Hi!
Early this morning, one of my American Fulbrighter friends packed up her Bahasa Indonesia books and left our homestay in Yogya for West Kalimantan to start her dissertation research on proboscis monkeys. (See her map – its the best one of Indonesia I've found online, not sure how she did that.) I’ve only known Katie since mid-December, though she and I share a similar history and outlook on this whole “living far away from our roots” thing, and I firmly consider her to be an important addition to my crew of happy accident friends (which, incidentally, most of my closest friends are). C knows what I mean… the kind you are thrown together with and would only ever get the chance to get to know well under very accidental circumstances, like, in Katie’s case, just happening to live with the same family in Yogyakarta, Indonesia for 5 weeks while studying a language most Americans have never heard of and trying at the same time to do “real work” to prepare ourselves for our “real lives” after exiting the language school bubble.
I finally read her blog all the way through and am kind of tempted just to give this blog up and tell you to read Katie’s instead. She’s hilarious and right on, and also she takes pictures, whereas I’ve taken 2 since I’ve been here. However, now that Katie’s really headed to the jungle, our experiences might diverge a teensy bit. In terms of a work/professional path, she’s, and I quote, “not so into the people thing.” Not totally true, actually - I got to feel smart and give her a professional perspective on the social program evaluation she wants to incorporate into her research - but I’m solidly 100% into the people thing and know not a thing about monkeys, tropical plant species or birds, or more generally the incredible biodiversity of the Malay archipelago other than (1) nature is pretty cool, except that I'd rather stay far away from crocodiles and sharks, (2) it's bad to cut down the forests and to pollute and stuff like that and (3) whatever she and my other scientifically-minded friends tell me.
Even more crucially, she’s going to be living in a village only reachable by bush plane or 12 hour boat rides, and needed to bring enough equipment for her work that we figured out that if the plane crashed into the jungle, she could survive for months on her own with whatever she packed, including her trusty machete, 90 Clif bars and 3 pairs of boots. My luggage, on the other hard, included 4 pairs of ballets flats, a pair of high heels, 2 slinky going-out dresses, 2 bikinis, and a few granola bars from the Co-op - I did bring a Swiss army knife and a headlamp but am not fooling anyone with those – and in little over a week I’m heading back to start work in Jakarta with its 15 million people, constant traffic jams, dedicated mall culture, etc. etc.
So, I suppose I should keep this thing up, and just be inspired by Katie to take more pictures and to share more about my daily life (who wants to know my internal head trips anyway? I know a lot of you find them amusing but I’m sure I’ll email you with them regardless, or save them for Skype. Which, by the way, we should start doing more of. The 10-13 hour time difference is annoying but with some online time zone converter tools - check - and superior planning abilities – check, check - totally manageable.)
I meant to write one today about my experiences etc., but now that I’ve plugged Katie’s it’s 11:30 a.m. and I haven’t grabbed my homestay breakfast yet… so I should go find food and then do some of my aforementioned “real work” first. Also probably study some Indonesian affixes. Just you wait until I get to telling you about those.
But, Mama, I promise: more soon.
Love,
M
