Coconut Wednesdays:
It’s fair to say my days follow a pretty clear pattern: School all morning and early afternoon. Nap. Bule Burger, alone time, or John at night.
Luckily for me, my 4:00 PM swim date with all of class X was cancelled. Every few months the gym teachers take students to the local hotel pool for class, and I don’t think my progressing heat rash would have faired well in dirty, chlorinated water with 150 high school girls. Prior to the cancellation, a lot of conversation ensued about Miss Chris’s swimming attire:
(Me) “What do you wear when you swim?! How long is your suit?”
“Normal bathing suits, Miss Chris. One piece. Normal. Oh and Miss Chris, we don’t swim with our jilbabs. No bikinis, of course.”
"Yes, but how long are your swimsuits? I don't think Americans use the same type of the one-piece bathing suits."
My counterpart walked out of her office.
“Miss Chris, you must swim in shorts down to here.”
She pointed to below her knees.
“You must wear a t-shirt.”
If gym class was not cancelled, I think we might have had an international incident.
I had a lunch date with Bu Sri and the gang at 12:30. Siomay dari Bandung. We used to have teacher English club during lunch but that faded with exams. Prior to lunch, I bought an es kelapa muda for 20 cents, and one of my teachers treated us to es puter. At that time, it was only 10 AM in the morning.
“You are going to have high cholesterol, Miss Chris.”
Yep.
I ate Siomay with Bu Sri as American music, sung by the Chipmunks, played in the background. Later, Whitney cracked out a solo. We talked about arranged marriages and food. Bu Sri asked me to write her a poem, so I taught her about haikus. She wanted one on her facebook wall. This is what ensued:
“My haikus for you:
Another one:
Another one:
Another one:
If you want to write one remember:
Facebook Comments On This Thread:
ha ..ha ..ha .. is it right???
Haha, yes : ) They are all right!
Don"t forget......Jogjakarta...5-8 of May....; Bu Rini jangan dulu berangkat ke Bangkok..ikut Jogja dulu yach...plz..aq aja ke Turki di cancel...
I had a pretty embarrassing afternoon. The reference to Bu Rini looking like Bu Tri was pretty bad. Most of the year, I had been cofusing Bu Rini and Bu Tri. They are both really small and could practically be twins. In the morning I saw Bu Tri but thought she was Bu Rini. I commented on much I liked the color of her jilbab, and she walked away looking confused. The biggest difference between the two women is that Bu Rini speaks English and Bu Tri doesn’t. When I saw Bu Rini later in the day, I asked her why she changed clothes. Her jilbab was tan. Then it hit me. My face went red. For the rest of the day, teachers laughed in Indonesian about the incident. Way to go Miss Chris. Of course all Indonesians look the same. Way to go.
After lunch and stereotyping Indonesians, one of our school staff gave me a ride home on his motorbike. I read and headed to Bule Burger. Later in the night, most of the gang arrived and we chatted about sex before marriage and giant cockroaches in bowls of soup.
Creepy Thursday:
I cannot start re-telling my Thursday in chronological order. This is one of those days where I think, “Only in Indonesia.” I saw a ghost. Or something pretty creepy. As I walked home down Jalan Gede, a woman appeared in the middle of the street. I had no idea where she came from, but she was close to me and just stared right at me. I pass the same people everyday, and I had never seen this woman. I waved, smiled, and said ‘sore,’ but the woman just kept staring at me. She didn’t move, breath, or smile. I’d never had anyone not respond to me; I always get a smile (or frown), words, a headshake, something. I started to get a weird feeling, and I turned to walk away. A few steps later--completely creeped out--I turned and the old woman was gone. She just disappeared.
Indonesian ghosts are taken pretty seriously. I told my friends at Bule Burger about my ghost, and they said, “oh you saw the old granny; a famous urban legend. People see her on the bridge and on Jalan Gede.”
Oh great. I’m not sure I want to know what all of this means. I hope she didn’t give me the eye.
John came over later that night. “Tell me about your ghost.”
So I did.
“You are very lucky.”
“Why?? Are ghosts good luck?!”
“No. Not many people get to see ghosts.”
“Oh.”
Somehow our conversation turned into how he wanted Bule babies. My bule babies. Haha.
Compared to this, the rest of my day was pretty ordinary. I had 4 classes back-to-back, reprimanded a student for cheating, and had to personally escort my teachers to classes. I started my morning at 5:30 AM and headed to school an hour later.
At lunch I wanted mie ayam, and oddly enough my teachers had ordered a huge lunch including mie ayam. No one ordered some for Miss Chris so Bu Tati politely forfeited her mie ayam. I felt bad, but she ordered more for herself. I’m not sure why they forgot me, but given that this has been a recent habit and I keep eating their food, hopefully they won’t forget again.
By 2:00 PM I made it home from school, fought off taking a nap, read, wrote a blog, and headed to Bule Burger for dinner with Rie. He bought sate ayam from the local vendor. We were both pretty exhausted and restless—I should have taken that nap—and on my way home, I found my neighbor staring at the trees in front of my house.
“Why??” he asked in Indonesian, "are there are all these coconuts?”
He was right. There were a pile of coconuts in front of my house. They had fallen off my tree.
“Small children must have taken them.”
“Maybe. I hope no one throws them at my house.” As I made throwing motions.
“Haha, Iyyyyyyaaaaaa.”
Weird.
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