Dear Family & Friends,
Here are a few of the things that have been happening recently here in Jakarta:
Rainy Season
It is Sunday afternoon and it is absolutely pouring rain outside. The rainy season has officially begun. Jakarta has two seasons – rainy and dry. The rainy season lasts from the end of October / beginning of November until about March. The thunder and lightning are incredible. It stays the same temperature all year long, though.
Ramadhan
This month is the Muslim fasting month, and it lasts until November 2nd, followed by 2 days of celebration called Idul Fitri. It has been very interesting for us to experience how Ramadhan is practiced here in Indonesia. During the first week of Ramadhan, while we were on the way home from church we noticed about 10 guys on motorcycles with matching jackets. Our driver explained that they are a group of extra holy Muslims who go around to restaurants and nightclubs to make sure that they do not sell alcohol during Ramadhan (alcohol consumption is forbidden in the Muslim religion, but during the holy month of Ramadhan, some extreme Muslims try to make sure that it is not available to anyone).
As you probably know, during this month Muslims fast between about 4:30 am and 5:45 pm. They post the exact times in the newspaper every day (not sure exactly why it changes each day) if you don’t happen to hear the “call to prayer” being broadcast over the loudspeakers of one of the thousands of mosques in this city.
One night last week our company met together for a short prayer service then for Buka Puasa (breaking the fast dinner). We have had to make sure we are extra careful about what and when we ask our household staff do things. We need to make sure we don’t ask them to do anything between 5:30 and about 6:00 pm so they have time to pray and then go eat. Heidi says that the staff does their normal work during the morning hours, but that for most of the afternoon they are pretty lazy – the effects of getting up early to eat and then not eating the entire day.
One other Ramadhan comment – last week I was talking with some co-workers and we were joking around about something. One guy suggested that the other person should say something untruthful (not anything serious – he was just kidding around about something). She (also in a joking way) said that she couldn’t do that (tell this untruth) because she is fasting and Muslims aren’t allowed to lie while they are fasting.
Mallory
Mallory is still the cutest girl in Jakarta. Her bottom two front teeth finally broke through (after one particularly long, sleepless night). She is standing up on her own now, and has added a few words to her vocabulary (it is really cute to hear her call for Nash – if we are downstairs and yell upstairs for Nash, she will mimic us and call out her version of “Nash”).
Halloween Costumes
This is Heidi now. I went to the Jakarta Women’s and Children’s Clinic this week. I had read that the women there sew Halloween costumes to sell to Americans. The money they earn goes to supplement their family’s income. I decided to go to see what I could find. They had the cutest costumes -- not a huge selection but we ended up getting a super hero costume, two cowboy outfits, and we ordered a long scientist’s labcoat for Nash to be a mad scientist -- they took his measurements and said they’d make it this week.
The Halloween thing has been very interesting here. They obviously don’t celebrate it, but a couple of American Moms have set up Trick-or-Treating here in Pondok Indah for all the kids that go to the school so on Thursday I will stay at home and hand out the candy and Creed will take the kids around to the houses that signed up.
I had to try to find some Halloween candy and that was a trick, not to mention it cost me a small fortune! I found some imported bags of candy but they were $7-9 per bag!! I’m hoping we don’t have too many kids come or I may have to start handing out some of the boys’ toys.
Primary Program
The Primary program was today. All the children had to give their own talks and then we put the music in-between. I was thankful I brought the chimes so we had a little variety for the music. Everyone did such a great job.
A Little Culture
The Branch had a progressive dinner last night. We split up into 3 groups – our group met at one home for appetizers, our house for the main course, then the all 3 branches met at one house for dessert. It was someone’s 40th birthday so her husband had us all sing happy birthday to her and then he opened the door, turned on some music and in came some traditional Indonesian dancers. It was something else. We were amazed at their movements. The costumes were amazing. The culture in this country is really amazing.
