Fridays in Bandalampung

By now, I was getting used to hearing the call to prayer.  There was a mosque right next to the dorms, so we heard the call to prayer loud and clear, and this morning it managed to incorporate itself into my dreams (one of my girl friends was singing it, and not sounding very feminine).  Again, we had no running water so I was grateful for the wishing well and only wished I’d filled it up further.

On the way to the training Erma was kind enough to take me to the mosque.  We didn’t go inside, but from the doorway I was able to admire the beautiful interior, which incorporated the traditional design of this province on its beams.  It was interesting to go past it again a bit later on, as it filled up with men for the Friday sermon.

At the university, I saw faculty sweeping the driveway and was told that it’s expected that all staff pitch in on Fridays to help keep the campus clean.  I imagine it gives them all a sense of ownership and camaraderie, and I wonder how the professors with the big egos would react to that.

During our lunch break, Erma took Andres and me downtown to go shopping for proper socks and boots to wear for the hike.  I was just excited to see the town by day, and passed on the socks (not any better than what I’d packed) and the “boots” (olive green galoshes). I thought it was interesting to see all the warehouse shops we passed, and that the socks came from the “uniform” store, supplying everyone from police officers to rangers and military, it seemed.  We also kept seeing the strong geometric designs that are practically a symbol of this (Lampung) province.

All too soon, the training was wrapped up and the workshop was over. We went back to the dorms to pack and prepare for our field visit the next morning.  When the guy organizing the visit told me he was going to the supermarket, I tagged along to buy water and see how this college town rolls on a Friday night.  Turns out he has quite the selection of American music in his car, and the sing-along began.  I had fun seeing the different products for sale, including scented Kleenex (frankincense scented, anyone?) and picked up a few spice mixes to try Indonesian cuisine back home.  As we were leaving, I mentioned my desire to find a soccer jersey for my brother if we saw any roadside stands selling them.  I didn’t want to inconvenience him, but the next thing I knew we were visiting multiple department stores and roadside stands in an attempt to find one.  We didn’t, but it was interesting to see how their department stores were set up and what they were selling.  They felt like a cross between Nordstroms and Target.  When we saw a donut shop at the last store, I picked some up for my colleagues as a surprise for the next morning.

Teaching, Day 2

Today was my brother’s birthday, and I sent him a text from halfway across the world to celebrate.  Crazy to think about technology can do sometimes.  It was also my day to wrap up teaching my material.  On the whole, I think it went rather well but was not nearly enough time to truly let the information sink in.  Thank goodness they can at least go back and refer to the presentations.

During our lunch break, I decided to walk to the stationary store next door to buy some stamps and to see if they had any postcards.  They were clearly honored and delighted to have me there, but it was also very clear that my Bahasa Indonesia was useless in this situation. Somehow we eventually agreed I was trying to buy stamps and I purchased a few before walking back to the classroom.

With the pressure off, I was able to assist my colleagues during their presentations by going around and helping the students individually to help them stay caught up.  That’s when it really started to sink in how many times I’d said “right click” or “and then…” during my teaching—the repetition almost made it a running joke.

That night we had dinner delivered to the dorms, and found a local soccer match on TV.  Each province has a team, and as we watched Bandung vs. Papua I felt more connected with the country but had no clue who to support.

That night’s homework was finally reading the history chapter of my Indonesia guidebook, something I usually do far in advance of a trip. I’d known a few details, but reading it gave me a whole new sense of respect for what they’d been through—colonialism, a difficult transition to independence, and decades of a tyrannical “president” they’re only now really recovering from.

Teaching, Day 1 (plus Bieber, bugs, and Durian)

 Today I was grateful to be over jetlag and for adrenaline to keep me awake, as we arrived so late the night before that I didn’t have much of a chance to sleep and we were starting off the training with my portion.  But before that, we had the opening ceremony.  As we walked down the street to the university building where we were teaching and into the classroom, we were greeted with a large banner announcing our workshop.  I’m sure it was relatively affordable to print, but it still made me feel an extra sense of pressure to do a good job.  The workshop officially opened with speeches and presentations by staff at the university and by CI staff who had flown in that morning. Incidentally, our 11 hour drive is less than an hour by plane.  It was all in Bahasa Indonesia, so I didn’t understand a word of it but wanted to be respectful so I tried to look attentive.

Eventually I started teaching and I could feel that the previous trainings had given me a bit more confidence, and that I was able to focus on speaking a bit slower (maybe it also helped that I watched “The Kings Speech” as one of my in-flight movies).  Many of the participants spoke some English, but I was so grateful to have Hendi, the GIS guy in our Jakarta office, on hand to help with translation and general assistance.  He clearly has a deep technical knowledge and was able to get the students to loosen up a bit.  Before I knew it, the day was over and we were walking back to the faculty dorms.

As I walked into my room I noticed they’d plugged the hole in the bottom of the wishing well and had filled it up.  I was puzzled, but considered it a nice gesture.  It was only when I went to wash my hands that I figured out why:  we had no running water.  I’d experienced this before in Tanzania, but that was after a major storm.  The weather here had been nice and to boot, we still had electricity.  More baffled than before, I started talking with my colleagues and heard this can happen frequently—and that you’re not supposed to stand in the wishing well to bathe, since it’s really just there to store water.

That night we had dinner at a lovely restaurant whose name translates to “Wood House”.  There was a beautiful, tropical garden with tables tucked into secluded spots, and since our group was so large we ate on the deck of the wood house.  The dishes were all fantastic, and for dessert they ordered a dish with Durian so we Americans could try it.

Both the smell and the color didn’t look that appealing and as I took a bite, my mouth and sinuses were overwhelmed with a smell/taste that I wasn’t sure was going to leave.  I think this one’s an acquired taste that I might not have the patience to acquire, but I was still glad to have tried it (though apparently my facial expressions gave me away as I was eating it).

On the drive back we turned on the radio and I was shocked to hear Justin Bieber.  Apparently he’s coming to Jakarta on tour and the tickets were relatively quite expensive but they sold out.  Who knew? Our driver also had a Johnny Cash CD, so I felt a little better about our music exports.

Back at the dorms, I was relieved to see that running water had returned, and celebrated by doing my hand washing in the wishing well.  I still have no idea how to wash things properly by hand, but it’s better than nothing.

I was also excited by an earlier bedtime, but my excitement was dampened a little when I found all these tiny bugs in my luggage on the adjacent bed to the one I was sleeping on.  I briskly set to work brushing things off and moving them to a table, pulling the beds further apart, and squishing any bug I could find with a tissue.  Once I was convinced I had killed all the ones in sight I got into bed, and as a precaution stayed up for a bit reading and scanning the adjacent bed for any stragglers.

On the Road to Sumatra

Today was the day to practice our presentations and travel to the island of Sumatra.  We were also treated to lunch with some of the CI-Indonesia staff, who regularly eat a communal lunch together.  It consisted of some yummy curries and rice on a covered patio.  Again, this office is growing on me…

It was great to practice going through my slides with my colleagues, who were able to give constructive feedback from their own training experience.  I’m the first to admit my background isn’t in instructional education, so all advice was much-needed!

We began our road trip to Sumatra early in the afternoon, and I was excited to see more of Indonesia.  They had given us the option of flying, but we deliberately chose the longer driving option to see the countryside and a glimpse of Krakatau from the car ferry. Unfortunately, what we saw was Jakarta’s traffic, and when we missed an exit we were forced to drive a while back into Jakarta before taking another highway to continue on our way—apparently U-turns aren’t really an option?  Thus, by the time we were out in the Indonesian countryside it was already dark (welcome to the tropics, where it’s always dark at 6 PM).  Still, what we saw on the darkened highways of Java was fascinating.  There was some road construction, and just to make sure you didn’t miss the traffic cones they strung Christmas lights between them.  Festive, but somewhat unnecessary. The real show to watch was the hitchhiking children.  A soccer match ended and the fans were using the freeway to get home.  The trucks were going so slowly that they were able to climb up on the back, on top, and even on the front fenders and ride to their exit.  Erma was just as horrified as we were to see how precarious they looked. Along the way we stopped for gas and I picked up dinner from a restaurant at the rest stop.  By this time I knew that “Nasi” was rice, and “Asam” was chicken, but I was so grateful for pictures!  It turned out to be a delicious meal that I ate on the ferry.  Another interesting thing about rest stops here:  they include a prayer area for Muslims.  Just the bare minimum (an area to wash and something to indicate the direction to Mecca), but it was a reminder of how much the faith pervades their everyday life and national culture.

At last we arrived at the ferry and were so lucky to be one of the last cars on the ship, as it meant we wouldn’t have to wait and would be some of the earliest off once we reached Sumatra.  The ferry had several stories for cars and trucks, and as soon as the engine was turned off I was ready to start exploring.  The upper deck included a restaurant and an enclosed sitting area where passengers could doze off, but some of the passengers were a little too friendly so I returned to the deck where we’d parked and looked out from there.  As we pulled away from Java you could see the lights of the oil refineries and the faint outlines of volcanoes.  During our voyage we kept scanning the horizon, searching for Krakatau.  Eventually we saw some peaks that Erma said was the remnants of Krakatau, and I choose to believe her.  Despite the late hour we weren’t alone on the water. There were a few other ferries, and many shipping vessels on their way to or from Asia and Australia.  Apparently they have their own pirate problems here because it’s such an important shipping route.

As we got closer to Sumatra we saw a giant white building on a hill. My first thought was that it stood out like a Mormon temple, but we had fun guessing what it could possibly be that was so large and so well-lit.  We later found out it was the “Durian building”, and that most didn’t care for the architecture.  For some reason I thought that once we got off the ferry we were almost there.  Not so!  We still had a good ways to go on their narrow, winding roads and clearly everyone else was in a hurry to reach their destination.   I thought the driving in Jakarta was crazy, but now I was seeing what happens when you take away the center median.  Trucks would race down the road with their turn signals on, just to warn you that they could change lanes into oncoming traffic at any moment.  I was sleepy, but this did a good job of keeping me awake.  We eventually arrived in the town, and thank goodness there were late-night street vendors we could ask for directions.

At long last, we arrived at our accommodations:  the guest faculty building at UNILA University.  The rooms were connected by a lovely outdoor hallway, and after 11 hours on the road I couldn’t wait to take a hot shower before bed.  Imagine my reaction when I was greeted by this:

There are few things I enjoy in this life as much as a long, hot shower, so I just had to laugh when I saw that I’d be giving myself bucket baths in the wishing well all week.  Little was I to guess how I’d long for that just a few days later.

Disorientation

Today was our day to get acclimated and oriented to being in Indonesia, but on the whole it was about as disorienting as anything. After meeting up with my DC colleagues in the hotel, we walked next door to the CI-Indonesia office.  Like the Cambodia office, this is a converted house and I must say it might be my new favorite.  Not the greatest location relative to the airport, but it’s got a swimming pool in the backyard!  We met Erma, a member of the staff who had arranged all the details of our travel and quickly became one of my heroes.  She worked to ensure the logistics were in order for our trip and made sure we were enjoying our time in Indonesia, all the while planning the 20th anniversary party of the CI-Indonesia program and retirement party for their director.  To boot, she was trying to get things in order for her own upcoming travel to do a few weeks of field work in the jungles of Papua.

She had arranged a meeting for us with a member of the Indonesian Department of Forestry, and we went there together.  I wasn’t relevant to the meeting, but it did serve as an introduction to Snake fruit, which is shaped like a large strawberry covered in brown scales.

 It looked cooler than it tasted, but I was still excited to be eating exotic fruit again.  On our way back to the office we saw their police racing to an incident.  Nothing like tanks and semi-automatic weapons to make you feel like you’r e in a stable country.  I’d recently read about some “book bombs” that were discovered before they were set off, and was glad to not be a target on this trip.

Lunch was Padang, a typical style of eating in Indonesia where small portions of several different dishes are brought to your table and you pay based on what you consume.  It’s like dim sum, but all at once. We ate a beef dish that was fantastic, and I ordered an avocado shake for the novelty (not bad with chocolate sauce).

The afternoon was spent in a small shopping center near the office that catered to ex-pats, and the few well-to-do Indonesians who could afford to pretend they were in another country.   We started at the Starbucks, where I ordered a whoopie pie and thought about the ones my roommate had recently made for Valentine’s Day.  For a weekday afternoon, I was surprised at how many people were there but it appeared some Indonesians had come with their coworkers and were using the space for their meeting.  Next, we walked downstairs past the Ace Hardware to the Ranch 99 Market.  I recognized their logo from the chain of supermarkets back home, but in America they were the discount Asian grocery store.  Here, they were the upscale expat grocery store selling American and European brands of food.  With all of this, it was so disorienting to see the familiar out of context and in some cases given new meaning.  We picked up our bottled water and a few foodstuffs and returned to the hotel.

Dinner that night was at a new mall at the end of the street.  Again, it appeared to be high end and western.  We walked around and picked a pan-Asian restaurant for dinner, enjoyed a tasty meal, and did some window shopping on the way out.  As a final touch to this day of disorientation, the mall’s background music started playing “Let it Snow”!  I guess the weather outside was frightful, if by frightful they meant really hot and humid?

Surprisingly, I wasn’t feeling the effects of jetlag but still didn’t have a feel for Indonesia and a sense of place.

Welcome to Jakarta

After such a fabulous Saturday, I spent most of my Sunday sleeping as we flew over Asia.  My final leg was from Singapore to Jakarta.  I was tired and disoriented, and was shocked to discover that our huge plane
was mostly empty for this final leg. It was the shortest leg of my  36-hour trip, but I relished stretching out across an entire row for that hour.  As we approached Indonesia, I was baffled to see things that looked like metal rods poking out of the water—probably related to fishing somehow.  They were so closely packed in some areas as to create channels for ships to safely traverse them.  The rice paddies and shrimp farms quickly transitioned to an urban sprawl that stretched to the horizon.  There were skyscrapers in some parts, but
Jakarta doesn’t really have a downtown so much as several downtowns—lots of things but hardly anything to see.

I was a little anxious about getting my business visa, as I’d heard all sorts of stories of people getting turned away, but I’d made an effort to look decent during the Singapore stopover and flashed the best smile I could muster.   It worked, and I was through customs before my luggage was off the plane.  Next step:  getting cash. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite as easy as all the ATMs in sight were refusing my card.  I ventured out to the taxi area in hopes of spotting another and was quickly, and predictably, accosted by all sorts of offers for “help.”  One of them was actually helpful by helping me find an ATM that worked (5th time’s the charm) in the arrivals terminal, so by that point I felt obligated to go with him.  I was warned to only take the “Blue Bird” taxi brand, and was more than a little skeptical when they offered “proof” that they were legit
members of this company by taking a business card with that logo out of a stack of cards with other logos, but by this point I was just grateful to be safe and on my way to the hotel.   I later confirmed with my colleagues that I was overcharged, but can you put a price on safety and getting cash to pay that price?  Welcome to Jakarta, I guess.

Greatest Layover Ever?

Another work trip overseas = an offer I couldn't refuse.  It wasn't confirmed until the week before I left that I could even go to Indonesia, making for a fairly short preparation time.  And after all, sometimes the anticipation is the best part.  Luckily, I had an excellent geography professor at BYU who helped with some background info:  Indonesia is one of the world’s largest archipelagos with a matching cultural diversity, was a former Dutch colony, and has the largest Muslim population in the world.  Seeing Islam outside of its typical Arab context intrigued me.  It’s also on the Pacific "ring of fire", so volcanoes galore (not all of them active).

To boot, in my online flight searching I found a roundabout itinerary that included a 12-hour layover in Istanbul, Turkey. Who could pass that up?  In all, it took 36 hours and 4 flights between Washington, DC to reach Jakarta, Indonesia--a new record for me.

Istanbul was excellent!  I found 12 hours to be just long enough to see a few major sights, and just short enough that there was hardly time for eating and no time for shopping.

I forgot to copy the phrases page from the guidebook before I left so I never even learned to say "thank you" in Turkish, but the people were friendly and clearly accustomed to English-only travellers. Mercifully, the airport is connected to the metro and there was just a simple transfer to a tram that took me to Sultanhamet, the old part of the city where everything I wanted to see was practically next door to each other.

First stop:  Hagia Sophia (aka Aya Sofya or "church of the Holy Wisdom").  

 

I'd remembered learning about this architectural wonder during a humanities class at BYU and had to pinch myself for the chance to actually see it in person.  There were previous churches built on this site before its construction (completed in 537 AD), and I just couldn't get over how massive and open the space felt inside and the fact that it was still standing, dome intact, nearly 1500 years later.  The dome was, indeed, beautiful; but it was its strength, through earthquakes and upheavals both religious and political, that left me in awe.  It was built as a Christian church, converted to a mosque, and today is a museum that honors both.  In some ways, I think this makes it even more appropriate as a symbol of Istanbul.  The city was a Christian capital of sorts, became the head of the Ottoman Empire and received treasures and relics from across the Muslim world, and today is an odd balance of both, trying to function as a secular state balanced between two continents and two world religions.  They clearly want to be considered part of Europe, and they have some physical justification for that claim, but no European city has so many mosques and beautiful Arabesque architecture.

Just behind the Hagia Sophia is Topkapi Palace where the sultans lived.  With such limited time I made a beeline for the Harem and wasn’t disappointed.  It wasn’t just a few rooms for his concubines; it was practically a private city within the palace that was off limits to males (unless you were a eunuch) and ruled by the sultan’s mother.  Sounds like quite the dramas played out there, but I was focused on the architecture.  There were rooms with tiled walls in bright turquoise, cobalt, and red designs; beautiful geometric designs on the ceilings, and rooms with fountains along the window sills to keep them cool in the summertime.   

Beautiful area, but it would still feel confining after a while. Back in the general area of the palace complex there were rooms to see the treasuries, with case after case of jeweled and golden items, and a wing to see Islamic relics.  Around the time I saw the room where he would meet with his grand viziers, I thought of "Aladdin", not realizing as a kid that sultanates were a legitimate form of government in some parts of the world even today.  It was too early in the year to enjoy the gardens, but you could tell that in three weeks they’d be gorgeous.  Even then, they offered a glimpse of the Asian side of Istanbul across the Bosporus Strait.

From a tourist perspective, the nice thing about mosques is that they don’t have a closing time, aside from during their prayer times, so I put these off until last.  Walking back past the Hagia Sohpia, I crossed a small park to reach the Blue Mosque.  I’d never heard of it until researching this trip, and was excited to finally enter a mosque.  It was built by Sultan Ahmed I and is notable for several things, including the number of minarets.  Most mosques have one or two, this one has six--and the only other mosque with that many is in Medina.

There was a wall of faucets and stools right outside the mosque for men to wash before entering to pray.  Regardless of faith, we were asked to remove our shoes and cover our heads.  I had a lesson before I left in wrapping my scarf around my head, but the scarf wasn’t cooperating very well (or my head was too big and round for that particular scarf).  Either way, a bit of a struggle but worth it. 

 

So nice to have a place to sit, rest, and meditate for a bit with no one bothering you.  The outside looked more impressive than Hagia Sohpia, but the inside has these massive columns to support the dome.  They’re impressive in their size, but it made you appreciate Hagia Sohpia’s dome even more.  However, this mosque had a pretty paint job with red and cobalt designs on a white background.

Once I had my fill, I opted for a short walking tour I’d found in the guidebook as a sort of "victory lap" to my trip.  Not sure how victorious I was, though, as I struggled to even find the start of it in the short street and narrow alleyways of that neighborhood.  They might have street signs on every block, but I rarely saw them and instead had to rely upon the kindness of strangers (who again, were overly accommodating to someone who couldn’t say anything in their language). I’d been warned about getting lost in the Grand Bazaar, and since I didn’t have the time for such luxuries I made a beeline through it, but was nearly distracted by all the stalls selling bright, shiny objects.  Again, it was probably a good thing that my carryon was already full.  I reached Seluman's Mosque as Friday prayers were ending, and couldn’t get over how many men kept coming out from behind the flap (there wasn’t a door at this entrance, but a heavy canvas flap they exited from behind).  It’s probably the same feeling someone would have if they came to the Conference center in Salt Lake right as General Conference is ending.  When there was finally a break in the crowd for me to enter I ducked in, and quickly decided this was the cutest mosque I’d seen that day.

Pink dome with a floral pattern, need I say more?  Leaving the mosque, the streets felt a little too dark and empty so I proceeded as quickly as I could.  A good idea, except I quickly became turned around in a very hilly neighborhood until a local personally escorted me out and down to my destination:the Spice Market.  Alas, by that time they were all closing for the night.  Even the ubiquitous kebab stands were closed, thwarting my dream of eating a tasty lamb dish.  I was grateful to find that Café Bambi was still open, and even more grateful that after a disappointing Doner Kebab I was able to visit the confectionary next door for some Turkish Delight.  I bought a few samples and discovered that their pomegranate and pistachio was indeed delightful.

I was excited for my trip to continue, but just felt like I was leaving this city too soon.  Thank goodness for return flights!