The beginning of the end of the beginning etc.

I’ve gotten pretty lax in my blogging. Well, in reality I’ve gotten pretty lax about everything. I could blame myself for succumbing to the complacency of Hot Weather Culture (which is a damned real phenomenon, try living in a tropical place with little to no air conditioning for a sustained period of time while working only half-time)…or I could admit to being terrified of the impending change in my life and thus feeling unable to commit to anything beyond the everyday basics of living here—eating, working, sleeping, and my own basic need: reading. Yeah, take your pick; any of the above explanations for my reticence are more or less true.

I want to leave. I don’t want to leave.

I am looking ahead with nervous excitement to the “rest of my life”: L.A.I. (Life After Indonesia). No I’m not. There are no jobs in America. Hell, I don’t WANT a job. The only work interests I have are sort of out of the question (novel-writing? Freelance opinion journalism? Teaching English as a Second Language?) I want to stay here, doing exactly what I’ve been doing for the past 10 months, forever.

Wait; no.

The inefficacy of the public school system in this country has pushed me right through the roof. This week I’ve shown up for school and TWICE I’ve been told I have no teaching duties: the first time it was a national holiday (they failed to inform me, and naturally I don’t have a calendar, nor do I have the skills to read the big marker-board calendar in the Teacher’s Room written in abbreviated Indonesian). The second time, I was usurped by other teachers who had to “use” “my” periods in order to teach classes that would be observed by Sampoerna Foundation (our sugar-daddy cigarette company educational fund) to judge whether they all live up to Mighty Cigarette Daddy’s stringent teaching standards.

If I spent another year with regular unannounced school cancellations, consistently faulty technology (THEY HAVE 3 WIRELESS NETWORKS! THEY PAY FOR THEM! WHY DON’T THEY WORK?), and weeks of what I see as pointless “testing” periods in lieu of actual teaching, I would probably become massively disillusioned and just give up trying to make a difference, or I’d continue the fight and be testy and judgmental and try to uproot the system (which is a pretty huge no-no here; the teachers publicly kiss our principal’s hand; don’t think they fight her on any of her decrees).

So I need to go home. I need to reclaim my identity, find my niche, all that stuff. But when Lexie was here for two weeks, visiting, she clued me in on some crucial information: Americans are mean. They don’t kiss hands in America. They don’t inquire at every meal-time whether you’ve eaten, just as a means to check on your health and wellbeing. They don’t use the word “please” 30 times a day. And they sure as hell don’t make friends with you on random whims. Maybe in the South, Lexie says, but that’s a sort of fake civility.

I have been treated as almost super-human for so long now, and—like most of us Fulbrighters—have developed such a massive ego, that I fear going back to the US will scare the crap out of me. To the majority of people I encounter I won’t be a star or a beauty or a mythical creature or an embodiment of first-world health and wealth. I will be an insignificant brunette who is trying to do something ridiculous, like bargain over an item with a fixed price, or, I don’t know, drive a car on the left side of the road, or ask someone “apa?” and expect them to understand I’m asking “what?”

As my Indonesian teachers, friends, and cohorts would say before anything big happens to them, “Pray for me.”

The Things Indonesians Do to Eke Out a Living

• Selling raw tofu and tempeh by driving around neighborhoods on motor or bicycle, mostly in the morning, and yelling stuff
• Selling nasi goreng, chicken sate, and terang bulan from small stalls on wheels, at night
• Driving around a bicycle, squeaking a funny horn and selling balloons to parents to give to their small children
• Selling gasoline by the liter for people on motorbikes (including me)
• Selling market produce from a big basket that women skillfully carry on their head around neighborhoods in the early morning
• Becak drivers (pedi-cab men) delivering people, but very often industrial material like two-by-fours or scrap metal, from one site to another
• Selling various kinds of Indonesian “special” cold drinks; es doger (a weird combination of black sticky rice, bread, milk, sugar, and tapioca), es degan (young coconut and sugar), es buah (fruit cocktail), etc, from stalls (mobile or otherwise) on the street
• Selling newspapers, peanuts, and other things to people at traffic lights
• Copying keys for people, also from kiosks on the side of the road
• Selling rides on what I can only describe as a sort of carousel that doesn’t go “round and round,” only up and down. These men drive around neighborhoods playing ridiculous recorded music; parents pay probably a thousand or two to put their kid on the pony for a few minutes
• Selling computer generated city maps to people waiting at traffic lights
• Working at a night market (produce market open from 8 pm to 3 am or something)
• Selling fruit, of course
• Driving around a bicycle full of brooms and other household necessities
• Selling shoes
• Selling phone minutes (pulsa)
• Selling water, other bottled drinks, and processed snacks from a kiosk (this has to be the most over-staffed, unnecessary vocation in Indonesia)
• Acting as a “parking man.” Rachel and I describe this as Indonesia’s version of social welfare. Those without other employment will sit at particular parking lots and areas, their “turf.” When you, the driver, are ready to leave, you have to give the parking man 500 rupiah. You don’t ask why, you don’t bargain, and you NEVER leave without paying.
• Acting as unofficial garbage collector
• Acting as unofficial recycling man/woman: collecting bottles or paper from people’s homes. I don’t know what they do with it once they have it.
• Making power strips and other electrical devices for people, because you generally can’t trust the quality of those you buy in the store (true story)
• Sharpening knives for people at their homes
• Driving a becak (yes, I am fully aware I’m repeating here)
• Copying things for people. I swear there is a photocopy shop on every block in my neighborhood
• Doing people’s laundry
• Cleaning rich people’s homes
• Being a “driver” for rich people
• Operating “warkop”s, a version of a coffee shoppe that’s usually outdoors or underneath a rickety structure. The coffee is usually of the instant variety.
• Washing motorcycles
• Washing motorcycle helmets (in 20 minutes or less!)
• Working for rich people. Being the person who cleans all the glass in the house, or the person who revvs all the engines (motorcycle and car) daily (thanks to Caitlin for her extensive knowledge of the Things That Rich Indonesians Employ Other People to Do For Them).

People have frequently asked me what people do, career-wise, in Indonesia. Obviously the educated and the rich are an exception, but the list above pretty well illustrates the jobs available to Indonesian people. They do whatever they can figure out to do; I don’t think there’s a science to it. Personally, though, I think they are creative, industrious, and open-minded. They are survivors.