Of light, water and wonder

When I'm traveling my emotions are often amplified. When traveling during holidays I run the emotional gamut from insanely happy to deeply pensive and sometimes lonely. And if I'm traveling to observe another holiday being celebrated during one of my regularly-scheduled holidays, then there's an added level of surrealism.

Such was the case this Thanksgiving. In my first year in Indonesia I spent Thanksgiving with my teacher family making mango salad, Indonesian empanadas and singing karaoke at the mall (none of the aforementioned activities were done in an effort to replace my traditional Thanksgiving activities, they were just what I happened to be doing at the time). This year, I went to Thailand with a group of volunteers to observe a Thai/Buddhist festival called Loy Krathong.

While I got off to a rocky start by bringing the wrong passport to the airport and then missing a second flight on my layover in Singapore (I didn't realize that you had to re-check in/go through immigration for a transfer flight), I was in the mood to be grateful by the time I reached Thailand. Part of the reason for my feelings of gratitude was because on the night I was stranded in the Jakarta airport after missing my first flight, I called one of my teacher friends at around 8:30 pm and she immediately said "c'mon over", even though her whole family is currently struggling to deal with the trauma of her younger brother's brain tumor. He has recently undergone surgery no. 1 to remove some of the tumor (which has already taken his sight) and it is naturally a high-risk operation with severe side effects. It's really scary to hear about but her family remains positive, upbeat and focused on caring for him and making him feel the best that he can. Despite this trial, they gave me shelter, good company and helped me get to Thailand.

So I arrived in Thailand two days late but on an adventure high and feeling grateful for all the people who helped me to get there (you especially padres) and for all the people and experiences which are currently coloring my life.

Catching a snooze at the Singapore airport.

I was originally supposed to be in Phuket on Sunday morning, but I ended up arriving on Tuesday afternoon, roughly 32 hours before the Loy Krathong festival. After meeting my friends, we did some sight-seeing. The day of the full moon, a Wednesday, we went around Phuket to see the Big Buddha and Chalong temple. The Big Buddha is a ginormous white statue of the Buddha sitting atop a mountain. The view of Phuket from above was also pretty nice.

No shawl, no pants, no Buddha.

A bodhisattva in the fur

We also saw a baby elephant taking a nap on our way down from the summit. Zoe, if you're reading this, we did not ride them.



Next we went to a beautiful set of temples, one of which held a relatively recently-acquired artifact: a splinter of Lord Buddha's bone. As we were walking through the peaceful temple grounds, milling with all the tourists and worshippers in the tranquil sunlight, a sudden explosion of firecrackers ripped through the settled calm. A small old man with a wiry broom emerged from the smoke surrounding a brick chimney and nonchalantly began sweeping away the ashes and small bits of firecracker within. I know we weren't the only foreigners who suffered a mild heart attack from that unexpected disturbance of energy. I still have no idea what the fireworks in the middle of the afternoon were for.

In the highest room in the tallest tower was a crystal ball sitting atop a lotus flower surrounded by golden Buddha statues looking after what I THINK was the splinter of Lord Buddha's bone, one of the famous Buddhist relics residing in Thailand.

Wat Chalong, the temple of a billion quadrillion steps (and just as many Buddha statues.)

When I started planning this trip back in June I originally wanted to go to Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand where you see all the Google images of skies filled with floating lanterns and lakes dancing with hundreds of candle flames "like a fairy ballroom", as one site promised. However, plane ticket prices went up before I got my act together and by then a group of volunteers was already going to Phuket, which, although perhaps more expensive on the ground, was the cheaper flight.

That being said, I'm happy with what we saw of the festival and Phuket is not so shabby of a place to be either. Really, nothing could disappoint me at that point, which I think is a good mental place to be in when you're showing gratitude to a water goddess and casting off your negative energy to float away with the old year, as are some of the purposes of the Loy Krathong festival. There weren't hundreds of people adorning the night with lights on the less tourist-filled beach we ended up at but there were locals celebrating and we managed to escape the commercial vibe.

After dinner we went down to the fish scale waters and walked to the end of a dock leading into the path of moonlight blazing through the inky inlet. Rawai beach, about 45 minutes from my hostel, was where we ended our afternoon tour of Buddhist relics and temples around Phuket. There was no sand, only a long wooden dock. I read that start time for casting off lanterns and krathong was sundown but locals told us people usually went down to the water after 8.






A krathong is a floating basket usually made from banana tree trunk and leaves pinned decoratively around the edge with flowers, incense and a candle in the middle. I saw some people put locks of hair and nail clippings in their basket as well (symbols of the old energy you are casting off).







Loy Krathong is said to be a romantic festival. If you and your beloved cast off your krathong together and your baskets bob off into the night, two lights burning beside each other until they're out of sight, then that is a sign of everlasting love. The main threat to everlasting love was, of course, the waves, which doused almost everyone's krathong after a few seconds. But I'm sure the water goddess took the intentions of those lovers into consideration when dolling out blessings.

 

DAY 3: KOH PHI PHI (aka FI FI) ISLANDS
The next day we visited the pearl of paradise.



After passing a Viking cave...



And some beautiful rock patterns:



We saw before us the beach where they filmed The Beach (this area is called Maya Bay).



Our guide had an excellent response when asked where the star, Leonardo DeCappuccino, was now. Without a beat she responded, "he's still asleep in my bed." I guess even Leo needs a break from battling sharks bare-handed and causing the fall of paradise.









As we gathered around the red-checkered cloth of a bar table on Thursday evening, having had our fill of pad thai, sweet mango sticky rice and green curry, the other nine volunteers and I plus our hostel friend Chiu from China took a moment to observe a tradition that would be celebrated in a matter of hours on the other side of the world among all our family and friends but that we had to import and join with other local traditions in the land we were in. We each recognized what we were thankful for and then joined the throng of ladyboys, locals and tourists mingling on the street.

How hot is hot?

Lately it's been pretty hot. More so than usual (or so it feels). You may have heard of the raging wildfires in Kalimantan and how the resulting haze has caused many people to suffer from respiratory illnesses. Maybe what caught the attention of international media was the fact that the intentional burning of palm oil plantations this year, in the worst drought year since 1997, has made Indonesia's CO2 emissions surpass those of the entire US economy and, as well, the UK.

Well, all I know is that it's dry, it's hot, the rice paddies look like cracked craters and many people don't even have running water (although I can still take my two baths per day. Alhamdulillah). It was so hot the other day at school that when I was walking from the sink in the main office to the teacher's room not 20 feet away, my hands were already bone-dry without wiping them on my pants or shaking the water off. Only walking, which I guess is something.

This observation, mixed with a little restlessness in the teacher's lounge, prompted me to suggest to my two main partners in crime - Bu Euis, my English counterpart, and Bu Dila, a biology teacher and my other best friend - that we document this phenomenon and record it for posterity or, at the very least, our amusement. Ergo, Bu Dila filmed the below experiment and Bu Euis timed us. Then we explained our findings. Hope you enjoy!

I wrote that the first time I timed the water evaporation by myself the time was 34 seconds. This may have been slightly faulty information because I was counting in my head.

Here's the link in case the video doesn't play:
https://youtu.be/9oMq6XPhS4U

Photo journal

A photo diary of a day in my life in Karawang - or actually two days.

 

Morning bath, during a morning power outage (this happens about once every two weeks, and only for half an hour usually, so not a big thing).

 

 

I came to one of my 11th grade classes early and got to watch them practicing a Sundanese dance. This was Sundanese class.


Playing a vocabulary memory game later with that class. I love documenting the successful games.

Watching sparrows building a nest in the teacher's lounge. I spend almost all of my time out of class in this room. Many teachers spend their free time and class time here too, so it's a cozy environment and there are frequently snacks.

 

Writing in my food diary with Bu Euis. We started this week; she to count her calories because she wants to cut back and me to see if I'm getting enough nutrition....yes vegetables and more fruit are sorely needed.

 

Playing a board game at English club with Bu Euis. Board games courtesy of the Regional English Language Office in Jakarta <3 <3

 

Went really far into the country with my male counterpart to spend an hour at his sister's wedding. I'm kind of wedding-ed-out at this end of my service but he tempted me with the free lunch buffet. Ended up chatting with his uncle, a former everything teacher (including English). He was one of those people who makes you happy you live in a small village where people generally never meet or get to practice their English with a native speaker. Very charming fellow and I liked connecting more with my other counterpart's family, who are all very nice. On the way back we passed a parade in honor of some kid's circumcision.

 

If I end class before 2 pm, as I did on Friday, I sometimes take a bus across the city to my host sister's office where they have really good wifi. It takes about 45 minutes if the driver doesn't decide to stop for a lengthy lunch/smoke break. I didn't take a picture of my sister's office but here's one of the road outside the angkot (that yellow mini-van pictured above) on the ride home.

 

Still on the way home, stopping at a gas station. 

 

Should I stay or should I go?

I'm opting for shorter posts because long posts are exhausting to write (and I'm sure to read as well) and I miss so many details by writing so infrequently. We'll see if I can keep up my blogging stamina.

Yesterday two little things happened that changed my perspective in little but important ways. Lately, that's been happening more frequently - little things changing my perspective. Both happened within several meters and minutes of each other on my walk home after a late lunch with two teachers. As I was walking the short distance back to school from the nasi padang restaurant, an enthusiastic familiar voice called to me from across the street. I looked up and saw this girl, 15, who runs a clothing store near my school. 

She has always been super enthusiastic when talking with me in our sporadic encounters but not in a bule fanaticism sort of way, more so just because that's her character. She positively radiates excitement. I sat down to chat with with her, a younger boy who was just chilling and a couple who runs a pop mie stand next to the girl's open-air clothing store and, even though it was the end of the day and I was tired, I actually wanted to stay for many hours just talking with these relative strangers. They're really enjoyable company. It took a while for the younger boy to warm up to me, maybe because I was dressed in my nice slacks and batik and there were some older men around so he had to be cool, but after I asked them what their favorite films/tv programs were they both really opened up. He loved horror films and knew about Finding Nemo, Dora Emon and she liked Twilight and the terribly cheesy and just all around terrible soaps that they call cinetrons here. But it was something about this girl's attitude, excited and genuine when trying to remember a word in English and talking about all her favorite subjects in school (biology, history and english) that made me really want to try to give her something useful in return. She reminded me of my favorite students at school whose sheer enthusiasm about seemingly EVERYTHING makes me want to transfer some useful knowledge or skills to them, like English practice, scholarship information...etc. Just being an adult figure who actually encourages them to be enthusiastic about school is not enough. I feel so inspired by people like that 15 year old. In fact, meeting people like her make me want to stay in the teaching field longer....

That was small event 1 yesterday. Event no. 2 happened moments later after I took my leave of this exceptional 15-year old girl working at a clothing store, and arrived at my school to retrieve my bicycle. By our school gates I saw a girl standing by herself waiting for public transportation to take her home. I've stopped before and chatted with the students who wait 1, 2, sometimes 3 hours for transportation home, but all too infrequently. It made me feel especially critical about all the teachers who skip out on class or just give their students an assignment from their workbooks, and also bad about every time I have not gone to class for whatever reason. Teacher attendance is a very serious problem in Indonesia and I could write a whole other blog post about it. While it's not cool for teachers to treat their job with such laziness in the first place, it's even worse when you consider that some students' families save a lot of money and the students spend many hours in transit just to go to our rather well-renowned Islamic high school (there are other high demand high schools in Karawang, but our school is respected as one of the best Islamic high schools (Madrasas are regulated by a different ministry, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, than normal high schools because of it's religious curriculum).

Another big problem, which is very much related to teacher absence, is cheating. Really, it's actually entertaining watching the kids try to hide their efforts to cheat from me, as I'm staring them down. I usually wave at them or sit next to the students and that deters them for at least as long as I'm looming over them. Before the test begins they play a form of rock, paper, scissors with their desk mate (two to a desk) to decide which half of the class will leave for the first half of the lesson. This is a method to deter cheating - sitting only one to a desk. The boys are especially funny about cheating. As group 1 was leaving I literally chased several boys who were frantically trying to copy other student's answers before turning their tests in. It was very absurd chasing them down the aisle but my counterpart (the good one!) seemed to take a lassez-faire approach, which was not effective in the least. I thought I saw looks of appreciation from the students who are always badgered for answers at least :/

The big question on my mind these days is.....should I stay or should I go? The deadline to extend for another year is the beginning of January. If I decide to stay with Peace Corps Indonesia for another year I have many other decisions to make. Do I stay here in Karawang and continue my projects or do I take part in the exciting opportunity to be part of the first group of volunteers to go off the island of Java (the other places that have expressed interest in having volunteer English teachers are North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tengara and ). Or, do I leave Indonesia entirely and go....back to America? On to another country to teach English or work on some other skill? Today I am leaning towards staying in Indonesia and moving to another island but tomorrow I will most certainly be of a different mindset and opinion. I suppose only time and the amount of research I do will tell!

Semangat! (Which my students always translate as "keep spirit!")

My experience with dating in Indonesia

Hi again! I know it’s been a while. I have wanted to write, but life has been getting in the way. In addition to starting my third semester teaching English here in Indonesia, I have also been working on some projects and activities outside of the classroom, such as setting up an English corner in my school’s library (we had to wait until after a government visit in August to move our donated books and teaching materials to our designated space in the library). I have also been researching a camp called IGLOW and IBRO (Indonesian Girls Leading Our World and Indonesian Boys Respecting Others), which myself and three neighboring volunteers will do next semester, meeting three times a week for both the students English Club and the teachers English Club and starting a monthly culture club at a local university, where my neighboring volunteers and I hope to recruit some students to be camp counselors at our camp. My friend Zoe, master strategist that she is, arranged for us to meet with the professors at this university. In addition to these activities, I have been pondering my next step after the Peace Corps and –oh yeah! I also picked up a boyfriend sometime in the last few months, which is a major time-suck. But I’ll get to that later.

In addition to the whirlwind that is completing projects begun in the last semester and ensuring that those projects last beyond your last semester working on them, the last eight-month stretch of Peace Corps is a time where I find myself thinking about what impact Peace Corps has made on me and my goals for the future. Where do I see myself going after this? Of course, throughout my year and a half here, I have frequently glimpsed brief pictures of what life as a teacher or living abroad would be like. Honestly, I’m not sure where I want to be next and what I want to be doing; however, in thinking about the end (of Peace Corps :), I’ve come full-circle back to some of my initial thoughts before joining.

What I wanted from the Peace Corps was to try a lot of new things in order to find out what I'm good at and enjoy doing. I’m 25 years old, have a bachelor’s degree in English, a love for living in/visiting new cultures and a big love for writing. At the outset, two years seemed like a good chunk of time for me to make some progress with finding my Great Purpose in Life, and the circumstances in particular of working with the Peace Corps appealed to me as being conducive to this philosophy of trying a lot of things all at once. Plus, we have a lot of autonomy with this job and I have always thought that I work best in situations where I am allowed to shape the task to suit my creative urges.

This job has demanded more from me in terms of flexibility, creativity and open-mindedness than any I’ve had before. I have serious respect for all of the teachers I interact with at my school and the other teaching assistants (aka my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers) who all seem like basic better people when I hear about what projects they're doing or cool methods they're using or thousands of selfie photo shoots they're smiling through. I know first-hand how much effort goes into “being on 24/7”,  which is what any high profile employee or really anybody living abroad should see as part of their job description. Our role as cultural ambassador follows us everywhere we go in and out of the country we're working in and will continue for the rest of our days.

This is not only a job that I'm using as a booster on my resume, however, but an experience. After 18 months of living in a tropical, Islamic-dominant/mostly-Sundanese culture in the rural outskirts of an industrial city in West Java, I finally feel like I’ve gotten my sea legs on the ever-moving grounds of cultural perception and am able to have a sense of control over some aspects of my experience here.

The problem when living here – as with any foreign place - is that just when you think you’ve understood something about Indonesian Islam, the Indonesian education system, how to sit, how to eat, how to greet people or what not to say – nope! You realize from one off-hand comment that you’re still the blundering fool in court.

In the beginning, I filled one role: the weird American. The longer I’ve been here, the more roles I’ve adopted. I am now also called a teacher (ibu guru), a citizen of Karawang, a person of Indonesia (which pretty much makes my whole week when people call me that, even if I know it’s just them being inclusive and nice), Umi’s (my host mother) daughter, Syifa’s (my host sister) sister, my counterpart's "boo" as she affectionately refers to me (a play on "ibu", which is often shortened to "bu") and even a world guest, as my host mom has called me before.

I think a high point in every volunteer’s service is the day when that pants-less three-year-old on the corner who always yells bule at you (meaning foreigner or, more specifically, white person) calls you “Miss” or even calls you by your own name. It magically washes away months of frustration in a single moment and your face breaks into the biggest smile. Acceptance – even through a small thing like a name – leads to confidence in one’s ability to adapt, to integrate, to communicate and, ultimately, to explore new facets of the culture.

One thing that really speeds up cultural integration is language ability. My sister (the one I'm related to by blood in America) once imparted the following words of wisdom to me: if you want to learn a new language date a native speaker of that language. Incidentally, I have received this same advice – unsolicited – since day one in Indonesia from my meddling neighbors and teachers. Not so much in the context of improving my language ability, but more so because every young unmarried person is subject to being asked, “Hey, where’s your boyfriend/girlfriend at?” See the Mad TV link for reference.

If you haven't already watched this skit from Mad TV, called "Can I Have Your Number", then you can do so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTFZyl7hfBw.

No unmarried person, girl or boy, is exempt from this daily inquisition. What everyone failed to specify when they were encouraging me to find an Indonesian mate was that it shouldn’t be one of the good Muslim boys that they knew. To be clear, inter-religious relationships are OK with many people here. It’s not really fine from a legal standpoint if you’re going to marry according to Islamic law, but otherwise, many Indonesians are open-minded enough to say no problem if you’re just dating. Several non-Muslim volunteers have dated Muslims here and one I’ve heard of has even married an Indonesian Muslim woman (although I believe he had to convert or have it on paper somewhere that he had converted beforehand). This arrangement is just not fine with anyone in my immediate community.

Liking someone with whom you don’t share the same native language, culture, religion (or, in my case, a lack thereof), national history, holidays, food preferences or even height can be challenging enough even when you have the support of your friends and family. When you don’t have that, it becomes near impossible and, some might say, stupid.

The landscape of dating in Indonesia is fraught with landmines, even without a cross-cultural aspect thrown in. My own students get very giggly on the subject of dating and say, "No miss, we don't date while we're in high school." Generally, dating is not accepted at my school but if some high school romance does blossom, woe is the couple who must endure all the cuweeeeeeeeeee's that inevitably arise whenever they are in close proximity.

An encouraging picture in the Student Leadership Organization room (called OSIS here) at my school. To the left of the picture on top, the red sideways word reads "To be delayed." YAY! The caption in the above picture reads: "The ideal marriage age for women is above 20 years and for men above 25 years" but then they add "You choose your ideal age to marry" and below, it roughly translates to "delay early marriage, reach for your dreams first." The second picture on the bottom goes into more biological, psychological and social reasons why you shouldn't marry too young. This makes me happy to see because of the high rate of teen pregnancies, which often disproportionately affect the girls' futures and not their partners'.

And, of course, everyone I know here dates in a courtship-like fashion, with the end goal of marrying. A friend whose wedding I attended recently confided in me that she had *gasp* kissed her then boyfriend not once, not twice, but five times before their wedding, in secret when their parents weren’t around. She said if her parents found out they would kill her (not literally of course). Even for foreigners staying in the larger, more progressive cities, you will still come across many gender-segregated hostels where only married couples may share a room and you would be strongly advised against any sort of public display of affection above and beyond holding hands (in many areas, even that would be ill-advised).

Although legally, girls can marry as young as 16 and boys as young as 19, I have observed that the Muslim girls in my area are expected to marry no later than 25 - or usually right out of high school - and boys by 30, give or take a few years. If they pass either age limit, they are put under a lot of pressure to marry the first person their parents bring to them. My poor not yet-26 year old host sister has faced an extraordinary amount of pressure from her parents to marry before her birthday in October. It begins to sound like the plot of any Jane Austen novel when she tells me about the blind dates her parents arrange on her behalf to try and set her up with one of their well-mannered acquaintances' sons. In the past few months alone she has gone from the opinion that she won't marry until she’s well settled into the career of her dreams to talking incessantly about the *two* boys she likes. One is younger than her and the other is her age. The younger one is less responsible (a playboy, by the sounds of it. Yes, bad on me for playing into these games of stereotyping) and therefore she hasn’t ever introduced him to her parents. The one her age, a doctor who wants to marry closer to 30, has been invited to the house multiple times. An interesting twist in this tale is that the doctor seems to have changed his tune recently and she's reported him saying that he might move for a career advancement opportunity. This would be an interesting form of compromise for my sister if it came to pass that her parents allowed her to wait because the man she chose is not yet ready for marriage either. I admire her strength of will, now more than ever, for she is very adamant that she will, at least, chose who she will marry (and has probably gamed the system if she's picked a respectable guy who wants to wait).

This is what I have gathered from my religiously-conservative circle of family and friends. I teach at an Islamic high school run by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. My host dad works under this same department. My host mother works as a family/marriage counselor and frequently gives lectures on the Quran. She is highly respected in a surprisingly wide circle as an exemplary Muslim.

This is why the experience of having an Indonesian Muslim boyfriend in this strictly date-to-marry culture has been a very difficult and humbling one.

I had the summer, with many free hours, to fall into a blissfully ignorant happiness with a Bandung local (a city about 2 hours from mine). He lived with my host family from February until June in order to search for a job in Karawang and get practical experience through an internship in a mechanics shop. However, once mutual feelings developed in June, these plans had to be diverted as my host family knew of our feelings (pretty hard to hide anything from those in your own house) and didn’t think it appropriate for us to date.

I have admired my host mom, Umi, mostly from a distance during the entire time I've been living here. My host dad is around so little (he works in Bandung) that it has been difficult to develop a meaningful relationship with him. Umi too, is a very busy woman. I would see her come home, still full of energy after six hours at the office, eat a simple lunch of rice and seafood, and then go straight back out to run the next-door elementary school or back into town to lecture from the Quran. By 6 o'clock (I sometimes didn't see her eat dinner) a gaggle of around 15 neighborhood kids between the ages of 6-12 would come in for evening Quran studies. Umi presided over this study group until she basically dropped off to sleep right on the floor. The children would file out sometime between 8 and 9 and that is when our house winds down for the day.

Umi and Abi have really taken the Islamic tenant of charity into their hearts and it shows in every aspect of their lives. When I first arrived in their house, they had adopted four children in addition to their three biological children who were already older and living out of the house. They pay all the expenses for the adopted children because those families can’t afford to (one of the four adopted children has since moved back to her home town and now has a fiancé). They live simply but above the average in my neighborhood and donate their time and money to many causes whenever they can.

I sometimes forget to recognize the wonderful opportunity I have living with these truly good people. I do not say that they are truly good just because of their devoutness but because they exemplify all the best traits of human beings. For many months I mainly thought of how the evening Quran study group affected my schedule - listening to 20 kids shouting (kids will be kids) verses at the top of the lungs for three hours at the end of the day was not something I looked forward to and did my best to try to block out. But at this point I respect my host mom all the more for it.

I have had several host family experiences since I was 18, although none as long as my current one. While WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) isn’t exactly a host family situation because you’re trading your labor and/or skills for room and board, I’m counting my best WWOOF experiences in New Zealand as host families.

There is a difference between being a guest and living with a host family. As a guest you are usually only expected to honor your hosts and be somewhat sociable. But if you stay long enough to build a relationship with your hosts and enter their routine, then you are no longer a guest. You are family.

Guest culture is very important in Javanese culture. My counterpart and host sister have told me that it is also extremely important in Islamic culture. My counterpart told me of an expression used frequently here, “tamuku adalah raja”, which means “your guest is your king”. One time when my sister and I had walked about a mile from the bus stop to our house because it was dark and the public transportation was no longer running, she got very upset when no one answered the door for us, even though she heard Umi’s Quran study group laughing and playing inside. I told her I usually just go around to the unlocked door in the back but she insisted we should stay until someone opened the door. When one of the kids finally came to unlock the door she spent a full 20 minutes yelling them into stony silence about the importance of always opening up your home to guests. Even though it was technically her family's home, they were present in the house at the time when someone needed to come in.

I am no longer a guest, in the same way that I am no longer just the American living down the street. I greet guests when they come to the house – sometimes alone if my host family is out. But as proud as I am to call these particular people my Indonesian family, I still feel like it’s my right to set certain boundaries that a real daughter would not be able to.

Ever since I got into a relationship with a local that my host family knew, there has been a layer of tension in my relationship with them (I swear they have the most amazing sixth sense when it comes to guessing who I’ve been texting or hanging out with – either that, or I’m a lot more transparent than I thought). In the beginning, I wanted to be as honest with them as possible while still sparing them the details we both know they don’t want to hear. They would see pictures of me and him and ask, “did you see him while you were in Bandung last weekend?” and I would say yes, keeping it neutral. But ultimately, my relationship with my host parents grew tense and they became very anxious every time I went out of the city, even for Peace Corps appointments or events with other friends.

In the end, my host mother gave me a simple answer: you must respect other cultures. My teacher friends from school gave me a more detailed answer: in the matter of loving and making a future with someone from another religion (not that that’s where I’m heading with this, just in the big picture scheme of things), it is the afterlife they are concerned with. Bu Euis and Bu Dila, my main boos, told me that they must follow strict rules if they are to go to heaven and be joined by all their loved ones there. That is why neither of them want their children to date outside of their religion.

In the end, no matter how at home I feel here, I am still a guest in another culture. It feels wonderful to be so accepted by someone here. It feels good to have the openness with my Indonesian partner to describe to someone how incredible (and sometimes inexplicable) I find this place. While I am fortunate to have open communication with many people here – my host sister (the one who’s in danger of an arranged marriage), my counterpart, several other teachers at my school, some people from my host sister’s office, even an AFS student from Panama who recently arrived here – I feel a whole different level of freedom to discuss things with my partner. I’m very enamored. It's a new experience for me. But I am still at odds with my two identities as guest and family.

There are many screens between foreigners and locals. These screens are often misconceptions or prejudices based solely on that first three second impression you get of someone. Gender, race and social status all play their part, the same as they do anywhere. In the same way that I instinctively build up a stone wall between myself and most men I pass on the street whom I don't know (I tell myself these are learned behaviors and, after the umpteenth experience of physical and verbal harassment, they are that at the very least) some experiences with locals are dominated by assumptions of wealth and immorality.

These brief encounters are not usually the experiences I dwell on, but they are influenced by all the meaningful relationships I have in my life. The less you feel like a guest, the less you will act like one. The more you take responsibility for your experience, the more permanence you will feel in this new place and the more permanent the impact of this experience will be.

*Bu Dila, the biology teacher at my school who I am close with, is unconventional in her own way. She is the only divorced teacher at my school and has dated other men in the 10 years since her divorce (which is not legal in any way, they just live separately now). She made a deal with her daughter, who picked up a Christian boyfriend in her university in Jakarta, that she would break up with the man she was dating, whom the daughter did not approve of because he was already married, if her daughter would break up with the Christian boyfriend, who she definitely did not approve of. Last I heard, my teacher friend had rid herself of the married man she was seeing but the daughter was “still figuring out” how to break up with her boyfriend.

Part 2: Blue is the color of paradise

On Friday, while we were still blissed out in our humid and internet-less pocket of the jungle, Mount Raung erupted, making international news and stranding thousands of passengers who were traveling through Bali and Lombok. When we arrived in the Surabaya airport on Sunday morning, just two days after Mount Raung started spewing clouds of ash, it was a madhouse. I set dad up with coffee and a seat in the Starbucks lounge upstairs and proceeded to fight tooth and nail for a seat on the first plane to Labuan Bajo (which had to transit through Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali).

After some bilingual beleaguering, we were miraculously only 5 hours behind our original schedule in getting from Kalimantan to Flores, with one night spent in the Surabaya airport rather than a backpackers in Bali.



Many families spent the night sleeping on the floor in the airport. While we were eating dinner at an airport restaurant I saw kids pushing their dozing dads around in trolleys. One might have thought that the airport was the place to be after a hard day of work. Those of us lucky enough to get an early flight the next day were all told the same thing: get in line at 4 am to confirm your seat on the plane.



By the time we got to the Bali airport our spirits were restored by the open, clean atmosphere and the promise of momentum in our journey.

Labuan Bajo: Day 10-17

On Day 1 in Labuan Bajo dad's immune system said, "hey, wait up for me" so we rested for our first two afternoons in the insanely beautiful villa where he had arranged for us to stay. My time was spent in the laziest postures imaginable reading "Eat, Pray, Love" (because of our proximity to Bali) while listening to the wavering sounds of the call to prayer, coming up to our mountain-side homestay from what sounded like the bottom of a swimming pool.

Recitation of the Quran (Sorry about the construction noises in the foreground.)

My thoughts after my first encounter with hot water in....a while, as I stood on our deck looking out over the best view in town were:

This must be paradise. For one, there's the view: turquoise, wind-wrinkled water disturbed by small islands rising out of the sea like the spine of a great mythical beast. Everything is clean and spacious. Even the recitation of the Quran (pengajian Quran) earlier was a clear, pitch-perfect sound ringing across the bay. One dark cloud hangs over the water, casting half the harbor in shadow and the other half in solid white, like glass caught in a glare. Up in stage right, the islands farthest off are in a spotlight of late afternoon light, dirty gold-colored like our thatched roof. A disembodied voice from the mosque falls loudly, proudly on Catholic ears - like those of the family taking care of this house while our German host is abroad visiting family. The geckos (called tokays) call in response - in protest, admission or in competition, it's difficult to tell.



In hopes that he would feel up to seeing some dragons (komodo dragons that is) on the second day, my dad and I booked a one day tour to Rinca island. He still felt sick the morning of, however, so I went alone to join the group and left him well-supplied with tissue, water and beautiful views. He left me with a long list of safety tips to use in the face of anything that might bite, sting or....breath fire? After reminding my sniffly, well-meaning father that I do indeed have a sense of self-preservation, I was off!


Amid a crowd of small puttering tour boats with varicolored tarp roofs, ragged corners flapping in the breeze (some boats have to replace their tarps after every outing) I found our group of six. There was one woman from near Jakarta on vacation in Flores, a German couple spending three months traveling Indonesia, two English teachers from England who had spent the last ten years traveling and teaching in Asia, two Indo tour guides (students from a local high school), and our smiling, silent boat captain. I met a lot of young people on this trip who were spending anywhere between three months to three years traveling (and sometimes working) around Asia. This revived my sense of adventure.

During the two hour ride to Jurassic Park, or, as they call it here, Rinca Island, the woman from near Jakarta and I tried conversing in Indonesian over the sound of the raucous motor but eventually we resorted to typing our questions and comments on notes apps in our phones.

At one point I got tangled up in some unfamiliar vocabulary and so we began a game of charades. According to her gestures of something large and flying with sharp teeth I gathered she was trying to communicate that we were passing Kalong Island, home of the flying foxes, huge bats which can be seen coming out of their caves at dusk by the thousand.

Within five minutes of arriving on Rinca Island I could tell it was going to be one big tourist trap. There was a lot of bureaucracy for very little time with the dinosaur cousins. All park guests had to crowd into a small office to meet the director of the park (who referred to himself condescendingly as Uncle Louis) and undergo a small interview: what is your name, nationality, purpose of visit, date of departure...etc. I don't know why I am continually amazed by Indonesia's bureaucracy and inefficiency. I suppose I had higher standards for a world heritage site such as Komodo National park, but that turned out to be a mistake on my part.

We saw two dragons in the first ten minutes of our tour (in the shade near the office) and spent the next two hours trekking through a barren land where, if I were a komodo dragon, I probably wouldn't want to lounge around. But the entrance was pretty grand!



Finding Nemo

On the eve of Idul Fitri we booked a 2-day tour on a diving boat with a company called Wicked Diving. After dinner that night at a delicious Indonesian restaurant called Pesona Bali, we heard the sound of dozens of teens revving their motors as they passed in a deliberately ear-splitting motorcade. There was obviously some celebratory spirit in the air mixed with some protest perhaps of all the white foreign tourists literally cutting an expensive, posh path through their town. It was as if they were suddenly expressing their anger on an occasion that would draw the attention away from their true underlying feelings.

With high spirits we rose the next morning to see yet another world beneath the surface. One of the things we liked most about this company was that they packed as many dives/snorkel trips into a day as was humanly possible. This averaged about three for me and four for my very enthusiastic dad (having acclimated to the tropics, I now get cold even quicker than I did before.) Before even entering the water we saw schools of flying silver fish jumping in synchrony over the gentle waves.


I loved watching the dive instructors speak in their highly technical instructions with their own divers sign language before each dive. The general vibe of the group was almost feverishly excited. We sheepishly raised our hands when asked who the two snorkelers of the group were. Everyone around us was at least on their 10th or even past their 100th dive. Although we didn't have the proper camera to capture the marine marvels, the pictures below, taken by a diver in the group who graciously shared his pictures with everyone, capture most of what we saw higher up on the reef. What we saw was turtles, the corrugated lips of giant clams, universities of fish so colorful that my dad joked that perhaps the less colorful fish had an inferiority complex, cowry shells, an eel, many wavey, tentacle-y animals that shrank back into their rocks when our instructor dove down to point them out and lots and lots of beautiful coral. One of my favorite sights was watching the waves from below the surface moving like a clear cloth that two people were raising and lowering above my head.

The divers talked about the sensation of catching a drift of fast-moving water as flying underwater. We didn't catch any particularly strong currents from where we were but I loved the image they placed in my mind.


All photo and video creds to Florian Faucher, my new diving friend from France. Note to self: invest in a GoPro camera before embarking on another underwater venture.


The photographer himself, haloed by fish.


Dad was reading "The Sixth Extinction" on this trip and remarked that our snorkeling tour could be improved if they showed us more of the rapidly disappearing coral reefs. As it was, we were looking at some of the healthiest coral reefs in the whole world in Komodo National Park. Right up there with the location/inspiration for Finding Nemo, the Great Barrier Reef.



Another interesting observation from my biologist dad was that blue is one of the more rare colors to find on land. Maybe that's part of the appeal of hydrangeas for me. Maybe that's also what made the blue starfish and schools of fish we saw so striking.







A manta ray - truly a majestic sight. It had a wing span of maybe 6 feet and all the while it was passing below us (this probably wasn't the same one) I couldn't help but hear the Darth Vader theme song playing in my head.



Snorkeling brought out an awe and reverence in us both, I think. My dad and I have done some traveling together in the past but this was one of the most ecologically and culturally diverse places we have explored together. I'm happy that we still share a love of traveling and that we're able to continue our tradition. I was so grateful to be able to share my greatest adventure with him.

Part 1: Sh! We're hunting mushwooms

During this Ramadan (June 18th - July 16th) my dad came to visit me in Indonesia. My school had six weeks off between final tests and the start of the new semester so my dad came for an 18-day visit during which we travelled to the far (well, sort of) reaches of the archipelago. 

Visiting my Indonesian home, my family, my friends, "my" corner of Indonesia was, of course, a requirement for this trip. Although I spent my first three months of training in another village very different from this one, Karawang is really the base for all of my comparisons and my dad had to come here. Therefore, after meeting him at the airport my host uncle turned right back around and braved yet another three hours of gritty traffic (Jakarta seems to be in a state of constant rush hour at every time of year except holidays, like the one we would experience at the end of our trip, Idul Fitri, during which time it was an eerie ghost town). 

My dad's first three hours in Indonesia were spent in Jakarta traffic. Over the course of our trip my dad had many funny reactions to Indonesian culture and customs (Dad: Are there ANY traffic laws here?; How many times a day are we going to hear the mosque (the call to prayer)? Me: Five. Dad: Are you sure? I think it's been more than that already...) but my favorite of his reactions was caught on film while we were making our way from the airport the first afternoon:

I shall record what we did, saw and thought about during our travels to three out of 17,000 islands in Indonesia in two separate posts. My dad will also be sending me a guest entry to post, so I will leave most of the observations of my stomping grounds in West Java to him. 

My dad and some of my host siblings

In brief, it was surreal and exciting to introduce my dad to my host family and they seemed equally excited to meet him. My host dad, Abi, flexed his English skills and told my American dad all about the town, our neighborhood and the school he and my host mom run next door. In a culture that reveres parents so much, my dad was treated as an honored guest (if a very tall one. Many kids and adults alike were struck speechless by "how tall all Americans are." My dad confirmed their suspicions that this is an indisputable fact.)

In Indonesia there are two equally important cultural traditions I have seen that you should observe above all else: respect your elders and bring lots of gifts whenever you visit. In the weeks leading up to my dad's arrival, my family and friends were not passive when it came to reminding me to remind my dad to bring gifts, or, "oleh-oleh". Ergo, he came with one modest backpack of essentials for our two-week trip and one very large red suitcase packed to the gills with ONLY gifts. These were gifts not only for my family, but for neighbors, teachers and anyone else who I might have "forgotten". This red suitcase represented at least a month of my mom's time, energy and creativity, as she made (from scratch) shirts and purses for my host family. I think I've mentioned before that I live with a very large family here. (Refresher: my host parents have three biological children and, with me, five adopted kids. In our extended family there is also an uncle, housekeeper - who's really part of the family - and constant flow of family friends who stay here as well. On average there are twelve people staying in the house at any given time). It was wonderful to be able to say thank you in a small way from my American family to my Indonesian family who have made my experience here so unforgettable and most certainly wonderful that I have such creative, gung-ho parents who were able to help me articulate this sentiment with gifts and visits.

My dad's connecting flight from Japan was delayed so we only had one full day at my site. After that we spent three days touring Bogor, a near-by city famous for its botanical gardens. We went with my counterpart and another groovy teacher one the first afternoon then met up with my host sister and friend. 

Syifa, Alwin and dad.

Really cool tree in the Bogor Botanical Gardens.

 

One evening Syifa, Alwin and I left my dad at the homestay to rest after a long day of garden ambling and went out to see a boarding school put on a wayang performance. It was modernized or perhaps customized to this obviously musically-inclined group of middle school-aged children with the addition of an electric guitar and sound board.

Gamelan modern

And while we're on the topic of traditional music in Java, back in May at a martial arts festival in Karawang I heard another instrument native to Java called trumpet silat. 
Trumpet silat
 

Me and Syifa 

Kalimantan: Day 5 - 9

We flew from Jakarta to Pangkalan Bun (Pan-kalan-boon) on Tuesday, after four days spent between Karawang and Bogor. Syifa and Alwin, my Karawang compadres, saw us off to our Jakarta-bound shuttle. Later, I almost caught pneumonia from the air conditioning on the plane. Pangkalan Bun has only one military airport, so that is where we flew into. From there we paid a pre-set rate of 90.000 rupiah for a taxi to get to our eco-lodge called Yayorin. Small and spread-out are two words that come to mind to describe what we saw of Pangkalan Bun. We stayed in the secluded Yayorin eco-lodge, which could have doubled as a meditation retreat, at the book-ends of our trip to Tanjung Puting national park. Yayorin is a forest and orangutan conservation program which does educational outreach to the local population by traveling to schools and inviting groups to their lodge. Our means of travel through the park was a small puttering two-storied boat called a klotak. This is where we would spend the next three nights and four days - on board a boat going deeper and deeper into the jungle. 

When we emerged from the enchanted grove of Yayorin on Wednesday morning, my dad was already a little wobbly due to his first bout of illness (a mixture of the flu and an upset digestive system). Ali Mashouri, the director of our tour company (Dolphin Tours) and our tiny, sharp-as-a-nail guide Nina picked us up and drove us out of Pangkalan Bun. We went straight to our departure point in Kumai, a small river-side town (which means town by the river) just 30 minutes from Yayorin eco-lodge.

Several boats were huddled together in the dock, all with a bottom section for 4-5 local crew members and a top section for 1-4 bules (the average ratio we saw was 2 tourists: 5 crew members. It felt a little excessive.)

As we left Kumai we passed these buildings, which Nina told us were used to house sparrows. Are they really that bird-crazy in Kumai that they would spend millions of rupiah building concrete houses for sparrows? No. Actually, they are collecting the nests the sparrows make from their spit, which is then sold to other Asian countries like Japan in the form of soup. Sparrow-spit soup is believed to cure all ills and make you live hundreds of years, or something like that and there is a good market for it, so the buildings are quite a good investment in the end.

It's easy to become immune to the soul of summer when the eternal spell of heat and humidity never lifts. Going down a river, however, on a klotak with the sounds of the jungle surrounding you and a completely clear sky of stars every night, wiped clean of smog, light pollution and even the regular human sounds that keep you from losing yourself in the painting behind the glass, reminds you again what the child of summer looks and sounds like. 

By the second day of our river tour I was expertly pulling my pants off and on without getting them wet in the tiny wash closet where we took our cold bucket baths in the mornings. Somehow the lack of elbow space and simple focused mindset that this task required made me think that I could be happy waking up every morning to this routine. I could be very happy with a life of bucket baths and the sensation of a vehicle of transportation regularly rumbling beneath my feet, if I were to find such an opportunity after the Peace Corps... 

During our trek into the heart of the jungle we did see the usual suspects:

But the real stars of the show were the mushrooms! 

Everyone flocks to see the great beasts unique to this region: komodo dragons and orangutans, but we found that going off the beaten tourist track to look for species of a different size and splendor showed us a world very different from the one highlighted in guide books. In doing this we even had a semi-dramatic encounter with a young male orangutan who had purportedly lost in a fight with the lead male in his clan and was therefore aggressive because he had something to prove. (Fyi: orangutans are generally not aggressive because of their social structures but our guide knew that this specific one might be because of his situation and personality. If you're unsure, it's probably best to run in the other direction because adults weigh upwards of 300 pounds and that's quite an advantage). While dad was fumbling for his camera to get a video our guide Nina said very emphatically, "no, we need to RUN." 

Now who can say that they saw around 30 species of mushrooms, some foot-high worm-made mud houses, a white and black butterfly called Idea (pronounced ee-deh-ah) like rice paper floating in its own breeze, trails of army ants thick as a solid black line which you must jump over or else feel the fires of hell in your foot, wasp nests like upside-down terricota vases with an opening at the bottom shaped like a sunflower and were chased by an aggressive adolescent orangutan through the Borneo jungle on their vacation? Not too many people, I'd suppose.

One of my favorite splendors was watching fireflies decorate the canopy above the river where we spent our final night of the boat tour. The canopy was as black as the sky because there was no light pollution to distinguish them. The only light was the reflection of the upside down world in the murky pool of light spilling from our boat and the silent blinking lights in the trees. Which were fireflies and which were stars? It was difficult to tell.

Magical forest sounds 

(There are two videos in this post that may not play on a phone. You may only be able to access them on the web. There are also three links to audio files hosted on an external site. Don't miss them!)