Why is everything so funny....

Salamat Malum!
Good Evening!


The title of this post will become apparent very soon....... but first some more serious things.


This is my last night before tomorrow which is the highly anticipated day when I meet my host family and community.  I have never been more excited for my year with my host family and my time of service with the church there, than these past 4 days.  The past 4 days here have only fueled the flame of longing for this.  Tonight, my host sister's facebook status read: Irene "is excited to meet my new little brother, Jason Horlings and other YALTERS tomorrow!"  Yah, the has to be the sweetest thing I have read in a while. 


You might expect, like I did, that I would be writing to you about a culture shock of some sorts or myself feeling more overwhelmed and uncomfortable with things around me here.  That is a understandable thing to assume.  I did as well.  BUT, that has not been the case YET.


Why? I have not plunged into Indonesia like some others do in SALT or I thought I might.  There are some positives and negatives about this that I can see now from my perspective 4 days in.....I am sure that will change in the long run.  I have lived quite a comfortable, limited ( in the sense of engaging Indonesian life) and not immediately challenging first 4 days.....and I stress this first 4 days thing again.  I have lived in an MCC staffers home and gone between other MCC staffers home and the MCC office with some group outings to street vendors and such for meals.  For me, it has been a relaxing, stress-free and fun way to enter Indonesia, but I know that this is not going to be the case for the upcoming year........AND good thing it will not be.  It is in the great wisdom of MCC Indonesia that they do it this way, but I have been a little rest-less the past few days ready for my host family life to start AND really wanting to jump into Indonesian life more fully.  


It would be appreciated if you could pray for patience for my language learning and my limit ability to talk in depth to many Indonesians despite badly wanting to do this.  Also, pray for my host family as the prepare for my life with them.


SOME TIDBITS of life....

--I will be at my host family for Idu Fitri......a MASSIVE celebration to end Ramadan.  Should be great to experience.  

--The food and drinks are phenomenal here--Nasi Goreng (fried rice), Mai Ayam (noodles with chicken), Soto (soup).  We eat out a lot because warungs (sidewalk food shops) are everywhere and the food is very cheap for North American standards.  A meal with a fruit drink is $1.50.  However, for an average Indonesian laborer this is half a days wage.  This is a strange thing to grasp and it is very easy to stick with my North American mind and run around eating lots and thinking about how cheap everything is, but I must strive to overturn that mindset as much as I can this year. 

              -- I eat a new fruit I have never seen before in my life every day.  Love it!

--Besides some orientation sessions of little interest to you, we have done 2 days of language training.  I have never had so much fun in class before.  I had bubbles of joy in my stomach the entire first day of language training.  I had some apprehension about language training....not any more.  I even created a tongue twister last night which I proudly told my teacher who just laughed at me.  

Here it is: cicak capek cepat cacak            Say every c with a "ch" sound as in church.

try it......it means a a tired fast disabled gecko. 

--Studying these words has been a great joy.  In Indonesia you roll every "r" in the middle of a word.  So "ngreti" ( it means understood, so I say it lots) is said with a rolling "r". You say it like "nerdy" but roll the "r".   try it out.       I along with everyone else laughs every time I do it.

The YAMEN and SALT participants with Putut (right bottom row) and Via (left bottom row) the language instructors.  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I will now enter the part of the blog where Jason explains a bathroom experience.  I never intended this to be a theme.....and I desperately hope that it stops being a pattern in my Indonesian life. Here it goes and it may become graphic.


After regaining my self-confidence in my ability to go to the bathroom by completing a successful 2nd attempt at the squatty potty..... disaster struck my 3rd attempt and has reduced my bathroom confidence to record lows.  I have taken this failure difficultly because, as my friend Ellery wrote on her blog, "Jason has religiously used the squatty potty every chance he's gotten."


After rushing into the bathroom in dire need of relief, I sheepishly reappeared from the bathroom awkwardly asking "Ummm...do you guys have any cleaning supplies?  Because the worst thing that could happen in a squatty potty just happened."


Here is how I got to that point.  I went to the toilet in haste and an alignment failure occurred with consequences that were terrible to endure.  As explained in my first post related to the bathroom scene over here, the foot markers are not friendly to size 13 feet.  You might think this is dummy proof, but I have realized that much thought and precision must go into your alignment set-up or else a tragic misfiring will occur.  Such as mine.  For the rest of my life I will remember looking back after a quick "movement" and seeing poop slip off the edge of the bowl towards the tile flooring.  My only thoughts were "the stupid foot spots aren't accurate at all!"  Still squatting, I rapidly waddled forward in search of some sort of accuracy.  I hope to never have to waddle fast again.  


In my laughter and desire to find a way out of this without needing outside help, I finished my business....but not without more struggle.  You see, washing yourself involves water splashing in and around the toilet bowl.  Well, what was next to the toilet directly below my butt, yup, you know it.  It became as I called it afterwards " a diluted mess." 


I proceeded to find help.  I had no idea how to clean this up.  But a good 15 minutes of cleaning ended my hilarious episode.  While cleaning, Ellery blogged about this story has become the talk of MCC Indonesia.....what a great reputation to build on.


Next time I write I will have lived with a Indonesian family for a few days, I'll keep you posted.