Poop – Kotoran

I get terrified when I have to speak. Wednesday was pretty good except for the two times I had to interview people. Which is crazy because interviewing people is pretty much what I’m going to be doing for my dissertation so I should relish in the opportunity to do so. Right? Right? Nope. I clam up. I wish I wasn’t so terrified of saying something wrong. Saying nothing is worse and I know this yet words will not flow from my lips. Despite my inability to force Indonesian words from my mouth I am having no trouble spouting random nonsense in English. I was talking to John today, one of the PIBBI kids, and I actually talked to him about poop at one point. About how I think kids are so cute but I basically want to give one back when it poops. And I said I felt the same way about ponies and men. Once I realize they are full of shit I no longer want them. BA DUM CHHHHH. Ok, well it was funny at the time. Or awkward. Or well both. Good thing John is a nice gentleman and didn’t just tell me to shove it. He just let me keep talking about poop… at lunch. Very classy, me. Very classy. The people here are really what is making this doable. I think if they were a bunch of fart faces I might already be on a plane home. However, they are in fact NOT a bunch of fart faces, they are all kind, forgiving, sweet, smart, and funny individuals who honestly seem to care about me and each other. It is truly a gift to be in such a confusing situation yet surrounded by such lovely people.

And confusing it is. I sat from 3-5 at a lovely hotel, Kayu Arum, doing homework. A very peaceful hotel with a lovely pool I MUST take advantage of. The hotel is also nice because they will pick you up anywhere and drop you off anywhere. Then I went back to Frame and did some homework from 5-7. And more had to be finished this morning. I finished it and now I am sitting outside and it is actually kind of chilly. Where am I?

Mini Rant

“I don’t understand” should not mean “speak faster” in any language. I keep running into this problem here. Not with Bu Riny but with others. Even teachers. I know they, for the most part, are just thinking about how to explain it and different words to use and they get excited and what not and speed up. But that in no way helps. 90% of the time I just didn’t understand you because you were speaking too fast to begin with. So speeding up and using different words wont help. Just say what you said slower. And if I still don’t get it, simplify it. Don’t use more complicated words, please.

“I don’t know” means I don’t know. Not keep explaining it to me till I remember. People keep asking me if I like things. I tell them I haven’t had it yet. So they keep explaining it to me. Yes, see above. Chances are I didn’t understand you the first time. But if I keep saying “I don’t know” I really don’t know. Explaining a certain dish to me in 100 different ways isn’t going to make me magically have had it in the past. I don’t know if I like it. I haven’t had it. belum belum belum. I, of course, would never be rude in this situation I just sit and listen and keep saying I haven’t had it, and I don’t know if I like it yet. I tried once just saying I liked it… then they asked me why. Then I was in a pickle. So I said I don’t know.

Sakit Sekali

Nothing is quite as frustrating and scary as being in a foreign country and not being able to explain why you are sick and that your lungs feel like they are closing. This is the lovely experience I had on Monday. I cried. I cried in class too. I think the real problem here is I never really dealt with Devika’s death. So when my lungs started to freak out all I could think about was her and I flipped out and started balling. I think because she died in India doing her field research and she wouldn’t have been due back yet I was still in denial. I could still tell myself “Oh she will come back.” This is not true and it hurts. A lot. So moving on from denial now… I don’t like this stage. I miss her. I still need her.

Well… if you’re curious I did go to the doctors. I have an infection in my lungs and they gave me pills for it and cough medicine for my cough. Also I’m not allowed to drink a lot of caffeine and no spicy food. NO SPICY FOOD?!? IN INDONESIA?!?! What the what? Also, yes, I had a someone from LTC go with me to inform me of all this. My medical terminology is just not great so I needed help. After the doctors we went back to school and I tried to sit through my classes. They were hard because 1. I was in pain and 2. because I stink at Indonesian right now. After lunch I went home and just slept. I slept till 9pm and then ate some rice and a scrambled egg. Since I can’t have spicy food this was about all I could eat in the house. Everything in this country is spicy! Which, normally is pretty darn ok. I then slept till 11am. My host family had decided the night before I wasn’t going to class today (Tuesday) and they had already texted Ara (an LTC friend) to inform him of this, well I thought so. It was kind of nice to just sleep in and rest. My chest is still a bit tight but it is SO much better. The pills and sleep seem to be working. Later in the day I had some very nice chicken noodle soup which made me feel better. I then slept some more and Bu Juliana and Bu Dian came to check in on me. It made me feel both special and silly for people to be making such a big fuss over me. I guess no one did end up texting them so they were worried.

Well, now here I sit at the coffee house Frame doing homework and posting this. Frame has good tea and free wifi. I still miss Devika.

The First Day Off

OMG They wont stop feeding me. I have come so close to vomiting from too much food in my stomach more times than I’d like to admit. This morning I thought I would get away with not eating because we are supposed to receive lunch and I would be gone for lunch. Nope. Bu Riny insisted I eat breakfast. It was a bowl of fried noodles and cereal. It was very good but after last nights giant meal + 4  mini cakes I was still full! Then the eldest daughter, Keisha, came in and offered me these cookie crisps from Sumatra. Again, they were delicious. Really buttery and yummy. But when you put that on top of the giant dinner I am stuffed!

Also I realize I have somehow lost $50 US. I have either stuffed it somewhere really safe because I’m keeping money in different places in case I get some stolen or lose some (like now) or I dropped money possible in combo with the phone place not giving me the right change. I’m thinking I dropped some while putting it back in my purse because I have looked EVERYWHERE. I just don’t know how I lost 450,000 rupiah. That is four 100,000 bills and a 50,000 bill. How did I do that? UGH. That is a trip to the beach right there or a bunch of souvenirs. Lost. I’m so mad at myself I can’t even begin to explain it. If I wasn’t so full I’d kick myself.

So without my $50 I went off to campus to meet the girls from COTI (Emma, Julia, and Megan). We also met Daniel, one of the LTC friends who went with us to Ramayana. Daniel did not make it long, he was bored with our shopping pretty quickly and ditched out. We walked around a bit an then decided to go get head massages at this hotel Team Merah had won coupons for. We took the 5 angkota out a bit to the hotel. It was really nice. HOwever, we found out most of the coupons only work Mon – Thurs. Days we are all in class. But oh well. The head massages we wanted were only $6 US. So we sign up for them and wait a bit and go it to get them. They turned out to actually be more of a facial than a head and face massage. Which was fine with me, but not so good for Julia who has sensitive skin. She was not too pleased with the stuff that was put on our faces since it made her face burn. I was ok though… live and learn ya?

Then we (Emma, Julia, and myself) went to go get lotek for lunch. Lotek is basically boiled vegtables, tofu, and rice with a yummy peanut sauce. I also chanced ice tea with ice in it. Since we aren’y supposed to drink the water I drank this fast before the ice really melted. After lotek we walked back to the market and walked around for a bit. Emma left us at this point and we ran into Matt who had just stopped by the Wahid gym. We did a bit more shopping until it was close to 5. I went home and got my computer and now we (Megan, James, and myself) are at Kopi Frame using the internet. I should be studying but it is really dark in here… yes. That is my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Well… FINE, I’ll start studying now. Adios.

 

Friday: The Amazing Race

Today was fun! Sure I didn’t understand half of it but it was fun! Which 1. Yay fun, and 2. I know classes are going to be haaaaard thanks to today. We had “Amazing Race: Salatiga” today. We basically had a scavenger hunt all over Salatiga. First we got a clue (in Bahasa Indonesia) and went to the library and had to find a specific book. We then were guided to a specific page that had a highlighted word in it. We had to take that word and make three different word pairings out of it. The word was ‘kepala’ or head. So hard headed, big headed, etc… Then we got a clue to go take three pictures. One of a statue on campus, one of the copy center, and one of a specific ATM.

We had to then show these photos to the guard at the administrasi (you can figure that word out on your own ya?) building. Following the photo exercise we were given a clue to get in an angkot (apparently this can be spelled angkot and angkota…) at the front of the campus and take a ride. We drove out to the edge of the village and to a rock that was protected by a small building. This rock is the founding rock of Salatiga.

We learned all about this rock and how it was written around (DATE) and is written in Sanskrit. This made me think of Devika, this made me sad. I miss her so much some days. Then we got back in the angkota and drove off to the Ramayana shopping center. We had to find one specific stand (which took us a while) and buy a hat from her. We also had to buy three kinds of Javanese snacks. We bought these from a lady pushing her cart down the street. Although because we have western stomachs we gave the snacks to others to eat. We all have to be really careful about what we eat here. Oh and by the way this wasn’t our own money either. The hats and snacks were donated to LTC. We then were directed to go to a jamu store. Jamu is basically Javanese style medicine. I can’t help but think about the class we had on jamu and how this lady kept shrilly yelling “JAMU! JAMU! JAMU!” Hilarious. We, together, had to finish two glasses of jamu, one Beras Kencur and one Kunir Asem. One is for getting rid of your tiredness and the other is to help you lose weight. Yes I did drink the lose weight one. I had to, people. Then, and this was the kicker, we had to get perfect strangers to drink one of each of these concoctions as well. Megan (who was on my team a long with Matt. Team Putih) did most of the talking. We picked two young guys, because… hey, what two young guys wouldn’t take strange liquids from us?

Then, we went to a candy store where we had to guess three ingredients in a candy we were given to eat. I liked them. They were sesame-ish. After that we rushed off to a town square with a famous statue. We had to stop at the guard post and ask the names of the three statues. Which was humorous because Ara (one of the LTC friends aka helper) had to hand the security guard a paper with their names on them. This is where Team Merah took us over. We were ahead until this time but we refused to run. It was terribly hot and running just didn’t sound fun. Especially after being so sore from Pencak Silat!! I don’t know how Emma and Julia (Team Merah) ran! Our next clue was to find two people, get their names, and have them help us with the words to a song. This song was about the dokar man or the man who drives the horse carts. We picked three high school girls. They were slightly annoyed by us interupting their lunch but I think the fact we were foreigners speaking Indonesian was enough to entertain them. Yes, you read right. I did speak some Indonesian today. Some. I’m also getting A LOT better at understanding spoken Indonesian. I still miss a lot, but I understand a lot more than a week ago.

Team Putih with HS Students

We then took a dokar to Ibu Riny’s Restuarant (different Riny from my home stay mom). It is on a rice sawah or paddy and it is beautiful.

The luck of the Irish is in Indonesia

Walking to our last clue

The COTI group with some LTC friends



At this point the folks from PIBBI, the other group studying Indonesian in Salatiga and sharing the LTC building with us, showed up and we all ate lunch. It was super yummy. The sambal was really hot and it made me happy. My tolerance for spicy (pedas) food is getting higher here. After lunch we went back to LTC and used the internet for a while. We made plans to get coffee at a favorite coffee place of the students at UKSW. Or atleast the LTC students at UKSW. But the coffee place didn’t open until 5 so we decided to shop! We walked down to the Ramayana shopping center, and I thought that was it. It was not. We walked a long way down the street the Ramayana is on. Emma and I were not expecting this. After running around all day, whoo, that was a surprise. It was ok though because when we finally got to the batik shop it was very nice and I got me some batik shorts to wear while swimming for modesty’s sake or just about the house here. They were 38,500 rupiah. Or $4.09. Awesome. Then we walked back to the angkota pick up spot and took the number 2 to Kalimangka. We walked down a hill and BAM ran straight into some of the kids from PIBBI who were on their way to the beach. Five of the PIBBI kids decided to the beach this weekend and crash in a small beach town for 2 nights since our weekends are free. I really did want to go because, hey, beach and because the PIBBI kids do rock. However, I felt it best to stay here and bond with the kids and Bu Riny since they just got here.

Have I talked about them yet? Well if I have and you don’t want to read it again… TOO BAD. I’m doing it again. Bu Riny is awesome. She is so nice. So wonderful. She also speaks English. Which for me is awesome because she helps me when I don’t know a word and can tell me what I want to say. Also I can really understand her Indonesian. Also her kids rock. They are adorable. Especially Yuma. She is 8 and apparently adores me. When I come home she is immediately in my room, asking questions, taking photos of and with me, going through all my stuff, looking at all my photos, etc. This morning she even jumped in my bed before I was ready to get up. She is just adorable. It makes me feel both loved and crowded. Keisha (10) and Alfie (9) are also wonderful. They are cute as a button. Right now, as I type, they are dancing around to Justin Beiber. Not my favorite singer but they are adorable.

Keisha, Me, and Yuma

Yuma being sweet.

Me and Yuma

At dinner Bu Riny was, again, awesome. She helped me with my Indonesian, told me I could ask her for help at any time, talked to me about politics and Lady Gaga, just… she is awesome. She makes me feel comfortable and I feel that it is ok to make mistakes and not be perfect with my Indonesian. Super cool. Except the concept of ‘gemuk’ is getting to me. Gemuk means fat and being fat here generally means you are happy. So everyone keeps trying to make me gemuk. I have been fed SO MUCH FOOD since I’ve been here. I have, currently, two mini cakes sitting on my desk. Cakes I am supposed to eat before I go to bed. I have already had one of each on top of my giant lunch and giant dinner. OY VEY! I keep saying “I have a small stomach” to which they respond “Oh, just eat more. It’ll get bigger.” Sigh, guess I’m going to be gemuk happy by the end of this.

So long story short: Classes still terrify me but everything else is going great!

Also, I experienced my first Salatiga power outage. It was interesting to say the least. It was kinda of fun texting all the other COTI peeps to see if they had power or not. Yay experiences.

Angkot = Awesome

A mini post about the angkot and my day. They are awesome. They are basically vans with benches in the back and in Salatiga they are painted blue. They will stop and pick you up anywhere on their route and drop you off anywhere on their route. I take the number 2. There are no angkot stops they just yell out the window and if you need them they stop and pick you up. It’s nice because I can get picked up in front of my home-stay and dropped off right in front of campus. It also costs 2000 rupiah no matter how far you go. Which is about 21 cents. Awesome. I’ve been taking them everywhere and I feel like an expert now. Boom.

Classes started today. Our first class on grammar was nice. It was very my speed and the teacher Ibu Ika was great and answered us in English if we didn’t understand. Huzzah. Our second class was much harder for me. While it was fun and there were videos and games… I struggled. My vocabulary isn’t great yet. It is getting there. I’m getting better by the day. But oh dear GOD I just found out I tested into the advanced class. How the HELL did that happen? This is going to be harder than I thought. I guess I interviewed on a good day because dear Hanuman monkey I am not advanced. We shall see how this goes. It’ll be a trip no matter what!

Ups and Downs

Today was full of ups and downs. One up was waking up on my own and just laying in bed for a while. That was very nice. Another up was the fact I feel like I am hearing Indonesian better after three days here. Understanding… now that is a different story… but I am definitely hearing better. I am understanding more than three days ago. I just wish I was understanding more and able to express more. I feel like such a fish out of water. A down was basically blowing the writing test we took today. It was terrible. I couldn’t remember a lot of vocabulary and my writing is rudimentary at best. It did make me feel better that at least two of the other COTI peeps didn’t know the word for “strangling” either. We were translating news stories by the way. So that was interesting. And by interesting I mean bad of course.
A major up was lunch break. I love lunch break. Not only do I hear English but the PIBBI (the other program working with us) and the COTI people are really nice. They make me feel good about things I’ve accomplished and OK with the things I struggle with. Although at this lunch an interesting thing happened. We were served this delicious dish that was filled with yummy squid. Except that squid was actually chicken intestines. My new buddy Morgs ate this dish thinking it was seafood and OK for her to eat. She was, as she puts it, “food raped.” I thought it was yummy even if it was intestines but I so get where she is coming from. We also had a lecture about how to write, and I’m talking indent your paragraphs type of info. Yes it was very 101 information but because it was in Indonesian it was hard for me. I wrote down about 20 words I didn’t understand in the presentation. Those were just the ones I could catch. Then another up, because of this Emma and I went to buy dictionaries! Hooray! I finally have both an English-Indonesian and an Indonesian-English dictionary. They are awesome. Emma and I went back to the building we have all our classes in, LTC, and looked up the words we didn’t know from the presentation. She had far less than I did. We then wrote down the definitions to study later. At 4pm we had our cultural class or kelas budaya. This was both an up and a down. Up because I am in the Silat class and it is awesome. Down because, oh. my. jebus. it was SO HOT. We have our class in an open air room with slippery floors. We were sweating up a storm and then slipping on the floors. Sweaty and awkward. We were all big sweat monsters. I did, however, feel like a bad ass with all the kicks, spins, and punches we were doing. So that’s fun.
Then came the major down. I got home and Bu Lele needed to tell me something. I couldn’t understand it. I even had to look up a word she kept saying over and over to me. I just had no clue what she was trying to tell me. Something about tomorrow, something about when I had to be at school, and something about Ibu Rini’s daughter, who is here now. I couldn’t put the pieces together and I could feel her frustration with me. I have been feeling it all day. It mad me sad, and I was tired, and sweaty, and I started to tear up. She told me not to cry and that it was ok but I was just so frustrated because I want to understand her and I don’t want her to be frustrated with me. I just want her to be happy and like me. Also, I’m dead tired and I just broke. I think we figured it out in the end with the help of my schedule. However it really made me feel stupid and I hate that feeling. I also just felt bad for putting ANY stress on Bu Lele. She is so kind and has been so patient with me. I don’t want her to be upset. Ever. So Bu made me a mandi and I calmed down. Then I hung out with Bu Rini’s daughter, whose name I need to learn to spell. Eek. She is so sweet and really wanted to hang out with me. She looked through all my photos, played angry birds on my phone, asked me a bunch of questions (which I understood!), and she just wanted to be near me. That made me feel very special and it was so needed after feeling so down on myself. One more in the up column. Then we ate. Nasi goreng was delivered to the house and it was awesome. Nasi goreng is basically the fried rice of Indonesia. It is so very yummy. That was definitely and up. Then we started talking and I could understand most of what she was saying, even if I stumbled on a lot of my words. Then another down, Bu talked about how awesome Emma is. I could tell she really wished Emma was staying with her and not me. That kind of hurt. A lot. I know my language skills must be frustrating but I am trying. I’m trying really hard. But there were more ups today than downs. Even if the downs weigh heavier on my shoulders I have to remember the ups. Also, tomorrow is another day.

Day Two

So day two of orientation is both terrifying and awesome. Terrifying because of the amount of Indonesian again and how poor my listening skills are in this language. Awesome because of the english section on culture shock that was both easy to listen to and informative. I knew most of it but some of it was new information and nice to hear. Then we had lunch. More chicken sate for me. It was delicious. We finished up with a meeting, in Indonesian, about health care and what to look for if you are sick. I think I missed  alot. Luckily we went over it in English a bit afterwards. I still think I missed somethings but I know what to look for with dengue fever now and thats the important one. If I get a fever for two days to the doctors! And now? Now I am sitting at a pool at the Hotel Wahid in Salatiga. Not swimming though, obviously. If I swam and typed that’d just be insane… or impressive… Bu Lele wasn’t home and I don’t have a key yet so I couldn’t get in to the house today. Which is ok. I can type this up and look up some Indonesian phrases I may need. Good times. Well I may now go get a .75 coke bottle and talk with some peeps. Yay for relaxing pool afternoons.

Patches and Morgs fighting off the Indonesian children.

Well, I am here.

I am here. It is lovely. Although a bit hot and I have a little bit of culture shock! Mostly the shock comes from how they drive here. I thought I might die about 200, not exaggerating, during the 2 hours drive from Jogja to Salatiga. But I didn’t. Obviously. So that was nice. Also the way they shower and some of the bathroom habits are new. I knew about mandi, but I didn’t really think about wet bathrooms. Mandi is how they shower here. They have a big “tub” that they keep water in and you use a bucket to dump the water over your head. Thats all good. Not as nice as a long, hot American shower but it gets me clean. That is what’s important anyways. The concept of no toilet paper in the bathroom, just using water to wash yourself off is a bit strange for me. I am going to have to buy some tp. The house that I’m staying in is neat. It is open air and has some beautiful Javanese architecture and trimming. No AC, but I’m used to that. They have TV, which I’m not so used to but it could come in handy. Listening to the language helps. I am terrified about my program though. I don’t speak enough Indonesian. I just don’t I understand about 1/3 of what is going on and that usually isn’t enough to gather info from context. So I’m struggling. I probably will for the next two months. I’ve lost a lot of Bahasa Indonesia that I thought I still had. Some of it did come back today during orientation. Some. We will see what comes back over the next few days. I’m also going to study the Bahasa Indonesia books I brought with me. A LOT. So that should help some. I just need more vocabulary back in my head. I  know sentence structure and grammar but man my vocab is minimal right now. I feel a bit like a child. These other kids in the program are waaaay more advanced than me. They seem to understand everything that is said. But they are nice and they are helping me. So… ya, struggles and some help. This is how I get better though, right? Right? This and my books. So, language here we come!

I slept on a plane!

Yes, it is true. I slept on a plane. I slept for five hours on a plane. Isn’t that amazing? I don’t know if it was because I was so exhausted thanks to the United/Delta debacle (more on that in a minute) or because I was in business class or because I had a good amount of champagne, but who cares… I slept!
So to start the lovely and talented Yining Lin took me to the airport this morning. Even though I wasn’t checking any bags I decided to be there 2 hours early. It was a good choice. Also a good choice: spending the extra miles for business class. Because my United flight to Japan was cancelled I was moved to a Delta flight to Narita. Luckily still in business class. So I go to the Delta desk to check in and ta-da they half kinda can but can’t check me in because I’m a United customer. Well, ok. I can walk over to United. United had a GINORMOUS line in the economy section but luckily no one was in the business line. Now, go figure, United can’t check me in because I’m now a Delta customer. Well, ladies and obviously gay and fabulous check-in man, SOMEONE is about to check me in because I am getting to Japan today and before 5pm!! So 45 minutes or so later they fixed the problem and I walked back to Delta. Delta then checked me in. Or so I thought. I sat down to enjoy a nice peach ice tea by the secure gate and waited for 30 minutes until they checked us into the gate area. They open the gate, I walk up to check in, and *surprise* there is a problem with my ticket. So they had to check me in again. *sigh* By this point I had been checked in three times. Three. But whatever it takes to get my butt in a seat on a plane to Tokyo let’s do it, right? And my butt did end up in a seat and as I write this my butt is in Tokyo.
The flight was nice. I had the champagne and a super dinner. Soup, salad with shiso dressing, bread, asparagus, beef with a berblanc kind of sauce. It was actually really good. The soup being my favorite part. Then, glory of all glories, I slept. For five hours. I woke up and thought I was out for three to five minutes. Ta-da we only have two hours left. So I ate the mediocre breakfast they served and listened to my Indonesian podcasts for the hour and a half we were allowed to use portable electronic devices. Now, I sit at my gate in Narita waiting for my flight. Next paragraph = Singapore!

So I definitely did not sleep on the plane to Singapore. So I am super tired. it is 1am here in Singapore and here I sit in the SilverKris lounge with my empty bowl of duck congee and my empty mini bowl that once housed a delish mini cake. I have killed one hour so far. Four more to go. God bless a comfy lounge with plush chairs, food, and caffeinated drinks. Spending the extra miles to fly business for 2 of the 4 legs = WORTH IT. They were the right legs too. Thanks to the HNL to Japan business class I got to avoid lines and thanks to the Singapore to Jakarta business classness I get to wait out my long layover in a posh lounge. Baller status accomplished. Now if only I didn’t look like a crazed, frizzy-haired white lady on the loose in Asia…

The reason why hair ties exist…

Oh well. I can’t win them all. I said my next post would be in Indonesia but obviously this one is happening first. I have 10 hours till I’m picked up in Yogyakarta and then off to my host families house. I think I’ll be to tired to do much updating once I get there. I’m tired now. I’m not even sure if anything I just typed was in English… maybe I can nap here…

Next time I get off a plane I will be in Indonesia. FINALLY.