A World Citizen's Report

The New House

2008-11-20T09:42:00.003+07:00

Whew! A lot has happened in the past few months. I suppose I should start by saying that Greg and I bought a house in North Denver. It's in an area called Sunnyside, near the newly popular areas of Highlands and Berkeley. When I was a kid, the area was just 'Lakeside', and we were warned to stay away. As a result, exiting onto Federal from I-70 still feels like I'm breaking some sort of rule. Federal as a street is known for its crazy Cinco de Mayo chaos and Lakeside was once supposedly disputed gang territory. I'm definitely wondering if there was ever any truth to these stories, though - there are beautiful parks, adorable houses, and at least three coffee shops within walking distance of our house (only one is a Starbucks). The neighbors are friendly, the kids play in the street (one family on our block has quintuplets), and the trees are big. We're just 10 minutes north of LoDo (Lower Downtown) Denver, and easy to get to from all sides. Sunnyside used to be an Italian neighborhood and our back yard was full of grapes about a month ago. We also have an apricot tree and a cherry tree. They both need some care, but hopefully will produce fruit next year. The yard is generally fantastic and has a huge covered patio with doors to both the kitchen and the master bedroom. It's a two bed, two bath house, but it also sort of has two living rooms since the basement is finished and just has one room. Not a lot of storage, but its working out for us. The floors are beautiful wide oak planks. The majority of the walls are, unfortunately plaster, but we're working on painting. The kitches was a very tomato-soupy red and is now much brighter in cream with a dark purple accent wall. Next to paint is the bedroom. Then curtains. We've already had some major plumbing issues fixed, put a new roof over the front stoop, had the sewage lines cleaned of roots, and replaced every window in the house. And to think - this house was 'move-in ready'! I can't imagine what it would be like to move into a fixer-uper! I know these pictures aren't the best - and they're a little dated. I will try to get more up soon so you can all get a better sense of what its really like.

New Year

2008-01-26T09:38:00.003+07:00

I suppose you will all just have to get used to my infrequent posts... what can I say? Life in America is busy! As always, today I'll be writing about some past events - Winter Break and the New Year, which Greg and I spent with his family.

We started by flying to California to spend a day having a meal with some of the family - Greg's aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandma, in addition to his parents and sister. We met up with a few of Greg's high school pals, and as usual, spent sufficient time in the kitchen. This trip, coming from Colorado, we found the Bay Area to be rather warm (last time, coming from Indonesia, we were freezing!). We ate at an Indonesian restaurant with some friends of the family along with a group of what definitely seemed to be Indonesian tourists in America. Then, almost immediately, we took off to visit the Hatayama extended family in Hawaii. We spent some wonderful days at the beach, body surfing, looking at turtles, and eating sashimi almost constantly! Greg had arranged to meet up with another teacher at the school he works at, the Denver School of Science and Technology, where he regularly puts in 10-12 hour days - who are these people that think teachers go home at 3pm with the students? In any case, the Spanish teacher, whose last name is Wong, came over with her husband, daughter, parents, niece, and a sibling and in-law and we had a great time with them eating sashimi. (crazy sis-in-law with weird native plant)

In keeping with being touristy for a few days, we took a trip up Mauna Kea volcano. The peak, at over 13,000 feet was covered in snow and dotted with observatories that looked like something out of Star Wars. We walked to the summit at sunset and the sky cleared just enough for us to see a sky full of stars. And then our tour's van wouldn't start so we missed the star show and worried about being stranded in the freezing dark since all the other tourists had already left. Fortunately, we were able to see plenty of stars the next night from the national park parking lot - more stars than I think I've ever seen. We came down from the volcano before midnight on New Year's Eve, so we had dinner/breakfast at Al's Pancake House (open 24 hours) and then drove home while the town set off fireworks. We set off a few of our own fountains, then got up the next morning to prepare a New Year's Feast with Greg's grandma. His uncles, aunt, and cousins all came over and we ate wonderful things like a stew made out of gobo (burdock) root that we pulled from the garden, tons of sushi and pickles, tempura shrimp, mochi soup, sashimi, a dish made with homemade sesame butter and cabbage, and apple pie and pineapple cake for dessert, in case anyone wasn't full. We didn't pound mochi, but we did see it being pounded a few days before New Year on our drive to Mountain View. We ate, lit incense and prayed at Grandma Peggy's shrine in the spare bedroom, looked at old pictures, and tried to stay warm near the fire - the rainy side of the Big Island is much colder than you'd expect. We visited Grandpa Jack several times in the nursing home where he's been since his last stroke. We played cards with him, showed him some pictures of Indonesia, and got to hear a few good stories about Greg's dad's childhood. We were able to spend a lot more time with each of the relatives than we had the last visit (except Greg's aunt who was sick), and Greg's uncles and oldest cousin had a last dinner with us (with lots of sashimi) and even got up early to have breakfast with us before our flight out (I had macadamia waffles with coconut syrup).

Greg and I flew out separately and ended up spending the day in Oahu where we met some Baha'is - a girl who's father is Indonesian and her boyfriend from Chile. We went to get coffee and ran into two more Baha'is, then had mochi ice cream in many flavors and had a great time talking. We also got to meet Greg's Uncle Pui (who's actually his great-uncle) who took us to a very good all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant. It was sort of an all-you-can-eat vacation, but it was nice to have a last taste of sashimi before we returned to Colorado.

out-of-culture experiences in colorado

2007-12-15T07:59:00.000+07:00

Although these two events happened some time ago, I've been wanting to write about them. Both are out-of-culture experiences and were a wonderful reminder that it is possible to 'travel' within the city we live in.

We attended a Divali celebration at the Sikh Temple near Red Rocks - quite close to the amphitheater road, actually. Dozens of women wearing beautifully embroidered saris and scarves in pinks and golds, sewn with sequins and shimmering beads sat on the right side. Men with orange head coverings sat on the other. Throughout the service, three men with beards and head wraps, all in white, chanted songs in Punjabi. Several words repeated sounded Indonesian and probably are related through Sanskrit origins. For the hour-long service, another man waved what looked like an enormous mop-like duster over what seemed to be a child's crib. In fact, it was the Holy book, passed down through a line of teachers (Gurus) until the book itself replaced those teachers and is now called The Guru. Toddlers walked between the mens' and womens' sections. When the singing was over, we moved downstairs where we sat back-to-back in long rows on the floor and received helpings of dahl, saag, yoghurt, ice-cream, sweets, and bread on styrofoam trays. Afterwards we had dark chai upstairs and The Guru was placed in its bedroom for the night. People bowed at the door to The Guru before leaving, walking out past the rows of tiny glowing candles and lanterns that the children were balancing on the outer ledges of the building.

A few weeks ago, Greg and I decided at the last minute to go to a Baha'i Holy Day celebration at a man's house. This particular celebration falls in the middle of the night and we left our home at 10pm. We entered the man's furnished basement and went around the room shaking everyone's hand, to find that we were the only non-Persians! Later, three other non-Persians entered into the crowd of 30 or so Iranian-Americans. It seemed that out of our Baha'i community of over 150, this was a cultural gathering. Why else would you be out so late on a weekday? Certainly not very diverse as Baha'i events tend to be, but way more fun than the average Holy Day. It felt much like being in Indonesia as prayers and stories were told in Farsi. Then we had a break to drink tea and eat semolina halvah and a rice and chicken pudding very closely related to Chinese jook. Then prayers and readings continued and didn't end until after 1am!

Getting busy

2007-11-10T05:00:00.000+07:00

Greg and I are starting to be busy with Baha'i activities in Denver - with the core activities all over the world, it's so nice to be able to say "hey, we did this in Surabaya" and be able to draw on our experiences there and in Tacoma so that we can help people who are just starting to serve in these areas. We've been asked to speak and show our slide show several times, and have plans to present more. We've once again opened our house for devotional gatherings, where we gather with people of different religions to read quotes and prayers on a specific topic showing the unity between all religions. Our last one had the theme of 'happiness.' Of course, we had to make and eat sushi, first - I think sushi is the ultimate 'happy' food, though I know there are those of you out there who disagree... Greg is only a few weeks away from becoming a tutor for the series of study books open to all, and I'm beginning to tutor the first book in the series along with my mom, which brings up discussion topics such as "why do we pray?" and "what happens to our soul after we die?" and "why are we here?" and, more importantly, "what are we supposed to do while we're here?" The workbook opens with the quote "The betterment of the world can be accomplished through pure and goodly deeds, through commendable and seemly conduct" from the Baha'i Writings, and the end result is deciding how we as individuals and as a group can start to 'better' the world. Plus, Greg and I are now involved in planning the first of quarterly meetings held between all the different Baha'i communities in the area - in our case, that includes Denver, Aurora, and Englewood.

We've also been attending various events taking place in the Colorado Indonesian community. I still can't get over seeing little Muslim girls with their heads covered wearing velvet dresses, thick tights, and winter coats - after Indonesia, the contrast is so shocking to me. I expect to see flimsy summer dresses and bare feet every time I see one of them! Strangely, it seems that the Muslim and Christian (predominantly of Chinese decent) Indonesian populations continue to remain separate in America. The second event I attended with Greg, was a housewarming which, unbeknownst to us, started with a full mass lead by an Indonesian priest. It reminded me of attending mass in Irish with my Catholic flatmate - she understood the mass, and I could catch a word here and there after studying Irish. In this case, Greg's Catholic High School education had to guide us. It concluded with the singing of a hymn as all 30 or so guests processed through every room in the house, out the garage door, back in the front door, as the priest sprinkled water from a branch and the couple carried a large wooden cross and a lit candle (which had to be re-lit after the trip outside). Then we had a type of soto ayam and mie goreng (fried noodles), talked, and eventually played Clue. We got to speak a little Indonesian - particularly Greg, because, guess what - he still looks like he's from Surabaya!

Apparently the group called the Black Soldiers - black men who ride horses in parades and such - has added a group for women and children. I'm working with a woman and her horse a few hours a day, and hoping to also work with some of her friends in the group. It was a bit of a rough start, since both the woman and her horse are inexperienced, but they're doing well now.

job hunting

2007-10-26T01:25:00.000+07:00

I still don't have a real job, but I did start training a woman's horse. It's nice to be doing that sort of work again, though I wish it were a little more reliable and lucrative. Once it starts snowing, by hours will be seriously cut, of course, and I would need to train a lot more horses to make it pay like a low-end job. I've applied to all sorts of 'real' jobs, but it's ridiculous. Apparently there is not a job in existence that I want to do and am qualified for. I don't want to work with people because I hate having to do the 'customer service' thing (the customer's always right), I don't want to work at a desk all day, I want decent pay and I'd like to be outdoors or at least in an environment where I can move around if I want. I definitely don't want to do anything with computers, and I hate answering phones. And no more data entry for me. But I don't want to go back to school, and I don't want to get a lifeguarding degree, a teaching degree, a phD, a masters, a librarians degree, an editors degree, or anything like that. So that leaves.... manual labor, which requires only a high school diploma and pays at least $9 an hour, no benefits generally. Would someone like to remind me why I went to college? Ugh. I can't even find anything to apply for! At least I'm doing something in the mean time.

Fortunately, all this not working lets me do some fun things like play with our kitten, who's gotten a lot bigger since we got her. Her name is Persatuan (Unity in Indonesian) or just Satu for short (which means One). I get to ride my horses at my parent's house, read lots of books, and think about all the things I should be doing but never seem to do (like write a book). Check out the picture of Greg making use of my parent's wireless network from outside the house. It's so nice to be around pine trees and fresh air! Every time we go to the mountains, we say "we're not in Indonesia anymore!" But of course we miss it, especially our friends there. Good thing we have email to stay in touch.

autumn in Colorado and podcast interview

2007-10-02T02:34:00.001+07:00

We saw snow for the first time in several years on Saturday night. Greg and I went with our parents to Glenwood Springs for the annual Baha'i conference commemorating the visit of Abdu'l-Baha to that place 95 years ago. It's a beautiful drive through Glenwood Canyon, red cliffs are on both sides, and the aspens were turning patches of the mountains gold. We didn't see all that much of the scenery, though, because we left before it was light out and came back after soaking in the hot springs (http://www.hotspringspool.com/pool/) at night. And it began to rain, and then the rain turned into snow. Sunday, we could see snow on the mountains when we looked west from our apartment! It's cooled down a lot where we live, but no snow yet. In fact, the trees near our house haven't even changed. Sunday Greg had ruhi in Lakewood and I drove back up to my parent's house and went for a long trail ride with my mom. It was a beautiful day with intense Colorado blue, cloudless skies and the golden aspens fluttering. I'd forgotten that the trees have a particular smell in the fall, a sweet, tangy smell that just smells like fall!

After I picked Greg up we sat in a park for a while, bought food for the week, and went out for dinner. We were so caught up in getting things done that we completely spaced a very important engagement we'd made. Fortunately, the folks in charge were very understanding and we still got to participate in an interview on our experiences in Indonesia. It's a half-hour interview you can lister to at this address: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=26038&cmd=tc It's a podcast so you can listen on your ipod. I think it turned out well, though there's a lot we would have liked to add, like talk about bemos, becaks, the different kinds of fruit, the mud volcano... but you know about all that from my blog! Check it out and see what you think!

Look for pictures soon... several people have requested photos of our apartment.

Back in the States

2007-08-18T04:31:00.000+07:00

It’s been a long time again, I know! Greg and I are back in the US now, which leaves me nearly three months to fill in… We arrived on July 20^th, moved in with my parents, and quickly began searching for first a car and then a place to live. In under two weeks we managed to find both a ’90 corolla all-trac (just like my High School car, but blue instead of Red), and an apartment within biking distance of Greg’s School, the Denver School of Science and Technology in the Stapleton area of Northeast Denver. We moved in two days before Greg started work, then got our shipments from both California and Indonesia (which just came two days ago). We still don’t have much furniture, but we’ll deal with that soon. So far, Greg loves his new job. The people he works with do fun things like rock climb and mountain bike and most of them are young and excited about working hard. It turns out that he gets to observe the teachers and help them implement technology in their classrooms, which is important since every kid has a laptop. In addition, he’s teaching a 9^th grade seminar and AP computer science to seniors. It’s all stuff he’s done before, but of course still provides enough challenge to keep him very busy.

Our apartment, despite being very close to what we Coloradan’s like to call ‘Saudi Aurora’ out on the plains, turns out to be in a very diverse and newly developed part of Denver. So far we’ve eaten at an Ethiopian restaurant where we were the only non-Ethiopians, had Vietnamese pho, shopped at a Japanese/Korean grocery store that had just about everything Greg needs to cook Japanese food, and have yet to try the multiple Mexican restaurants and shop at the African Muslim grocery store.

We’re about an hour drive from my parent’s house in the mountains – a little farther than I’d like, but this way we only have to have one car. For now, anyways. So I’ve gotten to ride my horse, go on some trail rides, and spend time breathing the clean, pine-scented, non-Surabaya air.

To catch you up on our time since we moved from our house in Surabaya, I’m going to add a post or two dated before this one. I know it’s confusing, but I’d like to keep in chronological. So keep reading!

For anyone wanting to get in touch, my new cell phone number is (303)257-9310. Our address is 10000 E. Alameda Ave. Apt. 833; Denver, CO 80247. The complex is called The Estates at Mira Vista (it's weird and gated, but it's what we could find and quite spacious - you have to push the button to be let in).

Pilgrimage

2007-07-20T04:34:00.000+07:00

For nine days, July 9-17, Greg and I joined my parents and brother for Baha'i Pilgrimage. The Baha'i Holy Land is in Haifa, Israel, and since the Baha'is want to stay on good terms with the government, Baha'is from all over the world have to 'sign up' and wait for their turn the the city doesn't become over-run with Baha'is. My family had been waiting for about 7 years for the opportunity to go - pilgrimage is something that every Baha'i is supposed to do at least once in their lifetime if they can make it work. For many pilgrims, going to Haifa is the first time they've been out of their native country, the first time they've been on an airplane - perhaps the first time they've left their place of birth. Pilgrims going to the Holy Land is often explained with the analogy of the blood going to the heart to gain spiritual energy to bring back to their various places of origin. Toward the end of last year my parents were notified that our family would be able to go and were given a choice of dates and with the school year, July was what we chose. Greg, having become part of the family, was immediately added and didn't have to go on the waiting list - lucky him!

Coming right from a busy trip in Mentawai, riding in dugout canoes to places with no electricity, Greg and I didn't have much time to prepare - mentally or spiritually. In every Baha'i home we visited in Mentawai, there wasn't any furniture, and the only wall decoration would be a picture or two of the Holy Land. When we arrived, it was a very 'Mary Poppins' experience, and a bit shocking to our senses. We were inside the pictures! Except that everything was more beautiful than the pictures, and the pictures don't convey the water pouring from the fountains and plunking down the sides of the stairs leading up the terraces or the light cast from the stained-glass windows of the shrine of the Bab at night. Or the gently swaying lacey-leaved trees inside the shrine of Baha'u'llah. Or the intense heat and humidity in Haifa in July!

Baha'i pilgrimage consists of visiting the most Holy places for Baha'is. The most important place is the resting place of the founder of the Baha'i Faith, Baha'u'llah, which is in a house called Baji near Akka (now called Acre). The other most Holy site is the shrine of the Bab, the forerunner of the Baha'i Faith. Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'u'llah's son is also buried in the Bab's shrine located on Mount Carmel right in the center of the city of Haifa, and such a prominent landmark that the locals proudly boast its beauty and brides consider it good luck to have their pictures taken inside the front gates. The whole section of the mountain is terraced with beautiful gardens, and a few terraces above the shrine of the Bab are several buildings collectively called the ark. There's the Universal House of Justice, the center of the covenant and currently the only international governing body in the world that makes sure the Baha'is all over the world are on the same page. It's the highest level of administration in the Baha'i world, above the National Spiritual Assemblies, which are above Local Spiritual Assemblies, each with nine elected members, elected by secret ballot without campaigning, of course. There's also the Center for the Study of the Text full of libraries and researchers, the International Teaching Center, and the Archives building. What I didn't know until I had a tour of the buildings, was how beautiful they are. I always thought they were just cool buildings, but the architecture and design is incredible. The outside of the Universal House of Justice is Carrara marble carved in Greece, the Center for the Study of the Text has a round sunk garden in the entryway with a fountain, the meeting chamber for the International Teaching Center has a prism-like layered glass window to allow light in with the ring-stone symbol etched into the glass in the middle of a nine-pointed star skylight... I guess because the building are in such a steep mountain, great effort was put into making the rooms filled with sunlight - and they certainly are. We also saw the prison where Baha'u'llah and his family were kept, as well as the numerous houses that he and his family lived in while under house arrest.

We basically spent the whole time praying at the shrines and in the houses. All the pilgrims were really taken care of - there were excellent facilities everywhere we went, we had an amazing guide, and it really wasn't like a tour group even though there were about 30 of us and we went everywhere on a bus together. There were about 250 pilgrims total when we were there, and nearly every night we got to hear talks from Hand of the Cause Dr. Varqa, members of the Universal House of Justice, and members of the International Teaching Center. It was really amazing to be in the Holy Land. Greg said that he felt like, coming straight from Indonesia where so many Baha'is will never be able to go on pilgrimage, that he was bringing the prayers of all the people with him. Maybe it helped that almost all the clothes we wore were made by Indonesian Baha'i friends of ours. It was powerful. And by the end of our nine days, we were exhausted, and Greg and I were ready to stop living out of our suitcases!

Greece

2007-07-07T06:41:00.000+07:00

The cheapest flight between Malaysia and Haifa stopped in Athens, Greece, believe it or not. So we decided to spend three days exploring the Metropolis and meeting some Greek Baha'is. We had a great time and were amazed by the history of the place. Every inch of the city held archaeological treasures. Even the underground stations were like museums with shards of pottery and so forth that was excavated when they built the places.

Malaysia

2007-07-03T06:52:00.000+07:00

Leaving Mentawai, it was great to stop for a few days in Malaysia to acclimate ourselves to 'civilization' before continuing our travels. The best part was that we got to spend time with our friends' new baby, Svara. Boy is she cute! Of course, the first thing we did was to go to the nearby club and take hot showers. And eat lots of non-coconut food. We also ended up having to do stupid things like mail four big boxes to ourselves because of the new weight limits on airplane baggage. But we had fun eating vegetarian food and playing games and generally relaxing and getting our stuff in order before we moved on.

Mentawai Round II (part 3: the jungle)

2007-06-26T09:46:00.000+07:00

Greg and I wanted to do one last thing before we left Mentawai. We wanted to go to the jungle. We'd seen and hiked through a lot of what appeared to be jungle, but it was actually all carefully cultivated banana trees, durian trees, patchoili, peanuts, sweet potatoes, taro, giant sago palms and so forth. Greg really wanted to see a 'canoe' tree, from which the dugout canoes are made, and I wanted to see plants and animals. We found out that our ferry would leave in two days time, so we scheduled a hike for the next day. We left in the morning, discovering that our 'guide' was actually our good friend and 'guide' that accompanied us throughout our whole trip.

We left in the morning and hiked through ladang and then through swampy ground where we had to balance on an infinite number of tiny bridges and fallen trees. We stopped to chew on sugar cane, then finally walked through an area where the forest was being cleared for planting and into our little corner of natural forest. We could hear a chainsaw the whole time, but our little bit of forest was beautiful. The canoe tree was as big as a redwood, and there were amazing plants and vines everywhere. We had a tarzan moment, then ate what I think was hearts of palm, which, contrary to common belief, only involves cutting a shoot off of a very prickly tree and carving into it with a machete. Eventually we headed back.

When we returned, later than we'd anticipated, we found that our boat had been canceled but that a cargo boat carrying a load of kopra, had room and was leaving in an hour. We made it on the boat and made our way back to 'civilization.' We immediately ended up on a car trip to Bukkit Tinggi for the day, then left the next day for Malaysia.

Mentawai Round II (part 2: Children)

2007-06-24T06:20:00.001+07:00

The next part of our trip was a little more business. Twelve elementary children had been told that they would not pass the school year in the village of Mongan Poula on the grounds that they had not attended their religion classes. The Baha'i children, we were told, usually joined the Catholic classes at the school, but this year had been told that they had to be the same religion as the teacher and therefore could not attend that class or the Muslim or Christian classes being offered (Catholicism and Christianity are separate religions in Indonesia). The village head saw this as being a village problem, since the village children were not passing and called a meeting. We attended to see if we could help out, and Soesi was able to convey that since the Baha'i Faith includes all religions, that it should not be a problem for Baha'i children to be a part of any other religious class. The school head, various teachers, parents, and representatives from all the religious communities came to the meeting, where it was eventually decided that the children could take a Baha'i test for a passing grade. What's really bizarre about the whole event is that it turns out that the school only has any of the religious classes on paper - none of the teachers ever shows up, and none of the students have every attended any of the classes. The whole event was pretty strange, but it seems like the real issue is the status of the Baha'i Faith. Many people in Mentawai were Baha'is and were forced to change their religion when the corrupt and uninformed police force learned that the Baha'i administration was banned up until 7 years ago. Thus, many people are waiting until they feel like it's safe to re-enter the Baha'i Faith (the school head included). Mentawai has the highest percentage of Baha'is of any island in Indonesia, and the Baha'i Faith is not one of the five options for classes taught at government schools. Several Mentawaiians that we talked to were of the opinion that if the Baha'i Faith could be taught in the public schools, they would know it was safe. The school head told us that what was needed in the village was a chance for people of different religious groups to get together and talk.

We also met with the Baha'i children and parents. Soesi gave each child a little prayer book on behalf of the National Spiritual Assembly, which they totally loved. The children immediately began reading and memorizing prayers without being told - I was surprised. Given the way the children generally acted, I figured the prayer books would be in the mud within minutes. Greg also did a unity activity with both the parents and children.

Later on, representatives from the three communities we visited came to one location to consult upon another educational issue - they bought land to build a home where Jr. High students could come to live, making it possible for them to attend school above the Elementary level. Currently students have to walk or take a boat for 2 or 3 hours to get from their villages to the Jr. High school.

It's amazing to me that the people are facing these issues head-on even though they were persecuted as a religious group in the past. It was nice to be able to visit and be encouraging of their activities, particularly since they've been left to feel so alone and devoid of communication with the rest of the Baha'i world. There are so many Baha'is there - we met them everywhere we went. This picture was taken when, as we were walking along a path, we heard someone call "Allah'u'abha!" which is the Baha'i greeting. It means "God is most Glorious." We couldn't figure out who was calling to us, until we looked up and found a man high above us in a coconut tree.

Mentawai Round II (part 1: North)

2007-06-20T01:02:00.000+07:00

Our third wedding anniversary found us squished onto a ferry out of Padang. Greg had been really sick the day before, but promised his stomach would hold out. He spent the night on the bench at the back of the ship, alternately getting rained on and inhaling the engine fumes. I found a more protected spot sitting wedged between people sleeping in the indoor hallway between the bunks. There had been a problem obtaining tickets so we didn't get a bunk, but we were going to Mentawai anyways!

When we finally got to Pokai, a long conversation ensued about what our plans would be. We had planned to go to a very remote village on the West side of the island. We were told that it was too dangerous to go by sea, and that we needed to go up the river for two days, then hike through the jungle. However, it was raining hard and apparently the river was flooded. We would have to wait until it was less flooded, but still had enough water to go up; then we would have to wait for it to dry out so we could hike up the mountain. We only had two weeks, so it wasn't looking good. Then we found out that there had been a problem in the Elementary school in a village I'd been to before but we hadn't planned to revisit. So we decided to visit the same places I'd been and not try to get out to the West coast.

We started by going to the Northern village of Labuan Bajau, stopping on the way to visit some families in their ladang (farms). Previously, we had found many people away from home because they were at their ladang. What we didn't understand was that people's ladang are often really far away from their homes. Since they grow the food they eat near these alternate homes on their land, many people may spend only a few days in a month in their 'actual' village home. Obviously, this is not the way things have traditionally been done. The government relocation act some time ago forced family groups to move out of the mountainous interior to the coast to live in larger villages. This made it easier to introduce institutions like a police force and schools. But it meant that the people could no longer have enough land to grow food and changed their living situation, since they were now in single-family homes. It also meant that people had to learn to live near the shores and begin fishing. Because of this situation, many people are registered as living in a town and send their children to school in the town, but the parents may only spend one week in a month actually living in the town. Parents who can afford to send their children to school may leave them in the village alone the rest of the time, leaving neighbors or older children to take care of the younger ones. In any case, we thought we'd visit a few Baha'is that we'd missed on our previous visit by going out to their ladang. We got out of our out-rigger dugout canoe at a tiny inlet behind some mangroves. The family there was spending every moment making kopra by scraping out the inside of ripe coconuts, roasting them, then bagging them to be sent down the coast where it was made into either coconut oil or soap. It was a smell that Greg and I became very familiar with throughout our trip. After drinking delicious coconut water and eating smoked fish, we set out to invite the 'neighbors' to come down for the evening when we planned to share a letter from the Universal House of Justice. Several hours of hiking through the jungle found us lost. A man materialized who turned out to be a Baha'i and helped us find our way. We arrived exhausted at a little platform house where we were again served green coconut water and the best papaya I've ever had. The man residing in the house was thought to live in a village in an entirely different area, but only spent small amounts of time there. We could see right away that this was a problem for creating a sense of community, something very important in the Baha'i Faith, and also a problem for communication, since getting to his remote house was not an easy task. And of course, there are many others in the same situation.

The next day we boated further down the coast to Labuan Bajau where Greg and I swam in the incredibly clear water off the powdery white-sand beach. We saw dolphins doing flips when we arrived. We attended a school awards ceremony that lasted nearly a whole day, and we studied the letter from the Universal House of Justice. Even though the Local Spiritual Assembly of Baha'is in the area was registered with the National Spiritual Assembly of Indonesia, they had somehow failed to receive the very important letter and were very happy that we'd brought it to them. They clearly had great faith in this world institution, and it was wonderful to see how everyone took the message to heart.

Mentawai

2007-05-15T14:22:00.000+07:00

Where do I begin? I have just returned to Surabaya after an 11 day absence. In that time, I drank rain water, drew water from a well to bathe, ate food cooked over a wood fire, said prayers by kerosene lamp, spent long hours in dug-out canoes, witnessed a traditional healing ceremony, and met lots of wonderful people. I suppose I should attempt a chronological account…

Tuesday night I scrambled to finish the SIS newsletter, which goes to print at 4pm every Wednesday. I also wrote my articles for the following week and set a template, and packed my backpack with lots of clothes, mosquito repellent, a collapsible mosquito net, instant oatmeal, granola bars, fried tempe, canned fish, dried fruit, and mosquito repelling incense coils. Wednesday morning I left for the airport, got my boarding pass, and got on the plane. I noticed that the dates on my ticket didn’t match the dates on the boarding pass, but decided it must be a computer error, since I certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to board the plane a day early. I had a layover in the Jakarta airport, during which time I smsed (text messaged) the woman I would be meeting in Padang, Soesi. It turned out she was in the same waiting room, and was confused because she thought I was arriving the next day. That meant that instead of following the plan that she would pick me up from the airport and we would go to the boat that night, I actually would have an entire day free in Padang. That was strange, since we’d worked the schedule out beforehand. I smsed Greg, asking what the date was and he confirmed that it was April 12^th, which was the day my ticket was issued for. Finally, I asked Soesi. She said it was the 11^th, which in fact, it was. How weird is that? That day and the next consisted of sitting around in Padang totally bored. Thankfully, I had books to read.

The night of the twelfth, we decided to take a speed boat to the ferry at about 7:30pm rather than board the boat at 4 and sit on it anchored while the tide went out. It was a good decision because when we did board the boat we still had half an hour before it left, during which time Soesi definitely started to look a little pale and I worried about getting seasick myself. Once the boat started moving I was fine, though. Our friend and guide, a Baha’I man from a village in Mentawai, Pak Salim, was able to secure a bunk for us even though they were all full (one of the two ferries was out of service so there were more passengers than usual). We slept the whole way, and woke up in Pokai, a village slightly north on the eastern side of the main Mentawai island, Siberut. Pak Salim immediately shuttled us one at a time on his motorbike (a rare commodity in Mentawai) to his house. I was first, and met his very cheerful children, elementary school-aged Sari, and one-year-old Anu, and his wife Zaynab. Despite being named after the historical Baha’I heroine, she was Muslim. Zaynab’s mother also lived in the house. All visible parts of her body except her face were tattooed with dark blue lines. Zaynab didn’t mind that I didn’t understand most of what she said, and served me tea and warm kolak, bananas and sweet potatoes stewed in sweetened coconut milk. I also drank my first glass of rainwater. Later in the afternoon I watched her collect rainwater dripping from the roof of the house. The rain prevented Soesi and I from visiting many people, but we did go to a nice blue-painted house of an older couple who harvest coklat, the seeds from the fruit of the cocoa tree which they sell to merchants who later sell to companies who turn the stuff into chocolate as we know it. Later, we were again shuttled by Pak Salim to the nearby town of Polopo where we sat in the local shop drinking more sweet tea. We needed to get to M----- but the boatmen insisted on charging us the tourist price to get up the river - $40 US instead of about $10, or 100,000 Rp. So we hired another ojek, a man with a motorcycle, and got him and Pak Salim to drive us half of the 8 Km. Then the road turned into a muddy trail so we walked the rest of the way. We reached our destination at sunset. Soesi was first to bathe, and when she was through, told me that she had kindly drawn water for my bath. I put on my sandals and walked out to the ‘bathroom’ which had a short ply-wood wall around it and a nice banana tree with over-hanging leaves as a ceiling. In the middle was a square well, swarming with mosquitos and next to that was the large rubber bucket with a scooper for bathing. The only difficult thing was finding a place to hang my dry clothes. We spent the evening walking through the village by flashlight and visiting houses lit by kerosene lantern. We returned to our house (the stars were amazing!) to find that it was one of the few houses with power. We watched awful soap operas in which people murdered and stole things, then lay awake listening to the generator under our mosquito net until we fell asleep. The nights were surprisingly cold!

The following day was incredibly hot, and we spent it sitting and talking. We sat on many wooden floors, on porches, on benches, always drinking hot sweet tea. We met several Baha’is, the village head, and many people curious about who we were and why we were there. There used to be many, many Baha’is in Mentawai (there still are a lot) but some time ago, when the government outlawed Baha’I administration along with the Rotary Club, Chinese language schools, and every other organized activity, the police in Mentawai decided to use the law to their advantage. They decided it was illegal for anyone to be a Baha’I (which was never true, but was a common misconception at the time), and did things like close the numerous Baha’I schools on the island, arrest Baha’is, interrogate them, forcing many to choose one of the five recognized religions (Islam, Christianity, Catholocism, Hinduism, or Buddhism), and causing many others to go into hiding. As a result of this, there are many people who used to be Baha’is, or who consider themselves to be two religions. For example, they say Baha’I prayers at home, but go to the mosque or church every week. Since Baha’is believe all religions come from the same God and are all equal and valid, it seems pretty ok, except that the Baha’I Faith is a separate religion requiring utmost truthfulness on the part of the believer, so it’s not quite in keeping with the teachings to pretend to be another religion.

In the afternoon Soesi called together as many Baha’is as could come to read and deepen on the most recent letter from the Universal House of Justice which makes special mention of strengthening the Local Spiritual Assemblies, the elected local branches of administration. The administration has been legal for seven years in Indonesia now, so it’s still a fairly new concept. The idea that no person is superior to any other person in the Baha’i Faith (which has no clergy) is very difficult in places ruled by village chiefs and family heads, but each of the nine elected members of an Assembly have no special station whatsoever – it is only when they are consulting together that they have any ability to plan for the future of the community or offer guidance. We discovered that the biggest problem facing the community was that of disunity. Some Baha’is don’t like other Baha’is, some Baha’is look down on people who were forced to change their religion, or look down on people of other religions – and the Baha’I Faith is a religion that says “It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness.” I was surprised to hear about disunity in the community, because the village is so small and it seems like everyone is friends and everyone was so happy and loving. Soesi and I formed an idea to help the community and were invited to an event at the school the following day. But before we could rest, we attended a healing ceremony done by five Secray, three men and two women. We stayed until midnight, but after we left apparently many people went into trances. The Secray wore mostly red and blue – red skirts or loin cloths, with headdresses made of leaves and feathers and beaded jewelry, and they pounded leaves, poured water, and chanted while ringing bells for an incredible amount of time. Later they danced with a plate of food while others played drums. It’s a good thing we didn’t stay up all night at it, because we would have been exhausted the next morning.

We had three different breakfasts that morning, at different houses, then went to the preschool (TK) which is run by a Baha’i foundation in Medan. Every child in the village is required to attend, and the parents love what their children are learning. The get a head start coming into Kindergarten, since they already can count and know the alphabet, and they are better behaved because they learn about sharing, helping, treating others nicely, and about accepting people from all backgrounds and beliefs. The teachers come from several different religious backgrounds, and are all well-trained and brought especially to teach in the school from other places. The parents were holding a meeting with the TK teachers and Elementary heads of schools to find out if they could improve the quality of education for the Elementary students. Now that the preschool is so good, they feel the Elementary school is lacking. The kids have to be sent away for Middle School. There was a very long discussion about whether paying 1,000Rp (10 cents) a month for each child was too high a fee. Then it was our turn. Several teachers had told us that they have trouble teaching the children to be respectful, have good manners, and be friendly, because the parents don’t support what they learn at home. The parents all say they like what the kids learn, but feel that it’s not their job to require anything of the children because they themselves are not educated at all. Our goal was to help the parents attending the meeting (over 45 mothers and fathers) understand their role in their childrens’ education even though they may be illiterate. We started by discussing a quote “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.” We talked about ‘gems’ and passed out a virtue written on a slip of paper to every person (love, generosity, creativity, etc.) Then they formed groups of 5 according to their paper to make a ‘visual representation’ of a quote that talks about how a child without knowledge (intellectual, moral, and spiritual) is like a tree without fruits. Within 2 minutes, every group was ready and eager to perform, and the various plays, pantomimes and so forth were hilarious. I was amazed! The first time we asked adults in Java to create a drama, they were incredulous and were able to come up with presentations only a full 15 minutes of hesitation and questions. The people in Mentawai lack all of the ‘saving face’ culture present in Java, and don’t hesitate to disagree or tell you ‘no’ when the answer is no. The woman spoke as much as the men, and were listened to. All over the island I saw men taking care of toddlers and women working in fields. In any case, the parents loved the little ‘class’ on parenting and wanted more! The few Baha’is in the group were thrilled that people outside their religion liked the Baha’I concepts presented so much, and they actually met new people (how is that possible in such a small village?) because of the random assignment of groups. It turns out that the village chief (a self-proclaimed former Baha’i) had asked that all the mosques and churches in the village urge their followers to attend this very important meeting on education because the children are the future of the village.

We left from the school, picked up our bags, walked to the river, and climbed into a very unsteady dug-out canoe with a motor on the back called a pompom. We sped down the wide, curvy river as the sun turned the clouds gold, reflecting off the smooth water surface. Our navigator was a teenage guy who took the curves like an American High Schooler would cruise the curves in his new car. We passed a few dug-out canoes without motors, the people paddling along.

We stayed in a house/shop at the transfer place for small boats, and the next day took an only slightly larger pompom out the mouth of the river into the ocean. We were drenched within minutes, and glad we’d wrapped our gear in plastic garbage bags. I talked to a young man sitting behind me the whole way. It turned out he was going to become the new Arabic teacher (and acting Imam) in the one tiny mosque in the town we were visiting. He was from an Islamic school in Jakarta and was volunteering for one year, starting the day of our arrival. That night we heard his first call to prayer over the town. There were only two Baha’I women in that town. We stayed with one of them, a teacher at a TK the same as at the last place. Unfortunately, the room in her boarding house reeked of the drying green cloves that filled the house. Cloves (cengkeh) are the main source of income for most of the people there. When it was sunny, every path in town was covered with cloves and clove stems in various stages of dryness. It was cool, but that smell made me totally nauseas. We hiked to the top of the mountain and could see the sea and the bay where we’d come in. The path we walked on continued up the hill to the next village, a two day walk away, and down the hill to a patch of forest overlooking the bay. Our guide told us that was the only place near the village you could get cell phone service. We didn’t go there. Instead we sat on the porch of a house for several hours, watching groups of teenagers or older women going to pick rambutan in the forest, and men trekking into the village from the next town barefoot and smiling. After some time, a young couple with a toddler and a baby came to the porch – the house was evidently theirs but they didn’t mind us. We left anyways, but I took special notice of the man cuddling the sleeping toddler while the mother put down her work basket – a type of long basket worn like a backpack. We left the next morning the same way we came. This time the tide was high so we didn’t have to wade through the sticky mud (Soesi’s flipflop broke on the way in). It was very sunny and the sea was calm. A nice old lady held her umbrella up as a sunshade over both of us, and we saw so many dolphins that I thought they’d never end – they were going the opposite direction as us farther out to sea and they kept surfacing in a line for about 5 whole minutes.

Back at the shop, we picked up the extra clothes and food we’d left and went on to Labuanbajao, the northernmost fishing village, by private pompom in the ocean. We stayed with a wonderful young couple with a toddler and a one-month-old baby. It turns out that over 30% of the people in the village are Baha’is. I walked out to the beautiful beach the afternoon of our first and only full day in Labuanbajao. It’s a long crescent of powdery sand reaching into the turquoise ocean, free of rocks or coral, with palm trees and jambu air trees next to the beach. Definitely at least one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen in Indonesia. So I walked along the beach, and saw a group of about 8 fishermen untangling net in a painted boat. One turned out to be my host who called me over and introduced me to his extended family – all of whom replied with “Allah’u’abha,” the Baha’I greating that means “God is most glorious.” The father of the man we stayed with is a Baha’I secray. The Muslims and Christians in the area forbid their members from practicing the old traditions and he was afraid the same was true for Baha’is. Fortunately, the Baha’I Faith encourages people to keep their own cultures alive as a necessary component of the diversity of the human race. His wife invited us to a huge breakfast before we left, including chicken, vegetables in coconut milk and spices, rice, and sago steamed into a chewy, purple bread. The sago was not passed to me, on the assumption (rather, well-known fact) that sago shows primitiveness and anyone modern prefers rice. The people in Mentawai pay more for rice than we do in America even though they have very little money in an effort to be modern. Throughout Indonesia, and particularly in the nearby city of Padang, the Mentawaians are looked down on and viewed as primitive, so they respond by buying generators if they can afford them and eating rice. After finally getting hold of the sago, I said it was delicious, but they just laughed, thinking I was being polite but not honest. Really, though, I’d take sago over flavorless white rice any day. The sago tastes like eating a good whole-grain bread, something that doesn’t exist in Indonesia, and I’m sure it’s much healthier than rice. Besides which, sago grows in Mentawai and rice doesn’t! We returned to Pokai and decided to go back to Malampolo. We planned to stay a whole day, but it turned out that the ferry back to Padang had changed schedules so we only went for one night and had to return the next morning. That night we met many Baha’is that we hadn’t met on the first visit. There must be many more that we never met.

On the way back we stopped at the shop and Soesi chaired a consultation on the much-needed boarding house – many of the Baha’I children have to move to another town just to go to jr. high school, and because of lack of accommodation, the best option is to send them to the Muslim or Catholic schools which provide housing but make it known that it’s expected that all the Muslims at a Muslim school are in fact Muslim. Providing a Baha’I dorm in the village that has a middle school would allow Baha’I children to attend without pressure of conversion. The ferry was supposed to leave very soon and we were 30 minutes from the port. I left first and waited with Zaynab, worrying about missing the ferry and eating kolak with pumpkin. But Soesi arrived and we boarded the boat without a problem. We saw dolphins again on our way to Maurasiberut, the biggest ‘town’ on the Island. The presence of occasional glass windows, satelite dishes, and electricity in most houses clued us in to just how much more modern this ‘capital’ town was compared wo where we’d come from. We spent a few hours docked there, so Soesi borrowed a motorbike and navigated the holey roads and bridges to meet with a few Baha’is including a couple that knew Dr. Mohajir. Then it was back to Padang where we were immediately shuttled into an air conditioned car with leather seats and we were back in ‘civilization.’

Leaving Surabaya

2007-05-08T03:13:00.000+07:00

There was such a flurry of activity when we left Surabaya and I'm just now getting it into my blog - but I'm dating it back so that it will be in chronological order, before the Mentawai blogs.

First, we arranged for the movers to come and pack everything in our house. This is a service that the school paid for, and boy was it nice. All we did was sit and watch, and they wrapped and boxed everything. In fact, they did such a thorough job that they packed a few things that weren't ours!

After that, we took a trip that we'd been meaning to take for a very long time - to Mt. Bromo, the famous volcanic crater just outside of Surabaya. We got a group together and drove up in the middle of the night to catch sunrise at the crater. It was lots of fun, though exhausting after being up all night and then hiking up the stairs to the crater (and then riding horses around).

Then my classes finished up. My Korean Moms English class finished the book they were reading about an adopted Korean girl in America and we had some delicious food to celebrate. Then my flute students had a little concert in my then-empty living room. Our batik class met a final time in the garage to finish our T-shirts and decide on background colors. Then we said our goodbyes. To do this, we decided we had better visit all the people that we'd become friends with. We had to visit everyone so that nobody would feel left out. For days we drove around the city making sure to visit every family. We had to stay long enough to say goodbye, and often we had to say goodbye to all the neighbors, too! Several of our friends were nice enough to drive around with us to help with directions and translating. It was so sad to say goodbye, and everyone asked when we would come back... It's hard to explain that there's a chance we might never be back, though I certainly hope that some day we can.

We attended our last Nineteen-Day Feast (the Baha'i community gets together on the first of every Baha'i month) and we had to say our final goodbyes to our wonderful community. We took tons of pictures, and everyone said they would miss us. It was a good opportunity to reflect on our first Feast with the community, in which we were regarded kindly, but as strangers, and where the Feast was just plain boring - this final Feast was a loving atmosphere and a friend of ours led singing at the end.

As we finished packing we distributed our remaining household items among friends, and learned about a very interesting Indonesian tradition: when someone moves away, everyone gives them gifts - kenang-kenangan, gifts of remembrance. So we had to re-pack all over again to make sure we could bring all our gifts home! Several of our American friends had going-away dinners and parties, and we had our own little get-together as we zipped our bags a final time and made sure everything was out of our enormous house.

We first left for Malaysia to drop our things at a friend's house, then took a real vacation in Lombok before heading to Mentawai. Lombok was an excellent transition - we did nothing but lay, walk, ride, and swim at the beach for 4 days, processing our time in Surabaya and mentally preparing for our month of travels that would take us all the way to Haifa.

Health Food in Surabaya

2007-04-09T14:20:00.000+07:00

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

2007-04-05T16:18:00.002+07:00

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

2007-04-05T16:18:00.001+07:00

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

2007-04-05T16:13:00.001+07:00

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!

2007-03-07T13:56:00.000+07:00

The Fast started last Friday. Baha'is fast for one Baha'i month (19 days) of the year, from March 2 - March 20. Before that was Ayyam-i-Ha, the Days of Joy, and we celebrated with parties after we got back from Lombok. I went to my friend Vena's boarding house, and Greg went to a party at Pucang. The fast is from Sunrise to Sunset, which is always almost exactly 12 hours so close to the equator. We don't have to deal with the new daylight savings time, thank goodness, but we do have lots of heat and humidity! So we started by going to Malang where it's nice and cool (er) with my friend Pritta. We visited her aunt and uncle (our friends before we met Pritta) and had a very nice time walking around, going to a waterfall, and buying flowers to plant in front of our house in Surabaya. Then it was time to start the real week. On Monday, I accepted a job teaching English at a school in Sidoarjo. I was asked to talk about "American Culture" to motivate the students to progress in their English studies. Not knowing what to talk about, I asked the students to tell me what they already knew about Americans. For example: Americans are white; Americans are rich; Americans are beautiful. Then I talked about each point they'd brought up with an emphasis of the diversity in America. It's odd - I've never really even liked America, and spent my whole life looking at the mistakes that have been made. But talking about the diversity in America (granted, it's not always a pretty picture), really made me wish that every one of those Indonesian students could go there and see what it's like. The students were really shocked to know that there were poor people in America, and that there were lots of different skin colors in America. Every class had a big debate when we got to "Are all American's beautiful?" because it's a hard fact here that white skin is beautiful and black skin is not. I told them about all those Americans who pay for tans - it was hilarious. The kids spoke better English than I thought they would, thank goodness, but were surprisingly disrespectful and had side-conversations through the whole class. Apparently that is accepted and if I got 'stern' with them and asked if they wanted me to go on, the teacher would tell me to be patient. Whatever that's supposed to mean. So after shouting for 6 45 minute classes, it was time to go. But first we had to make a stop to see the mud, which I still hadn't managed to see. It was pretty incredible. Whole villages have been wiped out, and all you can see is this:

2007-03-07T13:48:00.000+07:00

I know it’s been a long time. Not having internet at home was one thing, but when the closest hotspot (the Supermal) didn’t have internet for three weeks, it really threw me off. But now I’m back to tell you about my more recent adventures in Indonesia. I suppose that before I do that, I should just remind you all that Greg and I are fine and unaffected by the more recent disasters in the country. If you haven’t heard of those more recent disasters, don’t bother looking them up. I’m just saving you the stress!

After a stressful year thus far, Greg took a day off work and took me on a surprise vacation for Ayyam-i-Ha. I had the choice of it not being a surprise at some point, but I like surprises, and didn’t find out where we were going until we got to the airport. Actually, even knowing the name of our destination city didn’t help me at first (“Where’s Mataram?”) but I found out eventually. We went to South Lombok near the town of Kuta (not Kuta, Bali) to a Novotel resort. It didn’t seem like my thing at first, and we had to complain about our room, but by day 2 it was an incredible and relaxing vacation. We were there for three nights, and after our complaint, were able to stay in our own thatch-roofed hut very close to the beach and to the amazing raised swimming pool. We spent the whole time walking on the beach, reading, swimming, and eating. The beach was off of a tidal bay, so when the tide was out there wasn’t any water. But when the tide was in, you could swim very far from shore and the bottom was only 6 feet under. It was beautiful. I finally was able to swim a few strokes of butterfly. We ate breakfast on top of a hill, and got to try weaving (both of us) when a woman came to sell cloth on the beach. It was really fun, but very hard on the shoulders.

2007-01-17T19:13:00.000+07:00

There was no internet in the country of Indonesia for three days. Can you imagine? Now there is a connection but it is VERY slow.

We had arrived home five days before we had told the maid, Iis, that we would – we had planned to travel more, but returned since Greg was so sick. When we arrived the house hadn’t been cleaned, the cat was hungry, the plants were droopy and she wasn’t there. Right before we’d left, she told me she was getting engaged over the holiday and requested one day off. The engagement was shocking to me, since it was proceeded by the numerous conversations we’d had about planning for the future, saving money, agreements between couples, and her previous comment that her short-term boyfriend was “nothing serious.” But her parents were putting a lot of pressure on her since she was already old (20) and her younger sister wanted to get married. In any case, we left a note asking that she talk to us if she came home, but she came home, said thank you, took her things and left. We don’t know why, and we asked her to stay – she said she’d call and never did. Apparently this is a pretty normal thing here. Now we’re back to doing things the American way – by ourselves. I sure wish the house was smaller! Or that it was carpeted and we had a vacuum! It takes 2 hours just to sweep and mop just the downstairs!

There sure are a lot of accidents around here. Here’s a part of a report from the Jakarta post about a recent train derailing:

“At the time of the accident, I was asleep under the seat of another passenger because the train was overcrowded and lots of people were standing. All of a sudden the (fourth) car, which I was in, lost power. Later the car somehow became uncoupled. People started screaming in fear," said Sri Lestari, a 16-year-old student who was in the car that plunged into the riverbed.

Police said the train was passing over a bridge spanning the Pager river near Rancamaya village in Cilongok district when the accident occurred.

Railway officials said the car had a maximum capacity of 106 passengers. However, they also said economy class trains were officially "allowed" to exceed the maximum passenger numbers during peak traveling times.

"We allow up to 50 percent more passengers than the maximum capacity on economy-class trains. That's normal during every Idul Fitri holiday season," Soemino, the director-general of state railway company PT KAI, said.

He could not say what caused the accident. "We are still investigating."

"Winter" Break

2007-01-08T18:52:00.000+07:00

After the semester ended we took off for a real vacation on the small island of Bunaken in Bunaken National Park north of Manado in North Sulawesi. The park preserves the underwater wildlife and reefs and includes five islands. That means that fishing is closely monitored and only line fishing is allowed, people can only dive with certified guides trained in protecting the park, and lots of research is being done on coral re-growth and so forth with foreigners keeping track of everything and starting to involve the locals, too. We flew the same Adam Air flight that got lost the next week. To date (January 10^th) it still hasn’t been found. In any case we arrived and found the people at the airport much calmer than Surabayans and were picked up by our hotel, driven to the boat, and boated to the island. We stayed at a place called Froggies which is known for being very ecologically friendly. At first I was very disappointed at the lack of showers or hot water (this was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, after all!) but by the second day I got over it because the staff was so helpful, the food was so good, and the diving was so amazing. The staff was so well trained that I felt like we were in another country plus laundry was included in the room rate, and there was excellent fish at every meal and cookies and things for in-between meals – nice after a dive. Greg and I had a dive guide assigned to us and with only one exception we had the boat and crew to ourselves so everything was on our time schedule. It turned out that our guide, who was really excellent at pointing things out to us, had discovered a species of seahorse only a few years before. The diversity of underwater life that we saw was incredible, ranging from nudibranchs to seaturtles, mandarinfish to napoleonfish, and phosphorescent plankton lionfish – particularly on our night dive. The whole experience was incredible. We dove 6 times, mostly in Bunaken Bay but also near Manado Tua, a small cone-shaped island with a cloud rainforest covering the top. Most of the people staying at Froggies were much more serious than us, though, some of them diving 4 times a day and staying for a month. After four days, we moved to the island of Siladen to do nothing but beach. We could walk almost all the way around the island on the very nice beach, saw rainbows on two days, and saw totally amazing things just snorkeling off the beach like trumpet fishes, a purple nudibranch, and both a male and female boxfish, not to mention the swarms of red, purple and blue damselfish, schools of angelfish, and rainbow-colored parrotfish. We originally checked into a place that was literally a cabin with a bucket on the beach, but decided to splurge for a place equally close to the water’s edge but with a shower and hot water. The only other guests at that hotel was an Italian family who didn’t speak any English. Greg learned important phrases like “prego” and “bon giorno,” and the last night during a sing-along, they sang “o solo mia” and thought our laughter was hysterical.

After three days of very pleasant beaching, we took a tiny outrigger back to Manado sitting on bags of smoked fish. We saw several dolphins surface a few times. When we got to Manado we took a bemo and then a bus to Tondano in the mountains to visit a Baha’i family. We had a wonderful visit, and the family was really friendly and welcoming. We ended up staying at their house (ousting the woman’s younger brother from his bed in the alley) and got along well, considering that they didn’t speak any English. They are a young couple about our age with a 1-year-old daughter. I went with the woman, Bahiya, to the ‘market’ and was amazed to find foreign items like peanut butter and frozen fish sticks. While we were staying, we visited some friends of theirs, a Christian minahasa family. We went to their house in a horse cart. It was a beautiful trip, since every house was covered in Christmas lights with Christmas trees in every window. The air was cool and misty, so it even felt like winter time! The family had a celery farm – celery is used as an herb in Indonesia: the leaves are used and the stalk is discarded, so it’s grown to have as thin a stalk as possible – the whole area smelled like celery. We had a good time with them and sampled several types of prepared fish. The next day we went back into Manado where we had lunch with a Baha’i visiting from Jakarta then flew to Jakarta for the youth conference.

We arrived, got on the bus toward Bogor (where the US president visited earlier in the year) and sat in gridlock traffic for four hours. Unfortunately, one of the fishes we’d sampled didn’t agree with Greg… He got sick on the bus and spent the whole trip in agony. We finally arrived in Bogor and I found a taxi to Puncak. The taxi driver made a point of telling me that he liked Americans. We checked into a strange hotel with air vents in the walls (but it had Western facilities) and Greg spent the next three days there, drinking gallons of tea and bocari sweat (the Indonesian one-flavor gatorade). Throughout the Baha’i youth conference, the 150 youth practiced presenting key messages through use of the arts – poetry, painting, drama, music, you name it. I was able to go to the conference on New Year’s Eve. Each locality had prepared a song, dance, drama, or presentation to share, and there were youth from 42 locations in Indonesia. Fortunately, there were only 20 presentations, but as it was we finished at 2 am and completely missed the ‘welcoming the new year.’ The performances were amazing with all sorts of traditional clothing and languages and some very silly skits and songs, too. The last performance, from Mentawai (a small island that once had 5,000 Baha’is living on it), did a traditional dance of calling the spirits. They beat drums and bottles, sang, released nutmeg oil, and did a dance that looked very Native American while wearing armbands made of palm leaves. Afterwards, everyone went outside for roast corn (jagung bakar).

We stayed at George and Shiela Soraya’s home (along with 20 or so youth who missed their train home) before leaving the next day for the airport to return to Surabaya. I had a long conversation with a young woman about the challenges that youth face in America vs. Indonesia.

2006-12-06T13:51:00.000+07:00

We didn't see much of Jakarta, but we met a lot of Baha'is including two counsellors from Malaysia. One is also the counsellor for Cambodia, and it was pretty incredible to hear about the huge numbers of people becoming Baha'is in a formerly non-religious country. It's such a global religion, in form and function, and it's great to see. In Jakarta we visited a home where over 30 children and jr. youth from a nearby village were singing songs about world unity and learning about how to eliminate prejudice.

Back in Surabaya, we plunged into the planning of a special 'open house' for the parents of the students in the virtues class we've been involved with. Four mothers came. We began by telling them about the Baha'i principle that all religions come from the same God (whatever the name) and thus there were many ways to pray. After prayers, we talked about the necessity for moral education - if school can make you into a doctor, what will make you into a good doctor? If school can make you into a policeman, what will make you an honest police man, free of corruption (a big issue here)? Immediately, the mothers began grinning, and saying that since they spent all their time in the market, that their children were lacking in this aspect and they were so happy to have sent their children. Their first response was to thank the teachers profusely. One of the mothers who had been sending her children (model students), had been previously concerned that there wasn't any writing and learning going on. When she learned about the activities, she asked if she could bring her neighbor's children. The activities include crafts, drama, songs, science and so forth to illustrate virtues like generosity, truthfulness, perseverance and cleanliness. In short, the response was so good that the man living in the house forgot all about his fears of having too many children coming to his home for the classes - in fact, he hadn't wanted to have the classes at all less than a year ago. It was wonderful, especially since so many Indonesian adults are so reluctant to make any changes in their lives, constantly living in a world of fear - only recently were people free to study what they wanted and belong to the organizations that they wanted. In fact, even now there is a complex social structure that involves neighborhood heads. Within the city, each block has a man who is in charge of the goings on in that area. The people must inform him of all events, pay dues, and go to him for their id cards. If he doesn't like the people coming to your house, you are endanger of being visited by a corrupt policeman or two looking for bribes at the least. This is the law as it was set up during Dutch rule and this is how it continues, keeping everyone in a constant state of fear of their neighbors. When we decided to have children's classes at this house, the resident was mostly afraid of what the neighbors would say. Now that the neighboring mothers had such a positive response, he's overcome a little of that fear, and it feels like a tremendous weight has been lifted.

In other news, we will be returning to America next July. We had thought of staying a third year -because it will be hard to leave the community we've gotten to know and because it means saving a good deal of money - but Greg was informed that he in fact did not have the option of returning. It's not a good boss, or a good job, so it's a good thing, though the feeling is quite negative. Greg certainly wasn't informed of this loss of option in a very professional manner and no event lead up to it - absolutely no words of either praise or punishment have been bestowed upon him from the higher powers this year. Which is too bad, since he had at least one student score a 5 on the AP exam last year and this year is teaching overtime without the pay so that more students can fit the AP class into their schedules.

So until we return, we have a lot of places to travel to! We won't get to them all, and it's always a tough call if we should spend time with friends on the weekends or abandom them to travel on our own. The mud keeps us from any weekend destinations for the time being, but we're going to do some diving in Bunaken National Park in North Sulawesi over the winter break. (Winter - hah!) From there, we're going to a Baha'i youth conference outside of Jakarta, then up to Sumatra since Greg hasn't been. Later we're hoping to get to Cambodia and maybe Thailand and maybe even Vietnam, then hopefully India before we go to Haifa, Israel for Baha'i pilgrimage with my parents and brother. So much to see and so little time! We'll have to scrap both the plans to return via Europe and the trans-siberian railway and also Island hopping through Papua, New Zealand, Samoa and Hawaii towards California. And there are still all those islands and cultures in Indonesia!

2006-11-15T19:17:00.001+07:00

My birthday weekend we tried to drive to the beach, but we didn’t realize the mud had overflowed the dam again. The toll road was closed and of course there weren’t any signs or people helping to divert the traffic. There were some random people waving their arms so we followed them – turned out it was just the locals coercing people to drive through their village. This gave them the opportunity to set up a road block outside the mosque with some boys with buckets asking for money. We found our way back to the road which would allow us to turn around and spent 5 hours sitting in traffic to go the total distance of 4 kilometers. The sunset was beautiful over Mt. Arjuna in the distance, and when it got dark we could see the steam rising from the mud over the wall of the dam closest to us (we couldn’t actually see the mud – fortunately for our travels). We finally were able to get to Malang where we almost checked into a very nice hotel at a golf resort. The man at check-in was not very honest though, and upped the price 20% after we settled so we decided to just go back home. On the way there was a regular police stop and when we started again the headlights in the car were dead. Fortunately the high beams still worked, but it meant that people were flashing their brights at us on the very small, windey road all the way back. Around midnight we drove through the small town of Krian. As we edged past a becek we noticed a very strange cargo – hoofs sticking out of the sides. Once we got past we saw that it was loaded high with cow parts illumined by our tail lights. We passed three beceks without saying a word to each other. Eerie.

I watched TV all day Saturday, which was an experience. There were very tragic soap operas and lots of footage on Bush’s eminent arrival in Bogor, outside of Jakarta: People with Bush masks and ropes around their necks, groups wearing T-shirts that said “Osama bin Laden”, burning flags, and so forth and so on. They don’t ever show that sort of thing in America – that’s one thing I learned living in Ireland and a reason I hardly every watch the news: Media is very biased.

2006-11-15T19:17:00.000+07:00

Flores

2006-10-29T21:06:00.000+07:00

Last week was the Idul Fitri holiday (the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting). I had the idea of going to the islands of Flores and Komodo, so when I heard that two teachers were already planning a trip we joined rather than create our own. They were going through a tour company, which I’d never done, but it seemed so much easier that we went along with it.

We left Friday after school and flew to Bali, spent the night, and flew out again in the morning on a very small prop plane. The plane flew low enough to see the islands as we passed over them, the Gilis, Lombok, Sumbawa, Rinca, and thousands in between. We landed on the West coast of Flores and immediately got on board our boat, Feliana, which had wonderful cozy cabins and great lounging areas. The food was good too, although the fruit all had an odd mothball flavor. The spent two nights on the boat – the going was very smooth and mostly motoring, though the crew did put up the sails for show on the first day. The first day we hiked on Rinca island where there were tons of Komodo dragons. We also saw lots of buffalo including one carcass that had been breakfast that morning for a few of the giant lizards. They’re like snakes and only eat about once a month. It was dark when we returned to the boat to play cards. We got up the next morning at sunrise and took another hike on Komodo island. There weren’t many dragons at all, but we did see lots of deer, wild boar, and some very cool birds. It was very hot but surprisingly fall-like with leaves crunching under our feet. Strange, since it’s currently supposed to be spring in the southern hemisphere. After our hike we cooled off in the ocean off the pink beach. The sand was an even mix of red and white grains with not a speck of trash, the water was tourquoise, and the current was cold so we saw a lot snorkeling. It was incredible. We could have stayed all week. Unfortunately, we only got to stay for a short time. We were off to a second beach on another island – there were hundreds of islands all around at all times. This beach was definitely not as nice. The snorkeling was good – I saw a huge eel with brown spots, but the current was very fast and the beach was dirty (Greg saw a hyperdermic needle. Ugh.) Back at the boat we (especially Greg) jumped off into the water until sunset, when we went back to the beach for a terrific tuna barbeque. On the way we watched thousands of fruit bats leave the mangrove island we were anchored next to. On the way back, the little motor boat lit up the phosphorescence in the water and it was totally amazing. The third day we woke up and immediately hoped in the water to snorkel towards the beach. It was amazing, and the beach was also beautiful (though not pink). I thought I’d found some sort of exotic species of nudibranch or something but they turned out to be blue-lipped clams hiding in the rocks. The fish were amazing and it would have been great to be on the other of the tour’s boats, the live-aboard diving boat, Felicia, which I’m sure cost a small fortune to stay on.

After breakfast on the boat, we were taken to shore and immediately shuttled into a car with a guide and driver for the Flores part of our week. Most of the passengers in the car fell asleep right away, and we drove until around 1 when we got out of the car to look at a rice field in the shape of a spider web – each family has a triangular section and everyone places offerings in the center. We asked the guide how long before lunch and he said “soon.” We had fried rice around 2:30, then kept driving and driving before we stopped for dinner around 8. We all had soup and ginger tea. By then we knew each other quite well and were in total hysterics laughing at just about anything. Carol (the High School math teacher that was new the same year as Greg), Clea (the new Kindergarten teacher from New York City of Pakistani decent but adopted by white Americans as a baby), Greg and I played all the car games we knew, and our country by alphabet turned into Surabaya by alphabet and eventually diseases by alphabet. Our hotel was pretty basic, and at this point I realized that someone was making a lot of money if we were eating fried rice, staying in cheap rooms, and we had a guide that had yet to speak more than a whole sentence in English to us. We called the tour company representative we’d arranged the tour with to ask for a breakdown of expenses upon our return to Bali. We had hard boiled eggs and toast, then drove the windy, bumpy roads to a traditional weaving village. The village was very traditional with grass roofs with figures on the roofs and ceremonial houses for each clan in the center. The weavings were modern and clearly bought dyes. I did buy a small one with a horse motif when I finally found a woman who could speak Indonesian. Driving back we lost two lug nuts on the back tyre and had to wait a while for the driver to figure out how to get the car up the hill. We stopped at a beach with black sand and blueish-green stones, but quickly pressed on to lunch at 4:30. Poor planning on the part of whoever designed our itinterary. The guide answered Greg’s question about the stones by explaining that the water made them blue. A likely story. We had a good lunner? of Chinese sweet-and-sour fried fish and squid and finished with ice cream since we were waiting for the driver to return with lug nuts for the car. At around 8 we thought we were stopping for directions at a church, but found out we were staying with the Franciscan nuns (most of Flores is Catholic). The rooms were clean, and had mandis but no showers and no hot water. The beds had pink sheets with rabbits printed on them. Unfortunately for the nuns, we were unable to eat the free meal since we’d just had a huge lunch. But we were in time for the dinner entertainment of dancing by the orphans. The Dutch tour group also staying there seemed to have a pretty good time.

Then came the day we’d all been waiting for – the day to see Kelimutu, the famous three-colored lakes. We were instructed to be ready to leave by 3:30 am, so the four of us grouped in the dark at 3:15. The nuns invited us to have tea, bread, and bananas, which we did until about 3:25 when we elected that Greg go find the guide and driver. He found two little nuns knocking on a door and assumed that was our guys. He spent the next 5 minutes or so banging on the door and yelling. Finally the driver emerged and without apology asked if we were all awake. We finally left close to 4 and had a very scary, fast drive around the side of the volcano in the dark as the driver tried to beat the sunrise. We were pretty surprised that there was a long hike up to the crater – though I suppose that’s obvious – so we hiked as fast as we could, only just missing the sunrise. It would have been too dark to see much, but it was a major bummer. We hung out at the lakes for a few hours. One lake was milky turquoise, the others were coca-cola colored. I guess the souls of the young go to one lake, the old to another, and the bad souls go to the third. That’s according to the sign. I met an old man selling tea and had a wonderful discussion about religion in Indonesian. I didn’t get much more insight on the lakes, but he did tell me that some scientists were able to take samples from the lakes every few months. It sounds like they change every 20-50 years due to dissolved mineral content from rainwater runoff and erosion. 50 years ago they were red, yellow, and blue. We finally left, stopping to eat the moldy bread and cheese the nunnery had packed us, then drove to a village which was preparing for a ceremonial feast later in the day. Of course we couldn’t stay, but the woman in the chief position took us into the ceremonial house and told us all sorts of things. It turned out that I was a better translator than our guide, and she said the lakes represent the spiritual progress of the people – they changed color when the villages became Christian and started wearing more ‘decent’ clothing. We bought several naturally-dyed ikat cloths from her – one a modern design which had the lakes in it, one a traditional tube sarong that has multiple uses, and a third with a traditional design that looks like flowers dyed mostly with mango bark and beetle nut. She gave us a pomelo for the road, we stopped at a beautiful beach for lunch (they were out of fish), then stopped at one more village which was preparing for a procession for St. Mary. It happened to be the same day as Idul Fitri, and the whole village was full of what looked like flower girls. We took a picture with some of the nuns, waved off the pushy cloth sellers, and went on to our last hotel, a dingy place by the north coast near the airport. The next morning we walked through the market and a fishing village, then flew back to Bali where we argued hard and long for a partial refund with a car for the next day thrown into the deal. We ended the stressful evening with a fantastic Indian dinner. With our car, we visited Tanah Lot and Uluwatu temples. The later had vicious monkeys that stole my glasses to be recovered by a sneaky man charging 20,000 for ‘sunglasses recovery.’ The sunset was beautiful and there were dolphins.

The great thing was that the whole time, people kept asking where we were from. With Greg and Clea in our group, we had lots of opportunities to explain about the diversity in America.

Sumatra

2006-09-30T19:48:00.000+07:00

And a lot did happen. I went with my American friend and her two children to her amazingly beautiful house in Sanur, Bali (with a swimming pool!) Then left from there to Jakarta where I met a Baha’i woman. We flew to Padang, Sumatra, then took a very long van ride to Bukit Tinggi, a beautiful town in the hills (Bukit means ‘hill’). Everyone we met wanted to know who I was and what I was doing there. The air was cool, the streets were clean (and complete with sidewalks and trashcans on every block!), there were flowers and horse-drawn carts everywhere. We stayed with the woman’s mother, Mrs. Astani. Mrs. Astani came to Indonesia with her husband from Iran the same time that the older Mrs. Soraya came with her husband. Both the men were doctors, and the government placed them where they were needed. I had a wonderful week visiting Baha’is in remote villages, hiking in the canyon, shopping in the market, touring the vast Japanese cave network (dug by Javanese slaves), and driving to the lakes next to the volcanoes on either side of the town. I even went to the zoo (a bit sad – and I got photographed more than the elephants) and sat in a park. The houses have pointy roofs that resemble cow horns, and the town is laid out around the ‘Big Ben’ of Sumatra – a clock tower called Jam Kedang (literally ‘big clock’). I also ate Padang food with my hands. It’s similar to Indian food, but with different ingredients. I much prefer it to Javanese food, but it’s very spicy. The people don’t speak much Indonesian unless they’ve been educated. The culture in Minangkabao, and the division between the classes is much less than in Surabaya. I later found out that a local person will never hire another Sumatran to do housework or any other ‘low’ work – they bring in the Javanese who they consider to be inferior. One of the Baha’i families I visited were Javanese farmers. Because of their ethnicity, they weren’t able to own land and had to give half their crops to the other members of the village. Despite this difficulty, they were incredibly loving and provided a whole group of us with lunch. In exchange, I taught several children, theirs included, how to sing “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and then explained (in Indonesian, which they understood even with my limited language ability) about how many people in the world don’t like other people because they have different noses or eyes or knees or skin color, but that Baha’u’llah – the founder of the Baha’i Faith – teaches that these differences should not be a problem. That our hearts are all the same and that we should all be like one family. Outside was a beautiful flower garden full of pink and yellow crysanthemums. People in Java don’t only have flower gardens if they are wealthy enough to pay someone to garden for them.

At the end of the week I spent the weekend in Padang (Padang is where the ferry leaves to the Mentawai islands which takes about 10 hours – of note to anyone who has read Dr. Muhajir). The first day I went with a girl to visit her Buddhist friend. Then we went to the family noodle factory. It was an experience. There were trays of what looked like screen doors with piles of bright yellow noodles drying in the sun. There were teenagers packing the noodles into bags outside under a covered area (no gloves, no hairnets, dirt floor), and inside were the mixing vats, nasty-looking steaming water, and piles of broken waste noodles. I turned down the offer to try some. We hurried to meet with some youth in the community and returned that evening to talk to the many visitors who had come to the house I was staying in. The next day we visited a Baha’is grave on a hill overlooking the sea and facing the Mentawai islands – really beautiful, then drove out to the beach. We visited a very old woman whose door opened onto the ocean. Her husband had made beautiful cross-stitch tapestries of scenes such as the Baha’i Holy site of Bahji. She fed us fried sweet potatoes and we proceeded to a tourist area on the beach with a legend about a man who left from that place to seek a fortune and forgot his mother, after which his ship sank and he was turned into stone on that very spot. It was a difficult drive with several children – seatbelts and carseats especially are unheard of – and I was glad to be going home the next day. Until the airline called and cheerfully told me that my flight had been cancelled. To make a long story short, I made it home in time to teach my Monday afternoon flute student, so it was just fine in the end.

Bojonegoro

2006-09-10T19:44:00.000+07:00

Last weekend was pretty amazing. There was a Baha’i conference at the Soraya home in Bojonegoro. Our young friend Hanafi left his motorbike at our house and we took the taxi for an hour to the bus station which is in an area with what I believe are salt-drying fields. We waited at the bus station for an hour before some friends arrived, then we got on the bus. After about 2 ½ hours we arrived and piled into beceks. We drove through the dark streets lit by star-shaped lanterns in the colors of the Indonesian flag. For once we weren’t the only foreign guests – a German woman pioneering in Sumatra was there, in addition to several of the Soraya relatives including the counselor, George, his wife, and their niece from Austria in addition to Dr. Jesbieh’s husband, Abbas, and several past and present members of the National Spiritual Assembly. That meant that Greg and I escaped the special treatment we received on our previous visits – I’d been waiting for this opportunity! I went to slept in a room with at least 30 other women of all ages. Everyone was so excited to see one another that the lights didn’t go off until at least midnight and the chattering continued for awhile after. All night long people continued to arrive. When I woke up, I thought I was in a sweat lodge – it was dark, I was drenched in sweat, I could feel bodies close all around me, there was loud chanting (the pre-dawn call to prayer from the neighboring mosque), and all around me in the dark, women were whispering their prayers. I couldn’t believe how early it was – there were still stars out! We made an early morning trip to the graves of the elder Mr. Soraya and a friend. It was my first time walking around the town, even though it was our third visit. It was beautiful! Nearly every street was lined with mango trees heavy with fruit. So different from Surabaya. Later, I took my first Indonesian bath (mandi). Washing my hair wasn’t quite as difficult as I’d thought it would be, though it seemed highly inefficient. Basically there’s a small room with a trough for water – you use a plastic dipper to scoop the water out, but you can’t actually touch the water in the trough. I later had the opportunity to learn that most people take full baths every time they enter a home – a family I visited later was very concerned when I emerged from the mandi with dry hair even though we were staying at their house for less than an hour.

In any case, we weren’t able to get much out of the conference since it was in Indonesian and took place sitting on a very hard floor in a very hot room. But we did have a great time talking (in English) with the other foreigners. It was really refreshing to have intellectual conversations – we don’t get much of that. It also made us realize that the problems we’ve been facing (a lack of communication about events taking place and the inability to obtain straightforward answers) are just general cultural issues that everyone has experienced. It also helped us to understand what our next step should be. All decisions within the Baha’i community and within the Baha’i administrative bodies, take place through a process called consultation which has very specific guidelines. For example, it is the obligation of each participant to provide their views frankly and courteously. This is always a difficult skill to learn – in all cultures – but it poses particular challenges in places like Indonesia where giving any indication of disagreement is unheard of, particularly since it’s such a hierarchichal society. No one will ever oppose the ‘leading’ individual, even though the Baha’i Faith never has ‘leaders’. It makes unification within a group very difficult, when an agreement must be reached, but no one is willing to offer their opinion on a solution to the problem at hand – or even willing to admit that a problem exists! We learned that this key process is actually the first priority of the Baha’i community we are in, and we are in a position to help! So that gives us an immediate goal that we hadn’t previously identified. It was excellent to share experiences with people who could relate to everything we have been experiencing as foreigners living in Surabaya and could even relate to our feelings about being expatriates with different goals than so many in our population. Now we finally know who to go to when we need help or advice. It’s a good feeling.

We left the conference full of wonderful, sweet mangos (totally unlike the fibrous ones in America), and crowded onto the bus. There were a ridiculous amount of people jammed in with us. Vendors and musicians still managed to get on and off at every stop. We bought a really good chewy coconut cake and some water. We got off and got on a succession of equally hot and crowded bemos finally arriving at the home of a family we are particularly close with in Surabaya (the parents of Ari and Hanafi). I had never been to their home, so it was neat to see. The parents both sell snacks at markets and their house was full of boxes of breads and treats. The woman served us cold sweet green drinks and longans (similar to lychees). We recovered for a few minutes, then left to go to a wedding reception – one of the Baha’i men in the community had a daughter who had just gotten married. A tent had been set up in the middle of the street with the traditional throne on a stage for the wedding couple. We sat on plastic stools and were served a very spicy soto (chicken soup with noodles), bananas, and cinnamon-scented fruit with ice in syrup (es buah). The bride came out and sat with us – next to me, actually. She had white tuber-rose blossoms sews into her hair like a net and hanging down her back. She looked beautiful and smelled wonderful. Her hair was pulled back under the flowers, but she had wisps of hair painted on her face. Her eyelids were covered in gold glitter, and the face make-up reminded me of a geisha with a pale base and very bright lipstick. She had a lace blouse over a kind of skirt. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera. We pretty much just ate and left, but in leaving we pressed money in envelopes into the hands of her parents. The mosquitos were terrible!

Next week Greg is taking the 10^th graders to Jogyakarta to see the temples, work on a Habitat for Humanity house, see the volcano damage, and so forth. It looks like I’ll be going to Bali to stay with an American family. I have a one-way ticket, so who knows what will happen…!