Sunday, 30July06

Highlights: volunteering in Bantul, 1st time movies

I met up with a German girl, Vanessa, at 8 this morning, whom I met last week & expressed an interest in volunteering in Bantul. We scootered down to Ena’s house to start another project.

Vanessa is a reporter for a German newspaper in Cologne (I forget which), and actually did an interview (in bahasa Indonesia) with Ena and her family. It was an interesting walk-through of the day of the earthquake.

A couple things jumped out at me about the timing of that quake.
On the disadvantage side: it was raining at the time of the quake, which happened around 6am on a Saturday; medical facilities are far away, and almost everyone here has a scooter as their primary mode of transportation (not conducive to carrying injured victims).
On the advantage side: it happened as summer break was beginning, so kids were out of school & fewer people had to take time off work to help recover; it happened during the dry season (the misery factor would be a lot higher if this was the rainy season);

We went for a walk through the neighborhood after that, to look around & meet the neighbors.

today's project... clean out this mess on the right
lunch!
today's aftershot 

walk around Pleret, Bantul neighborhood video...

And then we got down to brass tacks & started moving bricks & debris around. Today’s project,,, clearing a path to the back door.

I get excited about the progress we make every time I come down here, and you can see how much it’s appreciated on the faces of the family,,, which makes it that much more worth it.

I had the idea last week, as soon as I heard that many families in this area have never been to a movie theatre, to invite an entire family out to the movies. Only the oldest two in Ena’s family had ever seen the inside of a theatre,, so tonight I remedied that. I have to say- it’s one of the things I feel really good about tonight. $16: the cost of 8 movie tickets,,, $priceless: taking an entire family to their first night at the movies.

we saw Superman. The 7 year old wanted to sit on his dad's lap, because he was afraid of the dark,,, and then spooked easily when the music turned sinister during the Lex Luthor scenes (= ha ha.. but he was literally on the edge of his seat for all the cool superman scenes-

“cool” is a relative thought, though- i didn't think of this before- but they were all a little bit scared during the earthquake scenes- and i felt stupid for not thinking of it before. The sound system in the theatre was good enough to feel the rumbling in our seats… which i thought was cool at first- but maybe not to traumatized quake survivors. Perhaps a touch too dramatic & "realistic" for them! ooooops!

I snuck this picture of them at the tail end of the movie (= ha ha. Can you remember your first time at the movies?

first time at the movies...
a memorable experience 

Saturday, 29July06

Highlights: Al LaPorta visit, drive to the beach, Bari family visit, puppet show

USINDO president Al La Porta stopped through Yogya on some business and took all of us to lunch to introduce himself & hear how our summer is going so far. I think most of us can think of 20 great things to say about this program for every fault or negative experience. It’s been a really good summer over-all.

lunch on Saturday with Al LaPorta 

It’s a rare and interesting experience to have a former ambassador as a captive audience over lunch. He casually leans into in-depth conversation about the progression of post-tsunami Aceh the way some of my friends lean into a description of which bar they want to go to this weekend.

Several of us are hoping to make a quick trip up to Aceh while we’re here, and since he’s going, we hoped to tag along in some out-of-the-way fashion. I didn’t mean to steal the conversation- but we got an hour-long response which answered more questions than I think any of us were angling to ask. It was great for me! Ha ha.

After lunch, I hopped on my fearsome 100cc, 35 horsepower steed… my Honda Supra ‘sepeda motor’ (motorized bicycle)- and dashed down to the beach in the blink of an hour.

Our time here in Yogya is drawing short,, and visiting the beach here is one of those things I didn’t want to let slip away from me. It sucks that I waited this long, and didn’t go to see Parangtritis beach before the tsunami 2 weeks ago. Here’s what it looks like now…

Parangtritis video...

The beach is on the south side of Bantul, so everything down there shows scars from the earthquake. I’m told that Parangtritis beach, while not the top beach on Java’s southern coast, was once vibrant. Today it looks like the kind of spaghetti western town Josey Wales would find appealing. That is to say, near deserted.

You have to balance the sadness of the circumstances with the cheerfulness of the people you meet there. The kids I caught on video jumped out of their house giggling and laughing when they saw a bule walking by… sugeng sonten means “good evening” in Bahasa Jawa. (= I only wished I had my Frisbee and a few more daylight hours. That would have been fun!

On my way home I dropped by the Bari family house to say hello & see how they’re doing. This is the first family we helped when we got here to Yogya 2 months ago, and the house Marty, Dan & I worked on 3 weeks ago.

They were all smiles & doing great; and just finished a bamboo extension on the back of their house, with straw matting walls, which they’re all sleeping in now. (7 in the family). Pak Bari used broken bricks to fill in the foundation behind his extension.

They’re so happy with what they have, which is great to be around; even though I feel like a Donald Trump millionaire by comparison, which is funny.

After exploring a bit, a bunch of us were taking advantage of an opportunity to see a Javanese puppet show (wayang kulit). This show was in Bantul, so I was already there…

The show was supposed to start at 9pm,, but because of some Jesse Jackson religio-political speech-making by some guy about my same age first (30 something), the show didn’t get going until nearly 11.

My liveliness batteries were already flickering,, with a self-announcement of 20 minutes of power, before I had to find a spot on the grass to nap for a bit, in hopes of making it to the interesting parts… the show would go on through the 4am hour,, and there was no way I was going the distance. My plans were to be up at 8 to go volunteer in Bantul again.

This gamelan show was televised, and pretty well attended. Out of the 1,000 or so people there, I counted 2 foreigners besides us, and there were about 7 of us from USINDO. I bring that up only because it was funny, feeling like we were unwittingly stealing the show in little ways.

Indonesians are equal parts curious and friendly, and have no social barriers against staring. They seemed particularly enamored with Dan, whom the tv camera happened to scan over to every few minutes or so. I feel significantly taller than the average Javanese guy,,, but at 6’8”,, Dan looks like he walked out of a Marvel comic book or something.

I really enjoyed testing out my 3 useful expressions in Bahasa Jawa. (Good night, thank-you & you’re welcome) ha ha.

Wayang kulit,, Javanese puppet show in Bantul...

Friday, 28July06

Highlights: progress test in all 3 classes, efforts in the local language (bahasa Jawa)

We had 3 hours straight of exams today. Ughh. Well it’s a dirty price to pay for going to school all the time- but it’s definitely worth the effort. Remind me I said that in a few hours when my brain cools down.

I decided this week that I’m going to make some effort to learn the local language here. It’s worth it, because few things are more entertaining than seeing people’s heads snap around in a double-take, and the smile that follows when you greet them in their local language. Sugeng enjang! (good morning!) ha ha. I’ve been having fun with that all day.

My interest in controversial subjects may have gotten me in slightly warmer than room-temperature water the other day… I was reminded over a quick bite at KFC.

Gadjah Mada is a local hero and legend in Indonesia; the man after whom this University is named. I forget which century, maybe the 15th; he is famed for ending violence between warring Javanese kingdoms & uniting much of Java under one (Mataram?) kingdom.
History is always selective, and usually favors those who are writing it,, so perhaps the losers don’t remember him quite so glowingly, but that’s not the point.

I asked my tutor Merrie who he was, and she promptly responded, “He united all of Indonesia”.
That’s what got me started.
He was a Javanese king, who united a few kingdoms on Java only. And not even the entire island.
Java is not all of Indonesia
I’m sure there were great heroes from other parts of today’s Indonesia (Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, Irian Jaya, Bali… etc) but you wouldn’t know about most of them, because only the Javanese ones are celebrated here.

That’s probably where I crossed the line. I mean no disrespect to Gadjah Mada. I’m sure he was a great man, and he’s earned his propers. It’s the singling out of Javanese heroes above all others that flipped the switch with me.

I’m in a mood for controversy, so here’s another fruit from the tree of thought. I think, in a similar vein, American history unfairly favors our wartime presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan. No one suggests peacetime presidents were less important (Adams, Jefferson, Taft…) but their names don’t jump off the social studies book pages like our wartime presidents. There are a few exceptions to the rule: McKinley, Wilson and Johnson. Historians will wait another 10 years or so before casting social studies book judgment on our current president… but that’s another tangent for another day.

I’m sure I can be proven wrong in several ways, so- as always, I am open to being ‘corrected’. Ha ha.

Thursday, 27July06

Highlights: broken bus after gamelan class

Three hours of class later, it was time for gamelan class once again. I’m really glad to hear that Bryan enjoys it, because he may be the only one I know of. We actually got to see him perform his wayang kulit (puppet show) today, as we tied the music in with a practice puppet show performance. Made it a bit more interesting.

The biggest entertainment of the day was watching the bus refuse to come to life after gamelan class, and having to push it down the street to get it going.

Broken gamelan bus video:

I was talking to my host family tonight over dinner, and mentioned that I had heard people in Indonesia have to pay if they want to join the military or police here. And it’s not cheap! This makes no sense to me,,, and of course there’s no standardization in bribes here. They know of one family who sold part of their land to afford the $6,500 (65million Rupiah) “entrance fee” into the Army,,, so their son could have a job. He got lousy grades in high school, so college was out of the question.

Isn’t the point of a job to get paid? And from what I hear, wages there are pretty low. Soldiers & policemen still look for 2nd & 3rd jobs, or ways to add to their monthly salaries, just to get by. Whew.

If this isn’t the full picture of entrance into the Indonesian armed forces and police, it’s at least a public perception.

Wednesday, 26July06

Highlights: today was one of those days that felt like there were no highlights…

We had a quiz in class today, followed by food tasting (= nice consolation prize! Ha ha.

Had an interesting conversation with 4 tutors today about going to school here in general; since UGM (Universitas Gadjah Mada) is considered the top school in Indonesia.
It’s the biggest with 30,000 students; the oldest (established 19Dec1949); and most prestigious (top 5 in Southeast Asia).

It’s still a public school, so they get some subsidies from the government, but it’s expensive for Indonesian students: +/- 5million Rupiah for the 1st year ($500), 2million Rupiah or so every year after that. I have to remind myself of average incomes here in Indonesia to appreciate how expensive that is for most families. It’s probably similar to American families trying to send their kids to Harvard. $40,000 a year doesn’t come easy to most.

It’s very hard to get accepted, and even harder to get into the faculty you’re interested in. Sinta, for example, is studying English literature because she didn’t get into the school of Political Science. Merrie is studying Japanese literature for similar reasons. There are 7 languages taught here; Spanish and Dutch are not among them. Funny.

Pak Djoko mentioned in class that women have been dominating the higher echelons of the grade scale fairly consistently for several years, but the inequality in job opportunities and pay for women are still significant here.

While waiting for cooking class (and beating back boredom with a stick..) I watched a neighborhood league soccer game for an hour. It was entertaining to see the looks on people’s faces to see this alien, western face among them in their neighborhood,,, like that had never happened before. I smiled & said hello in bahasa Indonesia & everyone laughed and asked where I was from. People here are equal parts curious & friendly.

A mere 2 hours later, we were cooking & eating Nasi merah (red rice), Soto ayam (chicken soup), Sambal goreng tempe (a stew of tempe, potatoes, cowpeas & garlic boiled in coconut milk), Bok Choy Tahu (tofu), Ayam kecap (fried chicken with soy sauce), Perut Ayam (a fried banana-flour-egg-vanilla pastry… mmmm!), and Rujak serut (spicy shredded fruit salad).

Tuesday, 25July06

Highlights: another request for a native English speaker, playstation 2 gift, All plus English conversation group

We’re working on poetry in ‘conversation’ class… never my strong-suit. I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll never become Shakespeare in bahasa Indonesia.

I’m not quite sure how my name gets out there sometimes, but two more students from Jogja State University (Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta) came by to ask if I would be willing to sit in an English conversation class that they are organizing for 80 high-school students who are doing their KKN (month long community service) in Bantul.

What other answer is there but, sure!?

I’m lucky in the fact that, unlike my USINDO friends who have to run home before school start dates at Berkley, Northern Illinois Univ., Eastern Illinois Univ., U of Hawaii, U of Florida, Oxford, etc… I’m staying here for a year- so there’s no rush coming up in 3 weeks. I’ll work with these kids on 15 August, after all the USINDO summer studies stuff is over, and before 17 August, Indonesia’s Independence Day.

Interesting side-note about Independence day here… They celebrate the day Independence was bravely declared from the Dutch (17Aug45), not the day it was actually won (19Dec49). Huh. Well it’s their day, so they can celebrate whatever day they want.

After finishing some work at school, I was thinking about Ena’s family from this weekend. The kids were playing a play-station game on the computer, but only had a few games to choose from. I’m guessing they spend a lot of time in their temporary bamboo house with not much else to do.

During both of my deployments, I’ve watched grown 30 year old men glue themselves to X-box and play-station for months at a time. Those deployments would have been twice as miserable for them if they didn’t have their games… and I was thinking about what kids from Bantul have to entertain themselves with. A small effort on my part could make a big difference for them, so- I went by a video game store & picked up 8 new play-station games ($2 total) and brought them by the salon to give to Ena.

I had an hour to fill before volunteering my mastery of the English language (ha ha =) at the All-plus language school, so I ate Bakso with the salon girls & tried convincing them that embracing mistakes is a key to learning a new language. Go out & make lots of mistakes when learning to speak English,,, you’ll learn from them & get better as you go.

At 7, the English conversation class got started. Some of the same faces from last night showed up again, but mostly fresh faces of university students who wanted to listen to English from a native speaker, practice a little, ask questions about America… and all the while- refining their English abilities. It was great. They asked questions like: does the price of gas hurt Americans as much as it hurts Indonesians?; what are political parties like?; what’s the difference between national laws & state laws?; do big companies make the laws?; are there regulations about advertising?... etc. I did my best & had a great time talking to them & describing things about my country.

Then went home to my host family, ate spaghetti with Sinetron soap operas playing in the background, told stories about my day & laughed. Ha ha. My host family is great.

Monday, 24July06

Highlights: school, cream bath, English discussion group (Allplus)

It’s getting to the point where another day at school feels just as it sounds… another day at school. Boring at times, but I’m still learning & glad to be here.

We’re reading children’s story books about legends in speaking class today. My Indonesian legend is Rara Jonggrang, the hero who built Prambanan (1,000 temples) in one night to win a girl’s heart.

The fastest cliff-notes version I can spin is: local hero boy who takes down neighborhood bullies, meets a princess he falls in love with & wants to marry. Said named girl is not interested- but can’t tell him no directly (she's Javanese), so she gives him an impossible task: “build 1,000 temples in 1 night and I will be yours.”
Much to her shock, by the wee morning hours he is on track to finish his task- so she sabotages his efforts by stirring the chickens to cock-a-doodle-do an hour early,,, thereby tricking the town into thinking the new day had started,,, and thus disqualifying the young hero before the 1,000th temple was built.
He finishes the last temple, bigger than all the rest, lays a curse on the girl, and her spirit is said to be captured in it for eternity.
Moral of the story- prettiness is often longed for, but not the best quality in a person.

I just wish I could get through 3 consecutive sentences without reaching for my dictionary! Ahh!

I put my pics & videos together over lunch at Parsley this afternoon, then went down to my favorite head-neck-shoulder massage place. Best $2.50 I’ve spent! Ha ha.
And fun, talking about the work we did this weekend on Ena’s house.

Ena was great, and says she & her family can’t thank us enough.
I had to explain this 3 times today, but it’s worth repeating. I figure, in all my days there will be many disasters,, and many people in need of a little time, a little effort,,, a helping hand. The vast majority of those times, I will be in school, or at work, far away, or caught up in some circumstance to prevent me from doing what I would like to do… so with all those times in mind- I enjoy taking this moment to put that helping hand to work. The opportunity to be here may not come again, and for me, there is something to the expression: the road to happiness lies in service.

At 7 tonight I met up with the Allplus language school for an English discussion group. There was a small group of about 10 teachers & professionals, just looking to smooth out their English, and were excited to have a native speaker visiting.

They were great. We sat outside on wicker chairs and talked about things you’re never supposed to bring up on a first date: politics and religion. Ha ha (= well we started by talking about superstition, which is a vibrant enough subject here in Java. It was 8:25 before our ‘hour’ was cut off. Fun group of people.

I’ll be back tomorrow & next week to help more people practice their English.

Sunday, 23July06

Highlights: getting lost on the way to Bantul, 5 hours of good work, Popeye’s and Pirates.

We had 4 volunteers again today (Marty, Stacey, Dan & me), and had all good intentions of getting an early start, so we’d be done before the sun started zapping us, and could make a run down to the beach (20km further down the road) to look around after the small tsunami from last week.

Obstacles just seemed to keep reaching up from the grass to trip us up. The Sunday markets put heavy traffic everywhere, even at 7am. All gates to campus (our meeting spot) were closed except one. Dan parked & hopped the fence before ever finding that one. After going slightly out of our way for gas, I never got back on the one path I knew to Ena’s house,, and of the 50 times I stopped & asked for directions, no two people pointed in the same direction. Turn left,, turn right,, turn around,, keep going…
It would have been more comical if I wasn’t hitting my frustration saturation point by 9:30.

this was ridiculous...
on a wrong turn, we got stuck in this for about an hour (to go 4 blocks) 

As soon as we got there, and started working- everything got better, and we poured our energy into something we felt good about: cleaning up another room.

We had a few more helpers today. (= The space we were clearing was bigger than yesterday, and there were a few walls that needed to be taken down. We got started late (10:30), and none of us ate much before-hand… but we all like finishing what we start and this could be our last time coming to Bantul, so we sweated it out into the 5th hour to get it done.

The random conversation is great too. Throw a combination of PhD Poly Sci candidates, History major masters students & an undergrad studying political decentralization,,, and there’s no subject the stream of thought didn’t touch. I’m gonna miss these guys when they’re gone! (=

starting point on Sunday,, day #2
compare this to the after picture. we got a lot accomplished today
everyone pitched in 

Ena's family helping out... we're half-way through Sunday's project here
older sister. you can see how fragile the bricks are here.
kids are experts at mixing play with work...
 

Bantul work on Ena's house, video:

adik (7) throwing bricks like the big boys
Stacey on the twin brooms
the stack of bricks we salvaged over 2 days
Sunday after shot 

insert Bantul warung video:

The after-work special please! 

mmmm! greasy American food (= 

After calling it a day, we stopped on the side of the road for a quick fix of Bakso (chicken meatball soup) mmmm tasty! and kept going to Popeye’s Chicken.

I tell ya,,, It was great walking into that restaurant,, dirty & sweaty from 5 hours of hauling rubble & dirt around under the hot sun- 4 bule,,, and there was a birthday party in progress for a girl turning 4. (= That was the best Popeye’s chicken I’ve ever had.

A bunch of guys were planning a trip to the movies tonight to watch Pirates of the Carribean II… I’m game! I ran home, took a great Indonesian bath, slapped on some clean clothes & ran back out the door.

My host family is probably wondering if they really still have a student who lives there,, because I spend maybe one waking hour in the house these days. Everything else is sleep, or getting out & about at school or in town!

Pirates was fun though. As I expected, the special effects were great- there were a bunch of funny parts,,, very entertaining… nice set up for the next sequel! Ha ha…

Saturday, 22July06

Highlights: Bantul volunteer work, Merapi run, Jogja music nation finals

This morning four of us met up at school to volunteer in Bantul (Marty, Stacey, Wendy & me). We took a cab & a scooter, and stopped on the way down to buy a wheelbarrow & 3 shovels.

Dwi Kuswara & his family were at the hospital getting check-ups for their injuries when we got there,, so we beat them home by 20 minutes or so. Plenty of time to check-out the elementary school next door! I forgot that kids go to school for ½ day on Saturdays here.

elementary school video:

The fully assembled wheelbarrow couldn’t fit in the cab, so we bought one in pieces, and assembled it ourselves. unlike Ikea,,, it came with no directions… so we found another one at the elementary school & reverse-engineered this thing together. Ha ha. We take pride in the little things here…

We had about 3 ½ hours to give before we had to get home & study,,, so we threw ourselves into one project: clearing one room.

Progress, even measured in little steps, is pretty rewarding when you can look back at the end of the day & see what you’ve accomplished. We didn’t build them a new house,,, but with 4 of us working- we got as much done in one afternoon as they probably would have gotten done over 3 weeks…

We shoveled & shuttled rubble from the back to the front, along the side of the road.
I have heard local price gouging has increased the price of bricks to 350 Rupiah each (from 110 Rp two months ago). Salvaging bricks makes a lot of sense when you think about that… I wasn’t counting, but from the stack of re-usable bricks we separated & stacked, we maybe saved them $100, which is at least half a month’s salary.

Pleret 'Sekola Dasar' (elementary school) in Bantul  

Marty, before shot...
Wendy with her game face on, psyching herself up for some shovelling...
Stacey on the wheelbarrow..
beginning of the day- starting out 

The family Al Koran, dug up from the rubble.
Marty, half-way through the day's project
Stacey, Marty & Dwi Kuswara filling the cart...
the after shot 

Saturday in Bantul video:

After work & a shower, Dan, Eric & I jumped on our scooters & cruised up north to Kaliurang,, the town on the foothills of Merapi, just to see what was up there- as far as they’d let us go.

Turned out to be a really nice ride. There’s been little Merapi activity lately, so none of the roads were blocked off. If it hadn’t been for the usual clouds cloaking the volcano in its midst, we would have looked around a bit longer.

Merapi hasn't put on a show like this in a few weeks...
And the sky around here is like LA smog,, so it's rare to actually see Merapi from Jogja, like this
These are some of the cool pics that a friend of a friend of a friend took a month or so ago
This is an emergency shelter on the foothills of Merapi though 

We saw some strange,, uh,, statues? scarecrows? on the foothills of Merapi. not sure what that's all about.
Dan & Eric by what we could see of Merapi today... behind all the cloud n fog