Water Aerobics

Well, we're back in Jakarta.  We flew out of the airport in Lombok yesterday and arrived back in Jakarta without incident.  I didn't even have any children kicking the back of my seat for the flight. 

Once we got back to the team apartment, we were pleasantly surprised to see not one, not two, but three packages had finally been delivered.  It was Christmas all over again.  I had sent one of the boxes back in early November.  I remember laughing when my post office clerk had assured me that it would arrive in 5-10 days.  Sure!  Maybe it would arrive in country in 5-10 days but then it would probably sit in Customs for another 4-5 weeks and then take another 2-3 weeks after that before the kids could pick it up.  Luckily they seem to have finally stumbled on the correct way to request the postman to leave the package with the doorman, instead of taking it back to the post office.  Hooray!

Back to a modern apartment, it seemed that the next logical thing to do would be to start a load of wash in the washing machine.  Right?  But, of course!  That's just what Lina did as I headed off to the bedroom to unpack.  I was partly unpacked when I decided to go to the kitchen for a glass of water.   As I headed out the bedroom door, I stepped into a puddle of water.  Huh?

"Hey, is there supposed to be a bunch of water on the floor here?" I called.

Everyone came running and skidded to a halt.  Then the herd reversed course and thundered over to the laundry room, flung open the door, and someone gasped.

"The drainage hose has been knocked loose and is just laying on the floor," someone called out.  "The water is all draining out right onto the floor."

The kids quickly put the hose back where it was supposed to be - draining into a small squatty potty floor with a drain hole next to the washer.  Lina grabbed the one and only mop and started mopping.  Of course, it wasn't a mop like I'm used to in the States that has a squeezing mechanism built into it.  No, you had to wring it out by hand.  Jason went looking for towels.  Apparently there were only two in the whole apartment.  He started putting those down on the floors and then wringing them out. 

By this time, the water had spread from the laundry room, through the kitchen, into the living room, and down the hallway towards the bedrooms.  I suggested taking a broom and sweeping water into the dust pan.  It had always worked for me back in my childhood home when our basement would regularly flood during the Spring thaws.  Of course, back then we'd use a snow shovel and a broom but the concept was similar.  Jason looked a little skeptical but gave it a try and indeed, it worked swell.

We swept, wrung, and flung water for a good half hour and we certainly all got our aerobic exercise for the day.  Finally I thought we might be able to launch a dove and be reasonably assured that it would continue on its way and not return to us to perch on the refrigerator.  I could see dry land, er, floor.

We didn't get any irate calls from the tenants downstairs so I believe we stemmed the flow in time to avoid any damage  Thank goodness that the floors were tiled and that I had felt that need for a cup of water when I did.

As the kids sank exhaustedly into chairs, I danced around the room.  "Hey, this is great!" I crowed.  "I won't have to spend any time trying to figure out what to blog about tomorrow.  I'll write about the flood.  Anyone want to pose with the mop for me?"

I ducked just in time to avoid the wet towel.

The Joy of Eating with a Toddler

We were enjoying our breakfast this morning and as I watched Mika squishing a piece of watermelon between her fingers and tracked the juice flowing down her "onesie", I reflected on the joy of eating with a toddler.  Actually, this might be the secret weapon that diet companies have been looking for.
Nothing quite takes away the appetite like watching a picky toddler playing with their food.  There is just something about seeing mashed-on food covering clothes and bodies that takes away that desire for another bite.  Oh, I'm all for the joys of barbarian dining and have long harbored a desire to participate in a barbarian feast but even the most uncouth Vikings chewed and swallowed their food before flinging those bones across the room.

Laura was trying to entice Mika with little cubes of watermelon on her highchair tray, and for the most part, it was working.  Watermelon is one of Mika's favorite foods.  However, I'm discovering that when you put too many options in front of the baby, she quickly shifts into "play mode" and starts squeezing and exploring the tidbits in front of her.  She had melon juice down her front, pooling on the seat she was sitting on, all over her face, and in her ears.  For some strange reason, I kept humming "Why do the kids put beans in their ears" from the musical "The Fantastiks."  Didn't want to give her any ideas though so I tried to refrain from singing the lyrics.

Mika also has moments when she gets herself into a snit and that's when the food starts to fly.  Today Aunt Lina was taking a turn holding her and Mika had an assortment of soy nuts and cheese in front of her.  Nope, she scooped up the nuts and dropped them on the floor as she gave me "the look."  You know that look I'm talking about, if you've ever dealt with a toddler.  It's the "I'm doing something I shouldn't and I know it and you know it and now, what are you going to do about it, huh?" look.  I took the rest of her soy nuts away and started rationing them out to her one at a time.  If one went over the side, she had to wait for another one.

I SO wanted to give her the little talk that I once gave my own daughter.  Of course, MY daughter had been a little older and it had been when she had tried to tell me that she had already practiced her piano when I knew good and well that she hadn't.  The talk had been along the lines of "Never try to kid a kidder."   In Mika's case, the "talk" would have been, "Never try to out-strong will a strong-willed Nana."  Eh, that talk will come another day.

Then there were the hard-boiled egg whites that Laura was trying to entice Mika to eat.  Just between you, me, Mika and the lamp-post, I thought they looked about as appetizing as tire rubber.  I did a very non-grandmotherly thing.  I told Mika my opinion.  Hey, if they'd been in front of me, I would have chucked the things on the ground myself or at least covered them up with a napkin.

I think I'll invest in a plastic raincoat before my next visit.  Sure, people might look funny at me when I wear it in a restaurant but I'll be the one walking out of the place with a clean outfit while the rest of the family is covered in their entrees.  As my own mum used to say, "There's more than one way to skin a cat" and there's more than one way to eat with a toddler.

As an aside, just to update you on the mosquito situation here, poor Mika got feasted on last night again.  Those mosquitoes really seem to like her, even when she is inside her little crib/tent that zips up.  It must have happened on one of the times when she was in her parents' bed.

I was quite overjoyed this morning to notice some birds swooping around the lawn.  They acted and looked quite similar to the barn swallows from the farm in Minnesota.  I didn't realize that Indonesia had birds like that but they were obviously going after bugs and most probably mosquitoes.  Good riddance, I say!

Those Pesky Skeeters

One fact of life that I've become quickly acquainted with here in Indonesia are the ever-present mosquitoes.  Oh, my....they are everywhere.  When we left for Lombok, I discovered that I had a nice series of bites running in the shape of a big "C" around my elbow which could only have occurred while I was sitting in the Starbucks in Jakarta "thinking" that I was getting bit by something.  Is NOTHING sacred?  Come on, can't a person enjoy a cup of java in an indoor mall without getting bit?  Perhaps I should have been tipped off by the mosquito-killing bug tennis racket sitting by the wall that I spied but I refused to believe that they would be present in mid-morning inside a mall.  My mistake!

We came to Lombok armed with an arsenal of mosquito repellent weapons.  I had cleaned out our local grocery store's supply of Deep Woods wipes before I left for Indonesia and I still had a bag of them to bring with me to the island.  I lather up with those babies at night, believe me!

We also have some family-friendly spray that we can use during the day.  It doesn't last as long but it still does the job.  Speaking of spray, the other day we were so desperate for relief in our little apartment here that we asked the housekeepers if they could come back and spray for mosquitoes.  They did so but the results were dead or dying flies in the apartment and plenty of mosquitoes flying around in my bedroom.  Jason said he was bit less in the night so maybe they all just migrated over to our side of the apartment.  In fact, I was lying in bed reading on my Kindle last evening when Lina, my roomie, suddenly slammed her hand down on my bed.  No explanation was needed.  I knew that she must have spotted a mosquito.  For the next five minutes, I watched Lina doing an acrobatic "ballet" around the room as she would spot the mosquito and lunge for it, only to miss.  Finally she killed the pest.

Inevitably, we need something to relieve the itching when we've lost the battle of the bites.  That's when the "AfterBites" balm comes in handy.  You roll it on your bites and supposedly it helps control the scratching that you are trying like crazy not to do.  Jason tells me, "Just to scratch the bites."  Easy for him to say....NOT so easy to do.

One of our first days here I heard an airplane that seemed to be pretty low.  "Wow," I said, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that was a crop duster."

I happened to glance out the window just in time to see big clouds of white drifting over the lawn.  I must have looked puzzled because Lina said, "Oh, they're spraying for mosquitoes."
 
We've seen them do this twice since we've been here so apparently it's an ongoing battle at this resort.  Certainly we've come to realize that if you head out somewhere at dusk, you arm yourself with lots of bug spray or risk coming back looking like one giant bug zit.  They are EVERYWHERE as the sun starts to go down.

I have started sleeping defensively with ear plugs so that I don't get jarred awake by the whine of a mosquito in my ear.  Why do mosquitoes always hover around a person's ear at night?  Do they do it just to torture us?  But hey, with ear plugs, I don't hear a thing and since I've "Deep Woods" my ear lobes, those skeeters don't get the joy of biting my  ears either.

Laura had the misfortune of making the acquaintance of a Dengue Fever-carrying mosquito early on in her time here in Indonesia.  It sent her to the hospital where she spent some miserable days battling a high fever, a dropping platelet count, and horrible nausea.  If her platelet count hadn't finally started to rise on its own, she would have had to receive some blood transfusions.

Even the baby isn't immune to mosquito bites.  In fact, the poor kid seems to be particularly delectable to the pesky bugs.  Since she doesn't know how to scratch the bites, she gets quite cranky.  Wouldn't you just love to "splat" a bug that would dare put a bite on that cute little face?

I'm certainly not going to miss mosquitoes when I return home.  It will be mid-winter in Pennsylvania and there will probably not be a single mosquito in sight.  On the other hand,  I might have to contend with Asian Stink Bugs who have crawled into a warm house to escape the cold.  Ironic, isn't it?  Here in Asia, I haven't seen ONE Asian stink bug.  Hmmm, since they are already so familiar with mosquitoes, I wonder if I could sell them on the idea that the Asian stink bugs are natural predators of mosquitoes.  If I could do that, Pennsylvania could make a fortune exporting stink bugs to Indonesia.   I don't think that they actually do eat mosquitoes but perhaps Governor Rendell could train them to do so.  I hear he'll be looking for a new job soon.

Baby Bowling

Have you wondered what we do for entertainment here with a toddler and no Nickelodeon TV or public libraries or playgrounds nearby?  Well, we go "baby bowling."  Actually, a person becomes quite adept at making up their own entertainment.

One of the things that Mika enjoys is actually her own version of "baby bowling."  Every day the staff brings bottled water over for each of us so we end up with empty water bottles daily.  Usually we boil water and refill the empty bottles and them put them in the refrigerator so that we'll have extra water available.  However, we also like to keep some empties around so that we can set them up on the floor for Mika to plow into.  She LOVES to kick them over.  We call it "baby bowling."

Lina likes to sit by the pool and sometimes I join her with my Kindle in hand.  I'm not much of a sunbather, though so I usually give up pretty quickly and head back to the apartment.  Jason likes to sit and read non-fiction back in the unit.  Laura likes to read, too when she doesn't have her hands full with Mika.  We all take turns with Mika, trying to give Laura a bit of a break but when she gets to a certain level of fussiness, only "Mom" will do.

Jason, Lina, and I have laptops here so I guess you could say that they are a form of entertainment.  Actually, in the evenings a laptop IS our form of entertainment.  Jason and Lina brought DVDs with them and we pick out one to watch and then put it on the computer.  We all gather on the couch and watch a movie that way.
We brought books for Mika from home and take turns reading them to Mika.  When she tires of that, we take turns walking her around and around inside the apartment.  She enjoys this immensely.  Yesterday, at breakfast, I discovered how much she enjoys being walked up and down stairs.  Whew!  Now THAT is a good cardio-vascular workout.

Crocheting, reading and sudoku on the Kindle, and people-watching kind of rounds out the entertainment for me.  Oh, and let's not forget the other form of entertainment.....watching it rain in the afternoons or evening since it IS the rainy season in this part of the world.

I'm not going to know what to do when I get back to the States and my hundreds of TV channels.  Well, actually I DO know what I'll be doing.  I'll be catching up on all my favorite shows that the Commander has been recording for me AND I'm going to be knitting up a storm AND I'm going to be spinning.  Until than, I think I'll go grab my Kindle and start a new book.

Pop Geography Quiz

OK, here's a little pop quiz for you.  First of all, where is Lombok?  I'll give you a clue.  It's an Indonesian island.  Of course, before you get too excited I'd best point out that there are over 17,000  islands that comprise the country of Indonesia.  But Lombok is one of the larger islands so you should be able to find it on a map.

Holiday Resorts, where we are staying, is located right outside the town of Sengiggi.  Can you locate that town on the island of Lombok?  If you were successful, can you tell me what ocean or sea we are enjoying the view of right now?  Don't feel too bad if you have to do a little more research.  We all took a guess and came up with 3 answers between us, none of which were the correct answers so we had to do a little more research and now we know the correct answer.  I'll reveal that answer to you at the end of this post.

Lombok is best known for its pottery and for Mt. Rinjani, the second highest peak in Indonesia.  They also have several centers where ikat weaving is practiced and I'd sure love to see some of that.

There are a little over 3 million people living on the island of Lombok.  While they are all considered to be Indonesian citizens, the main people group that they identify themselves with is Sasak (about 85%), which were thought to have originated in Java.  Approximately 29% of the population is considered to be living at the poverty level. 

That's your pop quiz for today.  Tomorrow I'll tell you about some of the things we've been doing to amuse ourselves here in Lombok with a toddler in tow. Oh, and the name of the sea in the picture and the one we've been enjoying here at the resort is the Bali Sea.

The Challenge of Internet Connecting Overseas

Before I had traveled to Indonesia myself, I couldn't understand why it was so hard to get consistent emails from Jason and family.  How hard could it be to get an update of one or two sentences every other day?  How about a picture posted on Facebook?  When your grandchild is half a world away, we grandparents were hungering for any snapshot of a wee one who was growing and changing rapidly.

Now that I've seen how things work (or don't) firsthand, I have a much better understanding of why it has been so hard for the kids to stay connected with us.  Laura told me that when they moved to Bandung to attend their language school, they had to try three separate internet services until they were finally able to connect and each time they tried, it took Jason almost a full day to try to set up things on the computer.
 
The service that Jason uses now is one that he must pay a set amount of money for and then he can download, upload, or any combination thereof up to 1 gigabyte before his quota is used up and his download speed decreases dramatically.  So when he wants to upload a picture, he always makes sure to compress it so that it isn't using up a lot of space from his quota and that's one of the reasons that he doesn't post a lot of pictures.   Conversely, if someone sends him a large file whether it is via email or in an attachment, it will also use up a lot of his quota. 

The internet speed is also very slow, especially when you are used to the high-speed internet connections available in the States.  We have our internet connections at home via Verizon FiOs and it is blazing fast.  The internet through Jason's provider is almost like the old dial-up modem connections but I'd say it seems slower to me many times.   You have to wait SOOOOOOOOO long for a website to load that often the page "times" out and you get an error message with a "Try Again?" button.  Aargh, the agony!

When Jason's monthly paid connection time has run out, he has to walk to the place where he purchased the service from and put more money down on it.  I'm not sure if you have the option of having it renew automatically or not but, at least in his case, it isn't an automatic process.

Jason and Laura will download their email and then disconnect and read the emails off-line.  Then they will write up email replies off-line and have them all ready to copy and paste for the next time that they go online so that time isn't wasted while they are connected.  For my blog posts, I've also been writing my posts before I connect so that I'm also not wasting connected time.  Yes, it's a whole new way of doing things.  Can't say that I'll miss it when I am back home and able to get back into my old way of using the "Net." 

What this experience HAS taught me is to be mindful of how difficult it can be for others overseas in certain areas of the world to stay connected electronically with others.  It has to be a very intentional process.  I guess patience is called for on both ends and that isn't easy when you're hungry for news from your family overseas.

Christmas in Paradise

Lombok and Christmas....it's hard to believe that today is Christmas, at least in this part of the world as I look out over a vista of banana trees, palm trees, and bird of paradise plants.  The resort here consists of a huge main lodge with various restaurants, a fitness lounge, a gorgeous pool, meeting room, and tennis courts all located right on the beach and then you walk across the street to grounds where there are the lodgings.  Each building appears to have two units taking up a complete floor.

We are staying in the upper floor of one of the units and have a living area, kitchen and eating area, and two bedrooms complete with bathrooms.  Our friend, Lina and I are in one bedroom and Jason, Laura and Mika are in the other bedroom.

When we arrived at the resort, we were greeted by very attentive employees everywhere.  As Laura checked us in, an employee came around with a tray of complimentary fruit drinks for us.  It was wonderful, especially since we were all pretty parched and the baby was hot, feverish, and cranky.  I had the chance to sit and skim through an English-language newspaper in the lobby which was my first chance at seeing any news since my arrival here.  I REALLY miss my daily newspaper at home so this was a real treat.  Then another employee came to load our luggage on a trolley and lead us across the street to our unit.  Once there, he showed us how to operate the air conditioning units and then he was on his way.

Now that we've had a few days here, we've been enjoying the wonderful breakfast buffet that's included in the stay.  They even make up omelets to order, have waffles with syrup, and croissants with mango jam, plus the usual assortment of Asian noodle dishes that folks in this part of the world enjoy for breakfast.  Lunch and dinners are another treat.  The waiters or waitresses hover over us, waiting to cater to our every whim....even putting our napkins on our laps.  Wow!

The pool is a thing of beauty.  It's comprised of several levels and surrounded by chairs for lounging and umbrellas for those of us who aren't sun worshippers.  You can still enjoy a view of the ocean from poolside.

 Here's the view as you walk out the front of the main lodge  Aren't those mountains gorgeous?  We walk across the street to get to our apartment.  The views are absolutely breathtaking.

The resort has been playing Christmas songs since we arrived.  It has been nice to sing along as we eat on the patios scattered around the main lobby.  This is the main mural that greeted us at the main lobby.  Get a load of this reindeer.  I think I would have had nightmares as a kid if I had seen him arriving on my roof.

We have decorated a little tree in our apartment and have little stockings on the table next to it.  Today we are going to be reading the Christmas story, watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on one of the laptops, and we've been singing Christmas carols together.  Last evening, our Christmas Eve, Mika, Lina and I danced merrily around the apartment to music, including our one and only Christmas song on Lina's mp3 (a Mariah Carey Christmas song).  Mika LOVED dancing and directing the fun.

So to all of you from all of us, may you have a very blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year from our little corner of the world.

Paradise - If You Can Survive the Trip

Today we began our adventure by catching a taxi at 6 a.m. to the airport in Jakarta.  We were catching a flight to Lombok, the less-touristy version of Bali.  While we waited in the boarding area, I amused myself by watching an out-of-control boy of about 5-years-old make greasy hand prints side by side along the entire glass wall of the waiting area.  Gee, how cute!  At least that's what his parents seemed to think.  I, for one, could have grabbed him by the ear and warmed his little bum.  When he wasn't doing that, he was dashing around between the seating aisles, chasing his older brother, and running out into the "boarding only" hallway, completely ignoring his parents' feeble attempts to call him back.  The Indonesian people dislike conflict so the airline employees sat there politely and, I'm sure, were praying that his parents would get the kid under control.
 
In the meantime, another family arrived with an older boy of about 7 or 8 who decided it would be fun to start meowing like a Siamese cat.  Yeah, cute for about 30 seconds.  Five minutes later it was no longer cute.  Eight minutes into the constant meowing and I was about ready to either unleash my inner dog on him or wish a mighty hairball on the kid.  Can you tell that I didn't get much sleep last night?  But hooray, just at that point, everyone stood up and started toward the doors to the boarding hallway.  Unfortunately an announcement came on the loudspeaker and there was a loud, collective groan and the herd turned and headed in the opposite direction.

"What's up?" I asked my family.

"Just follow the crowd," they replied.  "There's been a gate change.  Hopefully we don't have to go through security a second time."

As we all dutifully traipsed through the airport enmasse, the meowing boy continued his caterwauling until Lina, one of our traveling companions turned around and gave him a good, long stare.  He shut up like a clam.   Go, Lina!

We got to our gate and had to go outside, down some stairs and then walk out to a jet parked on the tarmac.  The bulk of the passengers were bunched around the steps at the front of the plane but one enterprising passenger noticed that the steps at the tail of the plane were down so he led a small group of us to the other entrance into the plane.  It worked out well since we were sitting in the next to last row of the plane.

Yup, it worked out really well until I realized that I was sitting next to the mum of the little terror who had been leaving the handprints on the glass walls.  He was now sitting behind me along with his brother and his dad.  Mom was holding the baby who, it soon became quite evident, had a VERY dirty diaper. 

"Hugh," she said, waving the baby toward the row behind us and thus enhancing the spread of the 'aroma,' "take the baby and this nappy and change him in the toilet."

The middle brother spoke up.  "Ewwww, gross.  He stinks.  I don't want to have to see that.   Ewww!   Mum.....I want to sit by the window!"  At the same time, he was punctuating his remarks by kicking the back of my seat.

It finally got sorted out, the baby got changed into a fresh nappy, and the plane took off.  After an initial meltdown, the baby fell asleep and was quiet and sweet-smelling for the rest of the trip.  The little terror of a brother, however, kicked my seat for the entire 2 hours.  Our little Mika, however, even though she was running a fever and feeling bad, was a pretty good little traveler, only fussing a bit at the beginning but sleeping for the majority of the trip.

We arrived at the main airport in Lombok and disembarked, walking from the plane to the terminal.  I looked around at the mountains in the distance, the palm trees and banana trees lining the runway, the little terminal with a distinct South Seas flair and I had a crazy impulse to break out into song.....perhaps something from one of my favorite musicals, "South Pacific."

We gathered our luggage and then walked to the main road to hail a taxi.  The driver was kind enough to make a quick stop for us at a pharmacy so Laura could pick up a thermometer and some children's liquid aspirin and then he drove us through the countryside to our resort.  As we climbed the steps up to the large open veranda where the check-in desk was, I happened to glance over and noticed several familiar faces.  You guessed it!   Mom, baby, the two older brothers and Dad....the whole family that was sitting behind me and beside me.  Oh, boy!  It should be a fun week.  Tomorrow I'll tell you about my first impressions of our home away from home in Lombok.

Did We Enter the Indy 500?

Yesterday we took a rental car service from Bandung to Jakarta.  My son arranged for a driver to pick us up at 4 p.m. at the International Language School.  That time came and went as we waited under the eaves of the school while a passing shower dumped rain on us.  We waited longer, the baby started to get cranky, and through it all, the very accommodating gate guard at the school agreed to stay late to wait with us until the car arrived.

Finally Jason and Laura made a series of calls to the company and then eventually reached the driver who told us he'd be there in 10 minutes.  Jason explained to me that "10 minutes" actually meant at least 30 minutes in Indonesian time.  He was correct but the fellow finally arrived in a nice new van and we loaded everything into it and off we went.

By this time it was rush hour in Bandung.  This meant that we crawled at a snail's pace until we finally got outside the town and onto the new super highway that has been built between Bandung and Jakarta.  It was at that point that our driver kicked in the after burners.

Oh, my goodness!  We literally were thrown  against the back of the seats by the G-force of the acceleration.  From that point on he drove like a bat out of hell.  IF we hadn't gotten into rush hour traffic in Bandung, we should probably have arrived at our apartment in Jakarta around 8:30 p.m.  Well, we arrived at the apartment at 7:30 p.m. DESPITE sitting almost an hour in rush hour traffic in Bandung.  That gives you some idea of how fast that guy was traveling.

I expected that at any moment we would pull off to have a pit crew change our tires but that didn't happen.  At the very least, I figured we should have all been given Dale Earnhardt jackets as souvenirs upon our arrival in Jakarta.  Nope!  Poor Laura was afraid to nap for fear that Mika would fly out the window if she lost her grip on the baby.  Jason was afraid to look back at me for fear I'd whack him on the side of the head for putting our lives in danger from this automotive psycho.  I made the mistake of opening up a Coca-Cola bottle.  The weaving back and forth between lanes and sudden braking from tailgating had so shaken up the bottle that when I opened it up, it erupted all over my lap.  I hope the driver didn't speak English because I forgot myself and said, "Oh, sh_t!   Speaking of which, I didn't have to worry about having a problem with diarrhea on the ride.  The driving had scared me shitless, to put it bluntly.

I wish I had some pictures to share but the ones I tried to take were all a blur.  Gee, I CAN'T imagine why!  I DID manage to get a quick picture of the beautiful sunset at one point when we slowed to a crawl in a construction zone. 

When we piled out of the car in front of the apartment building in Jakarta and lugged our suitcases into the elevator, we looked at each other in a state of shell shock.  Almost in unison, we all said a variation of "Never again!  We are NOT going to take a car ever again between Bandung and Jakarta!"  Can I get an "Amen?"

Bandung Home Tour Pt. 2

Jason and Laura's home in Bandung is a two-story house in a kampung.  By "kampung" standards, it's actually pretty nice.  It's a short 5-minute walk from the language school that Jason and Laura are both attending.  There is an English-speaking church fellowship that meets on Sundays in the building right next to the language school so that is also convenient for them.  You can walk about 8 minutes from their house and catch an "angkot" or a taxi to get to grocery stores or malls or the hospital or you can walk about a half hour to get to food vendors.
Yesterday I gave you a tour of the downstairs of the house.  Today I'll show you the upstairs.  First you must climb up a steep set of stairs from the downstairs level to get to the family sitting area.  There is also a door leading to the outside  from this room.  Right now the kids are using this area as a playroom for Mika and then, in the evenings, as her nursery.

The other room upstairs is the bedroom.  Normally this is Jason and Laura's bedroom but while I am visiting, it is my room.  There is one small wardrobe in the room, the bed, a stand next to the bed, and several lizards that like to come out at night and run around on the walls.

The only shower is off of this room.  You first have to start the pump which gets water running out of the hand-held shower head.  Then you flip a switch on the instant water heater and presto chango, the water heats up almost immediately.  The door is wooden on the outside facing into the bedroom but metal on the inside so you just have to hang the shower head up on the hook and shut the door and you are good to go shower.

There is also a water holding tank thing in the corner of this small shower area.  I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of that is but I'll tell you what I use it for.  There is a dipper by it and I usually brush my teeth, running water over my brush from my drinking water and then spit in the shower over the drain.  Then I use water from the dipper to rinse the spit away.  It's quite the complicated process to brush your teeth here.  As I might have mentioned earlier, there is no bathroom sink so you either brush your teeth in the kitchen sink or in the shower and you don't use the water from the faucet to brush because of possible health problems so you have to remember to use bottled water to rinse your brush with.

Yesterday afternoon we headed off to Jakarta in preparation for our trip off the island to go to Lombock.  I'll tell you all about our wild ride in my next post. 

Home Sweet Bandung Home

I thought you might like to see a bit of the home that Jason and Laura are living in here in Bandung.  As most homes in kampungs, it shares a common wall with another home.  However, it is at the end of an alley so it is only attached on the one side, kind of like being at the end of a row of townhouses.  It's up high, looking out over the rooftops of the neighbors.

Today, I thought I'd show you the bottom floor which includes the main entry/sitting area, kitchen area and the one and only toilet.  The eating area is in one corner of the kitchen.  There is a small table in the corner and a row of built-in cupboards under the stairs leading up to the upstairs.

The main entry/sitting area is currently being used as a bedroom which I am visiting.  Jason and Laura have moved some mattresses down there and are sleeping there so that I can use their bedroom upstairs (and get the added bonus of hte lizards - yay!).

Along the other wall of the kitchen area is the small refrigerator and the washing machine.  There is a water container on top of the fridge that has the water that we drink.  When it gets low, Jason calls a fellow who shows up with more jugs.

The washing machine is kind of an unusual contraption.  I have no idea how it works.  The lady who comes during the week to help runs it.  I know it involves running water from a hose into it and then putting the clothes into the one side where it agitates.  I guess you must then drain that compartment and run water in again to rinse the clothes.  After the clothes are washed, then the helper takes them outside to hang over the front walkway railing.  We have limited clothespins so if it gets windy then the clothes sometimes end up on the walk or front stoop.  Today I was afraid that my knickers were going to end up on the neighbor's front doorstep.

The only cooking area is this two-burner gas hotplate.  Interestingly enough, there is a boxy metal contraption that can be set on top of a burner and it can be used as a toaster or an oven.  The helper has baked banana bread in it and also a cake.  I don't know how she does it.

Next to the hotplate is a sink and drain area.  There is no garbage disposal, which I really miss.  The ants are happy about that, though.  They pounce on any piece of food that hits the floor.  Tonight I saw a stream of ants carrying two soy nuts up the wall of the kitchen.  Speaking of walls, as I write this, I glanced over and saw a small lizard right next to the level of my mattress on the wall.  And now I just saw a big lizard come out from under my bed.  Holy Toledo, do they have a nest under the bed?  I am seriously freaked out.

Back to the kitchen....there is one toilet in the house and that is in the kitchen  It is a tiny little compartment with a toilet and that's about it.  There isn't a sink.  You have to come out and use the kitchen sink to wash your hands.

There is a row of ventilation blocks at the top of the back wall of the toilet which apparently open up into the back wall of the neighbor's toilet because when sitting in there, you can hear the neighbors pretty clearly.

That's it for our little tour of the downstairs.  Tomorrow I'll try to give you a tour of the upstairs, which consists of a little living room, the bedroom and the one shower.

Crunching on Chicken Toes

OK, maybe they weren't chicken toes but I can't swear by that.  Jason walked to "circle" to pick up some lunch yesterday and came back with an assortment of goodies for us.  He had some tempeh, fried noodles, and some fried chicken strips. 

I thought you might enjoy a look at the "containers" this food comes in from the little food kiosks in the area.  It is waxed paper on the inside and just a brown paper on the outside.  They put the ordered food in the paper and then fold it up and staple or rubber band the little packets of paper.  That's how you get it.

The tempeh was for Laura and for him.  I'm not a fan of tofu or the soy stuff.  It tastes like rubber to me on a bad day and like mush to me on a good day.  I left it for them and gladly.  The fried noodles were another story.  I'm particularly fond of fried noodles here.  This batch had a bunch of veggies mixed in with it.  I thought at first that the dark green stuff was spinach but it really tasted bitter.  I ate as much of it as I could and then I started picking the rest out.  I figured if the baby could be picky, so could I.  I did get most of the cabbage down.  I love cabbage in good old Pennsylvania dishes.  The onion stalks were another thing.  I love onion in dishes, too but the stalks are just too reedy for me.  Those went to the side of the plate along with the bitter green stuff.  Yup, I know....I have horrible eating habits but this is the person who usually eats the top of a cake for lunch or a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or two.  I've been fairly sugar deprived for the past two weeks.  Let's blame it on that.

Then it was time to unveil the fried chicken strips.  Oh, boy...I was really looking forward to those.  Jason opened up the paper pouch.  Hmmm, they looked like fried octapus tentacles.  I looked a little closer but couldn't quite figure out what it was.  However, it was fried so that was just about all the endorsement I needed.  Jason and I dug in.  Ouch, the darn things were rock hard.  These things were crunchier than peanuts.  Luckily, none of my fillings are loose so I didn't think I'd endanger my teeth by eating them.  I looked closer at the "strips." 

"Jason," I said.  "I think these might be fried chicken feet."

"No way," he replied.

"Sure," I answered.  "They look like little chicken toes."

I don't know if they were or not but it was a catchy name and it stuck.  The baby enjoyed biting them and throwing them on the ground.  They were deadly if they hit any ants.  And they make a great story, eh?

All This AND a Free Donut!

Yesterday afternoon Jason and I took an "angkot" into the heart of Bandung to one of the malls to see if we could tap into some free WiFi service in one of the cafes there.  The ride in was interesting, as always.  The angkot got very crowded.  At one point, the young man who had been sitting in front with the driver, gave up his seat to two young girls and he hung on the side of the van in the open doorway.  My heart was in my throat because usually we have just inches to spare as we thread through the traffic.  In fact, at one point where we got into a bottleneck, he jumped off.  Better that than to be flattened into a pancake, I think.  We went into a coffee/pastry shop that supposedly has fast internet service and ordered two drinks.  Jason got a cappucinno and I got an iced Thai tea. 

When the drinks were ready, Jason went up to pick them up and came back with, not only our drinks, but also two fresh glazed donuts.  Wow, is this a great country or what?  So there we sat, sipping our drinks and figuring how to log into their WiFi.  We finally got both of us logged in but it was anything but fast.  In fact, it was agonizingly slow.  I have been so spoiled with my blazing fast Verizon FiOs internet service at home.  Here it is like pulling teeth just waiting for a page to load.  Sending an email would take 3 or 4 tries before it would finally head off.

I really shouldn't complain though because it was free and the shop was air-conditioned and I even got to listen to a live band out in the concourse area sing Michael Jackson's "Beat It," a tune I recognized, could sing along with and could probably moonwalk to, if I had so desired.  It brought back fond memories of an aerobics class I used to take when the kids were toddlers.

We surfed the net for awhile and then Jason did some language studying but by then, I was feeling guilty for taking up space for so long in their shop so I sent him up to get me a cup of "American coffee," which means "black, no sugar."  By golly, he came back with my coffee and ANOTHER donut.  I could REALLY get to like this coffee shop.

After our internet surfing, we headed down to the bottom level of the mall to do a little grocery shopping and then headed up to the upper level to pick up some movie popcorn for Laura.  She had stayed home with Mika and she really wanted some of that popcorn so we carted home a bucket of it for her.

As we started out of the mall, we were stopped by a group of about 6 young men who (as best I can tell) asked Jason if he would mind if they asked him some questions for a school project.  He graciously agreed and they interviewed him for a few minutes, all hunched around a notebook with questions written down.  Afterwards, they asked if they could have their picture taken with him.  So he posed for pictures.  I think each one of them had a camera or a cellphone with a camera and they took turns jockeying positions so they all could get their pictures taken.

We finally made it out of the mall and started down a side street where we found a small pizza shop that some of the language school students had highly recommended.  We settled on a Pizza Marguerite (which is basically a cheese pizza with slices of tomato on it), a Carne Pizza (a pizza with ground beef, onions, and cheese), and a pollo calzone (which had chicken, salsa, and cheese in a calzone crust.  I didn't sample that one but Jason said it kind of reminded him of a Mexican pizza.  It came with a red sauce in a small packet.  I wasn't brave enough to try it.  The Carne Pizza was excellent.  When the pizzas were ready to cart home, they put each one in a small box made out of plaited reeds.  It was quite picturesque.

Unfortunately the traffic was horrendous on our way home.  We hailed a taxis for the ride back.  Jason said that on the weekends many people from Jakarta come up to Bandung to spend the weekend, either because they have family here or because they perhaps own second homes in town, if they are wealthy enough for that.  It was bumper-to-bumper most of the way home and our food was pretty cold by the time we arrived back.

Now the baby has been put to bed for the night and the darn lizard is once again climbing on my bedroom walls.  He only seems to come out at night.  I don't know why he can't go climb around on the walls in the next room.  It just freaks me out when he has to climb around in my bedroom. If you had told me a week and a half ago that I would be sleeping in the same room with a lizard on the prowl, I would have told you that you were high on something because no way would that ever happen.  My, how far I've come outside of my comfort zone.

Look Who Turns One Today!

Today was Mika's first birthday.  Even though she's been sick with diarrhea for about a week and had an upset tummy yesterday, she rallied today and managed a Skype call with PawPaw in Pennsylvania and Grandpa and Grandma Byrne in Texas.

Next on the agenda was a birthday cake celebration with Mommy and Daddy, Nana, and the wonderful lady who helps out during the week.  We had thought that if we put a piece of cake on the floor and then set her down next to it, she would go over and explore and soon there would be a big gooey mess.  Wrong!

Mika wasn't interested at all in the cake.  She kept trying to crawl off and protested when we tried to redirect her attention to the cake.

Finally we gave up and cut ourselves pieces of cake.  Laura ended up eating most of Mika's piece but then a funny thing happened.  Mika grabbed the spatula and began licking that.  Soon she was expressing a little more interest in the cake.  Guess those initial licks caused her to reevaluate her initial thoughts on the value of cake.

By the time the celebration was finished, Mika wasn't as dirty as some children I've known but she had a creditable amount of cake on her and on the floor.  It was time to whisk her off for a bath while Daddy and Nana cleaned off the floor.

Then Daddy and Nana began to feel the effects of all that sugar.  As much as it pains me to admit it, in this instance, Laura outdid us in eating cake.  This will probably NEVER happen again.  Jason was feeling so whoozy that he had to go lie down for a few minutes to get over his sugar stupor while I went to work on editing the pictures.  At least for now, I don't want to see another piece of cake.  I know, it's hard to believe but it's true.

Happy birthday, little Mika!  May you enjoy many, many more birthday celebrations surrounded by loved ones.