After that, I helped Indah & Rosa again,,, reading & recording a few paragraphs in English, so they can use it as a teaching aid. Many of the English tapes here are British or Australian,,, so needless to say- our voices & expressions are a bit different.
There was a lot of background noise on UGM campus, and all the offices are still closed for holiday, so we recorded at their Kos. “Kos” is a room for rent at someone’s home. It’s like a dorm- rented out mostly to college students.
It’s small, and most of them are shared,,, two students per 10’x10’ room- sharing a bed on the floor, TV, computer; community bathroom. No guests after 10pm, and the doors close at 10pm (even on Saturday nights),,, so the college students can’t stay out past 10 unless they get special permission. The most important feature: it’s cheap! College is too expensive for most Indonesian families,, let alone living costs on top of that… so cheap is good! It was interesting to visit a Kos.
I got my ticket to Jakarta for tomorrow. The long weekend following Independence Day pushed the price of tickets up through the roof,,, but this is Indonesia- so “expensive” is a relative term (= Usually a Yogya-Jakarta tickets runs about $20,,, today it was $55, and almost all seats were sold out. oh well!
After that I visited my old tutor’s home (Sinta), up in the foothills of Merapi. I miss my USINDO friends! So it was fun to hang out with my old tutor again & see her hometown. It takes the better part of an hour to get up there. I showed her mom & dad how to play Frisbee! Ha ha. I like them already (=
Her dad is the village chief (kepala desa); and tonight there happened to be a remembrance ceremony for a fallen friend. A Javanese tradition is for male members of a village to commemorate specific dates after someone has died: 1month, 1year, and 3years. I went with Sinta’s dad to the remembrance ceremony,,, which lasted about 45 minutes.
The man we were “remembering” died on this date 1 year ago, and he was Catholic; which explained the pictures of the pope on the wall. We all left our shoes outside the front door & sat cross legged in the front room (about 50 of us)… said a few prayers, the men chanted together at the end… and we all took food home.
There was a lot of background noise on UGM campus, and all the offices are still closed for holiday, so we recorded at their Kos. “Kos” is a room for rent at someone’s home. It’s like a dorm- rented out mostly to college students.
It’s small, and most of them are shared,,, two students per 10’x10’ room- sharing a bed on the floor, TV, computer; community bathroom. No guests after 10pm, and the doors close at 10pm (even on Saturday nights),,, so the college students can’t stay out past 10 unless they get special permission. The most important feature: it’s cheap! College is too expensive for most Indonesian families,, let alone living costs on top of that… so cheap is good! It was interesting to visit a Kos.
I got my ticket to Jakarta for tomorrow. The long weekend following Independence Day pushed the price of tickets up through the roof,,, but this is Indonesia- so “expensive” is a relative term (= Usually a Yogya-Jakarta tickets runs about $20,,, today it was $55, and almost all seats were sold out. oh well!
After that I visited my old tutor’s home (Sinta), up in the foothills of Merapi. I miss my USINDO friends! So it was fun to hang out with my old tutor again & see her hometown. It takes the better part of an hour to get up there. I showed her mom & dad how to play Frisbee! Ha ha. I like them already (=
Her dad is the village chief (kepala desa); and tonight there happened to be a remembrance ceremony for a fallen friend. A Javanese tradition is for male members of a village to commemorate specific dates after someone has died: 1month, 1year, and 3years. I went with Sinta’s dad to the remembrance ceremony,,, which lasted about 45 minutes.
The man we were “remembering” died on this date 1 year ago, and he was Catholic; which explained the pictures of the pope on the wall. We all left our shoes outside the front door & sat cross legged in the front room (about 50 of us)… said a few prayers, the men chanted together at the end… and we all took food home.
posted by jonathan adventures at 5:38 AM
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