Things I Have Done Tonight

1. I briefly considered going home with a guy I met at a soccer game after school. But only because he told me his mom was cooking pork for dinner. It had nothing to do with the guy and everything to do with the possibility of pork. Don’t judge me. You try living in a country where pork is forbidden for 4 years, and then you’ll know what I mean.
2. I made 4 dozen cookies for Bible study tomorrow. This is one of my hybrid recipes. They started out as normal oatmeal cookies. Then I reduced the amount of butter and sugar and added dried coconut, walnuts, homemade vanilla, butterscotch chips, etc. And I haven’t eaten a SINGLE one yet! Go, me!

3. I made a candle! The Ace Hardware here used to sell these most delicious candles, but they all went on sale several months ago and I was afraid that meant they wouldn’t be available any more. So naturally, I bought like a hundred. I mean, they were on sale, so that’s like saving money, right? Anyways, I’ve burnt most of them down as far as they’ll go. But I saved the melted bits and the bottoms that didn’t quite burn. And it turns out I had enough to make a whole new candle! This one will last me quite awhile I hope.

4. I spent THREE hours not only re-learning a section of calculus but also figuring out how to teach it very clearly (that’s the hope anyways) to my 5 AP students first thing tomorrow morning.  It will be their first ever look at derivatives. That’s pretty foundational stuff.

5. I took this dress that I don’t know why I bought last summer in America since it’s too short to even wear here, and I made it into a semi decent skirt that I CAN wear – even to school to teach in!

             

It has been a productive night. And my house smells delicious. Who wants to come visit?

*EDIT* I would like to add to this list that I have now also killed a centipede and four cockroaches. That is all.

Lost

Earlier this summer, our school did English training for a group of science and math teachers from Indonesian schools up to 5 hours away. Since I was here all summer, I ended up helping, and several of the visiting teachers walked away with photos of me and/or my Facebook name (this is my compromise when I don't want to give them all my phone number). One nice gentleman has been very diligent in writing me, but he tries to use English as much as possible, and sometimes I just don't understand him.

Just a few minutes ago, I got this message from him: Miss, how his brother, does so to Indonesia?

I just didn't know what to make of it. Then I got an idea. I put it into Google translate and translated it from English back to Indonesian.

This is the Indonesian translation: Nona, bagaimana saudaranya, tidak jadi ke Indonesia?

AHA! What he is ACTUALLY saying is: Miss, what about your relative, did he/she end up coming to Indonesia?

I must have mentioned to that group of teachers that my sister would be coming this summer.

And now I have the key to understanding Indonenglish. Back translation.

Summer Lovin

I realize that summer has been gone for over a month now. But I found lots of pictures of it on my camera this weekend! Previously un-posted pictures. So I decided to un-un-post them!

1. I found lots of pictures of my cat sleeping in my wardrobe thingy. He figured out how to open the door to it, and most afternoons this summer, he would be curled up sleeping on top of the give away pile of clothes on the bottom. I don’t like cats all that much, but I do have to admit that sometimes they do cute things.

2. I went to a Bible study from my church regularly, starting not long before summer break. I love this group of people, and I’m thankful for all the memories we’ve made together and for how I can see God using them to impact Indonesia. Also, that is a sleeping child in the foreground, NOT a dead body.

3. Some random things I found in my classroom.

Exhibit a) A very strange looking dead bug being eaten by ants.

Exhibit b) This drawing on the floor by my desk.

Exhibit c) This student who insisted his outfit did NOT look Amish from the back even after I took this picture and showed him.

4. That jungle fire behind my house. Of course, I thought to take a picture when it was almost burned out, so the picture doesn’t really do it justice, but here it is anyways. My house is to the left of where I was standing when I took this picture.

5. I learned to plant rice! I took a few friends over to Pak Kur’s house and helped him plant his sawah (rice field). He let us plant an entire petak (terraced section).

The petak we planted is the one just above where the men are working.

The young rice waiting to be planted, and the rows we did in one afternoon. We came back the next day to finish the right side.

Walking back into the village, we ended up following this guy, another rice farmer. You can’t really tell from this photo, but the guy is wearing a black ski mask with a baseball cap on over the top of it and carrying a hoe over his shoulder. It was both a little scary and a little funny as well. The lengths people will go to in order to keep “cool”… I don’t understand it.

I love the colors of these little plants that grow on the surface of the already harvested petak.

6. Sister times! I didn’t post many pictures from when she was here, so here they are!!

Soto. I promised dad I’d take sister to HIS favorite soto (chicken and rice soup) restaurant, so here is the proof!

I also took her to MY favorite little Indonesian coffee shop. She begged to go back, so that’s a good sign!

And now for the most photographed thing we did together – the animal market in Ambarawa! This is a scary place for white girls, so I asked my good friend Hotjaga to accompany us. He and his son kindly did, and basically all of the pictures below were taken by one of them. Also, I realize that both of us look real rough and not at all put together in these pictures – that was intentional. The nicer you look, the more unwanted attention you get in this almost entirely male crowd. I don’t get called “sweetheart” anywhere else as many times as I do when I go to this place.

First stop – the cock fights! That’s what that group of men up ahead are all watching. We didn’t take pictures of the fight though since cock fighting is technically illegal and us taking pictures would make everyone involved really uncomfortable and nervous.

Next, the black magic man.

Explaining his palm reading charts. And oh, that cloth bag is full of snakes. We didn’t stick around long enough to see what he did with them though.

Next stop – the poultry barn! All those baskets are full of baby ducks, turkeys, geese, chickens, etc.

On to the goats. This guy really liked me.

And then… The ummm… shoes? Good luck finding a matching pair!

Off to the cattle barns. It amazes me how big of a demand for cattle there is given that most people don’t eat beef (too expensive) and that a full grown cow costs about the same as an average Indonesian’s yearly salary! But there are more cattle at the animal market than any other type of animal.

You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but this guy really REALLY wanted me to take a picture of him with his two cows. He was laughing and talking to me, then as soon as I finally pulled my camera out, he got SUPER serious.

This right here is the record holder for biggest bull I’ve EVER seen on Java. This day was also the first time I’ve seen Herefords here (which I’m assuming these are somehow crossed with).

The random caged animals section. This is where people bring in pretty much whatever they can catch in the jungle and try to sell it.

1. Porcupine. Didn’t even know we had those here.

2. Civet? Maybe?

3. All kinds of birds.

4. Puppies, flying squirrels, jungle cats, and chickens. What a combo.

5. The dumbest looking chickens I have ever seen in my life. The looks on our faces say it all. I love that Hotjaga captured this moment.

6. And my favorite part of the animal market – cobra guy! Basically he sets up a tarp and sits under it with a bag of cobras waiting for a paying customer. The customer pays $2.50 to drink the cobra’s blood. The Javanese have a whole list of ailments that cobra blood will cure. It’s also supposed to make men better in bed, if you know what I mean. So here is the process.

1. Wait patiently for someone to say they want a drink. And he kind of just lets the cobra go wherever. I wonder how many times he’s been bitten.

2. AH! Someone from the crowd shouts that they want it. Put the snake’s head in a vise and cut it off with a meat cleaver.

3. Drain the blood into a plastic cup, add some energy drink, lime, honey, and ginger.

4. Turn the snake’s skin inside out and pull it all off.

5. Slice the snake’s body open and snip out some very important internal part and throw it in the cup o blood.

6. Throw the snake meat into another bag (not the one with the live snakes), stir up the cup and hand it to the customer who takes it like a shot – one gulp – then returns the cup to be used again for the next customer. And repeat…

Here we are watching. Question – who is holding that chicken in the bottom left corner? I have stared at this picture for minutes on end, and I cannot figure it out.  Frankly, it is a little creepy.

Oh, good! Cobra man has a pamphlet!

If you ever come visit me in Indonesia, I promise to take you to the animal market. It is always an adventure!

7. How much stuff can an Asian carry on a motorbike? Here is a win. I don’t even know what he is carrying, but it is a lot of it.

8. Wedding times. This past weekend (I know, not summer times, but oh well), a group of friends went to the wedding reception of another one of our friends. It was the most Western wedding I’ve been to so far in Indonesia. At one point, they made all the single people come stand by the stage, and the bride and groom threw two plush basketballs into the crowd. Our new German friend caught one of them and had to go on stage with the MCs. They asked him several times where he is from, but joke’s on them because HE DOESN’T SPEAK INDONESIAN!

They finally realized this, and the lady MC asked him in English, “Where do you come from?” So after that, they just referred to him as “The German basketball player”. One for two. That’s OK. They were giving away a new cell phone, and the girl ended up winning, but Yona was a good sport about it anyways.

After it got so hot we couldn’t stand it anymore, we all went back to our friend Atik’s house. This is usually where you can find us hanging out on Saturday nights, drinking hot tea and talking together.

One of the best parts of the whole night was when some street musicians came up to the house and started playing, hoping for a few coins, and we took the opportunity to have a spontaneous dance party on the front porch. The pengamen (street musicians) thought it was hilarious and even took a request! Ah, I love my friends!

 

Posting all these pictures has been good for my heart. I have such an amazing life here, and even on the days when I just want to shop at Target or eat a steak, I wouldn’t trade living here for the world!

Today

I got a lot done today. I try to make Sunday my day of rest, but after a long, stressful week of dealing with 60 different kids with 60 different needs every day, Saturday ends up being my "crash" day. I often sleep in and stay in my pajamas until well after lunch time. I eat whatever I feel like, watch lots of movies, and don't leave the house until night. Today was a bit different though. I had a lot to accomplish.

1. Walk 2 miles.
2. Go shopping.
3. Bake cookies.
4. Go to the garage to get my headlight fixed.
5. Shower.
6. Crochet a meter of scarf.
7. Wedding reception.
8. Translate songs for church.

For some reason, I was wide awake at 4, but I got myself to drift in and out of sleep until about 8. Somewhere in that time, I had a dream about being in America. I've been having a lot of those recently. One of my American friends here has a long time friend coming to visit shortly, and she's asked me if there's anything I want brought from the States. In my dream, I was making a list of things I wanted her to bring for me, but in the dream, I was sitting in my living room in Indiana. My mom was there. And all of a sudden, I started jumping up and down and screaming, "I don't have to ask for anything! I AM HERE!!! I can get SO MANY THINGS MYSELF! I don't need to ask for anything! I can FILL my suitcases with STUFF!!!" Haha... I was SOOO excited to buy American things. And mom looked at me like I was crazy.

By the time my walking buddy got here, it was pretty stinkin hot out, so we didn't quite make our goal of 2 miles. More like 1.25. We were melting. But that's OK. Because after that, we sat and talked in the shade for hours. Then we realized how hungry we were, and we decided to go get lunch. We went to eat at a restaurant known for its spicy food. So we drove there, walked in, got a table, sat down, and began to write our order down. Because in Indonesia, a waiter doesn't take your order. You write it all down yourself and signal the waiter when you're done. So as we were writing, a fellow customer walked over to our table and said, "Um, excuse me. All the food here, it is hot. You know? Hot?" I told him in Indonesian that I know and thanked him. And he replied, "You already know. Oh. OK." And he walked away. Random. Apparently, white people shouldn't be eating hot things. So just to show him how tough white people are, I ordered a whole dish of crushed chilis to mix with my food. Hmph... 

After that, I made my friend go with me to the garage because I've never gone by myself and it's an awkward place for a white girl. I've been driving for an entire week with no headlight. This is actually no problem here, as many people opt not to use a headlight since "it makes the battery last longer". But after nearly driving off the road multiple times last night as I made my way home in the dark from the home of a new friend that I'd never been to before, I decided that I MUST get this fixed. There are literally hundreds of bengkel (garages), so we just trolled around for one without a lot of people waiting. We found one quickly, and as soon as I explained the problem, someone began working on fixing it. My friend and I found a translated copy of some American celeb magazine in Indonesian from 2007 and began to read it. It was sad to realize how many celebs had just started dating and who have by now already gotten married and divorced! At any rate, it only took about 15 minutes to put a new headlight in, and I was charged $1.80. The new bulb cost $1.30, and it was 50 cents for labor. I love this place.

Did my shopping, went home, and started baking cookies. Wednesday was my pastor's son's birthday, and that was what he asked for. Coconut lime sugar cookies from me. Odd thing though - Friday, I came home from school, and my oven was missing. In its place was a much smaller silver one that I had never seen before. Apparently some school workers had swapped them out while I was working. The old one is being repaired and I will hopefully have it back on Tuesday. Once I figured out how to light the new oven, the cookies were a piece of cake. Until I realized that the butter I had just bought in town was frozen solid. And until the jagas (guards) started smelling the cookies and finding excuses to come to my house ("I was on my way home." "Can I borrow some oil?" "Sure smells good over here.").  I ended up giving away about a dozen of Lemuel's birthday cookies. Good thing I made like 4 dozen. Also, you'd be amazed how fast a block of butter could melt when you chuck it out on the front lawn. I took a 15 minute shower and when I was finished, that butter was smooth as smooth can be.

As soon as the cookies were finished, I sat down with the scarf.  A friend from out of town had ordered it from me, and since I never know when I'll see her again, I really wanted to have it ready by the wedding, knowing she would be attending. I got my meter done in the nick of time. I had just enough time to tie it off and bring it to the wedding at 6. 

Cutest wedding I've ever been to in Indonesia. It was actually only the reception as only close friends and family typically attend the ceremony. I heard the groom's mom passed out though, so sad I missed that. Sounds like an adventure.

Oh, and I translated songs for church in the morning while I was waiting for my walking/lunch/garage/shopping buddy.

This might be the first Saturday EVER that I've had a to-do list AND accomplished ALL of it. I'm high fiving myself, thank you very much.

These Days

I know I haven't really written anything for quite awhile. The problem is that there are so many things I COULD write about, I just don't know where to start.

I could write about my friend's dad's funeral and how amazing it was, given the circumstances. We shut down an entire four way intersection as mourners lined the streets in all four directions, and hundreds of non-believers heard the gospel and the hope that we have in Jesus. There was not a single dry eye in the house (street) after my friend got up and sang one of her dad's favorite songs - the one that brought tears to his eyes even in the last few days when he was in a coma - a song about surrender and faith. And if THAT wasn't enough, she and her brother then sang Amazing Grace in English and said personal goodbyes to their daddy. I think I got dehydrated with as many tears as I cried (and the fact that it was at least 100 degrees in the shade) that day.

I could write about how after the funeral, we went to the home of a good friend to eat an early dinner together and how she demanded that we all wash our feet, hands, and faces before we touch her infant, lest any lingering evil spirits from the corpse enter the child.

I could write about how even though I'm not a superstitious person, I washed in accordance with her cultural stipulations anyways out of respect. But after having R rated horror dreams for the following two nights, I began to think that maybe I didn't wash quite as well as I should. And then once I started sleeping with a lit candle by my bed, the dreams stopped. So maybe I'm a little stitious.

I could write about the million and one ridiculous things my students say to me. Or about how the EXTREMELY prim and proper 9th grade boy who sits across the table from me at lunch every day ate his tortilla chips with a fork today.

I could write about how I hosted my first church event at my home last weekend. My place isn't big enough to seat more than 5 or 6 people comfortably, but 33 people came. So we had a bonfire outside and played games on the lawn. Because I have one of the only lawns in the province. But after everyone left, I found pee splatter all over my bathroom. Indonesians aren't so good at using western toilets. I baked cookies for everyone, and I've already had requests for my cookies for two other upcoming events. One this week and one next. It only took me four years to figure out how to change all my recipes so that Indonesians like them.

I could write about how Yoga and Gibta's situation is looking up. I've been going to their village every week with some people from church, and someone from our church has been offered a position professionally tutoring/teaching the village children. If he says yes, that would be absolutely amazing for those kids. They could finally learn to read and write, and they wouldn't be embarrassed to go to school or be shamed by their teachers.

I feel like I could write an entire blog post about each of those things. But then I get overwhelmed thinking about it, so I just don't write anything at all. So this is to let you know that all these things are happening. And I am still alive.

An Updated Update

My friend's father slipped away peacefully, surrounded by his family, at 6:23 PM (7:23 AM back home). Tomorrow nearly everyone I know will be making the 2.5 hour trek to her hometown for the funeral and burial. It seems that the family has a lot of peace at this point. Pray that that continues over the next weeks and months as they adjust to life without him in it.

Here is my friend's current FB status. It is so sweet and full of faith that I couldn't help but share.

Update

My friend's dad lived through the night, and they have upgraded him to slightly more stable than severely critical. Still not sounding too good. As far as I know, he has not regained consciousness at this point, and the doctors have told the family to prepare for the worst.

In the words of one friend, "He could die soon. Or later".

**Urgent**

PLEASE be in prayer for a friend of mine whose dad had a stroke earlier today. She just drove 2.5 hours on a motorbike to be with her family in the hospital. As of now, they're saying her dad is in a coma.

Thank you.

Kejadian

Today as I was walking home from school, I noticed LOTS of black smoke rising above the trees in the general vicinity of.... umm... MY HOUSE! So I started walking more quickly, still about 5 minutes away. As I got closer and closer, I could definitely hear the popping and crackling sounds of something not only burning, but burning DOWN. By the time I was close enough to hear that though, I was also close enough to see that my house was fine - but I still couldn't tell what exactly was burning. Also at about that same time, black stuff started raining down on me.

Here's the story. Behind my apartment is a language school. On the other side of the language school is a very deep and steep ravine that contains a river during rainy season and is surrounded by fairly thick jungle on both sides. A large portion of our campus also borders this ravine. On the other side of the ravine is a recently cleared lot where a housing development is supposed to be going in soon. On the other side of the empty lot is a carpenter. As I got closer and closer to home, my thoughts went in this order.

1) My house is burning down.
2) The language school is burning down.
3) The carpenter's house is burning down.
4) Someone lit that whole empty lot on fire to clear the brush.
5) That fire is not stopping.
6) The carpenter's house is going to burn down.
7) The language school is going to burn down.
8) And then my house is going to burn down.

Well, good news. Only number 5 above is true. And eventually, even that wasn't true.

Here is the true story. Some total idiot (and I don't throw that term around loosely) decided to burn his garbage. Where? In the dry brush at the edge of the jungle leading down to the ravine. Thereby catching THE ENTIRE FREAKING RAVINE on fire. IT HAS NOT RAINED FOR FOUR MONTHS, PEOPLE. The cracks and pops I heard were stands of bamboo exploding and trees/branches falling.

As the fire went further down into the ravine, it seemed that the river - or lack thereof (due to this being the tail end of dry season) - would not be sufficient enough to stop it. It was jumping. So our guards gathered as many hoses as they possibly could and ran them straight from our water tower to the part of campus bordering the ravine, got up on top of the wall, and hosed everything down.

Thank God the fire eventually stopped. It never came up our side of the ravine, and it never went in the direction of the carpenter's house.

Sadly, my house is full of smoke and smells mildly of death. There are bits of blackened foliage sprinkled all over my front lawn. And I expect much of the jungle/river wildlife has now migrated to my side of the ravine.

Saturdaaaaaaay

Of course it's the weekend and the power goes off within 45 minutes of waking up. So I watched The Office until my laptop battery died. Then I made some food. Then I read almost all of Jaycee Dugard's memoir. Then I tried to take a nap. But it was too hot. So when a friend invited me to go to the pool, I thought, "That is a nice idea". But then I had to figure out how to shave my legs with no running water.

Once I did, I paid $2 to hang out at a resort pool 10 minutes from my house (www.kayuarum.com) ALL. DAY. LONG. And I didn't even wear sunscreen.

Like a boss.

Winning

It is a very validating feeling when you explain why a difficult concept in math works the way it does, and stunned and enlightened high school students one by one drop their pencils and begin to pound their fists on their desks as they chant, "NOBEL PRIZE! NOBEL PRIZE!" in unison.

One is tempted to take a bow.

Fasting

In approximately 21 minutes, fasting month will be OVER and the festivities will begin! The men in my kampung (neighborhood) spent today making a miniature kaaba on wheels out of cardboard for the parade tonight, and the kids have been practicing their drums since 2 AM. Yes, I do mean AM and not PM.

Tonight, I'll go to the parade at Pancasila, the town center. Tomorrow, I have church in the morning (NOT skipping that for Idul Fitri prayers), then THREE meals at the homes of three different Muslim families I am close to. I hope I don't explode...

Selamat Idul Fitri
Mohon maaf lahir batin

Blood Donor

Back when I still lived in America, I tried to donate blood three times and was rejected each time. Basically, they hate me. No, but for real, the first time was because my iron level was one point too low. The second time was because I'd been to Thailand (or Kenya, I forget which one was the problem). The third time was because I told them I have heart problems. Like THAT'S a big deal...

Our school had a blood drive today. When you live in a third world country, they don't ask you questions like, "Have you been to a third world country recently?" They don't even ask you questions like, "Do you have AIDS?" In fact, they might actually GIVE you AIDS (just kidding, mom - it was the Red Cross. It seemed pretty legit). It's like super easy to give blood here. All they do is prick your finger to check your blood type, take your blood pressure, and ask one or two questions.

1) Are you taking any medicine?
2) Have you gone two weeks menstruation free? (For women only, and yes, that is how they phrased the question.)

So I didn't bother to tell them that I'd been to Africa in the last 5 years or that I have Mitral Valve Prolapse (I did check online first if people who have this should be donating blood, and everything I read said that it's safe but that it could aggravate the symptoms).

They took my blood. Fun side note, the guy who put the needle in and out of my arm had blood on his hands. That seems sanitary. I felt totally fine the whole time, and even watched the blood pump into the little bag. That doesn't bother me in the least. The part that hurt the most was when they put an alcohol soaked cotton ball on the hole after taking the needle out.

I went to see the nice lady at the table to get a band-aid afterwards, and as she was putting it on, I had to rest my head on the table because everyone started to sound very tinny and very far away. One of the guys taking the blood saw me, and yelled to someone else how white I looked - he said even my lips were white. So they had me lay down for awhile. After about 5 minutes, I sat up and chatted with some students who were giving blood. Since I felt fine, I decided to head home. I made it out the door and into our pavilion/lunch area and felt like I needed a break. So I sat down at a table out there. It didn't take me long to realize that I would not be making it home. In fact, I wasn't even sure I could make it back in the doors and onto a cot, but that seemed like my best bet, the alternative being passing out on a picnic table.

By the time I made it in (about 20 feet), I was listing pretty hard to the right, sweating profusely, and couldn't see much through the black fog. I was prepared for that situation though and through sheer force of will (and chanting "FOCUS. CHAIR. FOCUS. CHAIR." to myself repeatedly), I kept myself from passing out and made it into a chair where I promptly stuck my head between my knees. They drug a cot over for me where I laid for the next 30 minutes greeting other students and staff who came in and giving pep talks to the scared ones, not that I was in a very convincing position. A very nice Red Cross worker felt that he would help me by asking me a million questions in Indonesian about myself and where I live and the differences between Indonesian and American school systems. Then he went and made me some hot tea. I sat up and drank that, then I eventually got up and walked around a bit. They gave me a bag of snacks including instant ramen, cookies, a bottle of warm chocolate milk, and vitamins. I gave it to one of the guards on the way home. He seemed pretty stoked about it. Then he smacked me in the arm, and I didn't know why until I realized there was a mosquito there. LIKE I HAVEN'T GIVEN ENOUGH BLOOD TODAY.

So that was a pretty okay first donating blood experience. Now I know what to expect, and I'm pretty sure I would do it again. Also, if you get a chance, YOU SHOULD TOO. But not in America, because they ask way too many questions and then you just get rejected in the end. And then you walk home humming the sad Charlie Brown song.

As I read back over this, I was wondering who on earth would want to read this boring story of me donating blood. Then I remembered - dad does. So that's comforting.

"I'm Sorry We Almost Died, but Dinner was Fun!"

Well, as of tonight, my perfect driving record has been tarnished... Yup, that's right. Got in my first motorcycle accident in four years. The good news is that I think everyone walked away unscathed and it was CLEARLY not my fault.

Let me start from the beginning...

I had just had a wonderful dinner with my darling friend, Liz, and I was driving her back to her boarding house for the night. In order to do this, I have to drive on the main road through town - the only road with stoplights. We were at one such stoplight. The light had turned red shortly before we arrived at it, so our bike and one other motorbike were waiting side by side at the front of the traffic line. We were on the right and the other bike was to our left. On this other bike was a man driving with a woman riding on the back. Behind us was a yellow dump truck. When the light turned green, both of our bikes started going straight in unison. We made it a little ways into the intersection when all of a sudden, the guy to the left of us decided to turn right! So get a picture of that in your mind so you can see clearly what is going on...

Now, there are a few confusing things here. First of all, keep in mind that in this country, we drive on the left side of the road. So it's not like he was trying to hang a quick right. He had to cross a whole lane of traffic to get there. And there's definitely no way he didn't see me. We had just sat side by side at the stoplight for 60 seconds. AND by the point he started to turn, I was actually half a motorbike length in front of him. His front tire was even with my body. So it's not like he tried to turn in front of me and I T-boned him or anything.  No, in fact, he turned RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF MY BIKE.

I saw him start to turn towards me, and I tried to swerve out of his way, but I didn't have time to swerve fast enough or far enough. So in the middle of my swerve, the front end of his bike crashed into the left side of mine. The force of it almost knocked my bike (along with Liz and I) to the pavement. It was a bit uncertain and wobbly there for awhile, especially since he'd caught me in the middle of a frantic swerve, but I managed to keep my bike upright and get it stopped. Mr. Blind-o was not so lucky. He, his wife, and his bike all toppled over into the intersection. By the time I got my bike stopped, I was almost exactly in the middle of the intersection, and not knowing how much time I had left before cross traffic started going, I zipped to the other side where I pulled over and waited.

My very first concern was whether or not the dump truck got stopped in time. It is not an uncommon occurrence here for bikes to fall in an intersection and for someone to get run over by a bus or truck that couldn't stop in time. But praise God, it happened so soon after the light turned green that I'm not sure the dump truck had moved forward much at all. It was stopped and waiting with lots of unaware honking traffic behind in.

My next concern was for what my responsibility was in all this. I kept asking Liz, "WHAT SHOULD I DO!" The rule of the road is that the richer person in an accident pays for damages. Being white, I am automatically the richer person. However, I really did NOT want to get sucked into this situation. Because I'm white, damages would more likely than not be exaggerated and someone might even insist that they need to go to the hospital. Liz wasn't really sure what to do either since they were so obviously at fault, so I waited long enough to see that they were OK, and then I just kept going.

My third concern was Liz - when I heard the sound of the other bike falling, I actually thought that she had fallen off the back of my bike due to all the swerving and wobbling and braking. Once I realized she was still behind me, my focus shifted to the other bike. But then I realized that because of where she was sitting, her left leg had probably been hit by the other bike. Sure enough, it had been, but she reassured me that she was fine. Other than being shaken up (and apparently "one small bruise" on her leg), we made it through unscathed.

I am so, so, so thankful that we didn't fall. For all intents, we really should have. With the way we were hit, and with there being two people on the bike, there was not much chance of us staying upright. But we did. Liz kept thanking me for being a good driver and not falling, but I told her I can't take credit for that. Someone held that bike up. I am even more thankful that the dump truck was stopped. I am scared to death of SEEING a fatal accident here (and they happen ALL the time with all the motorbikes and crazy buses on the roads), I can't even imagine being involved in one!

Needless to say, I will be driving like a wary grandmother for an undetermined amount of time...

PS - We were both wearing our helmets, mom.

PPS - Liz, terima kasih kmu ud mengorbankan kakimu utk menjaga cat motorku! : D

Sidney Mohede Concert - Ungaran, 2012

I may live in the largest Muslim nation on earth.

But that doesn't mean we don't know how to have us a good ole worship service.

New Wall

My pictures came back from being laminated and are now hanging gloriously on my wall. So to complete the set of pictures of my 2012-2013 classroom, here is that last lonely (though not so lonely anymore) wall.

A Slight Miscalculation

This morning during first period, a helicopter was circling over campus. Very low. Repeatedly. Given our location, this is somewhat consternating.  Also, it was very difficult to teach as a) the sound was deafening, b) students kept trying to see the helicopter out the windows, and c) several students were convinced that terrorists were attacking.

During second period, I started feeling a general sense of uneasiness on campus, not from students, but from the national staff. And as one student walked in for third period, he said, "Um, there's a guy dressed head to toe in camo walking around campus. Do you know what that is?"

I couldn't take not knowing anymore. I knew something had to be going down. So I said I'd find out and went to visit my friend Mega, the school secretary. Because everyone knows that secretaries know everything.

I asked her what was going on, and her reply started with, "Yes, well, we've had an... incident". Not hopeful. As it turns out, a military base in Semarang had sent some guys out to log flight hours in the helicopter, and they were practicing landing. Usually they land on a soccer field not far from campus. But for whatever reason, they saw our soccer field and decided to use that instead, not realizing that it was located in the middle of a private campus full of foreigners.

The poor campus guards freaked out the first time it landed and men started getting off. Pretty sure they're not trained for aerial attacks... Good thing it wasn't actually an aerial attack.

Many apologies ensued from commanding officers from both Semarang and Salatiga (whose office had no idea this exercise was taking place). Men from the Salatiga base were sent in person to the office of the superintendent to smooth things over with him (which explains the man in camo walking around).

All in all, it was an exciting morning.

Corpse

*explaining step graphs in Pre-Calculus*

Me: So what do you think this kind of graph would be called?
Student 1: A staircase graph?
Me: That's actually really close!
Student 2: A stepping up graph?
Student 3: A climbing graph?
Student 4: A corpse?
*long, awkward silence*
Me: Uhmmmm.....

An Unexpected Update

Regarding the children living in the abusive situation...

There is a young couple at my church, Aldi and Sally, that I have become very close with over the past year. They are quality people, and I love them to pieces. We try to go out for coffee or dinner at least once a week. Last week, I had them over to my house on Thursday, and I was sharing Yoga and Gibta's situation with them, asking if they had any ideas or advice. They go to the same church as me, so they know both kids - their daughter, Dea, is in the same Sunday School class as them - but they never even imagined what was happening in Yoga and Gibta's home.

Once they knew the situation and realized that several people in the church had known what was going on for some time, they began to question why nobody had done anything. This led to a discussion of church and Christian community. I pulled out my Bible and read the verses in Acts describing the early church and how there was nobody needy among them. They looked out for each other. They took care of each other. They lived in true community.

In my church, there are LITERALLY families who bring iPads to church for their kids to play Angry Birds on sitting next to families whose kids don't even go to school because they are too poor to pay the $5/month tuition. There are men who own their own businesses and tithe hundreds of dollars a week and men who work all day every day driving people around town in a bicycle rickshaw to try to feed all 9 people living in their home. There are women with masters degrees and women who can't read or write.

The divide is huge.

The more we talked about it, the more passionate we got about it. We ended the evening without any real answers but with lots of ideas swirling around in our minds.

On Sunday, Sally led worship at church. I was one of the singers as well. At one point, Sally was sharing a testimony. I didn't catch a lot of it because I was standing right in front of a speaker (and Indonesian churches CRANK THEM UP) so most of what I heard sounded like muffled buzzing or like the teacher in Charlie Brown. But what I heard was her talking about how there are people among us in unfortunate situations and how sometimes we don't see or don't want to see what is happening, but that's not what God desires for us. The next song we sang talked about God making our hearts like His, letting our eyes see people the way He sees them, spreading His love, and being more like Him.

What I didn't hear from Sally's testimony (and what someone told me later) was about how her fellow people are hurting and living in abusive situations, but she didn't even realize it until a foreigner told her about it. It took a white person stepping up and saying, "Hey, this is happening and this is WRONG" for her eyes to be opened to the situation. She said that was the slap in the face she needed to be motivated to DO something about it.

And she did.

She is a government worker, so on Friday, she went to someone she knows in the local government and reported the situation. Unfortunately, that's not a guarantee that any action will be taken. So after church yesterday, she and one of the elders from our church who has done a lot of work in that particular neighborhood went to Yoga and Gibta's house to talk with the mom (they invited me to come with, but I was out planing rice all afternoon and didn't have my phone, which I am sad about, because I would have loved to have gone with them).

Basically, they told the mom that the situation had been reported to the local government but that rather than making this a long and drawn out process, it would be easier if she would just stop beating her kids. They asked her why she hits them, and she told them that she has never hit Gibta or the baby, but she confessed that she does hit Yoga a lot. Her reason is that Yoga's dad beat her - once so hard it broke 2 of her teeth - and so every time she hits Yoga, she considers it revenge against his father. They called Yoga into the house, and the mother tearfully apologized to him. They asked Yoga if he wanted to forgive his mother, but he said no. They also told Yoga - in front of his entire family - that if his mother ever hits him again, he is to tell Sally about it at church on Sunday, and Yoga understood that.

So while some things are looking up in this situation, there is still a long ways to go. Yoga's little heart needs to heal, and hopefully someday he will be able to forgive his mother. Because of her feelings towards her ex-husband, it isn't easy for her to look on Yoga with love, and it won't be easy for her to stop hitting him when it has become an every day habit. Also, Yoga is still attending the school for handicapped kids, which concerns me. At this point, there is not much we can do about it because the teachers at his old school gave up on him because he couldn't read or write and thus couldn't keep up with the class.

Through this, I'm learning that Sally is a mover and a shaker. Every day, she has been texting me ideas of ways to help in that village and asking what I think. We're going to meet later this week with one of the elders in our church to talk more about it. I've been pushing for a lot of these things for a long time, but I think that people don't take me seriously because I'm a foreigner. Maybe they assume that I don't understand the situation or that I'm just being idealistic. But now, things are happening.

We want to build a relationship with Yoga's family especially so that we can keep track of that situation. We want to mobilize a team of people to help tutor the children so that they can keep up with their schoolwork. A lot of their parents also can't read or write, so they can't get help their children with homework. We want to set up a scholarship fund so that the kids can graduate high school. We want to make sure that these families at the very least have rice and oil every month. We want to help train the parents to raise their kids wisely. As Sally said, "Their parents might be poor, but these kids are NOT allowed to be". We want them to have a future.

But we have no intention of doing it on our own. We want to get people involved. We're bouncing around ideas of how to get the church in on this and how to get the broader community involved.

I realize that we are flawed people and that we can't expect to just swoop in and change an entire village. And we don't want to just give to them - living in true community doesn't mean that the rich people throw money at the poor people. I want people to be actively involved. And I want to find ways in which they can give back. I don't want half my church to be dependent on the other. I want us to live relying on each other to meet our needs.

So don't stop praying. Because this isn't going to be easy.

First Week Funnies

At lunch.
Student: I guess this would not be the time to mention the new knowledge I gained over the summer.
Me: Oh, why not?
Student: Let's just say it involves sanitation in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Me: Oooohhh... Yeah, I've heard that wasn't so good.
Student: Yes. Since we're currently eating, it would probably be inappropriate to mention that they just threw their bodily waste out the window into the street.
Me: Yeah... probably.
Other student: What are you guys talking about?
Me: Europe.
Student: Trust me, you DON'T want to know about bodily waste in the streets of Europe in the Middle Ages.

In class.
Dorm student: My roommate this year is really awkward.
Me: Why is that?
Dorm student: He just stares at me all the time. Until I look at him. Then he closes his eyes.

After class.
Student: I got you some leaves. *hands me a handful of green leaves*
Me: Um... Thanks?
Student: They're like flowers, but from a tree.


During class.
One student to another: Tell me something I don't know about you.
Other student: I poop three times a day.
First student: Is that normal?
Other student: Well, I could probably do it all at once, but I usually get bored and stop, so I have to come back later to finish.