Beaches and Bitches

On 6/24 I went with Ibu Kelik to Parangtritis beach - ground zero for my research project. After spending countless hours scanning through images of the beach on the internet and reading up on it, actually going there was a little surreal. It was like meeting a celebrity, though that makes me sound like a total weirdo...

We got to the beach after a bumpy 30 minute bus ride. Buses don't really stop in Yogyakarta; they just slow down a bit and open their doors. It's your job to jump on. It's all about timing... I've seen the frailest old ladies jump on, with huge boxes too. Getting off is equally ridiculous but even more dangerous due to the sea of oncoming traffic you're usually thrust into. Every bus comes equipped with a guy who hangs out the side door announcing the bus's arrival to everyone along the street. He also walks around and collects your fare after you get on. Bu Kelik has warned me that there is a fair share of pickpockets roaming the city buses. Haven't had a problem so far.

As you approach the little road that leads to Parangtritis beach, there's losmen after losmen and a hotel here and there. (Losmen are basically small, ultra-budget hotels.) I also saw a sign advertising a new beach resort that's under construction. I'm going to find out more about that sometime soon. More losmen, a few souvenir shops and probably more than 30 food stalls follow you to the beach's edge.

It's difficult to appreciate just how big Parangtritis beach is from photographs - it's expansive, man! The waves there are very loud and powerful, and you can feel them in your chest. Swimming is forbidden due to treacherous undercurrents. I walked all the way down to the cliffs at one end and back around to the other edge, taking pictures along the way. I'm so glad my entire camera lens is protected by the 62mm tele-adapter & lens filters I bought - there was sand and salt and fog all over the place. Keeping my glasses clear was futile after a few minutes.

There was a bunch of little kids everywhere splashing, playing, and flying kites. Kites are really popular with the kids here in Indonesia. Driving into Jakarta from the airport, I saw a bunch of slummy, dilapidated tin-shack blocks lining the highway that had colorful clothes hanging outside. From within the slums I could see kites reaching out to the sky. It was interesting to see them from afar and know that somewhere within that slum, a kid was playing. It was somewhat comforting when being confronted by poverty like that.

Besides little kids, there were several teenage couples hanging around the beach, holding hands or hugging in the surf. I guess it would be a great place to bring your sweetheart. I only saw two or maybe three foreigners during my whole time at the beach.

*** Okay dammit there is a "no smoking" sign right above my head on the wall in this internet cafe, but people here could care less - hence the burning sensation in my eyes.***

After about an hour and a half, Bu Kelik left to go run a few of her million-and-one errands. I stayed and walked westward toward Parangkusumo - a beach often described as "the western part of Parangtritis beach". I knew that somewhere near there there was a really important site central to all the folklore associated with Parangtritis beach. I found out it was within a nearby village and not directly on the beach, so I headed in.

Upon entering the settlement, I walked through a courtyard littered with sheep. One was standing in the middle of the path as I approached. It stopped chewing and looked up at me blankly, baaaaaa-ing. Have you ever been baaaaaa-ed at by a sheep before? It makes you want to laugh for some reason - the sound is so anthropomorphic. At any rate I called the sheep's bluff and kept walking as it made way to the side. I'll admit I sized it up before proceeding, though.

And there it was - encompassed by small white concrete walls - the sacred rock where Nyai Roro Kidul (Java's sea-bound spirit-queen and protector) met with Panembahan Senopati (the divinely guided founder of the last Javanese Muslim royal house (continued today by Yogyakarta's Sultan/governor & national presidential candidate Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X). The rock was showered with wilted flower petals and surrounded by spent incense sticks. It being a major locus of Javanese cultural tradition and folklore, I was really amped to stand not ten feet away from it. As I gazed at the rock, deep in thought, and elderly man from the village approached.

"As-salaamu-alaikum, Bapak," I said as he came within earshot. (Bapak is a polite term of address for older males. The literal meaning is "father" but it's used similarly to "Sir".) We started a conversation in Indonesian. It mostly consisted of me asking him a question, him answering and elaborating, me not understanding much beyond his initial answer, me repeating in my own words what I thought he said, and him either nodding yes or elaborating further. His lack of a full set of teeth didn't help things.

We had a great conversation despite my inability to understand most of what was being said. He told me he'd seen tourists from all over the world who had come to see the sacred rock, and that they were knowledgeable about the folklore. When I asked him whether there were many people in the village there who would be interested in talking with me about the folklore there, he said there were. A guy standing nearby agreed. Sweet. I think I'm going to focus on that village for my interviews. That approach will be less problematic than approaching random people on the beach, because they could come from anywhere in Indonesia.

He walked with me up to the beach and after about 20 minutes we went to a foodstall and got lunch before I left. It's amazing how much you can communicate with someone without understanding their words.



---



Later that night I went with some of the kampung guys (one 29, one 27, and another still in high school) to hear a reggae band play at a bar near Sosrowijayan street (a big tourist area). The bar - called "Lucifer" (with a backwards "e") - was dimly lit with pink walls that created a comfortable yet slightly sketchy ambiance. The tables there were made of heavy dark wood that made you feel like a you were a viking or something. The place was mostly empty except for a few people lurking at the bar and back tables.

The band had a vocalist, drummer, bassist, guitarist, and hand percussionist. Almost all their songs were covers of old songs by Bob Marley or UB40, but they did do a few in Indonesian. The lead singer was this little guy with dreads hanging down his back who actually looked a little like Bob Marley. He was pretty weird looking, and sang all the songs with a heavy Indonesian accent.

One of the guys I came with had brought along a water bottle filled with Indonesian wine. It was very sweet and very potent. [After since trying it a second time, I think it might be a little too sweet for my taste.]

Once the band got into their set a little bit, they didn't sound half bad. -But I don't know, maybe it was just the wine...

***Ok wow I think they are playing a Celine Dion compilation cd in this internet cafe. Thank god for youtube.***

So towards the end of the set, some dancing took place, involving myself. It was a fun time. After returning from the bathroom later on, there were two girls sitting our table. One of them was in my seat, smoking a cigarette and text-messaging on her cellphone. She had thin, arching eyebrows and dark brown skin. I introduced myself, made smalltalk, etc. She told me she was from Surabaya (Indonesia's second-largest city). When I asked what she was doing in town, she replied that she was working in a salon, doing masas.

"Masas? Apa itu?" I asked. ["Masas? What's that?"]

"Masas," she repeated, taking hold of my arm. I took a deep swig of my Bintang beer and glanced up at the band. She went back to text-messaging for a minute or two, completely ignoring me and making things a little awkward. I just watched the band play. While the singer mangled the lyrics to "I Shot the Sheriff", she leaned in suddenly, resting her hand on my thigh.

"Mau masas, atau nggak?" she whispered through a cupped palm. ["Want a massage, or not?"]

I didn't respond.

"Di hotel," she breathed into my ear, tightening her grip on my leg.

"Nggak," I replied, spotting a gecko run across the wall.

"Kenapa?" she asked. ["Why?"] I told her I was ok and took another drink of my Bintang.


The Indonesian term for "prostitute" is kupu-kupu malam: "butterfly of the night".


"She is, how you say - bits," my friend said as we strapped on our helmets for the ride home.

"Apa?" I asked.

"Bits," he repeated.

"Oh you mean bitch, ya?"

He nodded. "For maybe 50,000 [~US $6], you can buy," he explained as we turned the corner and sped off into the cold, empty streets. "You like Indonesian girl?"

"Ya," I replied. "Tapi nggak yang bisa dibeli," I laughed into the side of his helmet. ["Yes... but not the ones you can buy."]

"Oh," he laughed.

"Dia nggak bersih," I added. ["She is unclean."]

Making up for lost time

Sorry - I'm trying to keep this current and consistent, so my Jakarta experience will have to be heavily paraphrased:

My friend and his parents were wonderful hosts. His house was beautiful and much better than mine or yours for sure. One time his maid folded my clothes while I was out. I came back and realized what had happened. It was weird - I felt grateful but violated at the same time. If I make a mess, I intend to keep it that way, ya!I went to two nearby malls with my friend and was amazed at their sheer scale and the ridiculously expensive stores they housed (e.g. Gucci, Coach, Hugo Boss, Versace, etc.). A lot of Chinese Indonesians were there. They basically monopolize the private sector in Indonesia and are generally richer than everyone else, so it makes sense.

So after a couple days in Jakarta I went by train to Yogyakarta (pronounced "Johg-jakarta"). I was driven to the airport in my friend's father's black Mercedes Benz truck. Yeah, they're quite rich.

When I reached Jogja a couple of days ago, I experienced a series of shocks:

1) I was met at the Yogyakarta train station by the son of the lady I'm living with. As we walked into the parking lot, I was looking for the car. Too bad we were getting on a motorbike! If you've ever seen third-world motorbiking in action, you'd understand my intense trepidation at that moment. I held on for dear life as we weaved through the streets en route to the house.

2) After criss-crossing streets overloaded with vehicles, we turned into an alleyway and navigated several narrow corridors, passing random people and tightly packed living spaces. Finally we pulled up to the house, which was next to a small messy open courtyard filled with random bits of wood & trash, chickens running about through it all. I reserved comment.

3) I walked inside and met Ibu Kelik ("Mrs. Kelik"). She was nice enough, and there was some beautiful batik artwork hanging in the main room. She instructed me to follow her... ahh my eyes are burning from all the freaking smoke in this country, sorry ya... She instructed me to follow her upstairs. We walked up some concrete stairs which led to a deck with drying clothes strewn about along with miscellaneous stacks of pots and a few potted plants. There was an awning above where the steps were, so they were really open-air, right onto the outdoor "deck". Then up a few stairs to the top floor where my room was. The whole time Ibu Kelik was saying stuff to me in Indonesian & I could only catch about half of it. So she opened the door and showed me a very small, somewhat dingy-looking room with a bed laying on the floor. Hope sweet home. I looked around a bit from the deck, scanning the rooftops around me while a cacophony of distorted Muslim calls to prayer rang out loudly from the nearby mosques. It is something I can only describe as what the end of the world might sound like.

Everything seemed a little (read: extremely) rustic at first, but now I'm pretty much used to it and I can see that I'm actually in a very opportune situation here.

I live in a kampung, which is the basic community unit in Indonesia. It's basically a cluster of homes traversed by smallish streets and alleyways of varying widths. And by homes I mean dwelling places - not like big houses. Most everything is concrete, small, and very close together. It has an insular effect because no one really comes through who doesn't live there or is visiting someone who does. So everyone knows everyone and it's very quiet and homely. Little kids play outside and chickens run around. Most of the buildings are small and very colorful, with shades of pink, yellow, green and blue mostly. There's a few lots with random brush growing and remnants of previous brick houses laying around.

Ibu Kelik is the headmaster of her kampung, so people come to her if they have problems or need a small loan or something. She also handles other notary-type things involving paperwork, but I don't know exactly how all that works. So she knows everyone in the kampung and they all know her. Two days ago, early in the morning (everything starts at around 5am here - so it's barely 8pm now, but it feels like 11pm already) she took me walking around the kampung and introduced me to the people we came across. Everyone is very welcoming and nice. The old ladies we saw at their homes gave me some of the food they were cooking. Walking around was a bit of a sensory overload because the environment was so utterly foreign to me, but it's becoming familiar after a couple of days and I've got my bearings. Today I played some badminton outside the house with some of the kampung kids. It was fun, even though my Indonesian vocabulary set for playing competitive sports is about zilch. Stuff like that makes me feel more connected to the kampung - not just as a visitor but as a participant. If I was in a hotel I wouldn't get to experience anything like this.

One thing I found pretty cool about our kampung is that there is a fund set up for people who need extra money for various reasons. Those with more money will donate to this fund monthly, in amounts between 10 and 50 dollars (she showed me the donor list). It's all set up through someone at the mosque. The recipient list for this month includes about a half-dozen elderly people, a few people with family members in the hospital, a girl adept at reciting Al-Quran who will get to travel to Jakarta because of it, and a couple other folks. The donors get to see the list when donating, so they know exactly who is getting what money. Apparently such a scheme isn't found in other kampungs.

Many elements of kampung life are rather communal, which can be refreshingly different from the general individual focus of life in the US. For example, every morning the day's newspaper is taped up on a large glass screen for everyone to read at their leisure.

- Ya other than that, I've seamlessly adjusted to the Indonesian habit of taking 2 or 3 showers per day - you have to here or else you'll feel like a sticky mess.

- The street food is so cheap man. $0.60 for a meal is on the higher end. I'm eating from street stalls multiple times a day. My stomach was a little upset today, but I think that's from eating too much spicy food the last 24 hrs. [Update: stomach is fine]

- Mosquitoes love my foreign blood. There's this big vent-like thing in my room that they can fly in through. I really need to get a screen for that unless I want to continue to be a mosquito buffet every night.

- I feel very safe in the area I'm staying in, and in Yogyakarta in general. There's a calm vibe about this city - it's more chill and less sketchy than Jakarta.

- Ibu Kelik has been awesome. She seems to have made it her personal mission to facilitate my research project as much as possible. But besides that she's a great host and has a wonderful booming laugh. Her batiks are amazing, too.

- The other day Ibu Kelik's oldest son had a goat slaughtered in the little side courtyard to celebrate the naming of his newborn son. A neighbor came and read a prayer before slicing the goat's throat. Goats have a lot of blood, and it's very thick and very red. Actually two goats were killed that morning. Then they were strung up, skinned, gutted, cleaned, chopped, and cooked into an orange-ish colored stew. The child's name is Diego.

- The hunt is on for a research assistant. I met with one guy from the kampung yesterday and we had a practice interview with his father. He got a degree in English lit at a university here in Jogja. I felt like he was describing things in less detail than was actually given, and a couple times I had to help him find the word he was thinking of. He's a great guy, but I may need someone more fluent in English. After the interview we went out to do a bit of shopping and catch a bite. I learned some very interesting facts from his father which related to my research, though. I may re-interview him in the coming weeks.

- Indonesian pop music makes baby Jesus cry.

- I am now riding on the back of motorbikes with zero fear. The next frontier is driving one. Bu Kelik & co. have suggested it a few times, but I told them that if I drive a motorbike here, I will die. It seems like they're biding their time until a future date when they're going to gang up and force me to do it. I am not looking forward to that day.

Pics coming soon - slow connection, ya.

30 Hours of Travel

Hey all, I've been in Indonesia a few days now, but I didn't want to skip anything so I'll start off from the beginning.

Ah, the marvels of travel... Who knew getting from point A to point B could be so interesting? My journey halfway across the globe started at the Cincinnati airport (which is actually in N. Kentucky). After a brief lunch with my family, I walked through security and headed for the plane. It still hadn't really sunken in yet, the reality of what I was embarking on. For some perspective: my flight from Cincinnati to LA was the longest distance I had ever traveled. And I was going to Indonesia.

As the plane took off and everything below vanished into points and lines, the harmonizing voices of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reverberated through my headphones. That was when everything suddenly became real. "What in the hell am I doing?" I asked myself. Headed to a far corner of the earth with little more than a vague familiarity about my destination and a dissipating reservoir of enthusiasm, apprehension took hold of me.

"Rejoice! Rejoice! We have no choice... but to carry on," the music answered. I closed my eyes, hoping I might wake up back in Cincinnati. Meanwhile the rivers and hills passed by below. When I woke, the landscape was shifting from cropland to desert. Living on the East Coast, it's easy to forget how vast and untouched much of the Western United States is.

I struck up a conversation with the old woman sitting next to me. She was headed to Los Angeles to visit her daughter and newborn grandchild. "I've never met anyone bound for Jakarta," she mused. I told her about my trip and my college studies and she seemed quite impressed. She told me I was "the hope of the future" and that it was "a privilege" to have flown with me. Go figure. We had a great conversation though, discussing everything from natural disasters to the decline of the honeybee to Hollywood ethics. When I declined an airline snack, she called the stewardess back and got two packs of cookies for me. "See, they're good, aren't they?" she asked as I wiped crumbs from the corners of my lips. Later she asked me to send her my address in Indonesia. I think she wants to send me more cookies.

LA

LAX has a very Los Angeles feel to it, which I picked up on even without ever having been there before. It's hard to describe, but definitely tangible. I was able to watch the final game of the Boston/LA NBA finals series there. Interestingly enough, I ended up sitting at a bar with a handful of Filipino Boston fans. It was great. I saw an LA fan who was on the verge of tears.

After the China Airlines ticketing booth finally opened, I stepped into line, destined to stand there for another hour. Without my MP3 player I might have melted into the floor. You never really appreciate just how many Asians there are in the US until you visit LA's international airport. It felt like I could have been in Manila or Ho Chi Minh City. There were people in line with all kinds of enormous boxes full of whatever it was they were importing into their country. I saw one guy with a case of rum. Most of the boxes were marked in Vietnamese or Chinese, so the contents of most of them were a mystery. Bouncy Vietnamese syllables twanged through my ears from both sides. Asia was closing in on me and there was no turning back. A vietnamese woman in front of me stood wearing a white "Baby Phat" jacket. A robed Ch'an (Chinese) monk bent down to tie his laces, exposing a shiny fresh pair of Nike basketball shoes. Trendy Filipino teenagers posed impatiently while the line inched forward.

The security check was uneventful. So yeah on to Taiwan. The flight was probably 15 hours long, and I foolishly agreed to switch my seat so some kid could sit next to his friend. I very much regretted that decision - I ended up crammed in a window seat next to a Chinese man with stinky feet. Regrettably, we were flying so high that I couldn't see anything below the plane. It was bluish, though.

Selling cigarettes on China Airlines. They were duty-free & much cheaper than normal.

Taiwan has an ok airport, not bad but not amazing either. One interesting thing is that they have smoking rooms with sliding glass doors. There was also some pretty neat stuff in the electronics store there - stuff we can't get in the States. Besides that there was nothing new besides a bunch of Asian people.

Taipei, Taiwan

Don't leave your crap in the aisle, please.

I couldn't tell you what is going on in this one...

Ok I'm getting thirsty and as a result my writing is starting to suck so I'll be back later for another update. Coming next time - Jakarta in all its glory!

A Close Call

Well, contrary to my expectations, my visa arrived in the mail today, so I will proceed with my original flight plans for tomorrow afternoon. Pak Gumilar must have really gone out of his way for me - according to USPS tracking, my visa was mailed back on Saturday. The thing is that the Indonesian Consulate General is closed on weekends. What a miracle! My travel agent was relieved to hear the news.

So now I am basically in crisis mode, writing out a packing list, printing copies of stuff, and doing various other prep work. One itsy bitsy thing I forgot to do, though - buy travel insurance. God willing I'll be alright. If worst comes to worst, I am fully prepared to pay a visit to a dukun - a traditional healer who practices folk medicine. There are 2 types of dukun - dukun putih and dukun hitam (putih means "white" and hitam means "black" in Indonesian). The main difference between them is that dukun hitam deal with spirits and the like, and I guess they can be sort of like shamans.

A dukun - dunno which kind this one is though.

My basic itinerary is:


Fly from Cincinnati to LA, wait about 6hrs, then fly to Taipei and on to Jakarta.

I'll spend one night at the house of a friend in Jakarta.

The next day (6/20 in Jakarta) it's off to the train station for a 6hr ride to Yogyakarta.

And the journey is complete. We'll see how far I end up deviating from that, and how much traveling is going to suck. I can't wait though! See you in Jakarta!

One Week to Learn Photography

On a happier note, I'm pretty excited about being able to visually document my trip with the new photo gear I got about one week ago. I already own a 7 megapixel digital camera, but it's better suited for party snapshots than serious photography. I still might take the old point-and-shooter along with me, but I can't stand the thought of returning home with mediocre photos, especially if I'm going halfway around the world to place like Indonesia. A couple weeks of online researching led me to choose the Lumix FZ-18 by Panasonic for my trip. But buying a nice camera won't do you any good if you don't have a basic idea of how photography works. To deal with my ignorance of the photographic process, I've been doing a lot of reading online, which has been suprisingly helpful. Anyone can learn how a camera works, though. What really matters is the photographer's creative vision - something that can't really be cultivated in one week's time...
Here's a few shots I've taken that I feel aren't total crap:

This was taken while eating with my grandpa at a restaurant in Aurora, Indiana called Applewood. Aurora is sort of like Mayberry or something. An southern-esque small town in middle America full of nice white people who are nevertheless apprehensive about colored folk. Apparently the restaurant was awarded "best ribs" by the food network. Actually the whole Cincinnati/N. Kentucky/S.E. Indiana area is famous for its ribs. We were eating in a little courtyard overlooking the Ohio river. Pretty chill. One of thos little birds actually hopped up on our table at one point, not two feet from us! My gandpa threw a piece of bread at it and it was satisfied enough to leave.

Along the way back from the restaurant was this place that was just covered with super-old signs and junk from the 1950s. I got out to take some pictures of it. Inside they had some really really nice antique cars. The guy working there was pretty cool, too.

These are some old school gas pumps. Notice on the one to the left, the price display under "This sale" only has one digit in the dollar space. The guy inside, Bill, recalled the "good old days" when gasoline was 15 cents a gallon.

This was a painted metal policeman from inside the garage of the place. He was holding a big yellow saign that said "SLOW - school crossing".

Hopefully I'll be a halfway decent photographer by the time I get there. I have about two days left... I'm trying to figure out how to take lots of pictures there without coming off as some jackass tourist obsessed with getting photographs of "real live natives" to impress people back home. Travel photography is such an interesting phenomenon. Photographs wield an unspoken power over their subjects, and what we choose to photograph is largely determined by our own preconceived notions about what is interesting, what is "cultural", what is "authentic", and what is beautiful. Editorial decisions on the part of photographers to a large extent determine how the rest of the world will view and understand the people in the images. It's such a subjective exerise. A lot of travel photography is unsettling to me. I keep seeing the subjects of travel photography being portrayed as such vibrant, colorful, spiritual, musical, festive, innocent, and mysterious people. Talk about cultural romanticism. It kind of pisses me off, even though I'm sure we all are influenced by it to some degree. People see a photo of a woman in a colorful garment and think it's so amazingly cultural or ethnic or something. Do they really know anything about that person's culture? Is there some sort of cultural symbolism in the garment, or is it just something to wear? I wonder if in some parallel bizarro world, Mayan Indians, Kenyan tribesmen, and Thai villagers flock by the thousands to places like New York, London, and Berlin to get precious photographic documentation of people using fax machines. Extra points would be awarded for capturing someone garbed in their traditional, authentic, cultural attire - a suit and tie. Galleries worldwide would be filled with striking images of women in blouses and pant suits, and celebrities would keep trying to one-up each other by adopting children from the United States, France, and the Netherlands. What a world it would be.

Shooting Myself in the Foot

More and more it is appearing that my visa will not get mailed back to me in time to catch my departing flight. I thought I had just enough time, but things never go as smoothly as you plan them. The first bump in the road was USPS. I express mailed my visa application to the consulate general on Monday, June 9th. Inexplicably, it took two days to reach its Chicago destination. From there, processing should have taken 3 business days.

I called the consulate on June 13th, looking for the Mr. Gumilar in charge of handling my application. After unsuccessfully ringing his office a few times, I asked the operator if he was even there that day. The operator explained that he was out of the office and at the mosque for Friday prayers. Of course. So I called back later that afternoon:

Mr. G: "Hello?"
Me: "Pak Gumilar?" (Indonesian for "Mr. Gumilar")
Mr. G: "Ya?"
Me: "As-salaamu-alaikum. I was calling to check on the status of my visa application. My name is Peter Gray."
Mr. G: "Wa-alaikum salaam. Okay, what are you going to Indonesia for?"
Me: (confused) "Um, well I'm going to Jakarta and then maybe to Jogjakarta."
Mr. G: "So for tourist?"
Me: "Oh, yes, it's a tourist visa."
Mr. G: "When are you leaving?"
...

It was evident by then that he had not looked at my application yet and failed to recognize me. Great. After meticulously making sure my application was complete, and even including a brief letter written in Indonesian, this guy had no idea who I was. Finally he seemed to find my application and realized the gravity of the situation. He told me he would do his best to get my visa mailed out that day. "Insha'Allah," ("God willing") I replied, driving home the Muslim connection in hopes that it would inspire him to at least help me out as a "brother" if he wasn't going to do it otherwise.

Well, one day later there is no stamped passport in my mailbox, and the post office has no record of the envelope being shipped. Aduh! I may have to change my flight...

Preparing for the Plunge

There are only 5 days standing between myself and Indonesia. Kind of a scary thought, ya? My mind has been consumed by preparatory tedium lately - e.g. emailing place A to have them fax document X to place B so that they can process document Y and express mail it to my P.O. box by date Z. I can guarantee you it's exactly as much fun as it all sounds - especially when Murphy's Law is in full effect. I hate not being able to do things like this all on my own, but bitching about it doesn't do me much good anyhow. At this moment, all I'm waiting for is my tourist visa to be processed and my passport mailed back to me. We'll see if Mr. Gumilar, the man processing my visa application, will come through for me. God willing...

As you might be able to tell, this past week I haven't been particularly preoccupied with thinking about the stuff I'm going to be doing AFTER I get to Indonesia. Yeah, I should probably get on that.. Things will sort themselves out, I feel like. A stack of home-made Indonesian flash cards is collecting dust on top of my suitcase, which still has a lot of stuff in it from my trip home close to a month ago. It's been hard to fathom stepping off a plane into an orgy of unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells, barely able to understand 1/10 of anything spoken while rapid-fire Javanese and Indonesian syllables roll off of native tongues and bombard me from all sides. Subconciously I seem to almost be in denial about what I'll soon be thrust into. People ask me if I'm excited. I guess so... Meanwhile a thousand questions swirl around in my head: What will people there make of me? When I do interviews, will they tell me just what they think I want to hear? Will it be unbearably hot? Will I get sick? Will my bathroom be a fly-ridden hole in the ground? Will I get ripped off? The list goes on... So am I excited? Sure, but not in the sense that I'm looking forward to an easy, relaxing, trip. This is by no means a vacation.

All that being said, I'm really thankful to have such a unique opportunity, and I know I'll come out stronger for all the challenges I face. Let's do this!