This is my backyard ya'll

 

My house is behind the school on the left. You can see the front a little.




Pretty pollution.














Neighbors fieldside.


The flower below came from this tree.


Someone's porch




Taking out the trash.


Waste management = trash burning

Groupthink and Fear of the Unknown

The ID8s out west went to Bandung last week for our first In-Service Training conference. It was refreshing in many ways. It was nice to see the other westies, talk about bule problems and feel somewhat insulated when we went out. It goes without saying that if you’re living in a town where you’re the only Westerner for miles around you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. I’ve visited countries where I’d rather lie and claim another nationality because news that I’m American is ill-received. However, that is not the case in Indonesia. Everyone is ecstatic to hear that I come from America and most everyone I’ve met so far makes me feel very welcomed once we get to this point in the conversation. Have I met Obama? Am I aware that my president likes bakso? Do I like bakso? It’s like watching a child on Idul Fitri morning.

 But, sometimes people are a little....too nice. Or, by my standards, rude, as the case may be. I've harped on the obsession with taking selfies and lack of personal bubble thing on here before. I think it’s cool to complain a little about this with other bules. It helps keep you sane. At my site, most of the people I come across on a day to day basis are no longer shocked by my presence (people used to point to me and sometimes exclaim fearfully that I was a ghost. This was one of the most extreme reactions I've received). I think everyone in my immediate surroundings accepted rather quickly that I’m an unmarried 24 year old girl whose finished her undergrad and is looking for a little something different at this point in her life. I know it’s different at everybody’s site and every time you meet someone new you sort of go through the whole floored reaction process again and have to look in the mirror later to make sure you haven’t turned into the Elephant Man or something.

So towards the end of last week I was feeling a little OD-ed on the bule solidarity. I love all these people individually or in small groups but as one big group I start to feel like I’m burning a little in the spotlight. Especially one night when several groups converged and we set out to find a venue to dance and listen to music in. One club had a policy (written in English on the wall) that people with flip-flops and shorts would not be allowed inside. This made perfect sense to me and the person in our small group who was wearing flip-flops and shorts so we decided to look for another place. At this point some other groups of volunteers arrived until we were a buzzing swarm of about 30+ bules standing outside this club. Everyone was waiting for a consensus on what to do. We were there, we were attracting attention and the more fluent among us were trying to convince the security personal to let our improperly-shoed friends in.

This is the part where I felt the mood change and it turned into an us vs. them thing. The better course to take would have been for the few of us who just wanted to leave should have just left, but for some reason we didn’t. I don’t know, it was like watching a train wreck. The wreck part being that we weren’t being discriminated against, it was just a safety policy and yet, someone felt they should let us in anyway and that thought spread and spawned bitter feelings towards the manager, towards the people who were being let in with flimsy footwear and so on. So, by way of providing a conclusion to this thought, just by standing there I felt like I participated in groupthink and it was an unpleasant feeling. It was definitely not my opinion that we were being discriminated against. This experience hit it home for me on how the few really do represent the many. I saw the video below recently and it is what inspired me to write about this experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeukZ6RcUd8

So whether you're being discriminated against or you're misreading the situation, letting yourself get caught in the heat of the moment is never a pleasant feeling in my experience. Associating the fault of one person with a group of people is the product of anger or fear and only results in more anger and/or fear. Common sense, yes? My point isn't to point fingers and say "we done bad." It's to reflect on this experience by saying that yes, we will always stand out but a certain amount of the attention we draw to ourselves is self-wrought.

I personally have not received a lot of discrimination in Indonesia so far (besides the odd over-charging taxi cabby or not being let into a mosque or random people asking me for money and/or gifts) and those situations where I haven't been let in somewhere or have been asked quite a lot of questions by officials, well....I've understood each of them so far. They're just curious and/or cautious but no one I've met so far who I've interacted with directly has come across as having bad intentions specifically because I'm an American. In fact, I'm surprised by that.

On a somewhat lighter and only slightly-related note, here is something I wrote earlier this month in my digital journal when I was feeling a little exasperated by some of the questions I was receiving about America.

 Fear of the unknown: is there cheese in America? Are there cockroaches in Indonesia?

It goes both ways really – this whole great unknown thing. You can spend an astounding amount of time in a place and, by not asking the right questions, never come to know that place. I get the strangest questions sometimes from people on both ends of the cultural exchange spectrum (and as often as this I-can’t-believe-it-until-I-see-it phenomenon is observed amongst travelers, I think it still bears expatiating upon). Of course, the people I’ve spoken with here so far in Indonesia want to know if there are Muslims in America and if people eat rice there. I feel like saying “duh” to these questions, but I can sort of see where they’re coming from. My favorite question so far has been: “is there water in America?” This stunned me into silence. I waited for my host mom and sisters to laugh but they never did.

I realize as I write this that I’m the pot calling the kettle black. On the eve of my departure for Indonesia, amid friends and well-wishers, one solitary question floated to the forefront of all the other important questions I had about this unknown place I was to move to: are there cockroaches in Indonesia?

This recollection made me realize something. The unknown will always remain a black hole for common sense. It’s like my phobia of cockroaches; there’s no sense to it, it’s just a gripping terror that controls all other parts of my brain when I’m in its presence. I think there is something to be said about an age of globalization where all the information in the world at our fingertips is not enough convince us of the truth. Maybe that's the way it should be. I'm a stout believer in experiential education. Shakespeare may be great but you are the living breathing person occupying this world today and to respect the value of your own experience is to be your own teacher.

 

Sorry this post was all over the place. That's sort of how I've been feeling lately.

Now there's something you don't see every day

On Monday morning a cow and a sheep stood quietly, tethered beneath the cool shade of the mango trees in the school courtyard. It’s a very narrow courtyard, usually crowded with students’ parked motorbikes. The cow and sheep didn’t do much except try to eat some leaves on the bushes that grow just outside the school fence. I was there a few minutes before 7 and the school was quite empty, save for a few students taking pictures of the nonplussed cow and sheep.

I skyped a bit and signed off at 8:30 because several screams in the courtyard alerted me to the fact that things were starting. The students stood around this end of the courtyard with their camera phones out, capturing footage. The cow had been laid low with its hooves tied together and harness over its mouth. I looked around and realized the sheep had already lost its head.

If you’re thinking this sounds vaguely like a scene from Alice in Wonderland there are some similarities - one in particular, I felt I had stepped into a topsy-turvy world. The main difference, however, was that the world was upright and there was no line between myth and daylight.  

According to the tradition of Idul Adha, affluent Muslims must purchase a goat, sheep, camel or, usually, a cow to sacrifice as a symbol of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son to God. One third goes to the family, one third to friends and the other third to the poor, although this division varies (almost all of our cow/sheep went to some 250 poor families in the surrounding community). I’ve read in articles since Sunday that more than 100 million animals are slaughtered worldwide in the two days of Eid (10 million in Pakistan alone). All holidays are costly, that is to say, where there’s a holiday, there’s a thriving business scene behind it; but this may be one of the more expensive ones. For a somewhat funny article about how one cattle trading family feels at this time of year (among other topics about Idul Adha) see this article: http://indonesianow.blogspot.com/2013/10/idul-adha-no-place-for-squeamish.html

In my ignorance last Saturday I assumed that my principal would be paying for the sacrificial animals. As it turns out, each student contributed Rp 30,000 (about $3) beforehand. The teachers also contributed an unspecified amount. The sheep cost Rp 2,575,000 (~$200) and the cow cost Rp 15 million (~$1,200). Another statistic: Muslims worldwide shell out about $3 billion USD for these 100 million animals slaughtered on this holiday (all of this from Wikipedia btdubs).

I’ve changed my opinion about all this over the past few days. It’s easier to speak in numbers. It’s harder to grasp the meaning of Idul Adha from a Western perspective where slitting the throat of an animal who is fully conscious would be considered brutal, archaic or inhumane. Indeed, according to Pisani, Australia stopped exporting cattle to Indonesia two years ago after they saw some scenes aired of animal brutality in Indonesian slaughterhouses. I don’t know what was going on exactly in those slaughterhouses but my teachers at least spoke to me about how letting the blood from the neck wound pour into the hole and the whole ritual with all the prayers and singing is in fact their way of preparing the meat to be halal, or prepared according to Muslim law. Although watching the cow’s final distraught moments was terrifying, I have to admit that it is more than I have ever done for any meat I’ve eaten.

 

When I started talking about Idul Adha being about sacrifice my counterpart cut in (I do apologize for the puns - this whole experience really is affecting me and my way of dealing is by making light of it) and said “that is the story but the most important value is community”. There’s that word again. The atmosphere surrounding Monday was similar to Idul Fitri and to our Christmas: a religious ceremony, feasting and the spirit of giving. Although a lot of people celebrated Eid-al-Adha on Sunday (like my family), many schools, excluding public elementary schools*, hosted a sacrifice on Monday. Some students stayed to bag the meat which would then be distributed to some designated poor families. Today one of the teachers made beef soup and a yellow rice cake and so so much more food for all of the teachers.

After the sacrifice was over, the students laid out some plastic school banners and an assembly line was started from the tree to which the cow was still tied. The students, in their pristine white shirts and pale blue pants, separated the meat into neat lines of 1 kilo amounts - only the boys actually.

 

Portions of meat also go to students whose parents or close family members have died. They got tickets and handed those tickets in for bags of meat. I am constantly surprised at the level of attention the school/teachers pay to the students.

 

*Acting Jakarta Governor passed a controversial decree on July 17^th prohibiting the sale and slaughter of livestock on elementary school property because of the potential psychological effects on students (http://beritajakarta.com/en/read/3408/Governor_Decree_on_Slaughter_of_Sacrificial_Animals_Misinterpreted#.VDIpB7scSW8 )

The Observer is the Observed

One of the joys I get from traveling is people-watching. I feel one of my natural roles - as an aspiring writer, as a person interested in human nature, as a quiet person by nature - is as an observer. In Indonesia especially, this is a very difficult role to maintain without coming across as anti-social. Every day at the entrance to my neighborhood, Pasir Jengkol, I am flocked by a crowd of children. They actually come in waves: the first regiment is positioned a few houses into my neighborhood, the second are usually rollerblading further down the road. When I am off to school they allow me passage with only a "Miss, masuk nanti ya?" but on the return trip there are babies to see and games of hide and seek to play and very chill cats are put onto my lap as insurance that I won't make a quick get-away. As nice as it is to chill out with some cats and enthusiastic kids at the end of the day, I'm not up for this routine every day. The other day when I was returning home from tajimalela practice, the traffic was so bad I gave up crossing the street and decided to take the long way home (which isn't really that long - I jog this loop some mornings in under half an hour). This is the scenic route to be sure. Passing the rice fields at sunset is a sight to behold, and  on this particular day I also passed a funeral service in progress in this beautiful graveyard perched awkwardly on the side of a hill.

When I reached my street I was hailed by the lady I buy pulsa from. I don't stop often enough to just socialize with her so when she asked me to come meet her family from out of town I gladly went inside the gates to meet them. Of course, the first thing her family wanted was pictures with me and without asking, I was dragged in front of the camera. I realize this is a relatively small trial in the grand scheme of things and it is just part of the process of meeting people. I try to keep this in perspective but some days I can't accept this fact and politely rebel against this custom by offering my hand and introducing myself first and trying to steer the conversation in other directions. However, the bule picture is a mandatory social interaction and refusal is met with bewilderment and, well, it just doesn't get you anywhere. On this particular day, I was not prepared to take no for an answer and so I did the only other thing I could do - I left. They laughed and didn't seem offended so my quick exit didn't appear to have tread on any toes (or made a statement) but at least I felt as though I had set a boundary and retained a modicum of my sanity.

The inclination to observe when entering a new land is partially spiritual for me - it's how I deal with the feeling of displacement that eventually and inevitably settles in. I am one of those people who has to think before doing or speaking. Like a camera I need time to process the picture. It is therefore very unnerving to be given the spotlight place in front of the lens, rather than behind it. Don't you have to go outside of yourself and be more when you're the unexpected element in the picture? Yes. When you're the foreigner I believe you have a duty (and it's also for your own safety and integration) to be open and gregarious and willing to be the one to start conversations. If you hide really well or find yourself in more chill company you can settle into your natural place but that is a rare indulgence and must be seen as such.

I am still a romantic about travelling. My six-month stint in New Zealand first gave me this bug and now more than ever I fantasize about living in new cultures and seeing new places. I thought this was beside the point and a little complain-y when I first wrote it but now I'll go ahead and post it as a prelude to the events I witnessed on Aidiladha.

In one of my nights of insomnia last week I scribbled down the following and I feel it reflects my feelings on this matter more accurately than my prose can.

I look up and see hair blow in my eyes from the fan
forget the universe - the world is large enough for many lifetimes
after this - what next?
Cities, mountains, rivers and hopefully many more communities - near and far,
very far from what I know and could imagine.
In the sun everything is clear, blue and happens with little acknowledgement.
At night I look up at the mosquito net and see visions
Tinny music plays in the backdrop of silence.
Backdrop, background, soundtrack?

Flowers of some strange kind bloom in the shadows
The earth smells like over-ripe fruit of a memory
in the shadow of this green mountainside I am imagining so clearly.
Rest now to travel later
I tell myself,
but the quiet stretches out endlessly at night.
These are silly thoughts in the dappled shade of tomorrow
which hangs with the promise of heavy rain.

Does every post need a title? And other questions about life

 

First and foremost, I live with singing twins. This is the most relevant fact in my life.

 

Second: It's getting hotter and drier here, but happy fall to all my friends on higher latitudes who are experiencing my favorite season right now. Rabbit rabbit rabbit! Wearing long sleeves in this climate actually doesn't bother me anymore and I get cold sitting under a fan sometimes so I'm turning Indonesian anyway (turning Indonesian I think I'm turning Indonesian I really think so.)
A couple weeks back I visited Candi Jiwa and Candi Blandongan with some teachers.

some kids

whimsical wheelbarrow

our lunch

yes, the temple is in the middle of a rice field.

Excavation site at Candi Bladongon was straight out of The Mummy Returns. Bu Euis is on the left. Bu Dila and Pak Helmi, the Tajemalela instructor, also joined us.

The museum.

 

Every week I face a new realization about how my methods for teaching English might-could-should be improved. My counter-parts and even other teachers in the school have said that they like the games but I'm still met with the dreaded blank stare in class more oft than not and there's always a collective "ooohhhh" whenever my counter-part translates (either my painstakingly-slow English or my simplistic bahasa Indonesia).
We get these pretty random topics from the curriculum, like "expressions of pain and sympathy" or describing famous places, which sound vaguely useful I suppose but not to students who are at a very begginer level with English. My point about learning how to teach English the hard way is that I'm discovering how hard it actually is to describe things simply. For instance, I was at school for several hours after English club the other day trying to compile a list of vocabulary to describe famous buildings, which is the topic this week for my class with Bu Euis. So step 1 was to learn for myself what the different parts of the Eiffel tower are called and how in the world does one even begin to describe the roofs of the Sydney Opera House (we were trying to pick buildings they would recognize.) Several hours later I felt a lot more educated about the history and purposes of various architectural structures in these buildngs but thought to myself as I was walking home, "well that's all pretty useless for them." Are we really going to teach these kids that the shape of the Indonesian National Monument is called an obelisk and that the four supports of the Eiffel tower are called "pylons"? I'm still struggling with the questions of what the line is between useful information, neat, interest-sparking information and why did you just spend the last hour struggling to explain this to us information and where do I come off deciding what's useful for them or not? When I ask them why they want to learn English their reasons are mostly social-related - they want to understand Western media or they hope to be able to speak English when they meet some bules or maybe maybe go to some English-speaking country some day.

That aside, I've been thinking lately about how to deal with the problem of "Mr. Google" in the classroom. I just had a discussion with Bu Euis about the "growth mindset" and the importance of praising people's struggle to understand something rather than their talent or abilty to understand it. These thoughts were sparked by this article: https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/95208400815/the-learning-myth-why-ill-never-tell-my-son-hes (Did I mention her English is almost fluent so we can talk about stuff like this?) She said, "so you don't think we should just give them the vocabulary - they have to find it on their own?" And I said, "no, we should give them the vocabulary but we should praise their efforts when they try to make their own sentences without their phones." She was on board with this and said maybe next class we can first review some examples that build on our lesson from last week on describing one's house.
 I'm also thinking about this problem in the context of using technology in the classroom, which we are sincerely trying to do. We've started this week with making powerpoints for English Club. The projector didn't work but we still showed them the powerpoints I made on Saying Hello Around the World and Weddings In Different Countries (for our monthly Cultural Exchange meeting - I didn't just want it to be an exchange between American and Indonesian cultures.) That seemed to go over well and hopefully we can work up to doing online research together or using videos/other media some day...

On a completely separate train of thought:

I have been writing down new vocab in a little purple book Paul's mom gave to me so as to pull out of my language dip. These are the words I have written down so far:

- lamon: day-dream
- bimbel: extra-curricular
- bidadari: fairy
- unyu-unyu: cute (as in Hello Kitty cute)

My life is turning into an Apples to Apples game.