Three weeks and two days ago from now the title of my blog will be misleading or just outright wrong. I will instead be newlyunindonesian, and newlychicagoan, or, I guess, newlyrechicagoan, given that I’ll never feel new in Chicago because I spent the first 18 years of my life there. I wonder how quickly 18 years of being used to being freezing can be erased. Probably really quickly. Probably I’ll step out of the terminal at O’Hare and promptly shrivel up and die.
I’m drinking water. Trying to picture that water being ice. Trying to picture that ice being everywhere. My windows closed. Ice on these windows. Some rusting old heater – if Indonesia ever had a reason to make heaters, what bizarre defect would they have? – and its blasting cycles, like at home. For some reason I think it’d be like the one at home in that way.
Trying to remember walking in the snow, being so cold that the only thing I want in the world is to be warm. I remember it best in Chicago, the feeling of emerging from the subway. Wind tunnels down the stairs, like Chicago doesn’t want you emerging, would rather you stay underground. A scarf being the more important thing you own, and if it’s a fashion scarf, or knitted sloppily, with large looped holes in it, then it fails. No, it must be inches thick and ugly, industrial. Preferably brown and multilayered. Stuck to your face with frozen snot.
I can write it well enough, but that’s about it – I can’t feel it. The other day the sky opened up on me as I was arguing with a random guy who was trying to make me pay Rp. 20,000 for sitting on a hill, and my T-shirt stuck to my body and I thought, shit, I’m cold. I think it was about 85 degrees outside.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
More adventures at the post office:
I had to go to the post office again to get a stamp for a postcard I’m sending (to someone who knows who he is) and said as much to the guy behind the counter, who was sitting at a desk littered with different types of stamps, and he took my postcard, but looked terrified, and held it in a shaking hand as he made several false starts. First he reached for a small filing cabinet. Then he rattled off a list of questions to his friend at the next desk. Then he squinted at the postcard and mouthed the letters ‘U... S... A...’. Then he picked up some stamps, and put them down again. He slapped the postcard down and picked it up. He turned to his friend again and giggled nervously. Then he held the postcard back out to me and whispered ‘Harus pakai stamp.’ (You must use a stamp.)
I gestured to the stamps littering his desk. ‘Seperti itu? Saya mau bayar satu untuk kartu pos.’ (Like those? I want to pay for one for my postcard. [probably in terrible Indonesian])
He looked confused and gestured to the office next door. ‘Tutup.’ (Closed.)
‘Apa tutup?’ (What’s closed?)
‘Something unintelligible.’
Okay.
So now I have the invaluable information that if I go to buy a stamp for a postcard, I must use a stamp, and it’s closed right now, despite all the stamps in stacks and rows in front of me. I’m pretty grateful for that knowledge, I’ve got to say.
I had to go to the post office again to get a stamp for a postcard I’m sending (to someone who knows who he is) and said as much to the guy behind the counter, who was sitting at a desk littered with different types of stamps, and he took my postcard, but looked terrified, and held it in a shaking hand as he made several false starts. First he reached for a small filing cabinet. Then he rattled off a list of questions to his friend at the next desk. Then he squinted at the postcard and mouthed the letters ‘U... S... A...’. Then he picked up some stamps, and put them down again. He slapped the postcard down and picked it up. He turned to his friend again and giggled nervously. Then he held the postcard back out to me and whispered ‘Harus pakai stamp.’ (You must use a stamp.)
I gestured to the stamps littering his desk. ‘Seperti itu? Saya mau bayar satu untuk kartu pos.’ (Like those? I want to pay for one for my postcard. [probably in terrible Indonesian])
He looked confused and gestured to the office next door. ‘Tutup.’ (Closed.)
‘Apa tutup?’ (What’s closed?)
‘Something unintelligible.’
Okay.
So now I have the invaluable information that if I go to buy a stamp for a postcard, I must use a stamp, and it’s closed right now, despite all the stamps in stacks and rows in front of me. I’m pretty grateful for that knowledge, I’ve got to say.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Some photos I've been unable to upload until now - they're not meant to be artistic, just demonstrative:
In order:
Sunset from our balcony.
GREEN.
Skow Sae, my favorite beach. Almost at the Papua New Guinea border.
This is what I look like nearly all the time. Eating rambutan. I LOVE RAMBUTAN.
And a blown-out shot of a beach on Biak.
In order:
Sunset from our balcony.
GREEN.
Skow Sae, my favorite beach. Almost at the Papua New Guinea border.
This is what I look like nearly all the time. Eating rambutan. I LOVE RAMBUTAN.
And a blown-out shot of a beach on Biak.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Spent today in the market staring at dead squid eyes and cow skins. Studying how things look whole. Living in the states, I forget. I forget that fish aren’t swimming, glistening fillets, and squids aren’t disembodied legs, or naturally breaded into calamari. I caught a glimpse of what I thought was sausages, and I was excited, because sausages become available maybe once every two months, but they turned out to be tamarinds, the only fruit in the world that looks exactly like lots of little pieces of poo.
This is good for me. Not the pieces of poo. Seeing how animals look before we render them unrecognizable. I’ve always said I won’t eat anything that I would have a moral problem with killing myself. (That’s one of those confusing sentences that’s impossible to repair, so I’ll leave it.) It’s harder here. You become faced with it. Here, I’ve been offered dog. I turned it down. I couldn’t kill a dog. I’ve been offered deer. I could kill a deer. I ate it. It was delicious. And someone probably shot it wild. Not that wild means much where I live. Deep, dense jungle fades abruptly into city. The city is built right into the crannies, until it’s too steep to be built anymore. Deer emerge from behind one tree to dart to another tree, to dart to another tree, and find themselves in the middle of the main road. I never picture deer as a tropical animal. Do you?
Things I Didn’t Know One Could Eat Until Papua:
Cow backbone
Raw sea urchin
The list is short, but it’s intriguing.
Friday, January 13, 2007
Have you ever dreamt that you had been shot in the head, and then felt an enormous sense of relief that now you knew what it felt like to be shot in the head? (Like a lightning strike of terrible stinging, but at a safe distance, at maybe a memory’s distance, and then a cocoon of fading, like beginning to dream.)
Last night it was the Catholic bishop in my Level 10 class who shot me in the head. He shot me because I was gathering stolen diamonds from the common room floor to pile in his arms. He shouted through a megaphone for everyone to drop the diamonds. People were trying to make off with them. I was trying to consolidate them so that they could be easily returned. I said this to him as he approached. He shot me anyway. It must have had something to do with his English listening comprehension.
I woke up to someone outside blaring his car horn through the rain. He blared it for a good half hour, at unpredictable intervals. He was probably blaring it for someone to come out who most likely wasn’t even home, who most likely was unaware of any plans to pick him up. Don’t ever make plans with Indonesians. They aren’t plans. They’re vague ideas, what-ifs, and they rarely, if ever, come to fruition.
The man blared his horn anyway. He was persistent. Nick rolled over and opened his eyes.
“I dreamed that Father Y. shot me in the head,” I said.
“Mmm,” he replied, and rolled back.
A few weeks ago Dyah went into the bathroom at school to find the toilet closed and festooned with three little firecracker-shaped packages wrapped in newspaper. By the time I got there, there was a crowd of women, staring into the open bathroom door, everyone afraid to be the one to go in.
“What’s the matter, are you all in the qway-way?” I asked Dyah, because awhile ago someone’s student was late, and he wanted to impress his teacher to make up for it by using a hard word, so he used his dictionary to look up a synonym for ‘traffic jam’ and found ‘queue’. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to his teacher, “but I got caught in a qway-way in Entrop.” This has circulated. Now we say qway-way whenever possible. It never gets less funny. I don’t know why.
She didn’t laugh, though. “Look,” she said, pointing at the firecracker-shaped objects. “Maybe it’s bomb.”
Nobody touched them.
“I really have to go,” Enny said.
“So?” Dyah said, gesturing toward the bathroom and its possible bombs. “Go.”
Enny didn’t move.
“Ike?”
“Not me.”
“Hannah?”
“Never.”
The objects sat there, menacing. Students were starting to notice. Someone went to get Michael. He strode upstairs and opened one of the packages over the sink, wincing. Everyone’s hands strayed near their ears.
“BOOOM!” he shouted. The entire hallway shrieked. It was a tube of lipstick. Another. “BOOOOM!” It was a rolled up comic book. The last one. “BOOOOOM!” A plastic flute.
This is good for me. Not the pieces of poo. Seeing how animals look before we render them unrecognizable. I’ve always said I won’t eat anything that I would have a moral problem with killing myself. (That’s one of those confusing sentences that’s impossible to repair, so I’ll leave it.) It’s harder here. You become faced with it. Here, I’ve been offered dog. I turned it down. I couldn’t kill a dog. I’ve been offered deer. I could kill a deer. I ate it. It was delicious. And someone probably shot it wild. Not that wild means much where I live. Deep, dense jungle fades abruptly into city. The city is built right into the crannies, until it’s too steep to be built anymore. Deer emerge from behind one tree to dart to another tree, to dart to another tree, and find themselves in the middle of the main road. I never picture deer as a tropical animal. Do you?
Things I Didn’t Know One Could Eat Until Papua:
Cow backbone
Raw sea urchin
The list is short, but it’s intriguing.
Friday, January 13, 2007
Have you ever dreamt that you had been shot in the head, and then felt an enormous sense of relief that now you knew what it felt like to be shot in the head? (Like a lightning strike of terrible stinging, but at a safe distance, at maybe a memory’s distance, and then a cocoon of fading, like beginning to dream.)
Last night it was the Catholic bishop in my Level 10 class who shot me in the head. He shot me because I was gathering stolen diamonds from the common room floor to pile in his arms. He shouted through a megaphone for everyone to drop the diamonds. People were trying to make off with them. I was trying to consolidate them so that they could be easily returned. I said this to him as he approached. He shot me anyway. It must have had something to do with his English listening comprehension.
I woke up to someone outside blaring his car horn through the rain. He blared it for a good half hour, at unpredictable intervals. He was probably blaring it for someone to come out who most likely wasn’t even home, who most likely was unaware of any plans to pick him up. Don’t ever make plans with Indonesians. They aren’t plans. They’re vague ideas, what-ifs, and they rarely, if ever, come to fruition.
The man blared his horn anyway. He was persistent. Nick rolled over and opened his eyes.
“I dreamed that Father Y. shot me in the head,” I said.
“Mmm,” he replied, and rolled back.
A few weeks ago Dyah went into the bathroom at school to find the toilet closed and festooned with three little firecracker-shaped packages wrapped in newspaper. By the time I got there, there was a crowd of women, staring into the open bathroom door, everyone afraid to be the one to go in.
“What’s the matter, are you all in the qway-way?” I asked Dyah, because awhile ago someone’s student was late, and he wanted to impress his teacher to make up for it by using a hard word, so he used his dictionary to look up a synonym for ‘traffic jam’ and found ‘queue’. “Sorry I’m late,” he said to his teacher, “but I got caught in a qway-way in Entrop.” This has circulated. Now we say qway-way whenever possible. It never gets less funny. I don’t know why.
She didn’t laugh, though. “Look,” she said, pointing at the firecracker-shaped objects. “Maybe it’s bomb.”
Nobody touched them.
“I really have to go,” Enny said.
“So?” Dyah said, gesturing toward the bathroom and its possible bombs. “Go.”
Enny didn’t move.
“Ike?”
“Not me.”
“Hannah?”
“Never.”
The objects sat there, menacing. Students were starting to notice. Someone went to get Michael. He strode upstairs and opened one of the packages over the sink, wincing. Everyone’s hands strayed near their ears.
“BOOOM!” he shouted. The entire hallway shrieked. It was a tube of lipstick. Another. “BOOOOM!” It was a rolled up comic book. The last one. “BOOOOOM!” A plastic flute.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
I lay in bed thinking about this.
It’s raining, finally. It has been raining for days. I need sheets to cover myself at night for the first time in months. Outside, my laundry is streaming soap and rainwater into the gutter, which is streaming soap, rainwater, sand, and orange leaves into the neighbors’ fish pond. A cream-and-white cat crouches on the tin roof overlooking this stream; its ribs loop painfully under its skin. It jumps in our kitchen window at night and eats our rats. Sometimes Ibu shoos it away with well-aimed kicks. I can’t understand this. Just because it washes the rats down with some of our trash.
I think about this, and how it relates to what I want. Mostly I think about how it doesn’t. I think about how I grew up. I think about my conviction that every only child is spoiled. I still believe this to be almost always true. It’s definitely true in my case. I’ve never denied that.
Louise was adamant, always, in her declaration that happy people will be happy regardless of changes to their environment, and unhappy people, the same thing. I believe her, even though I don’t want to. It makes wanting to go home irrelevant. It makes my now strong and pervasive desire for good food irrelevant – and when is that ever a good thing? What has the world come to when there’s no difference in happiness between masses of MSG soaked rice with a tiny, soggy cut of bay-caught, filthy-from-the-barge-traffic-tuna, and a wood platter stacked with an immaculate, perfectly cut variety of raw fish adorned with daikon, carrot, and seaweed?
It’s not that, though. I know this journal has tired of bearing longing-laden descriptions of faraway food, and I’m trying to quit, but at this point, it’s an addiction. Every thought train is derailed there.
Nothing really makes me happier, though, to wish for, than good food and an endlessly thorough back massage. And after that, a nap. In the sun. But not the equatorial sun, not this sun that’s impossible to cower under for longer than five minutes without beginning to feel faint. Somewhere Californian in June. And a swim in the ocean, at the kind of beach where there’s a slow, steady dropaway and bodysurfing waves. And more good food when I emerge. And then a soundproof music studio, equipped only with a great touch-sensitive electric keyboard and a microphone and no other human being for miles, just for good measure. Hours and hours of that, with snacks at hand, more hours until my voice is hoarse. And then a party. But a party with only my closest friends, and maybe their guests, and nobody who I felt I had to invite just to be polite or to keep up appearances. Getting drunk would be okay, but not getting drunk would not be prohibitive to having fun, and if the alcohol happened to run out, half the party would not take off for another party with a keg, nor want to. Everyone would take forever to get sleepy, and there would be a long period where everyone wavered in their minds between being asleep and being awake, and spoke with that dreamy quality that, if heard in the morning, wouldn’t seem to be following any thread. Everything would be uproariously funny – everything would hold gravity – everything would seem to hinge upon everything else. And everybody would fall asleep at different times and the conversations of the people remaining awake would drift into the dreams of the people who had fallen asleep.
It’s raining, finally. It has been raining for days. I need sheets to cover myself at night for the first time in months. Outside, my laundry is streaming soap and rainwater into the gutter, which is streaming soap, rainwater, sand, and orange leaves into the neighbors’ fish pond. A cream-and-white cat crouches on the tin roof overlooking this stream; its ribs loop painfully under its skin. It jumps in our kitchen window at night and eats our rats. Sometimes Ibu shoos it away with well-aimed kicks. I can’t understand this. Just because it washes the rats down with some of our trash.
I think about this, and how it relates to what I want. Mostly I think about how it doesn’t. I think about how I grew up. I think about my conviction that every only child is spoiled. I still believe this to be almost always true. It’s definitely true in my case. I’ve never denied that.
Louise was adamant, always, in her declaration that happy people will be happy regardless of changes to their environment, and unhappy people, the same thing. I believe her, even though I don’t want to. It makes wanting to go home irrelevant. It makes my now strong and pervasive desire for good food irrelevant – and when is that ever a good thing? What has the world come to when there’s no difference in happiness between masses of MSG soaked rice with a tiny, soggy cut of bay-caught, filthy-from-the-barge-traffic-tuna, and a wood platter stacked with an immaculate, perfectly cut variety of raw fish adorned with daikon, carrot, and seaweed?
It’s not that, though. I know this journal has tired of bearing longing-laden descriptions of faraway food, and I’m trying to quit, but at this point, it’s an addiction. Every thought train is derailed there.
Nothing really makes me happier, though, to wish for, than good food and an endlessly thorough back massage. And after that, a nap. In the sun. But not the equatorial sun, not this sun that’s impossible to cower under for longer than five minutes without beginning to feel faint. Somewhere Californian in June. And a swim in the ocean, at the kind of beach where there’s a slow, steady dropaway and bodysurfing waves. And more good food when I emerge. And then a soundproof music studio, equipped only with a great touch-sensitive electric keyboard and a microphone and no other human being for miles, just for good measure. Hours and hours of that, with snacks at hand, more hours until my voice is hoarse. And then a party. But a party with only my closest friends, and maybe their guests, and nobody who I felt I had to invite just to be polite or to keep up appearances. Getting drunk would be okay, but not getting drunk would not be prohibitive to having fun, and if the alcohol happened to run out, half the party would not take off for another party with a keg, nor want to. Everyone would take forever to get sleepy, and there would be a long period where everyone wavered in their minds between being asleep and being awake, and spoke with that dreamy quality that, if heard in the morning, wouldn’t seem to be following any thread. Everything would be uproariously funny – everything would hold gravity – everything would seem to hinge upon everything else. And everybody would fall asleep at different times and the conversations of the people remaining awake would drift into the dreams of the people who had fallen asleep.
Monday, January 01, 2007
If a trip was capable of having mental disorders, this one (to Biak) would be diagnosed manic-depressive the second it walked into the office. No inkblots, no portrait exercises of the soul, no long multiple-choice tests filled with bubbles. I can run it down in two columns: the happy, exciting column and the terrible column, and, chronologically, they stay equal and extreme. Behold:
☺: Upon arrival in Biak, which is dumping rain like mad, we run into a nice man that happens to also be our neighbor in Jayapura. He offers to give us a ride into town.
☹: Nick somehow manages to use one of those American expressions to accept his offer that means yes but sounds exactly like no. The man climbs into his car and drives away alone.
☺: The taxi fare turns out to be Rp. 1500.
☹: But we have no idea where we are going or whether there are any hotels.
☺: We run into a coworker’s sister while we are wandering aimlessly around town (having arrived there mostly by luck). She takes charge of us and leads us on a tour of every possible hotel in town.
☹: The hotel we like won’t let us rent a double room because we aren’t married.
☺: The sister tries to bribe them. This is funny even though it doesn’t work. We find a better hotel, lie about our marital status, and are subsequently given a double room.
☹: Now I have to think of Nick as my husband. Creepy.
☺: We take a walk down to the beach and find a beautiful grove of palms. We decide to explore.
☹: The palm grove turns out to be a graveyard. The villagers are visibly upset that we almost trod on their dead. One of them walks over, looking menacing, and…
☺: …after some friendly conversation, offers to drive us to a good beach in East Biak the next day.
☹: He flakes.
☺: But as a direct result of his flaking, we meet another man, who, upon discovery that we aren’t rich tourists, offers to take us along for free on a snorkeling outing to the outlying coral islands he’s going on anyway with a couple of Russian tourists the next day.
☹: It rains, so no snorkeling trip.
☺: We find a nearby restaurant that serves shrimp and squid, Chinese-style. It is indescribably delicious.
☹: It gives me mild food poisoning immediately, waits a day, then gives Nick severe food poisoning.
☺: We run into Snorkeling Trip Guy, who’s actually really nice, at the fish market. He lends us a snorkeling mask and puts us on a public taxi to East Biak, where we find a gorgeous beach positively encrusted with nearly untouched seashells and a nearby cliff to dive from.
☹: Then there’s a gigantic thunderstorm.
☺: New Years Eve fireworks!
☹: New Years Eve fireworks shot haphazardly by drunk people out of backyards, off roofs, down streets, at people, etc! Bottle rockets sweeping policemen’s feet out from under them! Truckloads of people with firecrackers all clamoring to throw them out the window at the same time!
☺: The next day is sunny and we are able to go on the original snorkeling trip.
☹: But unfortunately it’s New Years Day, and everything is closed – supermarkets, tokos, warungs, everything. This means we have no breakfast and can’t pack a lunch for the trip. We are so hungry all day we almost die.
☺: In my delirium, I don’t remember that I always get seasick. So I don’t get seasick. I am able to pay attention to the swarms of flying fish that skim the air around our boat.
☹: The Russians are Supertourists. They don’t like the snorkeling area. They have a sneaking suspicion that the boat driver isn’t a certified Snorkeling Operator or something. The woman walks around in her bra and underwear, unaware that she’s being entirely culturally inappropriate. There is a lot of yelling and complaining. The sun hurts them. They know better than the boat driver which way is the correct way to go. Etc.
☺: We catch our plane home without any dramatic fuss.
It starts and ends with smiles, right? So I guess it was a success.
☺: Upon arrival in Biak, which is dumping rain like mad, we run into a nice man that happens to also be our neighbor in Jayapura. He offers to give us a ride into town.
☹: Nick somehow manages to use one of those American expressions to accept his offer that means yes but sounds exactly like no. The man climbs into his car and drives away alone.
☺: The taxi fare turns out to be Rp. 1500.
☹: But we have no idea where we are going or whether there are any hotels.
☺: We run into a coworker’s sister while we are wandering aimlessly around town (having arrived there mostly by luck). She takes charge of us and leads us on a tour of every possible hotel in town.
☹: The hotel we like won’t let us rent a double room because we aren’t married.
☺: The sister tries to bribe them. This is funny even though it doesn’t work. We find a better hotel, lie about our marital status, and are subsequently given a double room.
☹: Now I have to think of Nick as my husband. Creepy.
☺: We take a walk down to the beach and find a beautiful grove of palms. We decide to explore.
☹: The palm grove turns out to be a graveyard. The villagers are visibly upset that we almost trod on their dead. One of them walks over, looking menacing, and…
☺: …after some friendly conversation, offers to drive us to a good beach in East Biak the next day.
☹: He flakes.
☺: But as a direct result of his flaking, we meet another man, who, upon discovery that we aren’t rich tourists, offers to take us along for free on a snorkeling outing to the outlying coral islands he’s going on anyway with a couple of Russian tourists the next day.
☹: It rains, so no snorkeling trip.
☺: We find a nearby restaurant that serves shrimp and squid, Chinese-style. It is indescribably delicious.
☹: It gives me mild food poisoning immediately, waits a day, then gives Nick severe food poisoning.
☺: We run into Snorkeling Trip Guy, who’s actually really nice, at the fish market. He lends us a snorkeling mask and puts us on a public taxi to East Biak, where we find a gorgeous beach positively encrusted with nearly untouched seashells and a nearby cliff to dive from.
☹: Then there’s a gigantic thunderstorm.
☺: New Years Eve fireworks!
☹: New Years Eve fireworks shot haphazardly by drunk people out of backyards, off roofs, down streets, at people, etc! Bottle rockets sweeping policemen’s feet out from under them! Truckloads of people with firecrackers all clamoring to throw them out the window at the same time!
☺: The next day is sunny and we are able to go on the original snorkeling trip.
☹: But unfortunately it’s New Years Day, and everything is closed – supermarkets, tokos, warungs, everything. This means we have no breakfast and can’t pack a lunch for the trip. We are so hungry all day we almost die.
☺: In my delirium, I don’t remember that I always get seasick. So I don’t get seasick. I am able to pay attention to the swarms of flying fish that skim the air around our boat.
☹: The Russians are Supertourists. They don’t like the snorkeling area. They have a sneaking suspicion that the boat driver isn’t a certified Snorkeling Operator or something. The woman walks around in her bra and underwear, unaware that she’s being entirely culturally inappropriate. There is a lot of yelling and complaining. The sun hurts them. They know better than the boat driver which way is the correct way to go. Etc.
☺: We catch our plane home without any dramatic fuss.
It starts and ends with smiles, right? So I guess it was a success.
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