Indonesia: Day 1!

And so begins life in Indonesia for a year….I am finally here!   But before I dive into this incredible world, I will wrap up the orientation week in Akron for you.

It seems like orientation was a long time ago already although it finished on Thursday only.  As I have said in the previous post, I loved orientation, but it was definitely time to go to Indonesia after the week in Akron.  I met the kinds of people that could be life-long friends, and maybe they will be.  It was too bad that some of us were able to get to know each other quite well and then suddenly not see each other for a year.  But the Indonesia team that I am with is great and I am really looking forward to spending language training together. 

                                      Dutch Blitz with Asian and North American friends!

One hilarious anecdote is that there was a talent show the last night in Akron, which starred me on a dance team of 5.  We did a choreographed dance to “Bye, Bye, Bye” by Nsync ( a 90's boy band)……we were the biggest hit of the night and my stunning ability to dance ( or my lack of ability to dance) got me many complements.  But onto more substantial things…

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After 37 hours of travel (driving 4 hrs, flying and waiting in airports for 33), I arrived in Salatiga.  It is the headquarters of the MCC Indonesia program and I am staying at the home of some MCC workers.  I will be here until Thursday, where I will then go to the home of family that will have me become apart of their family for the year.  I am really excited about meeting them!!  I know more about my host family than any other participants here.  That is because I became facebook friends with a young women from Java over three weeks ago, but never looked into who she was, figuring that she must work for MCC staff.  Well, I was talking to her over facebook a number of times and then a few days ago she mentioned that she will be my host sister for my upcoming year.  Her name is Irene, and she just finished a year in the USA with the IVEP (MCC exchange program) so I am eagerly anticipating meeting Irene and her family in Kudus.  

Flying into Jakarta......where the city meets the crops.

Let me just write a bunch of stuff that comes to mind quickly for you.  As you can imagine I have been just trying to take in the different sights, smells and sounds so nothing is very coherent in my mind about everything around me. Here is some thoughts from my first full day here.

--   CRAZY driving.  I realize there are worse places to drive, but I was in disbelief for the entire drive from Semarang (where I flew in) to Salatiga (where I now sit.)  Motorcyles everywhere swerving everywhere.

--Today was, as a local put it, “cold.”  I disagreed.  But I will say that the heat is manageable.

--   The 1.5 hr drive from Semarang to Salatiga felt like one big city.  There were tiny shops lining the entire stretch of the road and life was sure bustling along the entire road side.  Prior to coming here, I had some fantasy of a winding road through rice paddies….hardly.

--   I got to my home for this coming week and all I wanted to do was walk around the neighborhood.  So I did.  I went on my own and wandering up and down the streets.  The Muslim call to prayer echoed across the neighborhood.  People stared at me.  I awkwardly made my way around a group of teenagers who called me a "foreigner" in slang Indonesian. Some people tried to make conversation, but that ended abruptly when we could only say “hi” to each other and basically play side walk gestures for a while.  Then I was invited into a tiny bicycle repair shack.  I sat down on a bench with the guy who operated on this shop on the sidewalk and we once again I became stuck on the “hello” segment of the conversation.  So we parted separate ways quite quickly.

--    I meet Paul, the son of the MCC country representatives here.  He is really into downhill biking.  So am I.  He is really into crazy hiking and camping.  So am I.  Hopefully we will be doing both types of adventures many times this year!

--   I have had no jet lag.  Maybe I’m just full of adrenaline, but I slept great.  That is once I made a mental agreement with a gecko that crawled under my mattress before I went to bed.  it went as follows: I wouldn’t touch him if he didn’t touch me. It worked. 

--   I was up at 5:15 AM to go to church for 6 AM.  Geckoes chirping, calls to prayers going out and roosters crowing are the new highly functional alarm clock of my life.

--   Nothing is like a bowl of rice soup with hot sauce for breakfast.  My stomach let me know its great displeasure with that.


--At church, I was initially panicked because I quickly realized that I was going to have a very hard time talking to anyone here in Indonesia for a while.  My limited ability to talk to whomever I want here will be very hard for me, but it hit me like a train this morning.  There were some quirky things about this church….like the hot pink lighting that outlined the cross in front of the church.   Everything was done in Indonesian….but I was told later what the sermon was about.  It was an incredible sermon on seeking justice every day of our lives and he challenged everyone to ask themselves at the end of the day to think about how we worked towards justice and peace every night.   I loved that, and guess what……I get to work with the Indonesian church for a year.  YES!

A FUNNY STORY:  Going to take care of your business in a washroom is different here.  Right now, I have the choice to use a Western or an Indonesian style.  But I, without hesitation on the first day here, was pretty excited to go to the washroom Indonesian style.  Everyone else hasn’t attempted this feat yet, but I have completed going to the washroom once using the completely Indonesian technique.  Well, I’ll need to tweak some things, but overall the mission was accomplished.

A helpful illustration of the following instructions.

 Here is how:

1. Pull your pants all the way off.  I say that now after not doing it for the first time.  You’ll see what happened.

2. Squat over the toilet bowl that is built into the floor.  This is wear I need to tweak some things.  The places that are meant for my feet I somehow figured, in my foolishness, where not in the right place so I moved my feet off the feet placement pads…this nearly had devastating consequences but I managed to aim correctly.     

3. Grab a bucket of water out a large tub filled with water.  Using your right hand pour water down your bum.  Using your left hand wash yourself.  This is supposed to work great, but I had some glitches.  I failed to take my pants off completely, so I had my pants around my ankle.  They got soaked.  Plus, I failed to hold the squat position while washing myself, so I ended up with a waterfall coming off my butt.  FUN STUFF.

4.  Wash your hands.  I also proceeded to find help!

OKAY, enough of that.

A

We went walking through 1 km of rice paddies going up a hillside into a jungle.  Unreal. 

      This is 4 of the 8 of us serving with MCC this year. From left to right. Ellery, Riki, Nancy and Lweendo.

       

Rice Paddies!

Rice harvesting!

Seyeva and Kevas (children of a MCC staffer) ran around with me through the fields and the jungle.

I have heard this before, but in many ways it feels like I am here physically, but my soul is not yet here.  It’s rather odd to walk around on the streets here.  I love it.  I am full of questions. But to belong, in some sense of the word here, will take time.  For me to become fully who I am and be ready to be transformed will take a process of becoming incarnate in the streets of Indonesia.  This will be a process, that among other things will include language training.  Which I have two days of this week.

This was ridiculously long.  But you know me, I love to share my life.  Hope to hear about your life as well!