July 14, 2005
Dear Friends and Family,
We have been in Jakarta for two weeks now. We thought we’d write a list of a few of the frustrating, funny and fabulous things we’ve learned about Indonesia in this short time.
1- If you’re important you can own any animal you desire and keep it in your house. Our driver showed us a home in our neighborhood that is home to a tiger. Why, we asked? Well it’s simple. He wanted a tiger and he’s important so he can have one. On our house hunting trip our real estate agent showed us a house that had a monkey. We could hear it as we were driving!
2- Sleeping habits change drastically in Indonesia. With the sun setting and rising early everyday, we have found that our bedtime is usually around 9:00pm and we get up at 6:00or 6:30am everyday. Things are up and running by 7:00am. As a matter of fact, the boys are asking for lunch at 10:00am everyday.
3- If the sun doesn’t wake you up at 6:00am, the many sounds of the street vendors passing your house will. Each has their own sound and rhythm. Some hit a gong, others a bell and some hit a hollow wooden block. Then, just in case you feel like having an ice cream at the crack of dawn, the ice cream man peddles his bicycle by playing music. The boys get a kick out of it.
4- Our favorite past time at night is finding cecaks in the house (small gecko like lizards). The boys get so excited when they spot one in their rooms or on their decks. We like them because they eat all the bugs. The first night in our house, one fell on Luke’s head as we opened the door to the bathroom!
5- Things take forever in Indonesia and nothing is very organized or logical. We have had to keep a good sense of humor in this aspect of living here. The Uninet guy (internet company) was supposed to meet the cable people here on Sunday between 11:00am and 1:00pm to hook up the internet. Now in the states, this is done fairly quickly. Not so here. First, our security guards didn’t tell us he was here so I looked out our kitchen window and saw some man sitting with the staff watching TV. Now since our staff is instructed not to have friends visit without our permission, I wondered who this man was. After awhile, I went out and asked. He told me he was with Uninet and was waiting for the cable people. Needless to say, he waited for hours! The cable people didn’t come until that evening and the internet man waited the whole time -- just sitting in the garage with our staff, watching TV. Back to the unorganized issue, the streets seem to be just haphazardly placed and so that makes getting to things difficult.
6- Going to the immigration office and state police in a third-world country is an experience. We had to go to these places this week to get finger printed and registered. Interesting! The places were so dirty and the stench in a couple of the waiting rooms was disgusting (we tried to be discreet about the fact that we were all gagging or plugging our noses, but I think it was pretty obvious). After fingerprinting us at the police station, some soap was poured into our hands and we were told to go to the restroom to wash. Hardly a restroom! There was a sink in the women’s bathroom, but no faucet so I had to use the faucet that was just sticking out of the wall. Then after our second set of finger prints at the immigration building, they told us to wipe our hands on this huge, dingy, gross wet sponge sitting in an open briefcase! FAT CHANCE! It looked like it had some sort of mold growing on it. Luckily (because of Mallory’s diaper bag) we had wet-wipes. BLAH!
7- Asians love little babies and children with blue eyes and blond hair. We get lots of looks and gawks as we walk in public places. People are always coming up to Mallory and squeezing her cheeks, touching her hands and some have even attempted to take her out of my arms. One woman succeeded because she did it so fast, I didn’t know what happened. As she started to walk away with Mallory to show her to some friends, I said, “NO, NO, NO!” and got her back. One Indian woman in Singapore made her friend get out of the seat next to her on a crowded bus just so I could sit by her with Mallory. She was very friendly and held Mallory and even asked if she could have her picture taken with Mallory. I thought it was pretty funny.
8- You learn to bargain in Indonesia. We have learned this the past week when looking for furniture and area rugs for our home. We have talked people down quite a bit and are excited about a couple of wood pieces of furniture we are having made.
9- The people are warm and kind. Our staff is wonderful and greets us when we come home with smiles and willing hands. They open our doors, bring in anything we bought and even put the groceries away. They are always respectful of us. We are very happy they are here. They have helped us a lot. What will I do when we’re back in the states without a driver, gardener, security guards and two housekeepers?
10- We are really going to like it here. While there are things about the states we miss terribly, we have found things that we love here as well in the short time we’ve been here. We ate at Outback the other night at the Mall Pondok Indah and felt like we were in Canton again -- complete with cheese fries and a Chocolate Thunder. YUM!!!
11- Will I ever get use to bugs in the house and yellow water coming out of the tap? There are ants in the house all the time and we have been finding other interesting bugs in the house as well. I just ask one of the staff to get them out and they do. The boys were very excited to see their first cockroach scurrying across the parking lot at the Mall the other night. I’m trying to get use to it. One person told me I’d feel like I was camping while living here. It’s true. We went to give Mallory a bath the other day and while Creed was filling up the tub he noticed the water was yellow. Is that what we’re showering in? We bathed Mallory in bottled water. I don’t think she liked it much because it was cold.
12- People write things in English that might make sense to them, but they sure don’t make sense to us. We saw some graffiti on a wall that said “Eyelids Tragedy!” Have you ever had an eyelid tragedy? Last week on the way to church we saw a motorcycle with the words “SPONG BOB” hand-painted on the muffler (spelling is optional in a foreign language, of course). And we saw a truck with the words “Fear Factor” painted on the side.
The boys and Mallory seem to be adjusting fine and so are we. We know this is a lengthy letter and we apologize for that. Things are very different here, but a lot is the same. We like the very small branch we attend and the church building is pretty nice. Primary is quite different for the boys. There are so few children that they have all of them together. Who knows what we’ll do when Mallory is of nursery age. The weather isn’t too bad and we’ve had a couple of torrential rain storms. They are fun to see. The boys can’t wait for school to start. They are getting bored. Grant has had two cases of something. His stomach is bothering him today and one day last week he was quite sick. He seemed to bounce out of it quickly though. Creed loves his job. He isn’t home as much as we would like, but the traffic is bad so even when he does leave at a decent time, he still gets home after we’ve eaten.
Our life is different here, but good so far. We all have our days, but this week has been good, so I’m sure we’ll all adjust fine.
Love,
Creed & Heidi
