Minggu Ketujuh

This past week I've been switching classes every day in school so that I can get to know all of the students and classes offered at my SMA.  It's been interesting for sure, to be the New Kid, day after day, and everyone is super friendly and welcoming (asking me to stay with their class for the rest of the year) but answering the same questions over and over has gotten frustrating.  

• "What do you think about Indonesia?"
• "Is American school different than Indonesian school?"
• "Where have you already been in Surabaya?"
• "What is your favorite Indonesian food?"
• "Why are you vegetarian?"
• "What do you think of our class?"
• "Do you have a boyfriend?"
• "Who is the most handsome boy in class?"
• "What is your religion?"
• "Why aren't you practicing?"

Every single day.

This weekend I went to the Indie Clothing Expo with one of my classes.  It was strange to be in a friend group made up entirely from one class.  It was almost like a field trip.  I asked one girl why her boyfriend didn't come too and she said it would be "inappropriate" because it was a class trip and he was actually playing pool with some of his own classmates.  Surabaya has an amazing population of independent clothing designers.  Everything was very cheap and unique.

Sunday my family went into the countryside to spend some time with my sixteen year old host brother who lives year-round at an Islamic boarding school.  I wore my new jilbab and we went to an outdoors park.  There we did a rope course and zip lining, here called "Flying Fox" (which with an Indonesian accent sounds exactly like "flying fuck" and caused quite a miscommunication beforehand).  My host siblings rode four-wheelers but I declined to because it's so common in America and I think it's just a waste of gasoline.  And they were driving at a max of 10mph.  We also went to Terapi Ikan (Fish Therapy-note the Bahasa Indonesia word for Therapy is Terapi-they absolutely cannot pronounced the "th" sound so they replace "th"s with "t"s when they borrow English words) where swarms of little fish eat the "dead skin and stress" off of your feet.  I couldn't keep my feet in for more than five seconds at a time-these fish were so much more aggressive than those in the Missisquoi back in Lowell.  My host brother actually started bleeding in several places from the bites.  Later we went swimming (in a fish-free pool) where I taught my little host brother to swim while everyone else in the pool watched.  There was one other bule there.  My host family said "Look, it's your friend." and I glowered at them.  Just because I'm not Indonesian does not mean I'm friends with the retiree german tourist that's checking out all the young Indonesian women.

The rainy season was supposed to start weeks ago, but I've only experienced one hujan (at desa on a hot night.  I asked Ibu if I could go out and "shower in the rain" and she was very polite and concerned about what she thought was me asking to walk around her village naked.  After that was cleared up I was allowed outside fully clothed where I danced in the downpour) rather than the daily torrent that is normal at this time of the year.  Everyone here blames global warming.

The dryness is causing dust to accumulate everywhere.  Apparently this dust contains small worms that landed on my hand and bit me causing a rash.  The rain needs to come soon! 

On Wednesday I missed school to attend an "Election Party" at the US Consulate in Surabaya.  After going through airport-procedure security I was allowed inside the compound.  There I saw the first American flag I've seen in a month-which evoked more feelings than all the American flags I've seen in my life before put together.  It was so strange to be surrounded by fluent English speakers and signs that I could actually 100% understand.  I went from being the tallest back to being the shortest person in every room.  It was great to talk to the other ex-patriots there and cheer when CNN projected Obama's win.  I'm pretty sure all of us were liberals.  We also ate american food, but even the Consulate was unable to find good cheese in Surabaya.  I've been searching for weeks and at the Consulate I asked every other bule I met, but none of us could find any.  But one of my Indonesian friends did find Nutella for me this week, which I bought off of her (because it's ridiculously expensive here) and she has now become my official Nutella-dealer.

Tomorrow, November 10th, is Hari Pahlawan (Heroes' Day) in honor of the Surabayan heroes of Indonesia's National Revolution who fought in the Battle of Surabaya against the British and Dutch troops.  At school today we dressed up in kebaya, army outfits, and doctor's uniforms (and other "heroic garb") and had traditional contests such as nasi tumpeng (rice-cone) making, batik, and a best couple contest.  I wore Ibu's kebaya and spent the entire day working on my batik that I slaved over so long that I never want to see again.

Minggu Keenam

Eid Al-Adha is an important religious holiday for Muslims.  This year it was celebrated on October 25th and 26th.  Devout Muslims across the globe prepare for it by fasting.  Fasting makes a person more empathetic and charitable, and helps teach one to transcend the physical wants and temptations of the body.  I fasted two days with my family (they cannot eat after the first morning prayer-so we all woke up to eat at 3:30 am so we'd have energy for the day, and fasted until the afternoon call to prayer-around 5:00).  I cheated and drank air (water) because I worried it would be unhealthy for me not to.
The main event of Eid Al-Adha is the sacrifice.  The origin of the animal sacrifice is a story recognizable to both Christians and Muslims.  Allah (God) wanted to test the faith of Ibrahim (Abraham) so commanded him to sacrifice his son, Ishmail (Isaac), to prove his true loyalty.  But just as he was about to sacrifice his son Allah provided a ram to sacrifice instead as a reward for Ibrahim's submission and his son's acceptance.  This slaughter day is a continuation of this story, both proving the faith of the followers of Islam and providing donations of meat to up to twenty families per cow.  In Indonesia I only saw sacrificial cows and goats but across the world camels, sheep, and rams are also slaughtered in a halal manner.
Friday morning there was no school (though my school did a slaughter of goats of its own-that I'd seen tied up in the front yard for a week before and the other students said that sometimes they cried, as if they knew their fate) so I dragged myself out of bed to head over to the block gathering place were the sacrifice was taking place.  Four men dragged in a beautiful and reluctant sapi who was then tied and wrestled to the ground by five more men.  Then they cut off the head of the sapi.  And I don't mean they slit its neck, I mean they literally sawed through the bone and blood and tendons until its head rolled away.  Worse than the projectile blood squirting at least five feet from his artery was the post-decapitation twitching, almost as if the cow's body was still trying to run away.  And the absolute worst part was the attention I continued to get even during this "solemn festival" men were asking to take pictures with me.  How was I supposed to smile while an animal's lifeblood was squirting out onto my jeans?  I felt horrible that this magnificent creature's last moments were upstaged by someone who garnered attention only because of her (not very) different skin color.
When I went home I kept washing my hands compulsively and ended up cleaning the entire fish pond because I felt like I needed to help some kind of animal after not raising a hand to protect the cow from slaughter.
The next day my family and I went ke desa (to the village) where I refused to watch a second time.  Instead I went for a run in the sawah (rice paddy) and had my first authentic conversation with an Indonesian stranger in Bahasa Indonesia, explaining who I was, who I was staying with, and that I was not lost, I just "lebih suka alam" (prefer nature).  My Ibu later told me that the orang desa (country people) were much cleaner and more efficient at slaughter and I probably should've watched that sacrifice instead.  One other man in desa doesn't eat meat and couldn't watch as well so after running we went and picked mangos.

The evening of Eid Al-Adha the extended family visited a a teh (tea) plantation that was on the top of a (volcanic?) mountain and had been founded by a reclusive dutch man "lama dahulu" (long ago).  The views were stunning and I swam with the sepupu (cousins-my favorite word-pronounce seh-poo-poo) in a mountain spring-fed swimming pool.  The first naturally safe air that I have encountered in Indonesia.  The whole time I was on the mountain I felt extremely antisocial and angry so I went for a walk in the woods to try to change my mood.  At the time I chalked it up to homesickness or just tiredness.  But later Ibu told me a story from when she was in high school and camped out at that same teh plantation with a group of around fifty students.  Apparently sixteen kids (including herself) were possessed and began to speak in Bahasa Belanda (Dutch) and the village elders had to be summoned to preform an exorcism.  I've concluded that there is either a malevolent spirit or a gas leak on that mountainside.

The next day we visited an old dutch fort named Vanden Bosch that was built inside a hill so it couldn't be seen from all around.  The fort was crumbling and full of vines, trees, ayam-ayam (chickens) and there were even a few families that live in the ruins.  There were no other tourists, but it was obviously a local hangout spot.  I love that Indonesia has so many amazing places and rich history that people can just hangout at these sites without being swarmed by tourists.  I don't view myself as a tourist and feel offended when people call me a pelancong on the street.  I'm not here to take pictures and buy souvenirs.  I'm here to become a legitimate member of budaya Indonesia (Indonesian culture) and sometimes just want to yell this at the people who call me pelancong but know my broken Bahasa Indonesia and still strong accent will kind of defeat the purpose.
Within the ruins we found a well preserved grave in which lies an Indonesian rebel.  He fought the Dutch all his life and apparently every way they tried to kill him failed.  So they buried him alive.

The next trip was to an archeological dig site on the Bengawan Solo River called Trinil, where the "Java Man" (first humanoid to be found outside of Europe) was discovered by a Dutch man.  Bengawan Solo is the longest river on Java and lama dahulu the river served as a waterway between the ancient kingdoms of Java so there is still lots to be found in its banks.  Many people still sneak down to the river to illegally dig.  While I was there I saw an original mammoth's tusk.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful except for a nine hour traffic jam.  That was hell.

MInggu Kelima

MADURA

Several weeks ago I left Java for the first time and travelled with my host family to Madura, a small island to the Northeast of Surabaya.  There I caught my first glimpse of the Java Sea out of the window of the car.  We were in Madura to experience the Karapan Sapi-the bull races that Madura is famous for. Special cows are specially bred, raised, and have a specific diet (including drinking a traditional beer) just to compete at this event.  Some of the cows are so beautiful they are not even raced; these cows are reserved for Sapi Sonok-which is kind of like a beauty pageant for bovines.The cows were a lovely dun-red color and in wonderful condition, but the people are what stands out in my mind. There were processions of Indonesians in traditional costume (striped red and white shirts-reminiscent of Halloween Pirate costumes for the men and colorful kebaya for the ladies) following proudly behind their cows.  After working on a farm and having lived side by side with cows my whole life; I hadn’t realized how much I missed well-fed, happy cows until that moment.  I walked up to one of the most beautiful and asked its keeper if I could pet it.  I did, then the man asked me to take a picture with it for publicity (because “you are beautiful bule).  Then he asked me to join his procession-and not really knowing what was going on, I agreed.  We followed the cows on their version of a catwalk through a stadium.  The other girl in the group was dancing, so I imitated her.  Everyone in the crowd was staring at me.  I became immensely conscious that it was about 100F outside and we were in the full sunlight, so I was probably sweating through my shirt.  Then I reminded myself: how many times do you get to dance with the cows in Madura? After the cow-walk I was brought to meet the owner and he made the other girl and I dance for a camera so we could be on Maduran TV. After we left the stadium we were met by a crowd of fans.  The other girl told me to keep dancing and so I did.  The men tried to give me money-and I refused because I was just dancing for the experience, not as a job.  But they kept saying “Ambil!  Ambil!” (“Take it!”) so I did-once it was explained that it is a cultural tradition give small money to lady dancers to show appreciation.  It was a little uncomfortable to dance a traditional dance that I’d never seen before with a hundred strangers pressing up against us in the heat, but it was a wild, fun, exotic experience that I’ll never forget.  And that’s what this whole exchange is about: stepping out of my comfort zone to experience this real, crazy culture from across the world.

The next day we attended Karapan Sapi.  The two bulls train throughout the year with their jockeys who seem to be all preteen boys.  The debate between Western and asli (native) culture can be witnessed at this event.  This is the last season of the bull races that I attended.  Because traditionally the bulls are whipped and wounded so that hot chiles can be applied to the sores to make them run faster.  This is animal abuse so the government is now controversially ending the practice.

My sapi-sapi.

In the afternoon I went to the went to the laut for my first time in Indonesia.  The sea temperature is like bath water.  It's incredibly salty and brownish with lots of trash-but I insisted on going in anyways.  It wasn't cool enough to be called refreshing, but it was still fantastic.  I kept thinking about the tiger sharks that are so common here.  Apparently they wash up on the beach and suffocate often.  The Indonesian people (as always) are sympathetic and charitable and when they find these beached sharks they give them water and try to push them back into the laut!

At around midnight we followed a local guide to Larangan Tokol Village where we saw an eternal flame.  The earth in the area catches on fire if you scratch it with a stick.  The flame burns even through rain.  The Larangan Tokol flames were surrounded by teenagers cooking corn on the cob and making tea.  I was concerned the whole time because I didn't understand (and still don't) where the fire was coming from and how it is sustained.  I was worried about a gas leak/potential explosion... But it must not be too volatile if it's a regular hangout.

Helping a Maduran boy with his English homework.

Minggu Keempat

This weekend was my first AFS orientation.  We went to Nganjuk, the small village where my coordinator grew up.  There between sessions I wandered around, meeting all of the sapi-sapi, kambing-kambing, domba-domba and ayam-ayam (cows, goats, sheep, and chickens) of the village.  We could just walk into anyone's yard because they all knew my host and trusted her.  I hadn't realized how much I had missed sapi-sapi until then-and Sara (The Other Bule) found her obsession with chickens-which somehow increased after an angry mama bird nipped her for getting too close to her anak-ayam-ayam (chicks).  Some of the sapi-sapi are owned communally; many villagers care for/feed them and then split the profits when they are sold/slaughtered.
To give the animals water one must pull a bucket of water about twenty feet out of an ancient well-the same method for the outdoor mandi I used.  I love it-seriously, America's obesity problems would be solved if we all had to work up a sweat for each shower.  There was no AC in the traditional village house we stayed in so Sara and I shared a bed with the window open, a fan on high, and the warm night breeze. On the night we arrived we only got five hours to sleep and I only slept for about three (nyamuk bites on my legs were SO ITCHY) and in the morning I woke up with my eye swollen shut.  Sara has several embarrassing pictures of my fatigue-eye which opened gradually throughout the course of the day giving me an endearingly manic look.  Those pictures will not be published.
On the way back to Surabaya we stopped in Mojokerto for an AFS in-home-interview for an American-bound Indonesian student.  Sara and I waited in the kitchen were I fell in love with the (flea-ridden) kittens.  A little boy kept peeking around corners and trying to call the cats from us (with impressively realistic meow-sounds)...  But we had food and attention on our side.  His mother came in and asked where I was from.  "Amerika Serikat" (USA)  "Tidak Austrailie?" (Not Austrailian?) "Tidak.  Saya orang Amerika" (No, I'm American)  Then she insisted that I look Australian and introduced me to her family as an Australian exchange student.

After the in-home-interview we visited the Candi Tikus ("Mouse Temple" because when it was found it was full of mice and rats) which used to be a swimming pool for the queen of an ancient kingdom.  It was on the banks of a manmade lake beside which the king used to have banquets for foreign leaders.  After the meal he would throw the plates and cutlery into the lake to demonstrate his wealth...  (There was a net lining the lake bottom so slaves could later retrieve the plates and such)

I have been running here every day after school.  I get a lot of attention while I run in the nearby university campus.  People on sepeda-motor (motorcycles) slow down, either to ride with me or to clock my speed.  Sometimes pedestrians start running along with me-which was super creepy the first time (I thought I was about to get mugged).  Most often people yell things at me.  As my Bahasa Indonesia improves I've realized that they are mostly yelling encouragement: "Semangat!  Semangat!" (C'mon!  You can do it!) and "Cepat! Cepat!" (Quickly! Quickly!).  This always makes me smile.

After school this week I went to three NBL (National Basketball League, Indonesia) games with my new friends.  The quality of play is very different than the NBA.  First of all, everyone here is much shorter here so it is much more skill based and defense orientated than shot-focused.  It was super fun to go out with teenagers and just relax.  This was the first public place I've gone to where no one stared or tried to randomly strike up a conversation with me.

This week I experienced my first bout of homesickness.  I found out Wednesday that my cat in America had been missing for a week and a Fisher Cat had been spotted in town.  My Thursday was spent sullenly taking midterm exams at school and trying to explain to my friends why I was so depressed.  Most people here don't seem to get as attached to their pets and most cats are feral.  I got super homesick (and cried it out with my host mom) because I felt a) guilty that I couldn't be home helping find him and b) horrible that my mom had lost me and her beloved "favorite child" (Diablo The Cat) in the same month.

Minggu Ketiga

Last Sunday the sister of my host mother’s sister got in a car accident.  Luckily no one died, but my aunt, uncle and cousin were all injured and hospitalized.  So I accompanied my family to the countryside to visit them.  This visit was unlike any experience I’ve had thus far in Indonesia because it was a completely genuine family activity that was unplanned and I, for once, wasn’t the center of attention.  This wasn’t a special touristy trip, it was a real family emergency and I became just another cousin.

Shower floor in the village.

            First of all, despite it not being a sight seeing trip, it was still my first time seeing the non-urban side of Indonesia.  As we drove further from the city the landscape and the culture became less and less Western.  I saw my first rice patty, child swimming in a roadside river, and first untethered goat wandering the countryside.  I also saw my first volcano.                 

Everything here is sold in plastic bags. ... From orange juice to pet fish.

The best cultural aspect of the trip was the visit to the local market in the morning to buy vegetables for breakfast.  This pasar was so much more interesting and authentic than the one in the city.  There were archaic vendors from my host mother’s childhood who saw me and asked if I was the same (thirty-year old) bule (white person) that she had brought to the village about ten years ago.  For many of the villagers I was the first foreigner they had ever met and one asked my host mom “Is that a REAL bule?”.  The pasar had a sense of timelessness, like these women had been meeting here and exchanging goods for all their lives and their mothers’ lives before them, and that it will still be the same chatty, open, smoky, relaxed place for generations to come, no matter what technologies invade the outside world.  The marketplace was built on the side of a mountain, and its uneven “streets” gave the impression that it had been carved out of the land itself.

Shower water and scoop

The most important aspect of my visit however was my integration into my new family.  Around the world, whenever a familial emergency occurs, the family pulls closer together.  This time I was included in this tightening of bonds.  When my host aunt, uncle, and cousin were released to come home, all of their closest relatives (now incorporating me) stayed by their side.  I became the “newest grandchild” as we as a family sat in a receiving line of chairs to greet the constant stream of neighbors, friends, and distant relatives coming to offer condolences to the crash victims.  It was relieving to step back from the limelight as people became more interested in important matters, rather than the new bule.  I got to play with my new baby cousins and sort through the piles of food that were gifted to the family.  Despite the tragedy, I am thankful that I was able to have the chance to see authentic familial functioning under pressure and be able to integrate into that unit.

Most adorable baby kelinci I've ever seen.

On my second weekend in Indonesia I went to a welcome party at the "other bule"'s house.  There I borrowed a kebaya, the blue traditional dress I'm wearing to the left and met a reporter from the newspaper and we-just for being foreign exchange students-made the front page of the local paper.  I'm beginning to feel sorry for exchange students in America-they don't get half the attention we do.
We ate the traditional celebratory rice cone and food dishes seen on the left then we went to a traditional wedding party.  The wedding party was shockingly subdued: with a statuesque bride greeting every guest personally, children singing karaoke and absolutely no dancing or embarrassingly inebriated adults.

School:  My subjects are:

Traditional Musical Instrument

Bahasa Inggeris (English)
Bahasa (Indonesian Language & Literature)
Bahasa Mandarin (Mandarin Chinese)
Matematika (Statistics)
Ekonomi (Economics)
Akuntasi (Accounting)
Sosiologi (Sociology)
Geografi
Latihan (Gym & Health)
Kewarganegaraan (Government & Civics)
Teknologi Informasi (IT)

                                                         Agama (Religion)

                                                         Drama

Traffic in Surabaya

All of my classes are taught in Bahasa Indonesia except Bahasa Inggeris and Drama-which is quickly becoming my favorite class, seeing how I actually know what is going on.  The teachers here have a much more friendly rapport with their students-whom they call, text, and eat with.  The students also talk while their teachers are speaking- not sneaky whispers like in America, but full out conversations.  Apparently this is common at theatre performances and public events-it's just a cultural thing.  Also I'm in the "social" track (students don't choose their classes here, they only choose between a "science" v "social" schedule.  Evidently the science students have a more serious and studious group personality than the rambunctious and, well, social, social students.