I live in an alternate universe where one might, in the course of going about everyday business, hear a girl speaking Indonesian interspersed with cursed English in a German accent, or hear an Indonesian girl who speaks very very little English exclaim 'Booollsheet!' indigantly when she feels someone is lying. You might hear a class full of 10 year old Indonesian boys being taught the difference in pronunciation between the 'a' of 'can't' and the 'ah' of 'cahn't' by an Australian teacher who shoots us knowingly superior looks as he emphasizes the 'ah's', or a class full of 7 year old Indonesian girls being taught the alphabet by a teacher from Kentucky: 'ell imm inn oh pee'.

In this alternate universe, for 20000rp (2 dollars, roughly), you can get either a three pound yellowfin tuna or a tiny bag of M&M's. You can get anywhere within a five mile radius by cab for 2000rp (20 cents), but a dress still costs 350,000rp (35 dollars). You can get a bag of potstickers for 10000rp (you get the idea) but to get the little bottle of soy sauce to dip them in, you have to pay 3 times as much. A coconut hardly registers on the price scale. Neither do bananas, or papayas. I saw a girl at the market visibly suppress giggles as she sold a bunch of bananas to an unsuspecting blond for 5000rp (and no, that blond wasn't me - I know what you're thinking).

Tomorrow, Papua New Guinea! I hear they have hot water!! This merits lots of exclamation points!!!!!!!!! We're just going there overnight to process our work visa, but overnight is enough to take twenty hot showers, at the very least.