Goodbye 2004...hello 2005

My cup runneth over….

We left off at the end of 2004 with Thanksgiving events in Jakarta giving us perspective on all that we have to be thankful for, as well as our anticipation of Christmas holidays to come…..

Bali-bound!

As soon as Christmas vacation started, we closed up shop at school, bid our maids goodbye and headed for the airport, prepared for the holiday madness which inevitably plagues airports around the globe at this time of year. Alas, we arrived to see nary a soul….I am still not sure why this was so, but it may have to do with the fact that this is a Muslim country, coupled with the fact that it is rather expensive to travel by air. All I know is that our air travel was totally stress-free – unlike the tales of horror I heard about Christmas airport delays back home in the U.S. during the holiday period. Shudder, shudder!

After an hour’s flight we descended into Denpasar and began our three week vacation on the sun-drenched, culinarily scintillating, relaxing, self-proclaimed “Island of God”. Our three-star hotel was clean, friendly, and full of partying Australians. I have hilarious pictures of Sophia strutting her stuff at the pool bar, watched by a crowd of muscled Aussie construction worker types. Sam took to them as well. One guy had his surfboard in the pool one evening, and he helped my kids pose on the board while he pulled them shrieking with glee around the pool. All in all, both age groups enjoyed themselves. I think we may have even fostered thoughts of nesting into some of those preening male peacocks!

The biggest find on Bali was the WATERBOOM Water Park! What a BLAST!!!! At western prices, the place was never too crowded (by Asian standards, anyway). This park has been open only a few years and may well be the best water park I will ever visit. Trees and greenery abound, luscious small huts with cushions are scattered about for our lounging desires, the food was actually quite delicious; the hot mocha was to die for – move aside, Starbucks!! The kiddie pool was most excellent with lots of small slides, water spouts and a HUGE cup which would dump water on the unsuspecting as well as excited groups of thrill seekers every three minutes or so.

The actual slides offered something for everyone. Our kids spent hours running up the five-storied edifice, jumping in their inner tubes and roaring with glee as they swished down the slides. I can’t wait to introduce them to downhill skiing…The narliest slide was aptly named “Smash Down” Not for the under 4-foot (thank GOD!) and not for the faint of heart – this thing got you going so fast and at such a steep angle that you actually were in free-fall for a moment or two. By the time I hit the bottom, water rushed up inside me so far, it almost came out my nose. ‘Nuf said!

Shopping: yeah, lots of it and all unbelievably cheap. I don’t know if I will ever be able to pay full price for anything ever again. I can see myself trying to bargain with the Target cashier in Virginia next summer as I bring my piles of new clothing for Sam and Sophia up to the register. I remember working as a sales clerk as a teenager in Baltimore: one day an Asian woman tried to get me into a bargaining conversation. I was totally appalled at her gall. Only now can I understand where she was coming from!

Food: amazing! There is a place called Jimbaran Bay – it is a huge beach which transforms itself each night into the world’s largest outdoor beach restaurant. The area is comprised of about 50 roadside shacks, all selling fresh fish to be grilled to perfection. Out on the beach you see thousands of tables and chairs with glowing candles as far as the eye can see. Wandering musicians comb the beach, looking for willing ears. They will try to play anything. I will never again be able to hear the Beatles “All My ‘Lawveen’”: again without thinking of the rag tag group of musicians who played the song for us!

Other typical Bali activities included boogie boarding with Sam and Sophia. She is one ballsy chick – undaunted by just about everything! Whatever big Bro Sam tries, she will do, too. Jared was able to let go of her and watch her ride the kinder waves to shore all alone. Speaking of alone, we also rented horses and rode along the beach which was SOOOOO cool! Sophia had been dying for a horse ride (having only been able to find elephants to ride on as of late!), so she was thrilled to be able to climb onto “Spirit” and trot away. On the way back, she was able to ride all on her own and really got a charge out of it (luckily the horse did not feel the urge to charge!).

Other fun beach activities included a multitude of pedicures and manicures and even a hair-braid for Sophia. She loved it. By the end of the 30 minute braiding session, she was just about asleep on the shoulder of Mary, the hair gal. I took it upon myself to “adopt” some of the MANY, MANY women selling their nail and hair services on the beach and bought them clothes for their kids.

Vacationing in poor nations presents a strange paradox: here we are, bent on enjoying our three weeks of down time, relaxing and forgetting the stresses of school, etc. and in our faces are the faces of these poor women, working their butts off to make ends meet. During our first week there were practically NO tourists and I wondered HOW do they make ANY money to feed their kids? The women had between 2-4 kids each – nothing egregious, but they had a hard life, walking the beaches every day, pleading with tourists to pay for a manicure, some fruit, or a knitted hat (just what I need on Bali!). Even though a visit to the beach is “free”, we spent at least $10 each time we walked upon the sand: buying a wooden box here, renting a boogie board and umbrella there, acquiescing to a foot massage or buying yet another pair of knock-off sunnies.

The other, rather shocking thing about the beach life was the unbelievable amount of trash on the beach and in the water. Piles of small juice bags, or plastic bags, shoes, bottles, wrappers of all sorts were floating in the sea and washing up on the sand. Each day there were people out trying to clean up, but the trash never disappeared. We did take one day and explore the OTHER side of the island.

The other side, a phenomenon known as Nusa Dua, is an area built expressly for tourists maybe 15 years ago. Nary a piece of trash is to be found, no frothing dogs, only an occasional beach hawker, and perfectly groomed sidewalks and roads. And along with that you see throngs of Russian and Korean tourists splashing about, care-free; no paradox here! Sad to say, I was totally sucked in by the cleanliness and beauty of it all and we have made plans to return to Bali in April and splurge at one of the five-star hotels in Nusa Dua. I do feel as though I have sold my soul in a way, but I keep promising myself we will visit our Christmas stomping grounds and look up Mary, Bella and Sulee on the beach with good intentions to buy them some more clothes for their little children.

Return to Jakarta and 2005 begins….

Completely relaxed after our sojourn to Bali, we returned to the pollution, noise and jobs in Jakarta in early January. I really can’t complain…it was good to be back, back to the rats scratching in our ceilings, our water tank which insists on loudly overflowing each night at 3:30 am, and the screeching nannies next door, who start playing at ungoldly hours with their charges. We brought back Erna, John, and Megan, who had joined us in Bali for our last week. They have definitely gotten a good taste of our lives in Jakarta, including a meal at our favorite Chinese restaurant as well as a two-hour traffic jam on the way home from a look-see downtown --- ah….Asia!

Tsunami…

Now that it has been almost a month since the world’s biggest disaster to hit in years, I have gone through multiple stages of shock, mourning and reflecting, and I do not have the energy, nor the desire to expound here. I will just tell one tale of a friend who lived through it in Puket.

Our single friend, Jack, who is in his first year here, comes to Jakarta quite green from the white bread state of Connecticut. Jack was in Phuket for a week of Thai boxing. He got up on December 26 and decided on this morning to go for his run NOT on the beach as usual, but in the hills behind his hotel. After a 40-minute run, he returned to the hotel and noticed water in the streets. He wandered down towards the beach and learned then about the tsunami which had hit about 20 minutes before.

At that time he saw no wounded, only a few people wandering about in shock. As the water had receded, he and some others crept closer to the beach and he began to see signs of devastation: overturned busses, obliterated shops, and huge concrete walls tumbled down. He noticed the tide was WAY out, so he and a few others walked out towards the receding water (No, Jack, NO!!!). Clearly, he had not learned life lesson #17: run for your life when you see a receding tide! Sure enough, he looked again, and in came wave number two – he turned and ran for his life and was able to climb high enough to watch the water surge past him.

In the end, he was fine. He stayed for a few more days and then headed for Bali, where we drank margaritas and toasted our good fortunes. It took several more days of texting and phoning throughout the region to learn that all of our friends were fine and accounted for.

As for the rest of it, never believe someone when they tell you that relief agencies have enough money and no longer need monetary donations. This thing will take decades to recover from and every agency worth its salt will need truckloads of cash to help in the rebuilding of lives and businesses! Save the Children, Doctors without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, Unicef, you can choose your favorite charity, but any donation you can make, WILL make a difference – I don’t care what that idiot, Bill O’Riley says!

Wayang Kulit: leather puppets?

Waywhat? Yes, Wayang kulit…an ancient Indonesian art form which I had not encountered until about a week ago. Otherwise known as shadow puppetry, this form of entertainment goes hand in hand with a gamelan (orchestra) concert. A typical Gamelan (from what I can discern) is made up of about 20+ metal xylophone-esque instruments of all sizes and tones, about 50+ brass pots for banging and about 12+ HUGE gongs in the back. In addition, there is a small wooden xylophone, one wind instrument, one string instrument, a zither and a few sets of smaller xylophone-like instruments, with LOTS of “keys”.

We were invited to an American woman’s home, Kitsie is her name. She came to Indonesia on a Fullbright grant about 10+ years ago to learn Gamelan and ended up marrying her instructor, learning both Indonesian AND Javanese languages and collecting her own entire set of gamelan instruments, which almost fill the living area of her substantial home in Jakarta. She plays the last instrument I described, the xylophone with lots of keys – the length of a set of piano keys. She used both hands with mallets in each hand and played the notes with incredible skill and speed.

Kitsie is a teacher at another international school in Jakarta and offers Gamelan courses to expats. This evening was the culmination of the semester long class, and she had brought in professional gamelan players from Solo and Jakarta. Her entire living room was filled with her instruments, as well as a lighting system, speakers and the singers: three women, dressed to the nines and about four men as back up to the women. The singing was the scratchy, abrasive type you think of when you think of Asian opera type music. I personally did not enjoy the vocal part, although I was transfixed by the instruments when they were all played – the sounds penetrated me to my core and although I could never pick out a melody, per se, the overall effect was powerful.

Wayang and the Dhalang

In concert with the gamelan performance, Kitsie had hired an excellent Dhalang. I don’t know the translation for the word, but the man was a puppeteer and story teller rolled into one. He came from a family of dhalangs, and had begun manipulating puppets and telling stories when he was about 4 years old (get going, Sam!). The average Wayang performance lasts for about 7 hours! With NO intermission!!! Yes! And this night was no exception. At about 7:30 p.m., the gamelan played the overture for about 30 minutes, and the dhalang prepared his puppets behind the white screen. Onlookers were invited to sit anywhere, in front of or behind the actual screen. I sat behind the screen. Here, I was in the midst of the gamelan players and could see the movements of the dhalang as he moved the puppets across the screen. He had a long- sleeved coat on and long pants, a microphone tied around his neck and the room was a balmy 85 plus degrees! He did have a man who sat behind him, fanning the back of his neck and helping to organize the puppets. Although he only used about 20 different puppets, he had brought along over 80 which served as decoration on either side of the screen! At 8:00 the dhalang began his performance and it did indeed last until about 3:00 am! He performed without a break – told the story with many asides and added bits of his own choosing and maneuvered the puppets across the screen for seven hours!!!!!!!

Most wayang stories are taken from one of two famous Indian tales, the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. He had chosen one which involves a woman in her seventh month of pregnancy. The synopsis takes up about two small pages, and yet he managed to draw out the story into SEVEN hours of talk and show! The unique thing about these performances is that each dhalang tries to bring his or her own philosophy and moral message to the chosen tale. He used humor, current events, and timeless anecdotes to bring his message to life. He chose this particular story in honor of our American colleague and friend, Alicia, who is a gamelan student of Kitsie and is in her seventh month of pregnancy!

Directly preceding the show, Alicia underwent a seventh-month ceremony, which involved her having seven sarongs wrapped around her naked body. With each new sarong, she was doused with rose water. At the end, her husband took a machete and attempted to chop a coconut which would tell if the baby was to be a girl or boy, and then the entire clay pot of water was poured over Alicia! With the splashing water came coins and bits of hard-boiled egg to signify money and good health! I don’t think I grasped all of the meaning of this ceremony as it was all spoken in Indonesian, but you can always do a Google search to really get the details. Seventh-month ceremonies are performed in many countries, interestingly.

Speaking of being in the Indonesian language, the dhalang performed his SEVEN hour tale in Javanese, which is only spoken in central Java and not generally within Jakarta. Kitsie, having learned Javanese over the past ten years, took it upon herself to translate the ENTIRE performance into English on a big screen in the room. Most of the guests were expats, and would have been clueless as to the nuances of the story without her translation.

This night was one of the most fascinating nights I’ve spent in Indonesia thus far. I have to believe the the Fullbright folks were spot on when they chose Kitsie as the recipient of the scholarship so many years ago!

I am writing this on yet another holiday here in Jakarta: this one is called Idul Adha – not sure what it means, but it is meant for the slaughtering of goats. I have not heard any desperate bleating in my neighborhood today, but Jared did see a truck full of the nervous critters driving by early this morning. And with that, I leave you until our next adventures have come and gone…stay tuned for Chinese New Year in February and our train trip to Bandung!