Sudah Kerasan di Indonesia

Hello everyone! I’m sorry this is so long! Hang in there (or don’t (the part that doesn’t involve excruciating detail about my daily activities is the first three paragraphs))!

View from Selamat Pagi High School

I’m settling in nicely over here in Indonesia. It feels like I’ve been here forever. I don’t know if its just that my traveler self’s clock has resumed keeping time since the last time I was abroad, or if its just that we’ve been doing so much (I do recall feeling similarly my first few weeks in India). I feel right at home here. It’s funny how before you travel to a place you imagine it the best you can in your head and you think it’s going to be so wildly different from what you’re used to, like an alternate reality, but when you get there it’s not that different (or maybe that’s just me). I feel wherever I go the Earth is still the Earth and it’s populated with life-be it animal, plant, or other- and people are still people. Yes the culture is different, the plant and animal life is different, geography, climate, all that might be different, but all that is superficial. The feeling is the same.

Being here almost feels like an extension of my time living in India. I do notice many more differences between the two countries than I did during my initial impression though. Indonesia is definitely the tamer version of India (not in a bad way). I’ll begin with the traffic. For starters it’s less noisy, less crowded, and there do seem to be some rules (honking when you go around corners or at people who might not realize you’re there). There are a lot of people on sepeda motors (motorcycles) here but not nearly as many four/five person families on them and definitely almost everyone wears a helmet. There are also a lot more cars and no rickshaws at all L . There is a noticeable lack of cows/horses/dogs/camels in/around/crossing the street. There is a lack of dogs in general. I’ve only seen 3 in my three weeks here (more on this later). There is less trash everywhere and less poverty. Occasionally I’ve seen beggars playing ukes in the street asking for money but it’s not nearly as prominent as in India. Indonesia also seems to be very slightly less populated. Indonesians, and the culture here, seem to be more westernized than in India. Only the older people wear traditional clothing (and by traditional I mean traditionally Muslim (maybe with some batik)). Batik is universally popular but it’s normally worn as a shirt or a skirt in western style. My family and the people in my desa are always in western clothing, and most of the time it’s not as conservative as I was lead to believe it would be (but I also live in a tourist town close to a bigger city (more on that later)).

One of the things I’m loving about Indonesia is the unique combination of South East Asian and Muslim culture. There is a distinctly South East Asian feel from the architecture and occasional Buddhist/Hindu imagery; not to mention the climate and food. This is contrasted by the predominance of mosques, hijabis, and other elements of Muslim visual (and auditory (loving the call to prayer (more on that in a sec))) culture. It’s a wonderfully interesting combination and I feel lucky to be experiencing it. The call to prayer here is different than the other countries where I’ve experienced it. In India and Turkey it started out with the usual Allahu-akbar but here it starts out with a different verse of the Qur’an. It’s a very beautiful and moving song (which I do not understand but am hoping to post a clip of soon). The song that is normally played is actually a recoding and most mosques here play it before the traditional call to prayer-the usual Allahu-akbar. Even that is sung more melodiously than India or Turkey. Also on certain days like Friday (the holiest day of the week) they play another verse before the other recorded verse. It woke me up this Friday morning but I wasn’t even mad because it was so pretty. I’m quite taken with it. Later that day I managed to record it because it was played before every call to prayer that day. Normally for the second to last/ last call to prayer at night they tend to recite the entire service over the loud speaker (I think this also happens in the morning some times too). I haven’t quite mastered the pattern or schedule of these calls but I’m sure I will soon.

End stream of consciousness rant here (sike! You all know that’s not going to happen (what follows is the play by play of my life (continue at your own risk))).

Moving on to my daily life and activities. I’m really enjoying my host family and my village so far. My cluster (volunteers placed in my village) consists of four people (including myself): John, Kevin, and Helene. Most of them I hadn’t had much interaction with before we got placed together in Oro Oro Ombo B. Oro Oro Ombo A has five people but as it turns out we don’t do anything with them. A little info about my host family: they have hosted two volunteers before, my bapak speaks a good bit of English (more on this in a sec), my ibu speaks none, my host sister Zahra has just started learning English this year, and my host brother Bismar seems to always be out of the house or in his room (I really haven’t had much interaction with him yet (but when I do its pleasant)). I also have the luxury of having access to a western toilet, hot water, and a washing machine! When I met my family they came and picked me up from the balai desa (village government office) in their car. I learned pretty quickly that my bapak speaks English. I wouldn’t say he’s fluent, but he certainly speaks enough to communicate most of what he wants to say. I didn’t really like this initially because I was worried that I wouldn’t get to practice or use my bahasa Indonesia as much as I would like. Luckily this is not the case. Even though most of the time my bapak speaks to me English I tend to respond in bahasa Indonesia, and if I don’t know a word I can ask him and he usually has the answer. Update: as I learn more bahasa Indonesia my bapak speaks more to me in bahasa Indonesia!

My first day was spent hanging with the fam showing them pictures of my family back home, eating, and relaxing, By the afternoon my Cultural Liason Bakti showed up with John to give us a little tour of the village so we could see where the other volunteers were staying and meet their families. In Javanese culture, when you visit someone’s house you’re supposed to sit and chat while they offer food and drinks to you. So when Bakti and John showed up they had to sit and talk to my family. We did the same thing at Kevin, Helene, and John’s house. We picked up Kevin and Helene as we visited their houses and they joined us as we continued our rounds. We all ended up getting stuck at Johns house longer than expected because the beautiful wet season rain decided to unleash itself for a bit. This was actually one of my favorite moments so far. I was sitting and watching the torrential rain pour down all around me, with a beautiful view of Panderman (the mountain) to one side and the rest of my village to the other. In the midst of this I got to hear the call to prayer for the first time. I was overcome with happiness.

My ibu and I bonded pretty quickly during the first two days over fact that we both like to eat, we like spicy food, and we’re lazy. She’s very funny, in fact, the whole family seems to be continuously making jokes. They love to laugh, which is fine by me.

Host Family

On Monday we had our first HUB day. This is when all of the ID-9s meet for training either at UMM or Selamat Pagi (which is where this first one was held). Selmat Pagi is a remarkable school. It is a boarding school that provides free high school education and life skills learning for orphans all around Indonesia. We were greeted there with a showcase of various styles of dance all preformed and choreographed by the students. Afterward we had our first language meeting with our clusters and several other trainings then headed home. When I returned home I was instructed to mandi and after I ate with my host family. We were chatting a good bit. I do feel like my bahasa Indonesia is coming along pretty well; I don’t have a whole lot of trouble with basic communication so far. My Ibu and sister and I spent the afternoon bonding over clothing, dancing, and other fun things. They enjoy making fun of me for the fact that I cannot yet pronounce the ng sound properly (Kemal can confirm this). They have a great time laughing at my failed attempts to produce this sound (luckily I got back at them by making my host sister pronounce d and t (which in the jawa accent sound pretty much the same (as do b and p, and k and g (which makes recognizing the words I learn in their accent a lot harder)))).

One of the student performances

On Tuesday we had language in the morning and link class in the afternoon. Link class is where we get technical teacher training. It’s kind of hard to sit through; especially after you’ve just spend 5 hours studying language. We meet up with a third of the ID-9s for this at a place that’s only about a 35 minute walk away. Luckily, we got out early around 3:30 and tried to get Bakti to take us to the mall to get some batik. It was a no go though as no angkots passed us by.

Wednesday we had the usual language then link schedule but after I wasn’t quite ready to go home. The reason for this is that once I go home I can’t really go back out again (mostly because I’m female and it’s already dark). So I decided I wanted to so some exploring while it was still light and Kevin was kind enough to join me. We first tried to go to John’s house since John wanted to use Kevin’s wifi (Kevin’s family is related to my family and they have wifi!). Somehow we missed him and so we continued on our way down the hill to the Balai desa. Once there I wanted to keep going so we decided to try and find the trainees in Oro Oro Ombo A. We walked along asking people if there were white people around and if so where we could find them. This lead us pretty far down the hill. After about 20 minutes we decided it was about time to head back. Kevin remarked that wouldn’t it be wild if some Indonesian came out and grabbed us and said they had volunteers in their house? Well as we headed back sure enough I heard my name. I turned and there was an Ibu asking if I was Nicole, which I confirmed. She proceeded to tell me that she’s my ibu’s best friend and that she’s hosting another volunteer, Elena. We went in and chatted with Elena and I asked the Ibu to let my family know where I am. Soon after my bapak and ibu show up to the house. My ibu jokingly (but kinda not) scolded me for being out so late and not letting her know where I was (lessoned learned). It was my host sister’s birthday that day so my bapak invited Kevin and Elena out with us to dinner. After dinner my family took Kevin and I to a wedding in the Desa. It mainly consisted of sitting and snacking (the usual here). There were a few funny moments when Kevin and I ate chillis and were told to throw our trash under the table. Apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do with your trash at weddings here. I had a hard time at first and wouldn’t do it so in order to convince me my Ibu and bapak kept taking things (food, trash, drinks, etc) from the table and throwing them under the table all the while egging us on to do the same. I’d say the adventure was a success!

A quick note on Kevin: he is an absolute favorite in the desa. All the women think he’s incredibly handsome and funny. The men also think he’s handsome and they say they’re jealous (but in a fond and joking way (they still tease their wives and daughters for being so fond of him). It’s really quite hilarious. I enjoy teasing my ibu and host sister about him and convincing them to go visit his house (not hard to do). I even caught them trying to sneak pictures of him. The volunteer who lived with my host family last year was over on Sunday and even she said that she had never heard them talk about anyone so much and that she had to meet this legendary Kevin. I believe the words idol and superhero were thrown around a bit in the discussion. My ibu even joked about pretending to faint during Kevin’s Tai Kwon Do lesson just so he would rush to her aid (he’s a third degree black belt (we didn’t end up having the lesson))! Even the married women in Kevin’s household can’t stop talking about him. I find all this endlessly entertaining, especially since Kevin seems to think I’m exaggerating (I’m not) and it makes him slightly uncomfortable/awkward when I tease him about it, which just adds to my joy. (For the record Kevin’s pretty much your standard Asian-American guy (but here he’s a god)).

Some nice views from my runs and around the desa

Thursday my family and I went in the afternoon to visit a sick relative. We

Did the polite Javanese thing and sat and chatted and snacked. My ibu went to sit with the women in the sick woman’s room and I was left with the men for a little while. I noticed that the women were definitely talking about me so I decided to join them. In the room there were both of my host grandmothers (nenek), and some aunts (one of which was sick and had gotten back from the hospital earlier (I don’t think she was too sick though, seemed like the flu)). While I was sitting in the room they continued to talk about me. I really didn’t mind; I know their just curious and their intentions are good. I was actually quite pleased with how much I understood. They talked about where I was from, my family back home, what I like to eat, my fondness for dancing, and also about my nose, skin, hair etc. My neneks are quite lively and kept cracking jokes and patting my leg and talking about my nose. There is something special about being in the company of women.

Skipping ahead to Saturday… On Saturday we had our usual language class in the morning. We got to end early though at 9:30 because we had to learn how to bargain and needed to go test our skills and buy our cellphones/sim cards!! After class we had to catch an angkot to the traditional market. We were tasked with bargaining and bringing back our spoils of fruit in 30 minutes with only Rp. 10.000. Helene, Bakti and I were a team. As I’m sure you all are aware I am a master bargainer but it took us a little while to even find someone willing to bargain. When we finally did we were able to get half a kilo of rambutan (originally 3.000) down to 2.000 and half a kilo of duku (originally 10.000) for 8.000! Then for fun I tried to bargain for some manggis (which is super delicious). It started out at 16.000 for a kilo, 8.000 half a kilo, I asked for 6.000 she said she would give me 7.000, I counter offered 6.500. She didn’t accept but I received the best compliment from Bakti who said I bargain better than him, like a true Indonesian! After the market we hoped on two angkots to go to the mall in Malang for our phones and sim cards. Peace Corps made the mistake of having everyone do this at the same time so the ran out of sim cards before my cluster could get one. So we went on an adventure (our favorite thing). Bakti took us to a cell phone place outside the mall that was about a 10 minute walk in light rain. We spent about an hour there getting our cards and making sure our phones worked. From there we went to a place to buy cheap clothes. By the time we were done shopping it was raining heavily. Bakti took us to a Main Kartu (a coffee shop on the street where you can sit on a carpet on the ground and eat and drink). We hung out there and played cards while we waited for the rain to stop. Once it did we angkot-ed it back to a bus depot where we met up with the other Oro group by chance and reserved an ankgot back home (since angkots to Oro had stopped running at that point). I got home to find my families previous volunteer Sarah there. She had promised my host sister that she would stop by for her birthday. She’s very and seems pretty fluent in Indonesian (there’s hope for the future). I got to talk to her for a while and she accompanied me to Helene’s because I had left my keys there.

Sunday we had family time in the morning, Sarah was graced by Kevin’s presence for a little bit and then we headed again to the mall in Malang (Matos). We said good-bye to Sarah there and then headed back so I could spend the rest of the day writing this blog post (kill me now!)

Week Two Recap:

This week we had more language and link classes. After class most days I got to do more exploring. I convinced my CL to take Helene and I to the mall one afternoon. Another afternoon I went into Malang with a group of trainees to go to a bar. We took two angkots down and had some trouble finding the place, but we did find it eventually and got to get a little “American” food (I use that term loosely) and beers (I use the term somewhat loosely too). We were up on a very pretty rooftop and were eventually joined by current volunteers. It was great getting to talk to them and hear their experiences and advice.

Early in the week (Monday perhaps) My family took me to BNS (Batu Night Spectacular). Its an amusement park right by Oro Oro Ombo and a lot of Oro youths work there, including my host brother. Since my bapak is well known we got to do most of the rides for free. Here are some pics:

Fountain Show

Ibu and I pretending to dance

at a 4D show

Towards the end of the week my cluster had our PACA practicum. PACA is basically different ways to analyze the goings on of the community. The technique my group was assigned was the seasonal calendar. So basically we had to get a group of at least four community members together and ask them questions to figure out when things were happening in the community. For example: when are different fruits and veggies planted and harvested?, what does the religious calendar look like?, what does the school calendar look like?, when do people tend to get sick? Etc. We were also tasked with making sure we did everything in a culturally appropriate way. We decided we would invite the community members over to someone’s house, chat with them a bit then feed them American food (the Javanese way), ask them our questions, then chat some more. The afternoon before we decided to get the ingredients to make guacamole and salsa. Bakti took us to the traditional market where I once again made many friends and gained respect through my bargaining skills. We then went to the mall (BATOS) to go to hypermart to get the rest of the ingredients. Side note: Indonesia does not do tortilla chips well, it was impossible to find any that weren’t flavored with cheese or beef or something else that doesn’t go well with guacamole (didn’t figure that out until it was time to serve them though). When we got back from our trip Bakti helped us talk to my family about hosting people at their house. The day of we had language in the morning and then we split up to prepare. The boys went to get some hot dogs to serve with the food. I went home to wait for them because they had the onions (an essential ingredient). We then cooked and held our practicum. It turns out Indonesians are not too fond of guacamole, but the salsa was a hit! Afterwards we cleaned, and everyone went their separate ways. We had originally planned to try and see the lunar eclipse and then go out dancing but since it was cloudy we decided to just meet up later. The dancing plans fell through (for now) but the moon and the eclipse were visible later so I sat with my family by the street to watch it.

My favorite part of the PACA practicum–watching the boys wash the dishes. I believe they sang while they did it too…they always sing…

Sunday was an extremely lazy day. I woke up, ate, took a nap, and woke up again to go out. We went to a neighbor’s house. My ibu had been there all day helping them cook. At first I thought it was in preparation for a circumcision party and was very confused to not see a sad boy lying around. The circumcision ceremony is a coming of age ceremony for Muslim boys here. It happens when the boy is 12 or 13 years old. Normally some one comes to the house to do the circumcision. Numbing agents are used (don’t worry gents), and the boy is circumcised. Family and neighbors come for this exciting event (though they don’t watch it) and the boy receives a lot of money from them for his ordeal. It’s a lot like a wedding here—there’s deafening music being played all day and night, lots of food, and gift boxes! According to Bakti, everyone once in a while a man has to get circumcised twice because the practioner doesn’t remove all the foreskin the first time (how fun!). I will be sure to report on this even fully when I go to one (hopefully soon). So it turns out that instead of a circumcision party, someone had died and my ibu was helping the family prepare food gift boxes for the funeral. We ate and hung out there for a little bit and then headed home. I continued to laze around until 8 when we went to a wedding in lower Oro oro ombo. The wedding wasn’t to exciting. The was a stage with performers, many tables for guests to sit at and snack until it was time to go eat, and a stage where the bride and groom sat. We sat at a table until it was our turn to eat, then we ate and left.

OK guise that’s all for now. I will try not to have them be this lengthy in the future. Or if you like them like this let me know. Feedback is always appreciated!