A Day of Mountains, Horses and Motorcycles

We've spent the last two days in Rashi's town having a blast.

Saturday we went to the school where she teaches and got the warmest reception of our lives from the students and faculty there. It was kind of like traveling with a C-list celebrity. Mark gave them a laminated poster of Barack Obama that he carted over from the states and they were over the moon about receiving it. Everytime we said Barack Obama, everyone would cheer and shout, "Obama!" They were also pretty tickled by Mark's attempts at Bahasa Indonesia. While I prefer to bow a lot and speak slowly in an Indian accent, Mark jumps right in with a language book and it's pretty impressive how quickly he picks up the local jargon.

We spent the evening at Rashi's house, having dinner with her host family and it was kind of nice to just kick back, relax and eat around a dinner table for one night.

This morning she took us to Gedong Songo, a mountain town in Central Java about an hour away where nine Hindu temples and sulfur springs sit on a hill. The temples have long been destroyed by invaders to the area so the setting was kind of sad -- a lot of piles of rocks and broken deities -- but you also took in a certain history of the region while you were there.

We rode horses to the top (I think every person on mountain knew how ridiculous it was that I'd mounted a horse because every time we approached a different temple the gathered crowd would snicker in a way that I knew they were laughing at me) and I only fell off once on a dismount, though I managed to do it in front of a 50-person family reunion.

When we left, we approached the parking attendant at the motorcycle taxi stand to arrange for motorcyles to the back to the bus stop. Dude walks away and comes back on a bike, abandoning his post at the parking lot to drive us to the bottom.

Rashi and I were on one bike and Mark was on another. Another ridiculous story but one better told in pictures on our return.

Mark and I are also suprised that our trendy interracialness phases no one here. I was expecting a lot of stares (not because we're trendy and interracial, of course) but because we definitely don't look like the locals, but no one really notices. Truth be told, I felt more like an "outsider" in Minneapolis. And when they do stare here, they're more curious than anything else. It's partly because there's no real traditional Indonesian "look" (you see Indonesians with Asian, Indian and Dominican flair) and our traveling trio sort of covers the range. A brave stranger sometimes engages Mark in a conversation about Obama, which I take as an acknowledgement of where we're from, but that's always just more cute than anything else.

Selamet Siang!

We've been here for three days and traveled halfway across Java with my sister.

I've only had one instance of near meltdown (after we crusied through immigration and customs not having to wait for luggage!) and walked through the arrivals gate with anticipation written all over our faces unable to find her because she was waiting for us at another gate.

But, we've reunited and are having a great time.

My sister moves around this country like a local, haggling for good fares, jumping on and off trains and making small talk with the Indonesians.

She has a whole week planned for us and we're having a lot of fun just catching up!

22 Hours in SoKo

Mark and I are attempting to make the most of our 22 hour layover in South Korea, en route to Land of Java.

The flight from Washington, DC to Seoul is a west-bound 14-hour flight that pretty much bops you over the Arctic Circle to Asia. As a result, you're flying in a constant state of sunrise and somewhere over the North American tundra Mark and I raised the ire of our section of the plane when we opened the window to take in the beautiful sceneries. It was worth it though: we saw the most beautiful sun, sitting pink and orange on the edge of the horizon, while huge glaciers floated below us, cracks and all.

The time on the plane itself wasn't all that bad. Before we left, Mark and I made a big intellectual show, insisting on purchasing books and journals for the trip. Once we sat down on the plane and took in the almost endless On Demand movie options, our faux elitism was out the door as we fully embraced the likes of Hancock, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Babylon AD, and House, among many, many others (about 14 hours worth).

The trip has also highlighted the different travel sensibilities between myself and my would-be groom. In preparation for our time in Seoul, I called the Korean Tourism Board and had them send a guidebook and wrote down the phone numbers of the US Embassy in Korea; Mark, on the other hand, taught himself how to say "thank you" and "how much for that bucket of eels?", alongside dabbling in Korean cinema (with English subtitles) on the plane ride over. He was quite moved by the cinematic performances in "The Divine Weapon".

The joke was ultimately on me though. I made fun of his Korean linguistic skills for most of the plane ride over and when we were greeted by the hotel manager at the airport, Mark said thank you ("gamsa hamida") and the gentleman told him he had perfect intonation.

When you fly Korean Air, they take hospitality to the next level during an extended layover such as ours -- arranging accommodations, meals and transportation for you while you wait out the transit time.

Incheon International Airport is about an hour away from Seoul and we were afraid to venture into the city in the event of an unexpected attack of jet lag. We got in Wednesday evening around 6pm, checked in to our hotel and hopped on the local subway to Bupyeong which was an experience and a half, as we sort of wandered from restaurant to restaurant pantomiming "vegetarian" (reasons I'm glad we aren't the camcorder sort) and ending up with a hot, spicy bowl of shellfish (reasons I'm glad we aren't professional mimes). After much negotiation, Mark was also able to order a small bowl of white rice.

Here's to hoping everything we ate yesterday follows it's proper gastrointestinal path.

-N

Counting Down...

In short days, I'll be reunited with my sister.

I'm mostly excited and strangely nervous.

Indonesia is the first thing she's done without us bossing over her -- and even then, we attempt to lord over her from afar. It will be a unique experience for me to spend ten days with her in the drivers' seat speaking another language, knowing something so well that has nothing to do with any of us.

I'm also slightly afraid that she does crazy things there. And that the mini-Mom in me is going to freakout when I see her driving a motorcycle. In a skirt. Without a helmet.

And also to be filed under unique experiences: Mark and I are attempting this international excursion without checking luggage. The Indian part of me, used to busting zippers and weight maximums to stuff suitcases with mini-candy bars, socks with traction grips and multivitamins, is still in slight disbelief that we were able to accomplish this. And I guess the final proof will be when we end up on the flight with our two bags each without being forced to check anything.

For now, it's all about backpacks, rolled t-shirts and TSA-approved toiletries; a sneaker and a sandal each; and, of course, about 40 granola bars for my sister along with the 2009 Filofax filler papers she asked our mother to send with me. (Along with her Internet access, I'll be investigating exactly what she needs an organizer for, given that she knows about 10 people south of the Equator.)

-N

Going Rogue

I'm in the mood for some coffee and so I'm staging an e-coup d'etat, temporarily taking command of 'A Cup of Java'.

Many of you, like me, were excited to follow the triumphs and travails of our favorite ex-pat when she left the Land of Liberty for an equatorial archipelago on the other side of the globe.

We were nervous but we were supportive, looking forward to regular glimpses online of my sister's new life as she negotiated language barriers, new customs and new friends so far away from her native Pittsburgh.

But it appears that there's been a flat tire of sorts on the Information Superhighway.

It's been sad for some of us (Padma Aunty, CindyK); rage-inducing for others (Mom) -- coming to work, making a hot cup of java, if you will, and then looking for more...only to be greeted by "Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Bantin" dated October 20 for weeks on end.

In my sister's defense, I suspect it is hard to post. And we want her in Indonesia having actual experiences. Not having experiences looking for Internet cafes from which to blog.

But we miss her. And while it may be hard, I'm curious as to how hard. And so, on behalf of her loyal readership, I'm going to Indonesia to find out.

-N

Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Bantin....

My apologies for not blogging for some time. Last I talked to you all, I had just gotten into my groove of teaching. However, we then had some off for Idul Fitri so there was a slight disturbance in my weekly schedule...Needless to say, I still think I am still in vacation mode. In any case, I returned back to school last week and I definitely missed all of my students and teachers!

A quick story from before break. My school had a parent teacher conference right before the Idul Fitri holiday. Now in Indonesia, the parent teacher conferences are a bit different than what you think. Instead of sitting in a classroom with your child's teacher, you sit in an auditorium and listen to the headmaster/principal and school administrators talk. And if you are me, you sat through this same speech three times -- once for the tenth grade parents, once for the eleventh grade parents, and once for the twelfth grade classes. Most of the teachers only had to sit on stage until they were introduced and then they were able to leave (this was about 15 minutes). However, being a native English Speaker from America, Rashi got a front row seat on stage, sitting right next to the headmaster himself. For the first speech, the headmaster went through a pretty long introduction for me, which was kind of unexpected. All of a sudden, I notice that a bunch of the people in the audience are all whispering and pointing at me. Unsure of what is happening, I ask a fellow English Teacher what is going on.

Apparently, my headmaster had introduced me to the room as the great granddaughter of Gandhi.

I then had to explain to the room that I was actually born and raised in American although my parents were from India. I didn't know how to break it to them that I wasn't related to Gandhi (and we didn't really learn how to say that in our three week crash course in Bahasa Indonesian), so I guess there are some people who still think I'm related to him. There are worse things I suppose.

Over the break, I was able to visit Gunung Lawu, a huge mountain in Central Java. Getting to the mountain was a bit difficult, but luckily I was with a few friends so it didn't seem too bad. First I took a bus to Solo. Then I took a bus to Tawangmanggu. Then I took another bus to Sarangan. Then we took a van to a hotel near the actual starting point of the hike.

We began climbing the mountain at 9pm with hopes of reaching the summit by sunrise. The hike up was absolutely amazing. The route we took was literally up the side of the mountain so you could see the most beautiful views. I don't think I have ever seen that many stars in my life and the views of the Solo and Madiun below us were equally beautiful. The mountain is 3,339M high so when we reached the top, we were literally above the clouds and had a great view of the sunrise. I have included a picture below:


By the time I returned back to Salatiga, it was time for Hilal Bi Hilal functions. These ceremonies are for people to get together and apologize to each other for any mistakes they made in the past year. All of the teachers and administrators at my school had one. Generally, you greet each other saying, "Mohon Maaf Lahir dan Bantin" or "Selamet Riyadi." Then you sit for awhile and listen to a bunch of speeches made by school administrators and imams. And then you have to shake everyone else's hand and apologize for your mistakes or bad thoughts from the year. They also had music and food, so there was a lot of stuff going on.

Since returning, my teaching schedule has more or less included preparing students for their mid semester tests which are this week.

I will try to blog again soon!

First Week of Teaching

So I have finally completed my first week of teaching. To put things in perspective, I teach eight 10th grade classes, each with close to 40 students. Essentially I teach 1-2 classes a day, with each class lasting about an hour and a half. Since I'm only a teaching assistant, I am always in the room with a teacher (excepting for today when teacher called in a sick day).

I still haven't quite adjusted to being a teacher yet. I guess after 16 years of being a student and sitting in class its hard to adjust to suddenly being in the teacher's position. Even after just one week, I already have a great respect for every teacher I've ever had. What I never realized before this week was that teaching is essentially like putting on a performance. But its more like improv than a performance. You stand up in front of an audience (in my case, 40 teenagers) and then perform for an hour and a half. Do you have things you want to do? Of course, but you have to be ready to get sidetracked.

My situation here is of course a little bit different. For one, not many of the teachers I work with understand English. Even the other English teachers and I have had problems with communication, so you can imagine what its like with the other history, science, or language teachers. Ironically, I have befriended the Mandarin teacher and have hung out with her a lot outside of school. The language barrier essentially means that I do a lot of acting out of what I'm saying. All I will say here is that it can get really embarassing really fast (today I acted out an airplane) and makes you develop a fairly thick skin early on.

For the most part, the students are eager to learn English. Like students anywhere, they chat to each other during class and tease each other. However, I don't feel like popularity plays as big of a role in their classrooms as it did in high school. Perhaps this will change as I learn more about my classes though.

There are parts of my town that I love, and parts that I wish were different. For one, I love that its small. Its size makes me feel like I am having more of an authentic experience. Small towns allow you to establish a network with other people. However, with small towns also comes a lack of nightlife or comprehensive transportation system. And when I say nightlife, I'm not talking clubs or bars -- I simply mean life at night. The main street in my city more or less shuts down at about 7pm (the sun sets around 6-630). For awhile I thought that I was mistaken and just didn't know where everyone was going. After talking to some locals though, I've realized that there just isn't really all that much to do at night. And since I don't live in City center, getting around once its dark is a little more tricky, even though my town is really safe. However, as I meet people, hopefully this situation will get better.

The one great thing about my town is that there is a pretty big university here. I finally started hanging out with some people in their 20s this week and that was really refreshing. For awhile I was just socializing with the teachers or students at my school -- I was in desperate need of someone my own age to talk to. The Mandarin teacher at my school actually owns a trendy little coffeeshop right near the university (I'm actually reporting from their town). It is your quintissential college coffeeshop, complete with angst-ridden chain smokers, independents musicians, and people with a lot of feelings. Its completely outdoors and best of all, it has great Indonesia coffee! I love my host mom and all, but the woman only has NesCafe. I don't generally consider myself a coffeesnob, but its hard to be on Java and drink instant coffee every morning. So far, my favorite coffee drink is this coffee they brew with ginger. It sounds kind of gross but its delicious. Beware though, they leave the coffee grinds in the coffee, so if you are going to drink it, bring floss!

I also recently found a warung that I love. Warungs are food stalls that line the streets at night. Because its fasting month, I have tried fasting in an attempt to understand my students. All I can say is that it is really hard and can definitely make you appreciate a solid afternoon nap. I'm letting myself drink stuff during the day, mainly because I don't want to get dehydrated. I guess I can't really say I'm fasting because I also let myself have either juice or a piece of fruit in the afternoon. When you have to act out every conversation you have, you find yourself in despearate need of sugar and caffeine all the time. Once night falls though, I usually head to my local warung. The one on my street actually specializes in tofu and tempe, so I'm pretty much in heaven. They also have rolladu which are casava leaves (tastes kind of like spinach, but a little more substantial). I usually order 1-2 pieces of each and take it home to each with some nasi putih (plain white rice). Sometimes I splurge and buy some nasi goreng also (fried rice), but that usually ends up making my meal pretty greasy. The total cost of this meal (2 pieces tofu with vegetables, 2 pieces rolladu, 1 piece temple, fried rice)? Sixty cents! I'm definitely going to miss the cheap food in Indonesia. For those of you that eat meat, they have a lot of chicken, beef, lamb, goat, fish, options as well.

That's pretty much daily life for me so far in Central Java. I already know there will be good stories to come.