Words

One of my favorite parts of Indonesian is literally translating words and phrases back into English. Some of them, I find quite humorous. Here are a few of my favorites.

English - Indonesian - literal translation
parent - orang tua - old person
be careful - hati hati - liver liver
I don't feel good - badanku ga enak - my body is not delicious
thank you - terima kasih - receive love
you're welcome - sama sama - same same
hospital - rumah sakit - sick house
restaurant - rumah makan - eating house
durian - durian - thorn
(Let me interject here that I staunchly believe that if a fruit is named "thorn", it shouldn't be eaten.)
bathroom - kamar kecil - little room
bed - tempat tidur - sleep place
sock - kaos kaki - foot shirt
toe - jari kaki - foot finger
eyelash - bulu mata - eye hair
how are you? - gimana kabarmu? - how is your news?
i'm well - baik baik saja - just fine fine
biological child - anak kandung - womb child
millipede - seribu kaki - one thousand feet
train - kereta api - fire wagon
no problem - tidak apa apa - no what what
to pee - buang air kecil - dump small water
to poop - buang air besar - dump big water
drinking water - air putih - white water

One of the most amusing things to do with friends who know both English and Indonesian is to have conversations using literal translations. Maybe this makes us nerds, but it is always funny.

Panda Express

Today was senior chapel, where each senior got to come to the stage and be "interviewed" by one of the teachers. They were asked the following questions:

1. What was your favorite school year and why?
2. Do you have an embarrassing moment or funny story to share?
3. What is the biggest rule you've broken at school?
4. What will you miss the most when you leave?
5. What advice would you give to the younger students?

One senior, when asked what he would miss the most, answered that he will miss Asian food. He described it perfectly when he said, "If you've lived in America before, you know that Panda Express can only do so much for you".

I think that made me laugh harder than any other answer. It is so true. And dear American friends, you really don't know what you're missing out on. So just enjoy Panda Express for as long as you can.

My favorite answer was when another senior, when asked the same question, said (to the best of my memory), "I'm going to miss this town as a whole. I'm going to miss the simplicity of this town. I'm going to miss the people in this town. I've had so many adventures here, I've grown so much here, and I have so many memories here."

I'm thankful that it's not my turn to leave. Because my answer would be exactly the same. Except that I would probably cry a lot while saying it.

The Horse Show

I spent a large portion of last weekend out at the local horse farm. They were hosting a huge national level dressage and jumping competition Friday – Sunday. Stables from as far away as Jakarta sent horses, riders, trainers, and grooms! I love competition and I love horses and I love weekends and I love excuses to be outdoors. So basically, it was a great weekend! I could pretty much care less about dressage, but I really enjoy watching jumping, because let’s face it – someone could fall and break their face, and that makes it that much more exciting. I took a lot of pictures. A lot of random pictures. Of horse parts. And people. And scenery. But only on Sunday when they did the small jumps (20 – 70 cm). I didn’t bring my camera on Saturday when they were doing the big, impressive jumps (up to 120 cm). Sorry. So anyways, here they are. Enjoy!

                

That last shot is my personal favorite. The horse’s expression cracks me up every time. He looks like he’s about to die going over this 50 cm jump!

On another interesting note, I found out that since we’re still at the tail end of rainy season, the stable hired what’s called a pawang hujan to keep it from raining during the 3 day competition. Just to be safe, you know. Apparently this man has the power to know which clouds have rain, and then to move those clouds to a different part of the sky. It rained every day leading up to the competition, but there was not a drop of rain over the weekend! The pawang hujan said to watch out though, because Monday, there would be a HUGE rainstorm. Since he’d held back the rain for so long, of course. Unfortunately for his credibility, it didn’t rain again until yesterday (9 days after he predicted it would rain), so I’m skeptical. I was talking to Hotjaga about this though, and he told me a story of how one time he was playing soccer (he’s a locally famous goalie) and it was raining so hard. A pawang hujan happened to be in the crowd, and he made it stop raining on the field. It was still raining on all four sides of the soccer field, but not ON the field. CRAZY! Anyways, here is a picture of the pawang hujan the stable hired for the weekend. It’s the only picture I got of him before he stalked off, inevitably to check for rain clouds to the south.

And speaking of clouds, here is the last picture I took of the last day of the contest, right before heading home.

Home Life

I feel like working in the environment I do, I've been very sheltered from many of the things public school teachers in the States have to deal with. Almost none of my students come from broken homes. None are in foster care or wards of the state. Yeah, we have the occasional student who thinks it's cool to smoke or have a drink. Kids are kids. But I've never had a student come to school drunk. I've never caught a student smoking on campus. None of my students have a drug dependency. I've been here five years, and in that time, we have not had a single teen pregnancy. None of my students work, and so they get to focus on school and extra-curriculars, and for the most part, they all maintain above average grades. Last year, we had 4 valedictorians, because all four of them maintained a 4.0 every quarter for all 4 years of high school. Over half of high school students take AP courses. An overwhelming majority play at least one sport and at least one musical instrument. Nearly all of them are at least bilingual - some speak up to 4 languages fluently.

Sounds like I died and went to teacher heaven, right?

I felt very sheltered. Up until this year. I don't know what is different about this year, but so many things have happened recently that I've never had to deal with before. I see so many struggling families in our community and so many hurting students. This week has been especially rough. One particular student was very ill in my class on Monday, and as I questioned him about what was going on - because I could tell something was not right - he started to open up to me.

The things he has been facing at home these past two months are things that I would be legally obligated to report to CPS if I were teaching in America. The police would probably be involved as well.

When I talked to this student Monday, I learned that the reason he was sick was because he hadn't slept for three days or eaten for almost 24 hours. His parents, in a drunken rage, had kicked him out of the house on Friday, and he'd been wandering the streets since. He didn't know where to go or who to trust for help. He had a little money, and because of that, he was afraid to sleep anywhere for fear a beggar would steal it. He had made the money last until Sunday before it ran out. He hadn't showered or changed clothes for three days. He is 15.

In this country, we don't have any kind of organization for protecting children. There is nobody that we can report this to. Protecting children is the job of the family first, and then of the community. And we may be foreigners in this country, but we still have community. Oh, do we have community...

I found a place for him to stay Monday night. And it was EASY. The people I work with are so loving, so caring, and so willing to give of what they have. It took less than 5 minutes to find a family willing to give him a home cooked dinner and a place to shower and sleep - without knowing a single detail of why he wasn't staying at his own home. They provided breakfast, lunch, and a change of clothes for him on Tuesday and brought him to school. And they told him he could stay for as long as he liked.

Every day this week, he's come to my room after school to talk. He's been telling me more and more details about his home life, about a past I never knew he had.

As I listen, all I can think is that God is writing such an amazing story in his life. I told him that yesterday, and he laughed at me and said, "This doesn't feel amazing."

And  I told him, "God isn't finished writing the story yet".

I really believe this is true. Already, I see so many things working together for good in this young man's life. And I believe that so much more good can come from this story. I hate that he's in this place, where no 15 year old should ever be. But I'm so excited to know how the story ends.

World Maps and Racial Slurs

Student: (looking at the world map hanging on my wall) Isn't N-I-G-E-R a bad word?
Me: Hmmm?
Student: N-I-G-E-R. It's a bad word, right?
Me: Oh, are you looking at Niger, the country?
Student: Is that how you say it?
Me: Right. It's a country.
Student: I thought it was a bad word.
Me: If you add another G, then it is.
Student: Oh. So two Gs is a bad word. What is this country then? I thought it was supposed to be Nigeria.
Me: Look to the south. We have Niger AND Nigeria. Two different countries.
Student: Ooooooooh.... I get it now.

Drinks With Jagas

Me: The jaga just shared his drink with me. It was in an old water bottle and it looked like mud. But it tasted really good. He said he made it himself, but when I asked him what was in it, he said, "secret".
Yo: Definitely a love potion.
Me: Oh, no...

Sani

Sani is home from the hospital!! Thanks to all who prayed, and sorry I haven't updated for several days. She actually came home on Monday. While she was in the hospital, we got some new information - first of all, she has diabetes and never told anyone. Also, at the time of her surgery, her blood sugar was 326. A doctor told the family on Sunday that her appendix had actually burst BEFORE her surgery, and so they had to clean her out. Her incision runs vertically and is about 8 or 9 inches long. Because of all those things, the healing process is going to be a long, slow road.

She's the single mother of a VERY active and VERY big (40+ lbs) one year old who demands a lot of attention, so arranging care for him while she is recovering is going to be tough. Sani is going to need to make a lot of life changes. We're hoping that this experience was a wake up call for her. She hasn't been making healthy choices or taking care of herself for quite awhile, and we're hopeful that as she recovers, she'll see the need for a much healthier lifestyle for both her and her son. We're planning to encourage her in that as much as possible, but ultimately it has to be her choice, of course.

Through this experience, we have so many praises though! SO many friends were willing to help and stay in the hospital with her. Her baby was taken care of for the entire week that she was immobile, and friends and family provided food, brought clothes, came to entertain, etc. Also, the ENTIRE cost of the surgery was covered by friends and family who were willing to chip in. The doctor told Sani that with her diabetes and her blood sugar at the levels they were at, she should be unable to walk or see or SOMETHING. But that's not the case. The doctor also said that he doesn't know when her appendix ruptured, but from the looks of it, she should have been dead long before she checked in.

I'm so thankful that God protected her through this experience, and I'm praying that Sani will also recognize His hand of protection and healing in her life!

Stef

Today in Pre-Cal class, I handed back their last test and was just getting ready to start teaching when one student suddenly asked, "Can I teach today?" I asked, "Have you looked at the lesson?" She said, "No."

So I said, "Sure!" I mean, naturally...

She got up there and semi-competently (but super-confidently) taught her class a lesson on the Binomial Probability Theorem AND fielded questions about the last test. It took a little while, but by the time she was finished, everyone was able to answer practice questions correctly.

I like her style.
And I appreciate her confidence.

STUDENTS.

Student: How do you wash your hair? I mean, does the water even go in it??



Student: Can I borrow your phone?
Me: Um. Why?
Student: So I can take a picture of the assignment you wrote on the board and send it to myself.
Me: Is it REALLY that much work to just write it down?
Student: Come on. We live in the 20th century! Embrace it!
Me: False.



Me: Hey, this is study time. Are you studying for your test?
Student: No, we're discussing something far more important.
Me: Like...?
Student: Girls.



Me: If a teacher took a survey and asked students, "Have you ever cheated?" would that be biased or unbiased?
Student: Biased, because the asker is influencing the response. The students might not answer honestly.
Me: Good. So how could we change it to get a more honest response?
Student: Maybe God could ask the question. Because nobody would lie to God.



One Indian student got on my laptop after school when I wasn't paying attention and used my Skype to message a former Indian student currently in his junior year of college in America.

[2:35:31 PM] me: hey handsome
[2:36:24 PM] me: ur such a yummy piece of chocolate
[2:36:56 PM] me: wanna meet up
[2:38:54 PM] me: cmon dont be shy

So that's great.



But this one made me kind of happy. At lunch, two boys - one in 9th grade and one in 10th grade - were sitting near me discussing something. I could tell it was serious, but I wasn't really paying attention to what it was. Until I heard my name...
9th grader: I'm gonna ask Miss (my name).
10th grader: No, don't do that! She's a teacher. It's like tattling.
9th grader: No. She is never like that. She understands. She is cool.
10th grader: Yeah, that's true.
9th grader: She has a lot of wisdom. I think we can learn from her to help us be wiser. Let's ask.

And they did ask. And hopefully I was able to help.

IISSAC Weekend

This weekend was the cross country, swimming, and badminton international school invitational. Bali hosted. That made for some hot running in the sand. Runners were passing out, I heard.

This is the first year we've included badminton, and our school sent some singles and doubles. Our girls won doubles!!

Two 9th grade boys who played just came into my classroom to tell me, "Miss, those girls from (insert name of another school) were SO pretty."

I asked, "How did they play?"

They responded, "I don't know. But they were pretty. MIND BLOWING."

Bahaha... I love it when teenagers are so honest with me.

Praying for a Fart

I'm learning to smile and keep my heart calm through this process with Sani. Being angry gets you nowhere in Javanese culture. It's tough though...

Doctors here apparently don't tell patients anything. Like, ANYTHING. I went to visit Sani post-op last night, and asked her about how it went. She didn't really know. I asked how many stitches she had. She didn't know. But she felt around her stomach and used her fingers to show me how long the incision was. About 20 - 25 cm. I asked what they found inside. She didn't know. I asked if they removed anything. She didn't know. I asked how she did with the anesthesia. Oh, they didn't knock her out.

WHAT?!

She said, "They did something to my back. They kept feeling around, and then they stuck something in, and it hurt really bad. It made my legs numb. But I could still feel everything. When they cut me, I just kept crying and asking the nurse, 'Is it over yet?'"

Did they give her an epidural!? For stomach surgery?!

The surgery was 2 hours. She doesn't remember anything after the first 30 minutes. I think she passed out. And then, they didn't give her any painkillers until 5 hours after her surgery ended.

By the time I got there, 6 hours after the surgery, she was still in a lot of pain. And the doctors had told her she couldn't eat or drink anything (not even water) until she farted. However, this presented a couple of problems.

1) She had absolutely nothing in her stomach, because she had fasted before the surgery as well. How do you fart on an empty stomach?

2) She was feeling bloated but couldn't push in any way because it put too much painful pressure on her incision and stitches.

3) It is a tropical country. Her hospital room has no AC and not even a fan. Family and friends were in there visiting. And it was toasty. Poor Sani was so parched. She kept moaning, "I just want a little water. Just a little water".

About an hour after I arrived, a nurse came in to check on her. The nurse asked for Sani's hand to put an IV in. Sani asked, "What is it?" The nurse replied huffily, "Just give me your hand". That was finally the point at which I stepped in. I casually walked over to the bed, poked the nurse in the eyeballs as hard as I could, and screamed, "HOW'S THIS FOR BEDSIDE MANNER, HUH?!"

Just kidding. I kept my cool, and calmly repeated Sani's question. "What are you putting her on?" The nurse looked surprised that I was talking to her. I don't know if it's because I'm white or because she's not used to getting questions. Either way, she answered me. It was just antibiotics. I asked the nurse several more questions and finally got some answers.

What did they do during her operation? - They took out her appendix. It was big.
But it hadn't burst, right? - No.
If she didn't have an operation, would it have burst? - Maybe.
Where is her appendix? Can we see it? - I don't know.
Was there anything else wrong? - I don't know.
Can she please have some water? - Not until she farts.
How can she fart? She hasn't eaten. - It will happen naturally.
Can I put some water in her mouth? - If her gums are dry, you can rub some water on her gums. But she can't swallow it. It will make the pain worse.

I thanked the nurse and she left. Then I sat around for another hour watching Sani try to fart. By 10 PM, it still hadn't happened.

So I killed a cockroach running across her floor and came home.
I've never prayed so hard for a fart before in my life.

The Force

My 9th graders are always very sensitive to how I'm feeling. About 2 minutes into class today, one boy raised his hand and said, "Is everything OK? I sense a disturbance in the force".

I don't know how they know, but they always know when I've got something on my mind (see last post).

Medical Care in this Place.

Sheesh. That’s all I have to say.

But I lied. Because of course that’s not ALL I have to say. I actually have quite a bit to say.

I’ve learned a lot about medical care in this country over the past several days. I mean, I already knew it was pretty rough. Especially around my town. They wash and re-use rubber gloves in the hospital here. And a doctor recently diagnosed a 22 year old friend of mine with cancer when really, it was only bronchitis.

So when Sani, a close friend of mine, went to the doctor last Friday after a week of severe stomach pain and was diagnosed with appendicitis and sent home with Amoxicillin, I was skeptical, to say the least. I mean, I’m not doctor, but I’m pretty sure that no amount of medicine can cure an inflamed appendix. And I was very worried about her appendix bursting. However, the doctor had said that surgery to remove the appendix would cost $1000 (an OUTRAGEOUS sum in this country), so Sani wanted to try the medicine first. When I found all of this out on Saturday, I immediately emailed a fellow teacher who is also a certified nurse, just to check. She confirmed what I was thinking and recommended a second opinion.

But it was the weekend. Doctor’s offices wouldn’t be open again until Monday, and that could be too late. I remembered someone mentioning something about a white Dr. from Kalimantan visiting town for the weekend, and I managed to get ahold of him. He was willing to see Sani right away. So we went to the home where he was staying. He asked her many questions about her pain and other doctor-patient type things, and then he felt her stomach to see where the pain was. He concluded that it didn’t seem like appendicitis, more like some type of infection. He said that if she had had appendicitis for a week, the pain should be far more intense. But she was up and walking around and we had, in fact, just returned from spending all day out of town visiting some friends. He gave her the name of a stronger medicine that he recommended and also told her to get a blood and urine test. He also prayed over her, which I’m pretty sure nobody has ever done for her in her entire life. I can’t say enough about this doctor and how thankful I am for his willingness to see her (he was on vacation!) and to speak love into her life.

She got her labs back later that night, and they showed an elevated level of leukocytes and also a presence of bacteria in her urine. I hand delivered the results to the doctor, and he said that it looked like a kidney infection coupled with extreme dehydration. He strongly suggested that we take her to the hospital to be on IV fluids for a day or two. By that time, it was already late in the evening. I got a bunch of beverages, took them to Sani’s house, and told her what the doctor said. She agreed to drink as much water as possible that night and check herself into the hospital the following morning (Sunday).

I was at church on Sunday morning when Sani SMSed to tell me that she had tried to check herself in. But in order to have any kind of procedure done (including IV fluids), you have to have a letter from a doctor. And since it was Sunday, there was no doctor on call at the hospital and also no doctors offices open, so she would have to wait another day.

Monday morning, Sani returned to the hospital. This time, a doctor was available, and after the doctor inspected her, he told her, “You have appendicitis”. And he ordered her to go and see yet another doctor at a clinic in town to get checked out further. So at 7:30 last night – a full 72 hours after going to the first doctor – we all gathered at the clinic. She was in the examination room for a grand total of 10 minutes, and when she came out, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. Atik, who had accompanied her, explained that the doctor basically had no bedside manner and told her that he had no idea what was wrong with her and the only way to find out would be to cut her open and look inside.

That seemed a little drastic given that she had all the same symptoms I did when I had a kidney infection and that her pain level had been going down, not up (as it should if it were appendicitis) since Saturday. I immediately got on the phone with my nurse friend who agreed and suggested that maybe an ultrasound would be a better Plan A.

I reported back to the group. I think Sani felt overwhelmed by everything, and at that point, burst into uncontrollable sobs. After awhile, she managed to choke out that she wanted to talk to her sister, so we all loaded up on 8 motorbikes and went across town to her sister’s house.

We all huddled around the front room of her house and discussed our options. The dilemma we had was that a surgery is pretty scary and honestly, a little sketchy. There are much better/cleaner/reputable hospitals in the next town, but the doctor she saw was also the surgeon who would be doing the operation and would most likely not write her a letter to go to a different hospital. Also, since he said surgery was the only option, he wouldn’t write a letter for her to get an ultrasound. And without a letter, you can’t do anything, which is the thing that frustrates me the most about this situation.

After many tears and all of us going around and saying our piece, it was decided that the choices were a) have a surgery and know once and for all what is wrong and be able to treat it or b) do nothing and potentially die of a burst appendix. Sani was too emotional to do or say anything, so option A was picked for her. We took her to the ER and checked her in. For some reason she was afraid to give the doctor’s letter to the nurse herself, so it was my job to accompany her and arrange the letter and talk for her.

I’ve never been in an ER here. And being there did nothing to soothe my fears about her being operated on there. I mean, this is the entire ER.

That’s it. That’s all of it. The last bed in the ER is reserved for emergency deliveries. It looks like this.

Here is our brave patient.

And here is the entirety of the medical equipment in her “room”.

Sani’s sister and Mas Yo ordered a room for Sani. There are several different levels of room to choose from, all at varying costs. There is everything from VIP and VVIP, which cost $50 and $70, respectively, per day, all the way down to rooms that cost $6 per day. They chose a medium priced room for her. So after about 45 minutes in the ER, an orderly got a wheelchair, and we headed off to get her settled in.

Beyond the ER were the observations rooms, which looked like this.

That pile of blankets is a person sleeping on the floor. I don’t know if it’s the same in all hospitals, but here in our town, if relatives want to stay, they bring blankets and pillows and camp out on the floor. For extended stays, relatives pretty much set up camp in the hospital room. They even cook food on gas burners in there.

We went up a floor and found ourselves in this waiting room, which just seemed so dark and sad to me.

Pushing her down the hallway…

And finally, we arrived in her medium priced room. It looked like this.

      I’m thankful that we were able to get her her own room. Down the hall were the cheaper rooms, and they had SIX beds in a room the same size as this. And she has a TV and her own bathroom. Granted, they are both small and dirty. But they are amenities that not everyone gets.

We left her there last night – I, reluctantly – to rest in preparation for surgery today. As we were leaving, her nephew pulled up with bags of clothes, blankets, and pillows – because the hospital here doesn’t even supply those things.

She should be in surgery right now as I type this.

 

I’m trying to figure out if my frustration over this situation is because it’s different or because it’s wrong. I could be feeling this way just because it’s not what I’m used to. I’m used to a much higher standard of healthcare. I’m used to people being able to tell the doctor, “I would like to have an ultrasound done”. I am used to doctors who actually went to med school (sorry, that was mean, but it is really how I sometimes feel in this country). Does it mean that it’s WRONG to have a lower standard of healthcare or that it’s wrong for doctors, rather than patients, to have the ultimate authority over one’s medical decisions or that it’s wrong for me to know more than the actual doctor (though that’s probably me just being a prideful know-it-all)? I don’t know. Different or wrong? Different or wrong? Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the two.

Either way, I really am very frustrated and exasperated by all of this. And I’m worried for Sani’s health. I am very worried about something going wrong during the surgery. People die during routine procedures all the time here. But I’m also praying a lot and trying to trust that God is going to work for good in this situation.

Pet Peeve

I seem to have a lot of conversations lately that go like this:

Student: mmmfmjiefj mffmmmffmfmfm mfmfmf mfmcjemjlar?
Me: Sorry, can you repeat that?
Student: A calculator?
Me: What?
Student: A calculator.
Me: What about a calculator?
Student: Did you?
Me: DID I WHAT?
Student: Did you see a calculator?
Me: Uhm. I am a math teacher, I see lots of calculators.
Student: Have you seen my calculator? I lost it.

Or:

Student: marjoni karmandi kamsamnida mundy??
Me: Excuse me?
Student: Was it?
Me: Was what?
Student: The homework.
Me: Was it what?
Student: The homework.
Me: Was the homework WHAT?
Student: Today?
Me: Was it due today?
Student: YES! That is what I've been ASKING you!


If I don't hear you the first time (usually because your classmates are talking over you), REPEAT YOUR QUESTION, not just TWO WORDS of it.

Pork

I just took 2 friends out for my birthday (because that's how it goes around here) to a new restaurant. We each had a heaping plate of rice, another plate of roast pork and veggies, a hot bowl of soup, and homemade bbq hot sauce. We drank passion fruit juice, iced tea, and hot tea.

And when I asked for the bill... it came to a whopping total of... $5.

I love eating out here.

The Wednesday Birthday Special

A long time ago, Pak Kur asked me when my birthday is. I told him, and he’s always remembered. My birthday is the 16th of April. Pak Kur’s youngest daugher, Filda, has her birthday on April 7th. So Pak Kur decided to throw a combined birthday party for his 2 daughters in between their birthdays! Genius, right?

Well, that party ended up being yesterday. It was the ONLY evening from the 7th until the 16th that the whole family would be home at once – Pak Kur and his older 2 children all work and are often on second or third shift. So I, along with two close friends who also know Pak Kur, drove to the village at 7 PM, and I have to say, it is a little scary driving through the jungle at night to get there!! But we made it safely, and they had coffee and snacks and puppies waiting for us. Well worth the scary drive.

After about an hour of snacking and coffee-ing and talking and puppy-ing, it was time for the celebration to begin! There (pronounced Tay-Ray), Pak Kur’s eldest, went in the kitchen and brought out a cake for Filda and I!! I definitely wasn’t expecting a cake, so it was a great surprise!

Then we had to sit there and look at it longingly for about 234087 minutes while Pak Kur gave us a big birthday speech about how much he loves us (even though Javanese never say that directly) and how we can be better people in this year of our life (my recommendation was to continue to grow in responsibility and maturity. Filda’s was to do her school work without being forced or drop out of school and get a job).

I was getting very worried that the cake was going to catch on fire. Thankfully, they were very slow burning candles. Once the speech was over, they sang to us and we got to blow out the candles! There started to sing “Happy Birthday” in English, but Pak Kur made her stop because he didn’t know the words. So they sang in Indonesian instead. : )

  

After the singing and blowing-out-of-the-candles, Pak Kur told us to cut the cake together to show our unity and then give the first to pieces to bapak (father) and ibu (mother) to show honor to them. I’m really thankful that Pak Kur doesn’t just expect me to know Indonesian traditions then get upset with me when I don’t follow them. He knows that I don’t know these things, and so he’s not shy to tell me. I was thankful to learn this part of the culture and to have a chance to show respect to two people who mean so much to me and have done so much for me.

There were three cameras at this shindig, so forgive us if we’re not all looking at the same one at the same time, K?

After Pak Kur and Ibu Indah had their cake, Filda and I decided to eat our names! I got “Happy Abby” and she got “Birthday Filda”. Both were pretty fitting. : )

  

After we had cake and more coffee and snacks, Ibu Indah disappeared for awhile then suddenly came out of the kitchen carrying tons of dishes of food. There had cooked one of my favorite foods for me – soto santan with all the fixins! So at 9 o’clock at night, AFTER stuffing ourselves with chocolate cake, we all had dinner together! Then Pak Kur decided that we needed some family pictures. However, he is notorious for NEVER looking at the camera. This first pose was his idea. “We need to give a sign that we are a family.”

From left to right – Angga, Me, Filda, There, Pak Kur, and Ibu Indah. Our first family pictures!

After we ate, I went to use the bathroom behind the house, and when I came back in through the kitchen, Pak Kur’s mom was dishing up some of the leftover food. She’s such a sweet, smiling lady. She mostly just spends her days shuffling around the village with no shirt on, sucking on a wad of mildly narcotic leaves. She never went to school as a child, so she doesn’t speak Indonesian – only Javanese - and she has no teeth, which is probably why I can’t understand her. Like ever. But I did last night – for the first time! When I saw her in the kitchen, she asked me, “Oh, did you wake up already?” which was strange since it was night time. But I answered politely in Javanese, and she told me to eat. So I told her I already had. Then she said a lot of stuff I didn’t understand and waved her hand at me and made some cackling noises, and I smiled and nodded a lot and went back into the front room. She shuffled along behind me and pulled herself up a chair and sat and watched us until we went home. Haha… I managed to sneak one picture of her by pretending to take a picture of one of the puppies that wandered in. No puppies on the carpet!

As the evening wore on, we got sillier and sillier. One of the friends who came is extraordinarily tall. There realized that if she stood on the couch, she was just a little bit taller than Kathryn! So here is our funny photo of the day, all trying to be as tall as Kat.

And one more of the birthday girls!! Those are my crazy birthday eyes.

Before I left, I thanked Pak Kur and Ibu Indah and told them that I felt very special. Pak Kur replied, “You’re not special. You’re one of my kids. You’re all the same. None are more or less special than the rest.” I love that guy.

Weird Texts

I got some strange SMSes last night from a number that I didn't recognize. The sad thing is that this happens fairly regularly. They were all in Indonesia. They went like this.

Text: Hey beautiful...
Me: Sorry, who is this? (In Indonesian)
Text: I'm a townie. Should I tell you or not?
Me: Who? (In Javanese)
Text: My name is Ardi. I got your number from... I forget who from. I've had it for a long time.

Yeah, I didn't reply any more after that...

Numbers

So I've been looking at some numbers and making some comparisons. This kind of puts into perspective what it's like to live on the most densely populated island in the world.

I come from a very small Indiana town with population right around 250. The town I live in here is also considered a very small town. In fact, people from Jakarta, the capital city, sometimes refer to it as a village.

Village. Population 176,000. I laugh.

The population of my entire home county is not even 25% of that and yet has 53 times the area.

The area of my hometown is 0.44 square kilometers. The area of my current town is 17.87 square kilometers. So 40.5 times the area for 704 times the population.

For my readers who know Indiana well, think of Fort Wayne. The current population estimate is approximately 253,691. It's the second largest city in Indiana. And based on population, it is 144% bigger than the town I currently live in. But based on land, Fort Wayne is 16 times larger. So much more space to fit all those people!

For my college friends, try and take the entire population of Fort Wayne and cram all those people into an area HALF the size of Warsaw (NOT counting WL). That's where I live.

And here's a bigger picture. Take the entire population of the US living west of the Mississippi River and relocate them ALL to Alabama. You could let the population of Alabama stay there (though I assume the second Civil War would quickly erupt), and it would STILL not be as densely populated as the island I live on.

Welcome to Java.

Those Moments

I've had several of those, "Well, you know you ____________ when __________" moments this week. Know what I mean? No, probably not. But to explain, here are a few of the ones I've thought of this week.

You know you live in a third world country when students are absent from school due to dengue.

You know you teach in an international school when parents send in excuse notes in a language that is not the first language of either one of you, and yet you both understand it.

You know you're talking to an Asian when they repeatedly refer to you as "Mister".

You know you live among a thrifty people when you ask why someone is absent from Bible study and the answer is, "Oh, he is busy cleaning pig ears to take home to his mom to cook".

You know you live in an awesome community when the night jaga cleans your motorbike for you at 2 AM to surprise you in the morning.

Jumat Agung (Good Friday)

For Good Friday, my church decided to go to the beach. We rented 2 buses, packed meals, and headed to the south coast for the day! Our plan was to hang out at Indrayanti Beach, but when we got there, it was high tide and there were tons of people swarming around the narrow strip of beach that was not covered by water, so we drove 20 minutes down the coast and found a much quieter Drini Beach. After spending most of the day there, we drove into Jogja and spent the evening eating and shopping in the famous Malioboro area of town. It was a loooooong day. I was at church, ready to go, at 5 AM. And we didn’t get back to church until 11 PM. Good thing I am awesome at sleeping in any moving vehicle! Here’s what the day looked like.

First, we spent some time at Indrayanti Beach worshipping and listening to a short sermon from an American guest speaker. For me this meant getting to hear a Good Friday sermon in my native language!

It was SUPER hot there! But Friday was a national holiday, so there were LOTS of people milling about, enjoying their holiday at the beach, undetered by the 100+ degree temperatures. It was interesting to see all the people checking out what we were doing, and several passerbys (can you pluralize that word??) of other faiths heard the Word as they stopped to listen in.

After our worship time, we loaded back up on the buses and drove to Drini Beach. When we got of the bus, I was wearing a swimsuit with shorts and a tank top on over it, plus a sundress on over THAT. But when we stepped onto the beach, I basically felt naked when I saw most of the women swimming there…

Yup. They were going swimming in chadars. So that was great. I kind of felt like I needed to be respectful. And hide.

Drini is divided up into two parts by this interesting… um… hill-type-thing conveniently located behind three of my friends who wanted me to take their picture every 20 seconds.

Did you notice the stairs?? So did we! And instead of swimming, we decided to climb to the top and see what we could see. The path to the top was pretty overgrown and really steep in parts.

But it was a short climb, and when we got to the top, this is the view we were rewarded with.

I hiked over to the very edge and found myself perched on a cliff overlooking the south sea. I love water and I love the way it crashes against the rocks and I love the sound it makes and I love the color it is and I love how strong it is. It is mesmerizing. I spent awhile there, sitting by myself, enjoying being alone with the ocean, and taking pictures of the birds flying low over the waves.

My friends started calling for me to come take their pictures. So I took a bunch of them, then explored around the top of the hill.

The beach kind of curves around this hill/rock/land mass that we were standing on. The extremely covered men and women were swimming to the west side of the hill (shown above), and most of the people from our church had wandered over the the east side (shown below). After we hiked back down, we went around to that side.

The water on the south coast is VERY dangerous and VERY strong because there are no major islands between Antarctica and Java to break up the waves or the currents. People drown there on a regular basis. I heard that someone drowned at Indrayanti Beach the day before we came, in fact. So people don’t really go to the south coast to swim, per se. More than anything, they play in the water. Everyone thought it would be great fun to stand knee deep in the water and make a human chain, attempting to hold each other up as the waves rushed in. I took several pictures and then eventually got in on that action myself! The water doesn’t look very deep, but it is SO STRONG – it’s hard to stay standing up!

This is my church, guys.

Happy Easter. : )