Health Food in Surabaya

Sunday morning Greg and I decided to try the brand new organic foods shop and restaurant that opened two weeks ago, the first of its kind in Surabaya. We were excited by the good ol’ American brands we saw – SantaCruz pop (soda if you’re from there, of course), Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, you get the idea. The menu listed buckwheat waffles, so we took a long, hot walk there in the late morning. It was 11 when we arrived, so we asked if they were still serving breakfast. The waiter assured us that they were and gave us our menus. We promptly ordered our waffles. But the waiter returned and told us they didn’t have the waffles. So I ordered French Toast and Greg ordered a spinach crepe. But they couldn’t make that. So he ordered a veggie burger. But they didn’t have that. He finally ordered a grilled vegetable sandwich. Some time later, my “French Toast” came out. The menu described it as “Napolean French Toast layered with your choice of strawberries, raw almonds, or honey.” They’d already told me they didn’t have almonds or strawberries but I’d agreed to some sort of berry jam. Mulberry I think. This is what was on the plate: three pieces of very dry, white, crustless bread (non-organic, I’m sure) layered with red jam, and a small salad with thousand island dressing. Inedible. When I complained that it wasn’t French Toast, our waiter told us that it was exactly like the menu described, and that they’d gotten all their recipes from Jakarta. Greg did in fact have a sandwich with some roast peppers, mushrooms and yellow mustard and mayonnaise on it. It was edible. We decided that we would not be returning and that although we were excited about it being an ‘American organic’ store, it was still an Indonesian restaurant.

Spring Break in Toraja and Ambon

We just got back from 9 days of traveling around Indonesia with Greg’s friend Billy from High School. He’s leaving Surabaya today, and Greg is in the final stretch of the school year – the last day is May 30^th and the big swim meet is coming up in two weeks. Time is flying!

As soon as school ended for Spring Break, Greg and I flew to Makassar in South Sulawesi. We met Billy fresh from China in the Makassar airport, and stayed with an older Baha’i lady who’s daughter (and granddaughter) lives in Surabaya. Several members of the very large Baha’I community of Makassar came to visit us. I was able to share the recent happenings in Surabaya (such as the Ruhi party), but didn’t learn much about activities in Makassar. Greg, Billy, and I explored the city a bit and discovered that there’s live music every weekend at the shore, and the city is walkable and nice. Surabaya is undoubtedly our least favorite Indonesian city to date!

From Makassar we took an 8-hour bus trip to the famous Tanah Toraja, stopping along the way to buy rambutans, dukuh, and salak, fruits that are as ordinary to us now as apples and oranges. We met a young Irish woman traveling alone, and ended up staying at the same hotel (a $6 a night place) and touring with her. We hired a tour guide and car to take us to the sights, and it was totally worth it. Tanah Toraja is a really beautiful area in the mountains that reminds me of a tropical Colorado – jagged cliffs, blue skies, rice fields…? The houses all have an inverted-boat-shaped roof which peaks on either end. They’re carved and painted with beautiful designs in the four direction colors (the same everywhere!) which symbolize things thing betel leaf for hospitality, roosters for justice (cock fighting used be the decision-making tool), and a sun motif to symbolize the Great Creator. They’re also decorated with horns from sacrificed buffalo. The Torajan people have a very interesting view of the afterlife – when a person dies, the family keeps the body around and calls the person “sick” for months or years, during which time they prepare for the funeral. Depending on the status of the person, the funeral could mean the sacrifice of hundreds or thousands of water buffalo and pigs, a huge gathering, and a procession that places the body in a cliff with a wooden effigy put outside. That’s pretty simplified, but our guide was very informative. Basically, everything seemed to be about death and burial. We visited a tree that had babies buried into the trunk, too. We also took a terrific hike through rice fields and up a hillside, and got to sample some Torajan food – red rice and chicken cooked inside bamboo with coconut and spices. We returned to Makassar on the night bus (not so enjoyable) and flew to Ambon.

Ambon is, I believe, the capital city of the Molucca islands – the real ‘spice islands’ that all those famous people were after. It has a history of being conquered, and has the Banda islands (the clove islands) to the south-east, and the Molucca’s (the nutmeg islands) to the north-west. As in, there used to be cloves and nutmeg only on those islands. It’s far enough east that the people seem really different from people in Java – they’re tall, dark, have Jewish-looking noses, bushy eyebrows, kinky hair, and are very soft-spoken. As opposed to Javanese who are small, petite, Asian-looking, and generally noisy – a little like Italian is spoken. The Ambonese also apparently think it’s rude to stare at strangers, which was a great change from Surabaya, where it’s totally acceptable for a person of any age to openly gawk and shout insults. That said, Ambon is still recovering from a recent religious conflict. There didn’t seem to be an excess of poverty, but the fishing is done using some pretty unethical methods and all waste is dumped into the bay, which is filthy. I read an account that said that when Wallace was classifying species in Ambon bay it was incredible and hundreds of things he saw were apparently indigenous and are now just gone. Billy was able to dive in the bay, and said there were still some really incredible things in the water, but that it was so dirty he didn’t want to get in – and saw a dead whale. Greg and I dove the first day, and though we did see some cool stuff, it was nothing compared to Bunaken in diversity and color. Plus, our dive guide was pretty useless. Later, Greg and I drove to the other side of the island to meet a Baha’i family. We had a great time with them, walking to a nearby hot spring and eating lots of mangosteens. At lunch time, a Baha’i man came with his son from the neighboring island of Seram, too. There was a lot that we couldn’t understand, but it was a great visit.

Naw-Ruz

Like last year, we decided to invite everyone we knew for a Naw-Ruz party. Naw-Ruz means ‘New Year’ and marks the end of the Baha’i month (19 days) of Fasting and the first day of spring (the vernal equinox). Baha’i days start at sunset, so the party was the night of the 20^th and began with breaking the last day of Fasting for our Bahá’í guests. Last year we had a pot luck, but it meant that at sunset we only had rice, fruit, and cake – entrees came later with guests who weren’t Fasting! So this year we decided that we would provide the food. At first our maid wanted to cook – she’s a fabulous cook – but we would have had to buy big pots and woks and cook all day together because we discovered we’d invited over 100 people. So we ordered up 100 boxes of traditional yellow rice, tempe sambal goring (really good sweet-fried tempe with peanuts and chiles), perkedel (mashed potato cakes), roast chicken, and green beans. We also ordered hundreds of traditional cakes, mostly green-colored pandan-flavored. And I bought 9 kilos of rambutans, plus piles of dukuh, green apples, and green oranges. Only about 65 people came, so we had plenty of food, and the party was great. We played ‘human bingo’ again this year, and this time people really got into it. Unfortunately, only about 4 teachers from the school came and none of the students came, so the crowd was not quite as diverse as the year before. It was great, though. And incredible to be able to buy that much food for not nearly as much money as you’d think! We printed pictures of spring to try to give our Indonesian friends a sense of what the first day of spring meant – we put them up on the wall, showing snow-covered fields, then mud, crocuses blooming under the snow, cherry blossoms, and finally fields of flowers and green. It’s hard to appreciate warmth, green, and flowers, when every day is hot and lush.

Ruhi Party

Bahá’ís and those interested in becoming familiar with Baha’i teachings all over the world are studying a series of books called Ruhi books. Independent investigation of the truth, i.e., reading and thinking for oneself, is a key teaching in the Baha’i Faith, but the Ruhi books allow an introduction to some basic themes because there is a huge amount of literature and it’s often hard for people to know where to start. The first book deals with topics like truthfulness and spiritual qualities, why people pray, and what happens to the soul after death. The method of studying the books is just as important as the content, and it is designed to be an instigator of unity and community building. Thus a group studying together has a facilitator but not a leader, and the people make a point of having fun together as well as working together to do community service. The material in the book is often introduced using music, drama, and games, and it’s generally an overall very enjoyable experience.

In Indonesia, however, people are not used to meeting regularly for anything, so most Ruhi books are studied with just one tutor and one participant, which makes it hard to create a feeling of community. Many people study Ruhi as they would for a class in school, simply reading through the books together and not taking time to do related activities. Obviously, that makes the books, well, not fun. Greg and I and two close friends decided we wanted to help the community to have fun, so we planned a Ruhi party.

About 15 people came – some who had already studied all the Ruhi books, some who had never heard of them - and we started with some ice-breakers and dinner. Then we divided everyone into groups of 3 or 4 and explained that each person would have to take turns tutoring, or explaining the activity to their group. Then we gave out directions for the tutor to use so that they could present activities from the first book including a drama, visual arts, a puzzle, rhythm, and a simple science experiment. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun, though many were hesitant at first, and felt uncomfortable to be the one introducing the new idea. Hopefully some of the participants will use the same activities on their own, and start to have a little more fun!