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  Those pictures will not be published.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.

            

Minggu Kedua

This first week of school I have felt like I'm starring in a movie mashup between "Never Been Kissed" (an adult woman journalist poses undercover as a high school student for an insider perspective on teenage culture) and "She's the Man" (a girl poses as a boy in order to play soccer-not a masterpiece of film or plot-but still entertaining).  I'm in a class of students two years younger than me and much more innocent/less mature and feel like I'm going undercover to assimilate to their culture and age.  Also, girls in Indonesia do not play soccer-so I play futsal with the boys.  Everyone at school stares at me because I'm bule (a white person) already, but when I play futsal everyone gathers around the courtyard to watch.  I feel like I'm representing not just my own soccer skills but those of bule around the world and the female gender in athletics.  With all this pressure the friendly futsal matches after school become very intense and important to me.

Upon going to the governor's mansion in Surabaya to pick up my little brother after his concert I met Governor Soekarwo (head of East Java) who, just like every other Indonesian I've met thus far, is super friendly, personable and interested in my opinion of Indonesia.  My host father complained that he's lived in Surabaya for years and has never met the Governor and I did in my first week!

 I travelled to the countryside for the first time this week.  The landscapes were dramatic and the mountains impossibly tall.  I wore my first hijab when I visited my host brother at his muslim boarding school.  When his friends saw me they told him that I am not "real bule" (because of my dark skin and because they could not see my covered light hair).

While in the countryside the family and I visited Taman Safari: a wildlife park without the strict rules of America.  

Kids are allowed to hold the live tiger cubs here!

 Here random strangers request to take pictures with me, because as a bule I'm apparently a very rare and beautiful thing.  One thing that has already shifted in my perception of the world is the concept of beauty:
I always assumed that attraction was physiological, not mental, but I've come to realize that we find others appealing because of societal standards.  While we all know tan skin is thought of as attractive in the US, here in Indonesia pale skin is highly valued and people go to all lengths to avoid the sun.  One woman who came my house was wearing gloves, and I noticed all the motorcyclists wore light jackets (not for safety) and in the 90 degree weather I was very confused.  Then when I asked I discovered it is to limit sun exposure because any tan is a bad tan.  To go even further white skin is so prized that "skin doctors" here sell ointments to bleach one's skin.  Kind like the opposite of a spray-on tan, except even more unhealthy.  Braces are thought to be very attractive as well, and children with perfectly fine teeth often beg their parents to buy them braces.

     
   On Saturday night someone climbed over the fence to our front patio and stole Bapak's and my brother's shoes.  Because I live in a muslim household it is traditional to keep all our shoes outside as it is considered impolite to wear them into the house.  We're lucky that the thief didn't steal all of our shoes.  Bapak told the block-leader when we visited his house to introduce me.
At home this week I also learned the importance of showers to Indonesians.  Most people here mandi (shower) up to three times each day and despite their frequency, each shower is still long and thorough.  They have a saying: A quick shower is like a mandi-bebek (a duck shower-because ducks apparently only fluff water on their feathers and are not truly clean).  In fact, everything the people here do is at a relaxed and methodical pace.  I've noticed that I eat too fast, walk too fast, and get ready too early compared to everyone else here.  Even the teachers at school show up late and stay late enough that I'm still unclear of when the blocks begin and end.