The day to day so far.

Hi all

What to write? I have done nothing that felt adventurous or of note in any special way since I wrote last, just settled into a routine, which since my purpose and plan at work remain unclear, may change any day – so it feels strange to make such a big deal of that. But I guess I’ll just start writing and see where it takes me.

My commute has not objectively improved any, although it’s been awhile since it has reduced me to actual tears (=progress).* Recently I've been braving the pollution and traffic to walk instead of taking an ojek to and from the busway. One night one of the drivers at the ojek post on my route home made mean-spirited fun of me - to general hilarity of the 15 or so drivers gathered - when neither of the 2 helmet options he offered me fastened and I told him I would just walk. (They tend to tell you “No problem, no problem, it’s not far” when they have busted helmets. The thinking behind the helmets is less about protecting your head from cracking open and more about not getting ticketed by the police for not wearing one… If you’re not going far, you’re not likely to be passing any police checks.) The mocking really hurt my feelings – I thought that I had a special bond with those guys and that they had accepted my quirky helmet rule – so f' them anyway. I'll keep my 5000 rupiah.

Inexplicably all the drivers at the ojek post on the way to work have wonderfully functional helmets but I’ve been skipping the morning ojek ride quite a lot too. Frankly I’m desperate for the exercise. The gym options are insanely expensive; there’s little hope of my getting up at 4:30 am to get out to run before the traffic and pollution is impossible; there are pools where I could swim, but nothing that would fit into my weekday. However, my belly is noticeably flabbier and I have the stress response of a rabbit, so something’s got to give.** 

So anyway, I leave the house between 7:30 and 8:00 whether to talk or grab an ojek, usually eating something small standing up in the kitchen and then eating again and making myself coffee once I reach the office around 9/9:30. Typically everyone in the office eats together, after the midday prayer, sitting on the ground on bamboo mats in the central open area on the first floor of the building. The office assistant makes rice for everyone and goes out to a food stall to get our orders of veg and protein. Usually I order from her (gado-gado is 10,000 rupiah or a little over $1, fried tofu and boiled greens is Rp.8000), but sometimes I bring leftovers Ibu*** packs up for me or a sandwich. (Another new belly-alert rule, I’m trying to take only a tiny bit of rice, and to go Mama M style and eat half of what’s given to me to eat the other half the next day.)

The office is a 2-story building that seems like it was originally built as a house, in a otherwise totally residential neighborhood (other than the usual small shops and eating stalls, and the strip mall types along the main road). The few local NGOs I’ve visited here all seem to be like this, in fairly random out-of-the-way neighborhoods almost certainly chosen based on proximity to the director’s house.

I have gone on two site visits in different villages in West Java, observing a meeting and a training and talking to some of the field staff and members of the organization, but mostly otherwise I’ve been hanging at the office thrashing around trying to figure the organization out, trying to make myself understood in Indonesian (with occasional moments of elegance and  more occasional moments of shitshow), and trying to figure out what I’m doing here, in at least a short-to-medium term kind of way.

This week I did an actual assignment with deliverables and a deadline, namely developing a concept and budget, writing up program outcomes data, and summarizing past funding, all for a major grant proposal. (These are things that I am well trained to do and can, in fact, do. Felt nice to be reminded.) I think it turned out well, and moreover it gave me a chance to work closely with the director and show my stuff a little bit. So Monday we’re having a conversation. I have some ideas about what my role(s) could be, I think she does too, so I think we'll be able to get a semblance of a job description together.

Then, the reverse commute. An occasional stop at the mall along the way. Dinner and usually some TV at home. Home being my uncle’s house; dinner typically being something Ibu prepared, usually Indonesian aka rice based (but not always - I'm addicted to her roast chicken and potatoes. I'm trying to take less of whatever it is, no matter how good, due to the belly alert.) TV usually being the best worst of American pop culture - we’re following American Idol pretty closely -  and/or Al-Jazeera news. To bed in "my" enchanting guest room, and it starts over again.

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Weekends are a different story. I have a very bare bones social life so far. … How does one meet people? …I’m seriously pondering this question though mostly managing to keep it from distressing me too much yet. As Amy Sedaris said, "I think it's good for a person to spend time alone. It gives them an opportunity to discover who they are are and to figure out why they are always alone." 

 Clearly I have made friends before in life, but none of the usual methods apply here as far as I can tell. I’m not in a program with other people with whom I am forced to interact at trainings or when I collect my mail. The few people I do socialize with other than my uncle’s friends are already approaching the limit of the friends-of-friends in Jakarta and the language school connections. People I work with are lovely but at different “places” literally, as well as metaphorically – it’s not a bunch of single, free, and disengaged young people with disposable income to burn at after-work happy hours, not just because the happy hour options in that neighborhood are extremely limited and almost everyone is observant Muslim enough to pray 5 times a day.**** I would consider joining a recreational team sport, except that I am generally a disaster when it comes to throwing or kicking and keeping track of teammates moving in many different directions. Maybe a book club? Expat ladies mixers (vomit)? I mean like… Craigslist Jakarta? 

Ideas or insights, let me know.

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I'm maybe being dramatic about my social isolation. I am not, you will note, living in a “dank and unfriendly boarding house in East Jakarta” or however I put it when I was getting ready to leave Yogya. What with the possibility I’ll be working in the field (aka outside of Jakarta) a lot, and with the commute being manageable - not appealing, but manageable – Uncle J is graciously continuing to put me up. I am extraordinarily well looked after, including having people to come home to and with whom to tag along on weekend jaunts. 

If you know my family this generosity and looking-after-of-our-own is unsurprising, and nonetheless I remain deeply grateful and appreciative, and do recognize that I have it pretty good, busy social life or not.

And on that, I am being called to dinner. Grateful, grateful.

Love,

M

*I’m considering introducing Jakarta to telecommuting. It does seem like I'll be spending a lot of time loving my computer anyway, so the only reason to do the physical commute 5 days/week is that the organization (and I imagine most everywhere in Indonesia) operates on a face-to-face basis. For the recent data gathering I had to do, mostly I walked up to people as I discovered what I needed, and sat there while they wrote information down from memory, or compiled it from a few different files and handscribled notes, and referred me to another person or 2 whom I had to chase down separately to get the rest of the info off of their personal computers . Not so much with the, I'll email you and ask for what I need and expect the information to be in my inbox by the end of the day, or having a central server with a standard format and folder for program data and past proposal drafts.

**I have a Jillian Michaels workout downloaded though, and may be able to sneak into the gym at the hotel located where I transition from mikrolet to busway on my way home from work, so regular exercise is tantalizingly within reach.

***The Ibu here is the woman who works for my uncle as a cook. (See my post about the Ibu at the Yogya homestay for an explanation of the Ibu/Mba phenomenon.) There are actually 2 Ibu's here, the other working as more of an all-purpose servant, although my uncle calls her Mba because she's younger than he is. But I should call her Ibu. Which makes things a little confusing.

****I've heard that karaoke is popular in Indonesia and that my boss is really good... However, I haven't heard about any karaoke outings at the office yet. Will keep you posted. 

The real Jakarta, week 1.

Hi again

I know Mom wants to know more about my first week at the office and about my site visit on Tuesday but I’m going to save that for later since really the biggest part for me of last week was getting the commute down. I took a taxi to the office on Monday morning, public transport options being a mystery best solved in person with my new coworkers. (This cost 61,000 Rp., or about $7, and took an hour fifteen.) Having gotten the inside scoop on my public transport options, I got home via a mikrolet to the TransJakarta busway to an ojek:

·      Mikrolet: pick up-style truck with a covered bed and benches around the perimeter, 3000 Rp/about 40¢.

·      Bus way: Not your regular person bus, oh no, this one has AC and conductors who manage the number of passengers getting on … it supposedly has dedicated lanes to speed the busses through the jams, although sometimes this is laxly enforced (plus, there are still stoplights and corners to turn). 3500 Rp./about 45¢, half hour to an hour, depending on the wait and traffic.

·      Ojek: motorcycle for hire, driver and all. Rates negotiable. So far I haven’t gotten my 11 minute ride to and/from the busway stop to under 5000 Rp./60¢, despite decent bargaining skills, but I hear I should be paying 3000-4000 Rp.

A few of my forays into doing this particular commute have been almost flawless and have left me feeling masterfully in charge of my own destiny, whereas more than a few have literally* brought me to tears of frustration and confusion and existential despair: The unsmiling, staring crowds! The heat! The maps that make no sense and absolutely fail to reflect the actual bus routes! The sheer illogic of the bus timing! The ojek drivers who take me to the wrong place even though I know I told them the right thing! …. And on and on, until last but certainly not least the f-u-c-k-i-n-g traffic.**

Although my commute home on Friday went smoothly enough, I felt profoundly sad and lonely and at loose ends. Because… well… it was the weekend and I don’t really have a social life, and had been so overwhelmed all week so as not to make plans with the few potential friends that I have, and my work plan for the next couple months involves a lot of back and forth and not a lot of time in Jakarta, or in any one place at all, all of which got me thinking about how I was never going to have time to make any friends, plus its still sort of unclear what I’m hear to do and what it’s supposed to lead to, and I’m still painfully awkward with Indonesian, and I miss my family, and…you get the picture.

Anyway, none of these are good thoughts to have while faced with a line of end-of-a-hot-day armpits on the TransJakarta busway, and I found myself wanting to get off a stop early and go to the mall.

…Wait. What?!

Yes, the mall. I was confused myself. It got me thinking though, at least in New York, what did I do when I felt sad and lonely and restless and wasn’t ready to face being at home alone? I wandered around a new area of the city or at the very least got off the subway early and walked blocks and blocks up Broadway or across 125^th. I guess my subconscious realized how repulsive wandering around on foot through the Jakarta streets generally is and settled on the mall instead. How very urban Indonesian of my subconscious.

So I got off at Plaza Semanggi to wander up and down the 5 stories, buy some wheat bread and wheat croissants - oh fiber! - pirated DVDs, and, I am ashamed to admit,  dinner at Burger King. I really needed straight-up American-style junk food, and even at the mall most of the options were rice-based, or donuts - don’t ask - but these weren’t going to work with my appetite level. The Whopper value meal was 5 times the price of my catered lunches at the office.

Although I woke up yesterday with a cold that is still lingering, I am feeling in much better spirits - apparently the mall works for my subconscious if not my two-dollar-a-day budget. Among other things, sleeping in and lots of Australian Junior Master Chef on cable and talking to my sister and parents also helped. Week 2 here I come.

Love,
M

*Yes, KE, literally.

**It’s commonly accepted wisdom, based on an actual study, that the number of vehicles in Jakarta already more than totals the length of actual road surface (and I doubt the official road surface figure accounted for the vendors and stalls that spill out into the road in a lot of places). As wonderfully put in the Economist, “sometime in 2014, ... Jakarta will attain total traffic gridlock. Vehicles will take up every single inch of available space on roads and highways, leaving the city like a scene from a dystopian fantasy.” I am a dork and found a couple of other interesting studies and commentaries on the transportation/urban planning situation in this madhouse city as I was looking into the gridlock question. If you’re interested: http://www.bu.edu/pardee/files/documents/BU-Pardee-Policy-Paper-004-Megacities.pdf , http://indonesiaurbanstudies.blogspot.com/
, and there are some pdfs from the Jakarta Globe that I'm planing to read.

A little vacation.

Hi there

I left Yogya – for good? – last week Tuesday, and one of my sisters-from-another-mister came to visit for the Chinese New Year holiday that started that Thursday. (Gung Xi Fa Chai/Happy Year of the Rabbit y’all.) A., my uncle and I thought we were going to go to a private island off the coast of Jakarta but plans fell through, so instead we headed towards Pelabuhan Ratu, on the Indian Sea straight south of Jakarta.

Of course the drive was bumper-to-bumper-to-motorcycles-weaving-in-and-out for half of the way. Part of the rest had been clear cut and turned into a palm plantation, with squat little palm oil trees as far as the eye could see (not very, what with the peaks and valleys), and the remainder made me homesick for Dominica - twisty and turny and green, with houses and shops and school children spilling lives right up next to the road.

The Ocean Queen just past Cisolok was nice; it had beach bungalows and a pool, comfortable beds and edible food, although the false promise of bacon disappointed me to a depth probably only my sister can understand. I like kids but there were too many of them with their unwelcoming rich parents. We went for a drive on Friday including stops at the fish market and lunch at a open-air fish restaurant (red snapper, fresh from the sea, grilled with just the right amount of char, a tidge of tomato sauce, some Bintang beer on the side…yes I). 

We also stopped at a hotel that… well, you know I don’t really believe in ghosts, but the Samudera Beach was haunted. The first President, Sukarno, had it built in the 60s, presumably with the idea that if he built it, the beautiful people would come. However, since at that time, the infrastructure between Jakarta and the area was impossibly hard, so… no beautiful people came. They still didn’t come, even as the infrastructure improved and more people got private vehicles. The hotel is still owned and operated by the government of the Republic of Indonesia and has the same - by now incredibly worn and musty - décor, carpeting and jewel-toned furnishings as it did 60 years ago as well as the same almost total absence of guests. Still, you could just about see women lounging in the bar in their Jackie O dresses and beehive hairdos smoking cigarettes from elegant holders, while men played pool in pencil ties.

 

On Saturday, we drove part way back towards Jakarta with my uncle and grabbed a bus from Sukabumi the rest of the way. I have definitely done worse (e.g., a bus through the Sahel with maggots falling from the ceiling) but the ride still served to pretty effectively kill the chillaxing beach bungalow effect. The tollway route into Jakarta didn’t much up the speed of the 6 hour trip since the 2-lane regular highway that spans 85% of the trip was one big traffic jam, and for an 1+ hour of that the bus driver intentionally crept along at 5 kph trolling for additional passengers. To really make it fun, they mysteriously do not have AC buses from Sukabumi to Jakarta (although they do have them to Bandung which is much closer and, incidentally, is not the capital city). Luckily the sun was behind the clouds, no one wanted to deal with asking us foreigners to consolidate into 2 of the 3 seats we were occupying, and we could take comfort in the fact that there was no way we ourselves could possibly smell as bad as the vendors and buskers who passed through anytime the bus moved slow enough for them to hop on (namely, most of the time).

That night, we sought out dinner and drinks at the most happening place in Jakarta. Which is in a mall, as all of the happening places happen to be. It was yummy and very chic and had an outdoor balcony with views over the Welcome Monument and the central Jakarta thoroughfare Jl. Thamrin. I really should be skewing more towards the two-dollars-a-day budget, but the fun vibe, good food, and real cocktails and wine made the NY-style prices a worthwhile splurge.*

The port

Sunday, we “did” the old city - the port, the Chicken Market Bridge, Taman Fatahillah (old central square), the Wayang Museum and the Fine Arts Museum and – my favorite - Café Batavia. Café Batavia is seriously old school – palm trees, wooden ceiling fans, black and white tiled floors, wooden bar up and downstairs – and this time the ghosts were flapper ghosts and they flitted among a room full of people having Sunday brunch. I had a Flemish tart and a Bloody Mary that was delicious even lacking the usual salad in a glass that I prefer.** I wasn’t aware that a Flemish tart was a thing but based on Café Batavia’s, I’m thankful that it is.

Then, the bus to a department store to look at their batik selection, and a short walk up to the Grand Indonesia Shopping Town – read: massive shopping mall built amid and around the original massive central Jakarta shopping mall where we went out the night before - to look at their “Indonesian Downtown” featuring clothes, furniture, houseware, etc. by contemporary Indonesian designers. (Good stuff, if I ever get paid I’m going back to buy myself a hipster ironic Indonesian insider t-shirt and a leather/batik bag for work. A. bought a computer sleeve made out of material recycled from Jakarta canal garbage gathered by a women’s collective.) Then a taxi to a cream bath deep conditioning and head and shoulder massage plus pedi and blowdry ($18 – pricey) then a bemo to martinis and dinner at home before A. caught her flight back to Hong Kong and I went to bed nervous about day 1 at the office the next day.

More about that soon.

xoM

*On the way out we saw the girlfriend of the music star who got convicted last week for his  - and her -  sex video (see my last blog). She was clearly headed out for a night of clubbing (I repeat, at the mall), entourage and all, which was a weird contrast to her bereft sobbing on camera after the conviction. (She is a soap opera star, though, so… draw your own conclusions.)

** (and thankfully, lacking Cheese Whiz... Long story).