Sold!

Khadir has a mild obsession with vintage cars and motorcycles (as you guys might remember from the blue Holden Tucker).  This seves as a hobby business for him, as he is very clever at buying the vehicles at low prices, rehabbing them, and selling them at a significant profit. 

His most recent turn-around was another lovely maroon and white Holden, which secretly I didn’t want him to sell as it is actually a smoother ride than my namesake.  After weeks of telephone negotiations with various potential buyers he sold to a guy in Makassar (which is in Sulawesi, a whole other island, so don’t ask me how it’s getting there) who bought it to celebrate his impending nuptials.

Here are two shots of the car, displayed outside a friend’s house.  I’ll let you guess how much it sold for, but the answer is… not that much more than what Topher got for my dinky (but great!) little Ford Focus.  I think there would be a potential for a really profitable import business buying vintage cars in Indonesia and selling them in the United States, the only problem is the steering wheels are all on the wrong side…?

World's Cutest (and perhaps Shortest) Beatles Fans

Last week I stopped by  a local elementary school, SD Muhammadiyah Bangutapan, that provides inclusion for a number of children that also study and play gamelan at Bina Anggita.  I love this school (you may remember some pictures from when I visited last year).  It is the cleanest, brightest, most welcoming place, led by a great principal Pak Heri.  It is not every public school in Indonesia that accepts kids with special needs (there are some laws in place defending every child's right to education but the implementation is not yet really regulated) yet he has made it one of his priorities. 

Anyway, some of the students were rehearsing for an upcoming performance.  They were practicing a song about national pride, but then one of them asked me if I liked the Beatles.  Turns out the sixth grade girls are in the throes of Beatlemania.  I told them about my mother going to see the Beatles at Carnegie hall, getting lost and accidentally walking into their dressing room and meeting them in person (this story turns out to be mostly untrue, or at least, it happened to my mom's friend and not her herself, but I have been telling as fact for years now) and the girls almost fainted.  We then sang "Yesterday" together.

Here is a picture of them looking at their most composed and self-assured.  I only wish the photo did justice to how truly petite they are.

 

Monggo Monggo!! My Welcoming Neighborhood

I know that you guys wanted to see pictures of the house and where I live.  I’m holding off on pictures of the house because Khadir is currently in a fever of home improvement and decoration, so walls are being painted, furniture is being rearranged, plants and small trees keep rolling in so that the backyard is starting to resemble a tropical jungle,  and yesterday he bought literally 20 or more terra cotta pots to be used as planters and traditional Javanese water receptacles.  I feel like there must be a better English word for “water receptacles.”  Perhaps what I am looking for is, jug?  A pot with a spout?  I’ve only been in Indonesia for a little over a month and my English vocabulary is starting to suffer.

However, I can share with you some pictures that I’ve taken from my afternoon walks.  Despite my beloved yoga studio where I am already a regular, and my occasional dips in hotel pools, I haven’t been getting that much exercise here, which was making me feel kind of sluggish and cranky.  So last week or so I asked Khadir to take me on a neighborhood walk, and it turns out that not that far from the house there is a naturally occurring river, that is diverted into small irrigation channels, that you can follow for a long time until it reaches a larger irrigation river, which was built by the dutch and is called a “slogan.” 

This pathway takes you through acres and acres of cultivated fields, squared off and worked on by villagers, seemingly most of whom are Khadir’s family, neighbors, and friends.  There are ponds for decorative fish and fish for eating, fields of wheat, bushes sprouting hot chili peppers, orange trees, herbs, vegetables, rice, and more.  It’s like a highly organized complex of lush fertility.  And, I’m not sure why, perhaps because of the way they water the fields, the ground is shaped into swells, where sometimes the whole plot of land is slightly depressed by about a foot and a half, surrounded by an elevated footpath, and the plants are set in rows on top of regular, gentle swells of earth.  So walking through it is kind of like walking through waves of land, if that makes sense.  You can jump or sometimes roll from one to the next, depending on the size of the swell.  It would literally be heaven for a young child to roam free in. 

My street:

A Neighbor: Giant Bamboo, Tiny Grandma

Fish ponds

Fields of Food

Now every couple of days I make Khadir escort me on this route.  I like going with him, because as my friend Q once rightfully said, “the Indonesians are so dang welcoming” and they really like to talk to you when you are out for your late afternoon constitutional. Everybody greets you in the friendliest of ways, which means that when I walk by myself I am constantly responding to a stream of questions, “Where are you going?  Where do you live?  Why are you walking so fast?  Where are you from?  Can you speak Indonesian?  Are you in school?  How old are you?”  and, quite often, “Would you like to come over to my house?”

I find it often endearing and often tiring.  I used to think it was just me and my glaring exotic difference that elicited this kind of response, but it’s totally not the case.  When Khadir is out with me he is greeted with a similar chorus, except often in lively teasing and scolding Javanese, and sometimes his conversations quickly turn to local economic transactions and gossip: how’s his fish pond doing?  How is his uncle’s vegetable business?  How’s his mom?  He greets everyone with what seems like genuine pleasure.  Still, I remember last year when my friend Uni would sometimes give me a ride to or from her house, from the driver’s side she would be politely nodding her head, smiling, and greeting every single neighbor she passed on the way so that by the time she got to the main road she would turn to me and say, “I’m exhausted.”

If you’re not up for too much conversation, or if you don’t know who you are passing by, the most simplest exchange in Javanese is this:

“Monggo?”

“Monggo, monggo!”

Which means, loosley, “May I?” or, “Do I have permission to pass you by?” and the answer, “Oh please, go ahead, go ahead!”  “Monggo!” is often also used to invite people to drink, rest, whatever.  It’s often said in what I interpret to be a jubilant tone.

So, until pictures of the house are up, monggo, enjoy a sneak preview of a section of the back wall near the fish pond.

We also have four different frogs that live in that pond, and a family of ducks that visits.

street art

I have a number of posts in the making but here is a tide-me-over.  The first picture is painted on the wall of one of my favorite outdoor cafes, Kedai Kebun, where I sometimes sit and do my internet-ing and writing.  The rest are pictures from a whole series of Ramayana inspired murals painted on the pillars of a bridge near Lempuyangan station, taken from the back seat of a taxi-cab. 

important updates

1. I now know which mall has a haagen dazs ice cream counter!  It's Ambarukmo Plaza.  You can also buy a tiny bottle of Body Shop shower gel there for $17.  Don't think that I bought any--that's $17 I could be spending on ice cream, I have my priorities straight.

2. I now have video g-chat and skype available on my home computer.  I already successfully video chatted with Jason Ho in both formats, which means that I saw him eat a whole cookie in one bite and pull his T-shirt over his head and pretend to be a Dark Lord.  It's like I never left LA!

Weekend Activities

This weekend my research took me to Yogya Edu Expo, an educational fair featuring booths and performances representing a number of schools in the metropolitan area.  I had a great time.  The students of Bina Anggita (Indonesian for "Independent Thinker"), the school I am working with, performed.  They looked quite handsome in their Javanese wear and played well.  The teachers are a fun loving bunch and of course photos were taken.  I also got to meet some of their parents, who I hope to interview and only get to know better as the year goes on.

Here are some photos of the kids playing:

And here are some shots from the photo opportunity afterwards.  You can spot me by my distinguishing (and oh so distinguished) gigantic sunglasses.

I got to see some other students perform.  I was struck by this placid girl and the lovely flower on her jilbab head covering. 

Really there were so many fun and classy varieties of Muslim fashion at this event, but I felt kind of creepy taking furtive photographs of kids.  One variant on the head covering for children involves something that looks to me like an adorable little chef's hat.  Another one makes the girls look like Little Bo Peep. 

Anyway, I circled around the fair and met many friendly students and teachers.  I know that when you guys think of me and Indonesia you think of me hanging out with unwashed handsome rocker types, a fact which may or may not be based in total truth, but I hope the photographs from this weekend prove that I also spend my time with kindly motherly types.

Saturday night was spent accompanying Khadir on a chili pepper run.  His family is in the vegetable business, so all these local farmers bring their chili harvest to Khadir's uncle's house.  His uncle buys their harvest, and resells it to a distributor who sends them to Jakarta to fiestily grace the plates of countless diners.  I went with him in the truck to deliver bags of chilis to be weighed and sent along.  I've included a picture here.  From the heaps of chilis on the floors and in all the boxes, I think you can imagine the overpowering odor! 

On Sunday I accompanied a new friend, Beth, to Solo.  Beth is American, but she spent 15 years living in Papua New Guinea with her Dad, who was a Missionary pilot.  We shopped at the local antique flea market, Pasar Triwindu, and I made my first purchase of my stay here, a handsome wood carving.  They had all manner of cool things, including old alarm clocks and letterpress blocks with decorative motifs and old-time advertisements on them.  Unfortunately we were on our way out so I didn't buy any of those, but I will definitely go back for some heavy-duty souvenir shopping and hope to pick at least one up then.

As part of exploring Solo, it turns out Beth wanted to go to the church in there that had recently been the target of a suicide bomb.  I guess that's just the kind of thing you are up for when you are a Missionary pilot's daughter.  There was a wedding ceremony going on, and things seemed to be pretty much "business as usual" except for some handwritten signs tacked up offering psychological counseling.  We talked to one very nice gentleman who had been in the church when the bomb was set off who shared a little bit about his experiences.  He was astoundingly even-handed I thought, saying that everyone was doing fine and their faith was stronger than ever.  Watching the wedding guests come streaming out of the church, a significant number of them wearing Islamic head-coverings as were a couple of the church employees, just reminded me how on the whole religious pluralism works well in Indonesia on a daily basis and the aberrations, while upsetting, are certainly more the exception than the rule. 

Homespun Wisdom

Today my language teacher shared a typically earthy Indonesian gem:
Having a crush is like having to fart.  If you hold it in, it hurts.  But if you let it out, it's totally embarrassing.

It's actually been a week of fart jokes.  Khadir told me this one a couple of days ago:
If a Dutch person farts, he says, "I beg your pardon."  If an American farts he says. "Excuse me."  If an Australian farts he says, "So sorry, mate."  But if an Indonesian farts he says, "It wasn't me!!!"

I didn't make these up folks.  Honest to goodness local fart humor.