“Let’s the World Dance”

Sorry for the delay with this latest post. When you have free access to a movie theater all day and night, you don’t get much done. However, we have a lot to say about our time in Indonesia and all our learnings. So let’s not waste any more time.

February 27, 2015. Jakarta, Indonesia. 8:30 at night. It’s dark as shit outside and we can still see the garbage of Jakarta overflowing onto the streets. In some parts of the city, people are actually living on top of their own trash. We saw a trash pile three stories high as we passed by on the airport shuttle. The trash was actually overtaking the houses behind it.

This was quite a shock for us. We have seen litter before, but never to this scale. Why is the trash so out of hand? Well some of the problem seems to be political and some educational. There are not enough facilities to manage the massive wastes from Jakarta, hardly anyone recycles, garbage collectors’ salaries are very low, and the people cannot be bothered to separate their garbage themselves. Even the well educated citizens are mainly uninterested in reducing the waste and recycling. One of our cab drivers tossed his napkin out the window while driving and I had to bite my tongue to hold back from saying anything.

It’s very disheartening to see people mistreat the environment, and their home. Jakarta is not the only city facing serious garbage issues. In 2005, 140 people were killed in Bandung when a mountain of waste collapsed. You can read more about the trash in Jakarta and Bandung here. Hopefully more organizations like UFI (Unilever Foundation Indonesia) will arise and help tackle this growing problem. Jakarta has the potential to be a beautiful city, and parts of it are beautiful.

Lauren’s friend Marcie owns a restaurant in a very beautiful section of the city. In North Jakarta, near Jakarta Bay, there are very nice apartments, restaurants, and shopping. We visited Marcie there on our first day in Jakarta. She owns a delicious creperie and is currently building a pizzeria next door. We feasted on a couple treats from her menu while Lauren and Marcie reminisced about their Shanghai days. The chocolate crepe with hazelnut ice cream was a fantastic end to our meal. Afterwards, we bid farewell to Marcie and headed back to the hostel in Kota, Jakarta’s Old Town.

Teduh Hostel was actually a wonderful place to spend two nights. We opted to save money by bunking in a 22 bed dorm, even though the idea scared us. We have seen 4 bed dorms that were messy and smelly and noisy. However, this 22 bed room was so well planned that all of those factors were eliminated. Each bed was built into the wall, long ways, so it was kinda like you were climbing into your own pod for the night. There were HUGE storage cabinets for bags right under the bed space. Each bed had a curtain and the room was well ventilated with fresh air. It felt really clean and safe. Of course, there will always be a snorer out of 22 people, but luckily the reception desk had ear plugs for sale.

Our next stop was Bandung for 2 nights with Eggi and his family. Our first ever Couchsurfing experience! We had no idea what to expect but we hoped Eggi was as friendly in real life as he was online (spoiler: he definitely was).

We were sitting in the train station when two young guys came running up, Eggi and his brother Randy. Eggi apologized for arriving a little late. On the weekends, the traffic in Bandung is just as bad as the traffic in Jakarta. Once we were at their car, Eggi introduced us to his parents, “Mama Icha” and “Papa Pandi.” Mama and Papa couldn’t speak much English but Eggi helped with that and we could tell most of what they were saying through body language. They were incredibly sweet and always kindly smiling.

Apparently they planned most of the day for us. The first stop was a local buffet with familiar items and some new treats too. Lauren picked up a white icy drink without knowing what it was. This was the first time we were introduced to soursup. The smoothie tasted almost like banana and coconut mixed together. Mama Icha was also drinking a soursup smoothie, probably because it is so delicious!

That night we drove to a friend’s house, Mama Icha’s old professor, Dr. Ayat Suryatna. He welcomed us like old friends too, and he really admired Donnie and his tattoos. We were treated to coffee and then a home cooked meal. During the meal, we tried another new food, stink beans. Stink bean, is the slang name because it makes everything STINK. The taste is actually quite good, like very strong garlic and onions. However, you cannot get that taste or smell out of your mouth. It also can make other things smell. See this excerpt from Wikipedia,

"Like asparagus, it contains certain amino acids that give a strong smell to one's urine, an effect that can be noticed up to two days after consumption. Like other beans, their complex carbohydrates can also cause strong-smelling flatulence."

We were warned about these side effects so we just had a bite each, but you could still tell when one of us had used the toilet…:/

Dr. Suryatna also hosts travelers at his home. If you ever visit Indonesia (no visa required for US citizens now) go spend a night in Bandung at Buhun Homestay for an intimate, at home feeling. You get peace and quiet up on the hillside and a great view of the town below. It was really a lovely evening.

The following day we spent time relaxing and grocery shopping for an American/Mexican feast! After watching Superbad with Eggi, we cooked up some chicken tacos and prepared guacamole for the family. They were not the best tacos we ever made (we were missing some key ingredients) but they were as close as we could get. We enjoyed the long lost taste of tacos but we’re not sure if our meal was a hit with the family. They politely tried them and said the tacos were tasty (sorry guac). In the end, it wasn’t about the food, it was about sitting down with the family on our last night and sharing something together.

What was really special was the musical performance that followed dinner. Mama Icha and Papa Pandi can play traditional Indonesian instruments, like a 21-string koto and a bamboo flute. While Papa played flute, Mama played the strings and vice versa. We even witnessed a beautiful duet between the two musicians. During one song, we joined in with our drum and ukulele. It is one of our favorite memories, sitting around the living room floor and playing our odd pairing of instruments.

This was the best home we could ever visit for our first Couchsurfing experience. We shared food, stories, and music with wonderful people from the other side of the world. If you are friendly, then you are friendly, no matter what side of the world you are from. Eggi and his family are some of the friendliest people we have ever met. On our way out, Mama Icha gave us two T-shirts from her school that said “Let’s the World Dance.” We happily accepted and didn’t mention the grammar mistake. It was sad saying goodbye to our new found friends, but we do hope to meet Eggi and Randy on the road again.

The next stop was back to Jakarta to meet our new host Dave. He lives in a small remote town in Central Java but he was in Jakarta for a proposal party. Together, with his wife Yani, sister-in-law Tinni, and neighbor Mr. Bento, we would drive 14 hours to their quaint village, Karanggede. For the first several days we did not know Tinni and Mr.Bento’s real names because they introduced them as Miss Fatso and Mr. Pusing (headache). For them, it was a sign of closeness to call friends and family silly nicknames, but we could not get ourselves to call funny, sweet Tinni “Miss Fatso”. Also, what we consider harassment in the United States, is just considered playfulness in Indonesia. They even made names for us later in the week, Lazy 1 and Lazy 2, which we’ll get into later. Maybe it was a clash of cultures but the playfulness and harassment line was a little too close for our liking.

We also noticed that being overweight in Asia is just one big joke. Lauren first discovered this during her time in China. People openly tease anyone that is even slightly overweight. The funny thing is, they are not offended. The teased don’t act like victims. They smile along with the jokes or even make fun of themselves. It can be slightly uncomfortable for a westerner.

That was one of the many cultural clashes we discovered during our stay in Karanggede. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time teaching Desckha (Yani’s 13 year-old son), playing cards with Desckha, eating wonderful food, and walking around the village, but we definitely felt pressure by Yani and Dave to change our western habits. We originally had secured another Workaway position in Sukabumi to teach English in a town, but our host had to drop out 2 weeks before we would arrive for personal reasons. Because we were in a time crunch, we accepted any Workaway job, even if there were no reviews. That was probably a mistake.

We thought the job sounded very nice. We could spend time in a big, western style house in a remote village and teach a 13 year old boy English vocabulary and grammar. Dave was an American expat, devout Eagles fan, now retired and married to an Indonesian woman with a 13 yr-old son and living in her family’s village. We figured we would get along great with a “American” (lived half his life in France and Asia) and that we could relax in their comfortable house as long as we prepared 3-4 hour long English lessons for Desckha each day.

Everything was smooth sailing for the first few days, or so we thought. We slept in until 8 or 9, made our own breakfast, and prepared the English lesson. In our free time we would edit our videos, surf the web, and offer help to Dave in the yard or Yani at her shop. After every meal we would clean up the dishes and the first night Lauren even joined the family in watching a movie. Apparently, this behavior made them very uncomfortable. By the third night they sat down with us and asked whether we were happy. We answered yes, and that we didn’t understand why they would ask.

Yani went on to explain that in her culture, one does not sleep in past 6 or 7, you do not stay in the house, and you do not ignore when someone comes home. She wanted to be greeted with smiles and hellos every time she returned from an errand. I’m not sure if that condition was because of the culture or because of Yani. Yani was an especially energized person, and I think she expected that energy from everyone.

They wanted us to participate in cooking the meals, they wanted us to walk into their neighbor’s homes and say hello, and they wanted us to wake up at 6 to go on a walk around the village. To our annoyance, they completely ignored the fact that we already did help prepare meals, always offered help, and cleaned up after every meal. In our culture, we would have been exceptional guests.

However, we were in their world, and we tried our best to adapt to their rules. As hard as it was for Lauren, we woke up earlier, greeted everyone with eager smiles, and really tried to participate in cooking and errands. We even walked into Yani’s family members’ homes (without an invitation) to say hello, so they wouldn’t think we did not like them. One day, as we waked around the village, we discovered some young boys playing soccer. Donnie dropped his camera and ran over to play with them. The kids loved it! They tried to shoot goals past giant Donnie, and whenever they did they would throw their hands in the air and roll around on the ground in celebration. We played for a long time with the village boys.

Some people still didn’t see the effort we were putting in. Mr. Bento came by now and then to drink with Dave. One night, while he was over, he started harassing (or teasing, who knows) us about being lazy. His reason for calling us lazy was because we never visited his house to say hello. Just once, I wish they would address the real reason we were there in the first place, to teach Desckha English, and as far as we’re concerned we knocked it out of the park. We made lesson plans for each day filled with grammar exercises, vocabulary words, review games, puzzles, and “real world” practice scenarios. The scenarios were the most fun, and almost made Desckha and Lauren pee themselves from laughter several times. We taught Desckha English for hours each day, and in an entertaining way. You could say we were lazy for not finding more time to explore, but I would call that dedicated.

Meeting Deschka and spending that time with him made the whole experience worth while. This kid was smart, loads of fun, and fearless. We had a blast playing card games (like ERS and Palace), chasing him around the house (to no avail), playing checkers, and riding the quad. His real passion was spiders, the bigger the better. He would capture a big spider right out of its web and play with it, letting it dangle from his hands. Several times he even let the spiders crawl across his face. Lauren felt braver watching Desckha handle the spiders that she let one crawl on her hand, however, shortly after the panic set in. She called for Desckha to help remove the spider.

Sometimes you just have irrational fears, like spiders or clowns. In Indonesia, we discovered that everyone is terrified of caterpillars. Once, an assistant at Yani’s shop threw her a branch with a caterpillar on it and she screamed bloody murder. We were tempted to catch some caterpillars and place them around the house as a prank, but we thought better. Yani meant well, and we didn’t want to upset her. She is a little nutty and very hyper, but she has good intentions and really just wanted us to bond with her and her village before we left. Dave on the other hand, was not such a nice guy.

He started to show his true colors around the sixth night when he cooked us dinner. Every night, we would help prepare a meal with Yani, but that night she had scheduled a massage appointment so she asked Dave to cook. He agreed but then was furious when her appointment took longer than expected. He pouted and argued with Yani like a child, and it was all because his meal was slightly overcooked. Dave made us all wait while he scolded Yani and then he didn’t even eat. We could tell that he was grumpy and stubborn before, but then we realized this guy has some serious issues.

On the last night there, Dave went one step too far. We were discussing schools and bullying in America because Dave wants Desckha to be ready when he attends an American high school. However, Dave went to school in Philadelphia in the 60s and has lived outside of the US for decades. His view of the US is more than a bit skewed. He is presenting the US to Desckha as a violent place, where people will take advantage of you if you don’t fight back. Some people may live by this rule but this is not the way I was raised. I have lived 25 years of my life in the US and never been in a fight, held at gunpoint, or faced a situation I couldn’t get out of with a peaceful resolution.

Lauren tried to explain to Desckha that he doesn’t need to fight anyone. If he is friendly than he will find other friendly people. She tried to stop Dave from frightening him and told Desckha that it is not a violent place. This is when Dave called her stupid. And continued to call her stupid in front of everyone at the dinner table. Lauren left the table while Donnie argued with Dave about his reaction and the violence debate. Yani spoke with Lauren in the kitchen and she told Lauren about the verbal abuse she takes from Dave a on a daily basis. It turns out, their marriage is more than a little messed up. We really hope, especially for Desckha’s sake, that she will leave Dave and go back to her adopted family in Jakarta. No one should live in a home with an abusive and angry tempered man.

When Lauren came back to the table, Dave told her that her argument was stupid but he didn’t mean she was stupid. I guess that is his version of an apology. It was too hard for him to say “I’m sorry”. Luckily it was the last night because I think we all went to bed angry and uncomfortable that night.

In the morning, we went on a mission to find durian before leaving for the airport. The durian was Desckha’s reward for doing excellent on his English review test. Desckha loves that smelly fruit, and Donnie had never tried it before so we had to have him taste it. We left early in the morning to find a durian stand but nothing was open. Later, when Desckha came home from school, we went with him to try again. On our walk, we found the biggest spider yet. A moth had just gotten stuck in its web and the spider raced to the prey, but Desckha caught the spider before it had a chance to feast. He played with this spider the entire walk to and from the durian stand, and then he returned it to its web.

We thought it was hilarious that no one seemed to care that a giant spider was crawling on this kid. Everyone was more shocked to see two foreigners than a spider the size of softball. For them, that was normal.

So we returned from our walk, enjoyed eating the durian outside (Yani does not let that stinky fruit in her house), and then we headed off to the airport in Solo City, about an hour away. Mr. Bento drove us to Solo City, so we said our goodbyes in Karanggede and exchanged contact information with our new friend Desckha. We only wish we could bring him with us, and away from that house. But soon enough, we are sure he will be out on his own in America where we can meet up again.