fish fry – indonesian style

sunday, some friends decided to have a fish cookout, and they invited me along! it was an all day process that started at 5 am when aswan went to market to buy the fish. he and i are both opposed to lake fish, so i strongly encouraged him to lick each fish before purchasing it to make sure it didn’t taste like rawa pening, the sewage catching swamp lake outside of town where most of salatiga’s fish are caught, and the number one reason why i don’t eat fish in salatiga.

i asked him about the fish when i saw him at church, and he assured me that he only bought ikan laut (sea fish). but he said that even though he got there at 5, there were only small ones left, so he bought several.

dinner time came, and i arrived across town at the house aswan (as of 2 weeks ago) shares with two new friends in salatiga – a newlywed couple, mas brili and tante (i don’t actually know her real name because everyone just calls her tante, which means aunt!) from manado. everyone was already there, hard at work. the women were in the kitchen making the sauce, rice, and veggies, and the men were on the front porch cooking the fish. everything was under control, so they put me on photography detail!

the prime ingredient for the fish sauce was cabe – hot peppers! i was also designated taste tester... a dangerous job in this kitchen!

tante also added hot onions, garlic, and salt to the sauce, then ground it all up happily! btw, STANDING too close to this made my eyes water and my throat burn.

veggies – for a well balanced meal. i don’t actually know which leaf this is. we eat a lot of different kids here, and once they’re boiled, they all look the same to me.

sylva was in charge of washing the rice to get all the stones, dirt, and bugs out! and ya, this is a normal thing to do.

the biggest fish, ready to be eaten!

mas brili was in charge of keeping the coals live and flipping the fish over. he’s also the expert at knowing when they’re cooked all the way through. not a single one of those fish were undercooked!

arai and sylva getting more fish ready to be cooked.

the finished product.

but wait! – don’t forget to add a healthy dose of the hotter-than-hades sauce! i’m amazed this stuff doesn’t leave acid burns on the fish.

something else important to remember is to always ALWAYS pose with the food before eating it. this is a MUST.

now THIS is the finished product! you’ll be happy to hear i made it through my fish with only 3 glasses of water! and one of those was because sylva ran out, so she drank my glass while i wasn’t looking.

enjoying our fish together! oh, see those tissues in the foreground? they got those out specifically so people could wipe the sweat off their faces due to the spicyness of the fish. no joke.

something i love about my friends and about indonesia in general is the unity in diversity. each person sitting around our makeshift table represents a different tribe. but it doesn’t matter... because we’re all indonesian.

: )

pacuan kuda

this is something i’ve noticed (which has nothing to do with the rest of this blogpost): in my group of indonesian friends, there are many who are loud and dramatic and like to dominate a conversation. and there are three of us who prefer to watch the conversation swirl around us. those three are me, atik, and hotjaga. often, atik doesn’t get to hang out with us, and so there have been many occasions where hotjaga and i have been able to have some good conversations while all our friends are screaming and carrying on rambunctiously about something totally different.

because of these many conversations, hotjaga knows that something that i miss from home is being around animals. he also knows that i have two horses in america and that when i was little, i reallyreallyreally wanted to be a jockey when i grew up. of course, that phase probably only lasted about 2 weeks, but i still remember it.

and because he knows that, hotjaga invited me to join his family last sunday at the horse races outside town! i got to watch several different heats of various distances. i sat RIGHT beside the track, and for the first several races, i was right in front of the starting gate. cool stuff. i was also right beside about a dozen 8 year old boys who were having the time of their life.

they especially enjoyed the part where the crazy muslim lady thought it would be appropriate to strip to her underwear and dance for us between races. the officials carrying the sticks didn’t find it so amusing when they chased her off the grounds.

hotjaga ended up with my big camera for most of the day. he really is getting to be quite the pro. i quickly slipped into the mindset of “you see one horse race, you’ve seen them all.” not to say that i was bored, but photographing them got old, horse after horse after horse. anyways, here’s some snapshots of the event, most of which were taken by pak hot.

down the homestretch!

ok, so this horse is pretty much amazing. almost as amazing as the expressions on the 3 guys in the background.... (read the next caption)

this guy was easily the tiniest horse in the race. he looked like a donkey about to try and race thoroughbreds out there when they walked him to the start gate. when the race started, his gate DIDN’T OPEN, but they didn’t call a mis-start. he finally forced his way through after the other horses were about 5 – 8 lengths ahead and he took off... and never slowed down. they went once around the 1000 meter track, and he won by about 3 lengths. hero for the day.

the ladies and i sitting in front of the trophy booth! oh, and zidan... he’s not a lady. : )

one of the first pictures hotjaga took with my camera. i love this capture...

notice anything funny about the horse second from left? i laughed when i saw this...

sabarrrrrr! false start!

hotjaga and i

after the race, we went to one of the local stables/farms and they let me walk one of their yearlings.

back to living for the weekends

well, one week of school is over with. i had something suspiciously flu-ey for the first 2 days, but i pushed through and yesterday and today were much better! i'm really enjoying my classes so far. i love my kids. all of them.

but as much as i love school, the REAL fun - and all my freedom - comes on the weekends! this weekend started out with a housewarming party for an indonesian friend... we even had nasi kuning (yellow rice)- real party food, and delicious too! and we even got to eat it after everyone finished getting their picture taken with it. geez... asians. as usual, i was the only white person there. i'm getting more and more used to that to the point of where i don't often notice. tonight, it was made pretty obvious when someone thought it would be a great idea to play "the star spangled banner" on their laptop at full volume then try to get me to stand up and sing it for everyone, since, after all, it's my national anthem. haha... um... no, thanks.

however, i DID get up and sing after that when i went just down the street to meet a bunch of friends for karaoke! i got to be there for almost all of the new teachers' very first indonesian karaoke experience. priceless. i just got home from that, voice hoarse and dancing-on-the-furniture muscles sore. typical...

tomorrow a few friends and i might drive to semarang on motorbikes to see a movie. but for now, i can hear my cats meticulously knocking things over in my bedroom, where they shouldn't be in the first place since i found i'm allergic to them and allergy medicine does nothing to help. so i'm gonna go get that situation under control...

epiphany in the shower

has it really been more than two years
since i graduated college?
sold my things?
packed my bags?
and kissed my family goodbye?

a question...

yesterday, i posed this question to my students in all my math classes:

and i gave them these instructions: write a 1 – 2 sentence answer to this question and bring it to turn in tomorrow. you can write whatever you want. if you think math and God aren’t connected, that’s fine! - but explain why. you can’t just write, “there is none.” it doesn’t have to be long and complicated, but give it some thought.

today, i read the following 37 answers...

now, i don’t know if anyone besides me actually read all 37 of those or not. it’s kind of a long read, i know. but if you did (and maybe even if you didn’t), here’s a couple things you should know.

1. of the 37 kids who answered the question, 25 of them don’t speak english as their first language.

2. of these 37 kids, 9 of them don’t even claim Christ.

and yet, they know... oh, how they know...