Happy Indonesian Independence Day!
I just finished sitting on the front porch chatting in broken Indonesian with some of the neighborhood kids. If anyone ever tells you that children are the best people to practice a new language with, they are telling the truth. With a few rounds of "What's this?" ("Apa ini?") I managed to put together a few sentences, and if nothing else there were lots of giggles from everyone involved. I feel like I'm setting a bad example for them though. At one point they called me Mister Merokok (Mister Smoker) because they walked up on me while sitting outside for an after dinner cigarette. I should start smoking inside. It's my house after all.
Today started out with a great improvement on my quality of life: I figured out the hot water heater. However, it seems to have only two settings: tepid and scalding. So I'm now mixing hot and cool water in a ladle for my baths, but at least the water's bearable.
At 7:30 AM, Pak Safuan picked me up for the Indonesian Independence Day flag ceremony. Yesterday, he asked if I had any formal clothes, and I told him that I had the collared shirt I wore to school on Monday.
"No, no, this is not formal. What about trousers?"
"Pants? No, all my nice pants and shirts are with AMINEF in Jakarta."
"And tie?"
"In Jakarta."
"What about a jacket?"
"A blazer? It's too hot for a jacket."
"No. This is a formal formal occasion. You will borrow clothes from Pak Wasid"
August 17th is more or less Indonesia's 4th of July, but the occasion was a bit more solemn than what I saw over the summer. For starters, Muslims are not big drinkers with that whole alcohol-being-forbidden thing. But, they usually do the too-much-food-please-tell-me-there's-no-more thing; however, this month is the fasting month of Ramadan, wherein Muslims must go without food, drink, (and I didn't know this one) or cigarettes between sunrise and sunset. As far as I know, the flag ceremony was the only festivity that happened today. Upon arrival, I saw close to 200 children dressed in their school uniforms standing around the perimeter of a soccer field. It was a colorful affair to say the least. Pak Safuan and Pak Nuwarchid (sp?), the headmaster, ushered me and my borrowed clothes towards a tent where a group of well dressed men were seated, and had me sit with them in the 2nd row. I quickly realized that all these men were the headmasters and top administrators of their schools, except for the 1st row of men comprised of military and government officials.
Now, I'm fully aware that the Fulbright is a prestigious grant, but I'm not sure it's so prestigious as to merit a seat of honor at the flag ceremony. The other exception to the school/military/government men was another white guy about my age sitting in the row behind me. He didn't believe that there was another American here in Genteng, and I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. His name is Jay, and he's here studying volcanology and teaching English through the Peace Corps as part of his Master's degree. We exchanged numbers so we can meet up once I get back from my 3-week orientation in Bandung. It will be good to have another American around to hang out with, especially since he knows the volcanoes pretty intimately: they make for great day hikes.
"So we're sitting up here pretty much because we're white, yeah?" I remarked.
"Pretty much," he agreed, "part of the job is getting called a tourist at the market even though I'm wearing my teacher's uniform. I hate it."
Looking around, it was obvious the role that the color of my skin was playing in where we were seated and the respect that others were showing for the two of us.
"Yeah, winning the genetic lottery makes for some pretty awkward situations. Awkward if you recognize it for what it is, I guess."
Sitting up front for the ceremony was pretty awesome considering the proceedings. There was plenty of saluting and flag waving, but the most fun came from watching the mock Battle of Surabaya. It started with a bunch of school aged children in costume pantomiming the role of farmers, doctors, families, etc. Then, a jeep of military men bearing the dutch flag came and "massacred" the townsfolk. Remember when you played bad guys and good guys in kindergarten and shouted "BANG! BANG!" at the other kids? Yeah. It was like that, except the soldiers had guns (without ammo) and the townsfolk actually played along with kung-fu-movie death sequences. Lots of jumps interrupted with a BANG to the face. Let's just say I wasn't the only one chuckling. Then, a few guys dressed as guerillas came armed with bamboo poles overtook the dutch imperialists! One of them managed to pin a soldier to the front of his jeep with a bamboo pole, twisting it while the soldier spazzed out like he was getting gored. I got a picture of it.
If you don't know what the Dutch flag looks like, it's made of three horizontal bars: red on top, white in the middle, blue on the bottom. The Indonesian flag is two horizontal bars: red on top, white on the bottom. After all was said and done (actually, the guys on the jeep were still having at it), one of the guerillas runs over to the Dutch flag and rips the bottom blue bar off, making it into an Indonesian flag, and after all the buildup, it was righteous. The rest of the ceremony was military marching, a speech, some saluting, a flag raising, more saluting, more marching, a final speech, then pictures. Somehow, I was ushered into a bunch of group photos, even as I was about to get into the school's car to head home. I'm the kind of guy who sometimes likes to keep his mouth shut and just watch what's happening. All this attention is getting to be exhausting.
When I got home I decided to make lunch, and as I was cutting apples my neighbor from across the street knocks on my door and asks me if I want to buy some tofu. I was thinking she meant go to the market with me and pick up some tofu. No. I walk outside and there's a woman with a cart selling tofu door to door. Yes, I want to buy some tofu! I only picked up a little since I'm here for only a few days, and it was obscenely cheap. What I bought came to 1,000 Rupiah (about 12¢). The same amount in the states would have run around 3 or 4 dollars. Honestly, there hasn't been much variety in my diet since arriving because I don't have the linguistic skills to go to the market, so some tofu is a welcome change of pace. I danced in my kitchen. It's a good thing I brought multivitamins.
This afternoon and evening consisted of a very pleasant bike ride with Pak Safuan (he's becoming such a good friend to me). We biked around town and into the countryside a bit. It's Spain all over again. Everywhere I go, I'm reminded of what a beautiful country I'm in. The roads are lined with palm trees and rice paddies, the houses are quaint and brightly colored, and mountaintops poke their peaks out from the clouds in the distance. Pictures will be coming as soon as I figure out how to make a slide show to post on this blog. While we were out riding, we stopped at the house of a friend of Safuan's. Their son was visiting from Bali, and it turns out that he's a professional surfer. Bali is a bit further away than I want to go for lessons, but he said he might know some people from around here that can make a few trips down to the beach with me. I gave him my facebook. It's all about networking.
Tomorrow, I'm observing English classes. Get ready for the wacky (or more likely not-so-wacky) hijinks of the Indonesian classroom.
