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.