After a long absence...

I don’t know where to start.

Because I haven’t had regular access to the internet, I’ve been really behind in reporting on la vie indonesienne. And a lot, a hell of a lot, has happened since I first got to my city. I think I will have to skip writing about the first week of school and the out-of-the-blue rush to Jakarta for visa business. Oh, see?, I didn’t skip that part. There it is.

And then there was Jogja. Yogyakarta, that is: the place some call the cultural capital of the island of Java. We discovered, almost accidentally, that most SMAs (Indonesian public high schools) have a long weekend during the first weekend of Ramadan. That meant we had from Thursday morning until Wednesday morning essentially free. From Saturday until Tuesday I traveled to Jogja with two ETA friends who live somewhat near me for a first trip of the year. Our main purpose was to see Borobudur, the Indonesian Buddhist temple built (I think) in the 800s C.E. We flew there from Surabaya, and I feel obligated to report that Indonesia has the most stress-free airports in all the world. People don’t rush here, planes never leave right on time so there’s never any real worry about missing a flight, people seem to enjoy flying and even enjoy hanging out in the airport (okay, really they like hanging out anywhere). So Borobudur was not a disappointment in the least. I think we were all in love with the place, and it turns out there were a number of other temples and monasteries in the little village that we decided to stick around for a second night. Well, we also opted for sticking around for night 2 because the guy who seemed to be the assistant manager of the little homestay was an adorable 22 year old; we all had funny, confused conversations together; the bules practicing Bahasa and Golan practicing English with us. Fun was had by all, and Golan made the most delicious banana crepes for breakfast. Fun fact: I think all Indonesian losmen/hostels/homestays believe westerners eat only pancakes. If you’ve ever been to Amsterdam, you can see how they might have gotten this idea.

I think I’ll leave out the part about how we tried to get a meal at a warung in Borobudur and the girls working the place laughed in our face each and every time we tried to order in Bahasa Indonesia, and despite being able to understand us, wouldn’t do us the courtesy of giving us what we asked for. Yes, I’ll definitely leave out that part.

Jogja city itself was thus a real rush-through; we only stayed one night and accomplishing anything seemed to take forever, so we didn’t do or see much. But we did go batik shopping, because that’s what you do in Jogja. I bought two dresses and a pair of pants (all thin cotton batik print) for less than seven dollars. That’s my brag of the day. Of course I had to bargain, but that’s just the way they do things here. I’m getting more comfortable with it. The idea is not to be argumentative, but to be as sweet as possible: “Well I love this beautiful tunic, but 75000 rupiah is just too expensive! I can give you RP 40000… No? Okay, RP 45000 it is. Zing.

In other recent news, I now have a kitten. She’s a few months old, a quasi-street cat (she and her cat momma have been living at the high school forever…), and not really the prettiest thing. But she has been dreaming of being a housecat, I think, because the cat craves affection like fish do water. I’m naming her Mau, the Indonesian word for “want.” She yells at me in cat language whenever I’m at home, demanding something I can’t give her (she seems to wish she could climb back into the womb, which is a bit backwards developmentally, considering she’s well over 3 or 4 months old), and she generally chews me out whenever I walk anywhere in the house. Apparently she hates movement. My new vet was supposed to come over tonight (veterinarians make house-calls in Indonesia?!) but he has not shown. I suspect little Mau has some worms and fleas, if nothing more serious.

I am surprised by the day by how much I love Indonesia. When I was preparing to come here, I by no means thought Indo would end up being the place I could see myself living in permanently. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I am so in love with this country that I honestly scare myself. I think you have to have visited a developing country to understand my love-struck-ness. You drive past huge billboards for cigarettes and shiny shopping malls while old, skinny men drive becaks (pedal-cabs) and farmers wearing the traditional agricultural uniform (sarongs and bare feet) plant and harvest on small rice farms.

I want to stay in this place. Make it right. Develop a waste-management and recycling system. Get Indonesians some solid, good healthcare. Raise the economy out of the pit it’s been in (according to one of the teachers) since Suharto’s crash-and-burn exodus. Obviously I can't come close to any of this. But maybe if more Americans discovered what a staggeringly beautiful and plaintive country lies below Thailand and above Australia, we could get something done. Unfortunately, when countries neither pose a threat nor harbor natural resources that we think we might want, the US doesn’t pay too much attention to them.