take some pictures of all the red ants that have moved into my front yard. I am praying for hard rains today.

Oh, what’s that last one, you ask? Well, that is the picture that my camera somehow took by itself when red ants started going inside my boots and I accidentally dropped it. It broke.

(Don’t worry, dad, it wasn’t the Nikon.)

Bugs

1. The red ants are still out there. All over the sidewalk and the yard. I guess I didn’t sweep their nests far enough away. I feel like I can’t leave my house. Also, they are doing military exercises with a helicopter over my house. They do this a few times a year. It kind of weirds me out, because the helicopters fly over really low 5 – 10 times.

2. I happened to find THIS picture on a website last night, so I spent some time today trying to track down what on earth kind of bug that is on the right. I found one in my bed (see photo below) when I lived on Sumatra last summer, but nobody knew what on earth it was.

Anyways, through a long (5 minute) tedious process, I found THIS website. Apparently, it’s a Malaysian Orchid Mantis, the most sought after mantis in captivity. Gee, I missed my chance to make money off the stuff I find in my bed. Awesome internet searching skills come in handy once again…

So This is Happening…

So in case you can’t tell from the pictures, a red ant nest fell out of the tree in front of my house. I walked home in the dark. And I got ants in my pants. LITERALLY. Red ants in my pants. My legs are burning.

So of course I attempted to take a flash light out there and take pictures of them all, but they are swarming the entire sidewalk area, the lawn chairs, the LAWN, and everything else in the nearby vicinity, so I quickly aborted mission. Then I came back inside and tried to think of a safe way to get the ants away from my house. And I decided that maybe if I could sweep the fallen nest off the sidewalk, the ants would also leave the sidewalk. I didn’t want any ants getting in my pants again, so I found the shortest pajama shorts I own and put those on. Then I dug out my green rubber snake boots that I haven’t worn in forever and I cleaned them out real good and made sure there were no scorpions living inside. I donned those, grabbed a broom and a camera, took exactly one picture, and flung the nest out into the yard. While screaming and hopping from one foot to another, violently shaking whichever foot was airborne in order to knock off any ants that might be on it. All that, and the ants still made it to my thighs. I am such a martyr. I just hope the jaga didn’t see me.

Prayers for Cousins

Last night, I was getting ready for bed when a Muslim friend texted me and asked, "Did you go to sleep yet?" I replied that I was reading my Bible but was going to bed soon. He replied, "I have to drive to another city right now and it's about to rain. Can you please pray for me so that it won't rain?"

Maybe he meant nothing by it and I am way overthinking it. But it was significant to me for two reasons. One, just because he asked me to pray for him. He's never done that before. And two, because the concept of prayer is so different between the two religious. Muslims pray 5 times a day in the mosque with prayers memorized in Arabic. Allah isn't exactly an approachable god for day-to-day needs. So it's odd to me that a Muslim would ask me to pray for something so seemingly mundane.

But he did. And I did. And it didn't rain at my house until after I went to bed. I don't know about the rest of his trip though. I'll have to ask him later.

Pictures!

I wrote a story earlier this week about how I learned some new vocabulary while teaching English in the desa (village). And just now I remembered that I took some pictures last time I was there, so I decided to share them here!

This is the main road through the village. It’s just big enough for the car to get down! They don’t have a whole lot of cars come through there…

The room of the village elder’s house where we teach all the children. We get upwards of 40 kids K – 6 in here during the hottest part of the afternoon, and I can feel sweat dripping down my back as I teach! It also gets REALLY loud with that many kids, but we do what we can with the space we have!

I don’t have many pictures of the kids because they are still pretty shy around me. They don’t know any other white people besides the ones who come teach them – me and one other man! I did take this picture of three of the girls after English class – first thing, they ran outside and up the guava tree for a snack! The one at the top was shaking the tree so the two underneath could pick up the fruit.

A traditional Javanese village house. The houses aren’t really attached to the ground too much. They have wood walls, windows with no glass (just shutters), and dirt floors. The village leaders’ houses are usually the exceptions because they are more well off – they probably have some kind of tile for the floor.

The village mosque. There are no Christians in this village.

You Know You're Not in America When...

...students miss several days of school due to dengue fever.

Time Flies

I've been going to bed later and later lately, and I haven't really been able to figure out why. So tonight I sat down and wrote down all the extra things I do after I get home from school. Things outside of regular engagements like teaching piano and guitar, choir practice, teacher meetings, church, Bible study, etc. Here is the list I came up with...

1. Practice guitar. I've been working on some new songs. Ready to take this show on the road! Or maybe not... But I lead worship fairly regularly for one fellowship and sporadically for other churches and things, so I like to keep my skills up.

2. Crochet. I'm teaching myself how, and it's been an arduous process. But I'm getting there, and I think it's a skill worth having, so I've been putting time into that.

3. Exercise. Granted, I don't do a lot of this, but I've been trying lately. I might go for a walk or do some stretches or just do 50 situps before bed.

4. Read. I am always reading something. It might be a good book or a devotional, or it might be something totally lame like a stack of out of date US Weekly magazines that my friend gave to me. This is probably the only 100% relaxing thing on my list.

5. Learn language. Trying to add to my vocab. I might read a book or the Bible in Indonesian, looking up and making lists of all the words I don't know. Or I might just peruse the dictionary to find new words to learn.

6. Dinner. A girl's gotta eat. Sometimes I go out, but most times I just reheat whatever my helper cooked earlier in the day. This usually involves cutting the chunks of fat and bones out of it (because Indonesians are not at all discriminating about what they eat), heating it up with whatever method works best, and steaming rice to go with.

7. Clean up after myself. I know I have a house helper, but I try to make a point of not leaving a huge mess for her to have to clean each day. She does the dishes, laundry, and cleans the floors, but I pick up after myself, keep everything where it belongs, wipe up spills, throw dirty clothes in the hamper, rinse/soak dishes, and the like.

8. Shower. And even that doesn't happen every day. Sometimes it takes some work to get the hot water to work and who has the time?

9. Boyfriend. Spending time with him is definitely important. But no, I don't see him every day. In fact, we hung out Sunday, but that's the only day I've seen him since last Wednesday. Sometimes I forget we live in the same town.

10. TESOL. I will be finished by the end of this month! Working on two massive papers that need to be turned in by the 30th in order for me to receive my certification.

11. Online. I have a rule that I'm not allowed to be on the computer after 10 PM. This means I need to go like now. But I just want to point out that when you live 12,000 miles away from half the people you know and love, it does take some serious internet time to keep up with them all. Also, I have a tumblr, a pinterest, a blog, a facebook account, AND a twitter account to peruse as often as possible...

Now I guess it's no mystery why I can't go to bed early!!

Finally

Do you remember right before I went home to America at the beginning of June? And something really bad happened to our community here right at that time? And I couldn't really talk about it because not everybody knew about it because nobody was really supposed to know? Well, partway through the summer, the affected family released details about what happened and gave their permission for the event to be known. I've just really never talked about it because I haven't wanted to. I still don't want to. Because I don't know how to process it, so I haven't. And I cry like a little girl every time it gets brought up. But I found something today that I want to share with you, and in order to do that, I need to explain what happened here at the end of May, so here it goes.

My (former) boss is an amazing guy. He lived and served in Indonesia for 13 or 14 years before deciding two years ago that he would move his family back to America this year. They have three children, all of whom I have taught, and their second graduated in May. Their reasoning was that by then, 2/3 of their children would be in America, so it was time to return. Only things didn't go as planned. During her junior year, their oldest daughter, Lainy, got extremely sick, but nobody could ever explain why. She saw doctors in various countries, but not a single one knew what was causing her illness. It got to the point of where she would be in bed with a migraine and throwing up for days. Other days, she would be fine, but then would pass out randomly, falling and bruising her body. She came to school on crutches regularly and often had black eyes. She basically looked like she was being extremely abused. She was only able to come to school one or two days a week for most of her junior year and had to retake some of her classes as a senior. By her senior year, she was on medicine that helped control some of her symptoms, but still nobody knew what was wrong. She was on the basketball team, but rarely played because she was too weak. She couldn't even stand for long periods of time. She also lost feeling in her arms and legs. She did manage to graduate and she went back to America with plans to start college at a small Christian school in Indiana. But she was just too sick, so her mom (our science teacher) went back to be with her in October of 2010. They stayed there together, seeing various doctors and trying different medicines, until December, when they both moved back to Indonesia. During that time, doctors discovered that all her symptoms were related to a type of parasite that is transmitted by snails (who knew?!). So she was being treated, but the healing process can and will take years.

At the end of May, the family had 3 weeks left in Indonesia. They were planning on going to Australia for a family vacation before heading back and settling in to their new home in the States. One day, during our finals week at school, Lainy was home alone and feeling good, so she decided to go for a walk near her house. While she was out, two Indonesian men attacked her with a knife, forced her off the road and raped her. In broad daylight.

Three weeks short of the completion of more than a dozen years of service to this country. This.

There are people in this community who have known Lainy since she was in Kindergarten. That's how old she was when she moved here. We have all seen what she has gone through the last three years, and we have all heard her amazing testimony. She hates being sick, but she knows that God is doing something big in her life. But to see her have to go through this was almost more than we could all bear.

Anyways, I'm writing this because I found something today that I thought was really, really neat. Lainy's younger sister, who graduated high school two days after her sister was raped, recently wrote and recorded a song dedicated to Lainy. I just happened to come across it online. And you should listen to it. This song alone is a great testimony to Lainy's amazing faith. Click HERE to listen.

New Vocab

On Saturdays, I go with some friends into two local villages to teach English to the kids there. The first village is smaller and has two or three Christian families living there. Only 5 - 10 kids come to learn English in that village, and we teach them in the tiny one room church they have. One time I asked the kids how many people come to that church, and they told me 11. The second village is 100% Muslim, and we usually have 30 - 40 kids come - all elementary age! Depending on how many teachers we have, we split them up into groups by age/grade and teach them on the floor of the village elder's house.

Last week, we were teaching them family words. Father, mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother, grandfather, niece, nephew, etc. I had the third and fourth graders. We learned all the words, talked about how to spell them, played some games, worked on memorizing the words, then worked on a little bit of simple present tense. We still had some time left, so I taught them how to ask, "How many ___________ do you have?" (filling in the blank with a family word) So we took turns asking each other, "How many sisters do you have?", "How many grandfathers do you have?", "How many cousins do you have?" and so on.

We ran into a problem though. It all started when I asked each of them in turn, "How many fathers do you have?" Of course, they all said "I have one father". I made a joke about how it would be weird to have two or three fathers. Very seriously, they answered, "Yes, but lots of people have more than one mother!" So true in Muslim society. Later on, when I asked, "How many sisters do you have?", the first little girl got confused and asked, "Anak kandung?" Anak means child. Kandung means uterus/womb/fetus. So I thought she was asking me if I wanted her to count an unborn baby as a sister, like if her mom is currently pregnant. I wasn't sure though, so I asked her what she meant. The explanation she gave me went something like this, "You know, anak kandung. Like the kids in your main family. Not the kids that you take from the road or anything like that." OK, I was really confused then. I ended up telling her that she could count however she wanted.

Later on, I asked one of the men to explain to me what it means, and he told me that anak kandung means children from the same womb or mother. So if a man has two wives, and the first has 3 kids and the second has 2 kids, if I were to ask a child from the first wife how many anak kandung siblings they have, they would only count their mother's two other children as their siblings. But if someone were to ask them how many children were in the WHOLE family, they would count all four siblings from the same father.

Good to know. And strange that I live in a society that has such language for multiple wives with multiple children.

Walt Disney Wants Me.

Following is an email I opened less than 5 minutes ago. I'm posting it here, because it is all kinds of crazy. Disney? Education? China? Where did they get my name??

Hi,

During a recent recruiting search, your resume came up as meeting our criteria. Based on your qualifications we would like to inform you about career opportunities with Disney English.

Disney English, the Education segment of The Walt Disney Company, is looking for the best and brightest educators to instruct children ages 2-12 in an intensive program at our Language Learning Centers throughout China.

Foreign Trainers will follow an innovative and immersive Disney inspired program, leveraging state-of-the-art technology as well as Disney's beloved characters and stories to provide students with a highly engaging and effective premium learning experience.

Language Learning Directors are responsible for managing the foreign and local trainers, ensuring consistent excellence in our overall program delivery and ensuring that Disney English is a highly effective and unforgettable classroom experience for our young language learners.

Please reply to this email with an attached resume if you or someone you know is interested in our program. To qualify, candidates must:

Have a Bachelors degree
Have 2 years or more after graduation work experience (at least 1 year must be teaching)
Be a native English speaker

Regards,
Asha Bates
Consultant, Disney English

GRANOLA!

I got hooked on granola when I lived in Kenya. I didn't have a house helper there, but my neighbors did. Their helpers would make granola and they would share with us. There wasn't a whole lot of milk or yogurt available (unless you like camel milk sold in a plastic bag), so I learned to just eat it plain. When I got back to America, I found that granola is stinkin expensive, so I never really ate it there other than the occasional granola bar on the go. Then I moved to Indonesia. And I got a house helper. And I found out that she can make granola! So I have her make it from time to time.

Apparently, I got Aswan hooked as well, and a few weeks ago, he wanted to learn how to make it himself. So we made a batch ourselves during fall break loosely based on a recipe I found on the internet. It came out not very crunchy and a little odd tasting. I chalk that up to the fact that my brown sugar had fermented and the honey was 3 years old. We still ate it all.

Wednesday, boyfriend came down with a nasty cold. Thursday he had to get up at like 5 AM to drive some people to a conference in Surabaya - the second biggest city on the far East coast of Java, about 7 hours away. So what did he do Wednesday night? He drove his bike to my house. In the rain. And asked if we can make some granola because he really wanted to eat granola. Apparently granola is now his comfort food. He was so wet and sounded so sick, so of COURSE we made some! He wanted to make his own, and since we had made it once before and knew what was good and what needed improvement, we both made our own batches, no recipe involved. He wanted his crunchy. It ended up turning black and tasting kind of burnt because he left it in the oven for like an hour. But mine came out great! Boyfriend was gonna take his to Surabaya with him so that he would have something to snack on while driving, but I put my foot down and made him take mine. There was a little that didn't fit in the container, so I ate that much. And it was GOOD. So Aswan was like, "You need to write down how you made that so we can make it again". So I wrote it down the way I remembered it, and here is my recipe for really good granola. It's easy!

Ingredients:
1/4 kg oatmeal
1/2 a stick of melted butter (real butter)
3 giant spoonfulls of brown sugar
quite a bit of cinnamon
a tiny bit of nutmeg
several squirts of vanilla extract
a handful of flax seed
a handful of sesame seeds
1/10 kg dried shredded coconut
the rest of a bottle of honey
like 5 spoonfulls of sunflower seed oil or any other vegetable-type oil

Turn the oven on to some arbitrary temperature. Mix up all the ingredients in a bowl then press them onto a cookie sheet and bake until it smells like it might start to burn soon. Take it out and let it cool. Then you can cut it up into bars or crumble it up in chunks.

Alternatively, you could just dump the mixture onto the cookie sheet and spread it out fairly evenly. Get it out and stir it up every 10 minutes so the bottom doesn't burn, and then you'll have cereal-type granola. That's what we did last time and what boyfriend did this time. He just kept deciding it wasn't crunchy enough and putting it back in for 10 more minutes. As it cools, it tends to get crunchier though...

I like granola because you can throw in just about anything you want. Dried fruit, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, nuts, a brisket. The possibilities are endless.

Quote of the Day

After reading a quote by Voltaire written on my chalkboard...

11th grader: Who is Voltaire?
Me: A French philosopher who lived in the 1700s.
11th grader: Oh. Is that who they named Volt energy drink after?
Me: Uhh.... I don't think so.

Before you read the conversation below, you should know that pretty much all Indonesians take two baths a day - once when they first wake up, and once in the afternoon. But never after dark, because you will get sick and die. It may be a third world country, but you can rarely accuse an Indonesian of being dirty. In fact, all my friends think I'm gross because I only bathe about three times a WEEK! I say if you're not sweaty and dirty, why waste water? Bathing twice a day every day seems excessive to me. But anyways...

Boyfriend: What time are we going to Val's house tonight?
Me: Whenever, no set time.
Boyfriend: Good, because I want to take a shower first.
Me: OK.
Boyfriend: I didn't mandi (bathe) yet today.
Me: WHAT?! Are you even Indonesian?!? No mandi this morning?!
Boyfriend: Yeah, I haven't mandi-ed in the morning for a long time. One mandi a day is enough for me.
Me: Seriously?
Boyfriend: Yeah, I'm turning into an American. I mean, if you mandi at night, it's useless to mandi in the morning too, because you didn't get dirty since the last mandi.
Me: Oh my goodness... Finally, somebody understands me...
Boyfriend: Americans. You people are pretty smart.

Idul Adha

Today is Idul Adha, the second biggest Muslim holiday of the year. It is the day on which they commemorate the time God sent a ram to Abraham so that he wouldn't have to sacrifice his own son. Of course, they believe that son was Ishmael, while the Christian Bible states that it was Isaac, the son through whom the blessing was to come. They mark this day by staying up all night the previous night having parades and marching around town chanting, "ALLEHU AKBAR!" It's pretty loud. Then on the day of, they go to the mosques and sacrifice goats and cows and pray a lot, then after all the blood has been drained out of the meat, they cut it up and divide it between themselves, any other friends who have come (including white people who are there watching) and enough to give the poor. On this day, everybody eats meat.

Anyways, I want to ask prayers for one man. He's the friend of a friend, an older Javanese man, and he recently became a believer. They don't call him a Christian, just a believer. He's been reading his Bible a lot lately, and he's really felt convicted about the verses about feeding the poor and also, "what you did for the least of these, you did for me." So on this day, he, as a believer, is going to butcher several goats himself, then take the meat to some different parts of town and give it all away to the poor while sharing his testimony and the fact that he didn't have to sacrifice these animals to Allah, because his God already sent the ultimate sacrifice.

Telling people about Jesus in the biggest Muslim country in the world is never easy. In fact, proselytizing is illegal. And through his actions, he could very easily face persecution on a large scale. Pray that his words would fall on open ears and ready hearts and that God would protect him! He's already put his plan into action as I type this, so as soon as you read this post, get praying! : ) Thanks!

Seriously?

Apparently the language school next door is either building a house or possibly just pounding lots and lots of nails into a piece of wood. 10 feet from my bed. At 7:30. On Saturday morning. Guess who's awake and cranky about it? Yes, that would be me.

Updates, Because I am Generally Bad at Them

1. They have still not caught the Afghans running loose around here.

2. My friend is still kidnapped by pirates. She was able to get word somehow to her org in Denmark that she is alive and well. That's all that we know though.

OKTHEEND.

600th Post!

Our school orchestra, which is made up of people ranging in age from 5th grade to 40s, wants to play Vivaldi's Gloria for the school Christmas concert in December. They asked for people willing to sing. So I joined choir?

The practices are only one hour a week, and now that rainy season seems to finally have settled in, it's usually raining after school, so I might as well stay an extra hour on that one day anyways, right? First practice yesterday worked out well - it was pouring when we started, but the rain was over when we finished. So practice was especially beneficial to me since I'm not yet in the habit of bringing an umbrella with me to school.

So now... I teach piano and do math tutoring on Mondays, give guitar lessons on Tuesdays, have teacher meetings and choir practice on Wednesdays, lead worship for English language fellowship on Thursdays, and work at the coffeeshop on Fridays. Now I have a matching set of full evenings, thank goodness. My Wednesdays were feeling naked.

"You look two years younger today. Or actually.... You look like someone's mom."

Thank you, ninth grader.

Afghans on the Loose

Not Afghan hounds. Not Afghans like the ones your great-grandmother crochets. I'm talking about passport holding Afghani people. Twenty-five of them, to be exact. Illegals. Here. In my town. Here are the facts as they were related to me:

Twenty-five illegal Afghan immigrants landed in the coastal city of Semarang a few days ago. Their final destination was Australia, but the Indonesian government caught wind of them and arrested all twenty-five. Their plan was to drive them to Surabaya (the second largest city in the country) and put them on a boat back to Afghanistan. The road from Semarang to Surabaya passes through my town. And it was while they were in my town that the twenty-five Afghans hatched a plan. They were all riding in a bus with a police escort, and apparently Indonesian law mandates that you cannot handcuff people unless they are criminals. Because these people were only illegal immigrants, they were not bound or restrained in any way. So they ganged up on the bus driver and his friend. Friend got thrown off the bus into a field and the driver was tied up and gagged. All twenty-five Afghans ran for it. The police escort managed to recapture twenty of them directly. But there are still five on the loose.

I don't know what neighborhood exactly they were in when they busted out. But the toll road they were on runs about a kilometer from my house. So the police have told us all to be on the lookout for anyone "with an Arab face". You know, brown eyes, dark skin, dark hair. JUST LIKE EVERYBODY HERE. That should be easy.

In other news, my friend Jess who was captured by pirates a week ago today was able to get word to her org to say that she and her coworker, Poul, are alive and well. Praise God for that! Now to get them out of there...

You Will Never Guess...

I've only been going to my current Indonesian church regularly for a little over a year now. I started when I felt my Indonesian was good enough to actually get something out of the sermons. Something I've been a little surprised about are the ways that Indonesian churches (mine and others) celebrate Christmas. For example, two years ago, before I even started attending an Indonesian church, an (Indonesian) acquaintance of mine (who happens to attend one of the top 3 biggest churches in town) came to me one day in early December and asked me, "Are you free on Christmas Sunday? My church needs five white people to dress up like Santa for our service". I flat out refused. So he asked, "Well, could you ask some of your white friends?" Again, I flat out refused. What CHURCH needs five SANTAS?!? And why do they need white people?! (Answer: It's a status thing)

Anyways, back to last year - I started going to Indonesian church. Indonesians really like themes and dress codes. My first Christmas with my church was themed, "Green Christmas: Heal the World". The congregation went around town planting something like five hundred trees. Everyone took 4 or 5 and planted them wherever they thought they'd look nice, then met back at the church for lunch. That happened a couple days before Christmas Sunday, and sadly, I had prior obligations and was unable to attend. The Christmas sermon was all about being good stewards of the earth. And at the end, instead of the traditional "Silent Night" while holding hands around the sanctuary that I'm used to, we all sang (did you guess it already?) "Heal the World". Yup, the old Michael Jackson classic, complete with heartfelt amens and hallelujahs. I thought it was a little ridiculous. Oh, and we were all supposed to wear green. Or red if you had no green.

So in all fairness, I should have been prepared for this year's theme, announced at the end of church today.

Some churches just have quiet Christmases, members of the congregation exchanging gifts and cards with each other. In some, little kids perform songs they've practiced for months. Some do skits or whole plays. Some go the whole candlelight service route. Others like to get more involved and do clothes drives or open soup kitchens.

But not my church. Oh, not my church. God forbid we do anything normal like hold candles or sing traditional songs*. Oh, heavens, no... My church? My church kicks it up a notch.

The theme for this year's Christmas is (did you guess it yet? If you actually did, I'd probably give you a million dollars. If I could. Because you'd deserve it)....

MASS CIRCUMCISIONS!

That's right. Mass circumcisions. And I don't even mean that figuratively, however that could be meant figuratively. We are really reaching out to the community with this one. Too poor to pay for your teenage** son to get circumcised? No problem! Father's House Community Church will do it for free! FOR CHRISTMAS! And by "FHCC", I actually mean "a doctor". But he's not doing it for free - we have to pay him. We'll just arrange for him to be ready at the church with his scissors sharpened, then we'll serve you some snacks when the doctor is finished with you! Because you know you're gonna wanna eat as soon as you get part of your body cut off. So come one, come all, young and old, and don't forget your bullet to bite down on! Free circumcisions to all, and to all a goodnight!

(At least there's no dress code. I hate to think what it would be. Can't wait to hear the Christmas Sunday sermon though...)


*These things, by the way, are also considered normal in Indonesia. I'm not being totally ethnocentric here.

**Most Indonesian boys are circumcised between the ages of 10 and 14. It's a big sacred ceremonial becoming-a-man thing. The whole family/village comes to watch, and the kid gets lots of money and a sarong to wear for the next week.

Neighbors

So apparently the Scroggins family is moving into the dorm next door. Scroggins? Really? I thought I stopped being neighbors with Kentucky three years ago.

Real Life Pirates

Hey. So a super neat lady I worked with in Kenya got kidnapped by pirates on Tuesday. Like REAL pirates. Somali pirates. THOSE pirates. They are holding her and one other man for ransom. This same group killed a French woman they had in captivity earlier this month.

Her name is Jess, and that’s her in the middle, right next to me. Every single person in this picture makes the list of the most amazing people I’ve ever met and will never forget, but Jess takes the cake. She has chosen to be obedient to God and to serve in what is currently the most dangerous place for foreign aid workers worldwide (according to one article I read). Please, please, please pray for her…

For more, you can read THIS ARTICLE.

Happenings

1. Black cat brought a dead rat inside tonight while I was watching a movie with boyfriend (on a related side-note, boyfriend LOVED Swiss Family Robinson. He sat all leaned forward with his elbows on his knees for most of it).  She took it under the kitchen table and attempted to play with it. The rat didn’t seem too into it. Boyfriend almost peed his pants.

2. I had a whole conversation with an Indonesian today about arm hair. They are truly fascinated. The conversation ended when he asked if he could have some of mine.

3. I mailed a Christmas box to my family today. That is truly amazing. Christmas shopping in 100 degree heat in October. Who ever heard of such a thing?

4. Boyfriend and I cooked dinner tonight – an impressive Indo version of taco soup. It only took 3 of us. I sent my helper to the market earlier with a list of fresh ingredients while I hit up 2 different import stores to find tomato sauce and a can of black beans. Then we met back up at the house to wash and prep all the fresh stuff. Cooking is tough when you don’t have canned/frozen items readily or cheaply available. Do you know how long kidney beans have to boil for before they’re soft enough to eat?? A WHOLE DAY! Ah, well, such is life. And at least I’m eating semi-organically. I left all the chopping and dicing for boyfriend to do when he got came over after work because he dices like a guy selling knives on an infomercial. It is truly amazing. Also, I can’t chop onions without sobbing my eyes out, so I definitely left those for him. But the bottom line is that the soup was delicious; however, I overshot the amount of ingredients (it’s really hard to know how many ears are in “1-10 oz bag of frozen corn”) and we have LOTS of leftovers. So tomorrow we’re making tortillas and chips to go with it.

5. I consider my week off over today since it is the last official day “off”. Tomorrow is Saturday, then comes Sunday, which I would normally have off anyways, so it’s not special anymore. I’ve made several things this week which include the following:

6. Besides Christmas shopping, I also did some shopping for myself this week. That includes supplies for most of the crafts above. I actually found a very limited and highly controlled selection of paint cards that I used for the calendar. I swiped as many as I thought I could while a store employee stood over me watching. I also found a store that sells wool yarn, one size of knitting needles, and BOLTS of cross-stitch fabric. Fun, fun! I think my most useful purchase of the week though was this:

Which is a definite upgrade from this:

I don’t even know what happened to that one on the right. It just turned brown one day. None of them cut worth a darn. That’s what I get for buying 40 cent knives at the open air market. So I splurged a little bit and got a knife set with a block. I’m a big fan already. So was boyfriend earlier with the chopping and dicing. I fear for his fingers.

7. Lastly, here is proof that you can get a sunburn in the shade in Indonesia. No joke. These pictures are from last weekend. Two days in a row of sitting under a tent watching a soccer tournament. It was ridiculously hot, and the only time I wasn’t sitting in the shade was when I was walking 20 seconds to the food tent or 30 seconds to the bathroom. I even wore sunscreen the second day and got burned AGAIN!

Obviously, I am awesome at self-portraits.

 

OK, that’s all for now. Bye!

Cats...

Black cat is methodically searching for something in every single nook and cranny of my bedroom. She's made it about halfway through everything. She even got her entire body under my pillow to make sure that all is well on that front. Now she's climbing the shelves of my lemari (wardrobe thingie) and wedging her face down into the piles of shirts and pants. She also climbed my hanging clothes to check those out top to bottom. That was after climbing into the dirty clothes hamper to make sure nothing in there could eat me in my sleep which immediately preceded crawling inside a folded up blanket on the floor. Earlier, she was on the desk using her paw to move around all the pencils and pens in their jar as she peered down into it. I really wonder what goes through their minds sometimes.

She's been rather quiet ever since I got about halfway through writing this. Let's see where she is...

Hmm... Oddly enough, nowhere to be found. And not coming when I call. Maybe she caught a lizard and ran outside to play with it.

These cats. I regularly find them sleeping on top of a stack of pants, inside the luggage under my bed, underneath couch cushions, inside my backpack, etc. They're a little crazy, but somehow I feel safer having them around. Also, no rats!

Foodfoodfoodfood

This has been a fabulous week, culinarily speaking. Monday, boyfriend and I ate at one of our favorite sidewalk stands, nasi bakar. GRILLED RICE! Delicious. Then on Tuesday, we attempted to make granola for the first time ever. It is quite delicious, if I do say so myself. Boyfriend was super excited, as he's been craving granola for days. We had to go out in the rain to three different stores to find the ONE ingredient that I didn't have (vegetable oil), and then we had to wait for about 20 minutes to let the hundreds of terrified ants evacuate from the oatmeal. But it was worth it. Cinnamon honey granola. Yum. Wednesday, I had Indian food. Like authentic Indian food made by the mother of one of my students - an Indian. So delicious. Today, the Java Dorm is bringing me a grilled stuffed burrito for lunch as a thank you for dormsitting. And as I've mentioned once or twice before, they have the best food. They even use cilantro, which is mostly nonexistent in Indonesia. For dinner, I'll have another grilled stuffed burrito (leftover from lunch, because I can only eat one - they're so huge!). And tomorrow, it's fajitas and probably a treat from the coffeeshop.

Then this weekend is the huge international soccer tournament which also means international food stands! Grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and Korean food and Indian food. This week has been the next best thing to eating in Bali, and all right here in Central Java!

This may not seem exciting to you, but when you eat some variation of chicken and rice twice a day EVERY DAY... Well, little treats like these aren't so little anymore!

These Things Happen

So I was gonna take a shower last night before bed, but then I wrote my 2 most recent blog posts instead and ended up taking a shower this morning. Which means I wore my hair down to school since it was wet when I left the house. And it is BLAZING hot this week. So I have resorted to this in an attempt to keep somewhat cool:

Yup, that’s right. I pile my hair on top of my head and twist it around itself to keep it in place. My students have gotten used to it. I taught like this. I look amazing.

 

Also, now I can share what on earth I was talking about last night about asking for prayer for the one family facing a difficult situation. Remember how I was last minute dorm-sitting? Well, the dorm parents came back to Indo yesterday afternoon with the news that their sending org is calling them back to the States. They have TWO WEEKS to sell everything, pack up what’s left, and get the heck out of Dodge. For the kids in school, they are leaving mid-semester and are going to have to get put into public schools in the States. They have no jobs, no house, no transportation, no income in America. They’ll have to leave their two dogs and the vast, vast majority of their belongings behind. They’ve spent the past 10+ years building their life here. Their kids have spent most – or all – of their childhoods in Indonesia. They are involved in so many areas of ministry here – as dorm parents, at our school, in various Bible studies, at their church, they even started an Awana program here. And now they have 2 weeks to say their goodbyes, tie up all their loose ends, and leave it all behind. The dorm kids have no place to stay anymore. Those who are employed there – 5 Indonesian staff – no longer have jobs.

I don’t know the whole story or all the reasons why they are being called off the field, but from what I do know, it seems like a very unjust overreaction to an accidental misunderstanding. It makes me really glad that I am not here through any org or sending agency. And it infuriates me to see the way people are being treated in this situation. My heart especially breaks for the kids. This is the only life they’ve known. They’re great kids, and I know they’ll adjust, but already today, I’ve seen them make the first of many tearful goodbyes to come. It’s always hard to see people go, but it’s even harder when they haven’t chosen to. Please continue to pray…

Things and Things

Got these this week – funny that they showed up in my mailbox on the same day given that I get approximately zero handwritten items per year apart from my birthday and Christmas and this month contains neither of those.

They totally made my day. I think the Indonesian guy who saw me find them in my mailbox must think I’m crazy. Looks like I’ve got some letter writing to do!

In other news, we are hosting a huge soccer tournament for all the international schools on Java and Bali this weekend. And then… NO SCHOOL FOR A WEEK! And for the first time ever, I’m NOT TRAVELING during the long break. I CANNOT WAIT.

In other other news, watch THIS. The most awesomest version of the Doxology that will ever fall upon your ears. Just do it.

Funny How Quickly Things can Change

Well, over the past week, not a whole lot has changed other than that I got a little better at pool, thanks to the pool table in the Java dorm. Today was a different story though. Boyfriend had a job interview this morning in Semarang, and if he gets the job, he could be moving an hour and a half away from my house, as opposed to 8 minutes. That’s a hard thought.

After school, I was over at the dorm when the dorm parents suddenly came home, unannounced – from America! The kids and I didn’t even know they were coming home today – we were just hoping they’d be home by this weekend. So I suddenly packed up a week’s worth of stuff and moved back to my own house. It’s a nice change, but it seems too quiet.

There is a family leaving in November due to health reasons, and I bought several picture frames and their massive desk, which was all moved in while I was gone. So I spent a good part of this evening repainting picture frames and organizing my life in my new desk.

 

It was originally painted black, but I had Mas Deni (the guy who made the bookshelf-now-craftshelf on the left) sand and stain it to match the bookshelf. This desk is awesome – I was able to get rid of my little dorm desk and my crappy wicker-ish bookshelf that I’ve had for three years. I was thankful for those things, but it’s nice to actually have two pieces of furniture that match! I guess the four chairs around the kitchen table all match… but they don’t match the table! The spaciousness of the rest of my room was sacrificed for this desk though. My room is in an L shape – the short leg of the L is occupied entirely by the above 2 items, and now the long part looks like this:

Why, yes… yes I do have a door straight to the outdoors in my bedroom. Don’t you?

And one more shot from over by my bed…

Aaaaah! It’s just so nice! I’m loving it. Organization makes me happy. And see that ugly green plastic thing to the right of the desk? I got everything in that to fit in the desk tonight, so now I can get rid of that too! Next on the list is a matching lemari (the wardrobe thing). The one I currently have is owned by the school, and appears to be 80 year old plywood covered in paper made to look like wood. Again, I’m glad to have it. But I think that my realization that I’m going to be here more than 3 years is manifesting itself through me buying real furniture of my own.

Oya, when I was moving my books off my old bookshelf, I realized that some ants had moved in…

Wellllllllcome to Indonesia…

 

On another note, I talked to some friends today who are facing a super tough situation. I’m not sure how open they’ve been with our community about it, and since I know there are people within this community who read my blog, I better not say too much for now. But I know they’d appreciate prayers!

Watching a Soccer Game with a 3 Year Old

"Let's go Eagles, let's go! Let's go Eagles, let's go! Go yellow! Go yeeeeellllllllllllllloooooooooooow! SANTACLAUSESANTACLAUSESANTACLAUSESANTASANTASANTA!!! SAAAANTA! SIAPA MAU BERDOA?!?"

(Siapa mau berdoa? = Who wants to pray?)

I Love Living in the Java Dorm

I was the only one awake in the dorm for breakfast this morning. When I came up to the dorm kitchen/dining area, I met the helper and we had this conversation:
Her: Can I make you some breakfast?
Me: Sure! What's on the menu?
Her: Omelettes.
Me: Great!
Her: Do you want it with bacon?
Me: Yes!
Her: Cheese?
Me: Yes!
Her: Tomato?
Me: A little bit.
Her: OK. *starts cooking*

After I had finished eating, she asked me, "Do you need me to clean your room today?"

Wow. I mean, I have a helper who cleans my room and makes my bed every day. But the omelette was the real kicker. With REAL cheese. And BACON. Do you know how rarely we eat pork products in this country?! Pork is forbidden for like 94% of the people of this island. It is a delicacy. And a great way to start my day. Also, the real cheese didn't hurt. : )

Well, This Explains a LOT...

A fellow teacher emailed out an article about spotting illnesses early. The article began with this:

We found the top ten virus and bacteria facts that teachers have to know (even if you don’t want to).
1) Top spot for classroom viral presence: student desktop [1]
2) Top spot for bacteria presence: water fountain toggle [1]
3) Most germy job: teacher (Are we surprised?) [1]
4) Germs build up throughout the day. By the afternoon, 50% of classroom surfaces have the flu virus. [1]
5) Teacher illness-related absences average 5.3 days a year. [2]
6) 622 million school days are lost each year in the US due to the common cold. [3]
7) The cold season starts in late August and lasts until April. [3]
8) Forty percent of parents have sent a child to school sick. [4]
9) Seventy-four percent of teachers believe they have missed school because of illnesses picked up from their students. [5]
10) Germs can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours! [1]
Sources: [1] Study by Charles P. Gerba, University of Arizona, 2005; [2] It’s a Snap, Clean Hands Statistics, [3] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [4] June 2006 Clorox Survey, [5] 2005 Scholastic.com survey

So that could explain why I'm so sick all the time. However, I am happy to report that I'm now on my third week of NO SICKNESS! The year started out rough with the flu, food poisoning and a gum infection all in the first month or so, but going strong now! Woohoo!

Lost in Translation

1. I'm watching Hidden Cities on the History channel right now, and this episode focuses on Indonesia. The host is butchering the language. He's in Jogja right now talking about the grounds of the 16th century sultan's palace. I've been there. Its name is Kota Gede. He's got the kota pronunciation down, but he's struggling with gede. It's pronounced kind of like guh-DAY. He keeps saying GAY-day. In the time it took me to write that, he moved on to Mount Merapi. Butchering that too. OHMYGOSH! If you're going to use local words, learn to pronounce them before you go on international TV! It's not that hard!

2. We had an American (Todd from Idaho) sharing at church this morning. It was a pretty good sermon. For a group of intellectuals. But not when someone half your age who has no theology degree is trying to translate what you're saying into one of the most bare bones languages in the developed world. I mean, Indonesian uses the same word for anything that is pleasing to any of the 5 senses. If it tastes good, it's enak. If it feels good, it's enak. If something is comfortable, it's enak. If the view is nice, it is enak. If something smells nice, it's enak. And so on. The poor translator, bless his heart, did an AMAZING job. But things like, "God has infused us with zillions of bits of His own DNA, and so our task here on earth isn't to go to church, it is to BE the church" just really don't translate. (The translator didn't know the word "infused", zillions ISN'T EVEN A REAL WORD, nobody understood how we can have pieces of God in us, and the concept of "church" doesn't translate well either, especially not when people ARE the church. Add to that the fact there isn't a common usage form of the verb "to be" in Indonesian.) Todd from Idaho used a lot of idioms, figurative speech and abstract language too. It took more than an hour to get through the sermon, and by the end, everyone was pretty confused...

3. Earlier, a white friend offered me some food at her house. I declined, saying that I was staying in the Java Dorm (known for having the best food in town) and that I'd had two fajitas and a bowl of chili for dinner already. An Indonesian friend, on overhearing, got confused and interjected, "WAITWAITWAIT.... You had two fetus for dinner?!" Bahaha...