Mister Creep

“Hey Mister!”
As five little voices from the group of punky youngsters get louder, giggling and yelling out any English words they know, I can’t help but glance over my shoulder.
Yup, they’re definitely talking to me. I am the mister here. You see, most school children learn some English in Indonesia and have been taught the polite form of saying hi is “Mister”, regardless of age or sex. Then they have so little chance to practice their English that what little they learn usually falls to the wayside. Until of course they see me, BULE. Then they get really excited. Everyday I walk past greeted by “Halo, how are you? Where you from” at least once, more recently there have been a lot of “Obamas**!” And then of course, my favorite, after I pass by: “something I can’t understand, more I can’t understand BULE, babble babble gibberish” and gaping faces or amazed and sniggering children.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to looking up from a pair of shoes in the mall and see all eyes trained on me, salesgirls and other customers alike. Or being asked to take countless pictures with other peoples families and even their small children. But I have found being bule an advantage in certain areas as well. Like the time I was ‘camera creeping’ on this little girl in the Borbodur temple, Yogakarta. Everyone else was taking touristy photos of the temple, the temple and themselves, the temple, themselves and us Bules. But I just wanted this picture of the cutest asian girl pouting in her big sunhat. She was full of sass and knew it, and I wanted a picture. I was stealthy, but being bule is never being stealthy enough. As her family walked away I cut around a column to snap a picture of her, only to look up and see her parents staring at me. Oppsy, I was that creep with the camera taking a picture of a strange kid. I snuck around the other side and tried to disappear into the group I was with, therefore trying to appear less than creepy. Only I accidentally walked into pose with a bule fest, and after three pictures with random people squeezing me like we were BFF’s, I started recounting my mortification and creepiness to my friends, halfway through the incident I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the girl with the sunhat’s father!

Speechless, I gaped at him while he addressed in an incomprehensible slew of wild sounds(that Bahasa Indonesia is tricky!). I could only imagine what he was saying to me, I wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. M grabbed my camera, “they want a picture with you” and he pushed me next to the little girl who obviously did not want another picture, and was not the least bit impressed whether I was in it or not. Only in Indonesia would me being caught in the most creepy and awkward situation end with me being treated like a celebrity just for being white, and foreign and a rare, rare sight indeed.


**Side Note: The Obama comment is actually quite funny in and of itself, it seems Indonesia is crawling with “Obama’s children”, a joke that never seems to get old here, and refers to really dark skinned Indonesians who look ‘black’ in a country where white, white skin is considered a beauty ideal. It’s also a bit of Indonesian Obama fever, which interestingly enough is due to Obama’s previously close ties with the nation. The president himself went to elementary school in Jakarta from 1st through 4th when his mom married an Indonesian man. However now that Mr. Obama has postponed his arranged visit to Indonesia three times, I wonder how long Obama fever will be seen as a positive and prideful thing for Indonesia.

Waking Up on the Right Side of the Bed, Wrong Side of the World

Almost 3 whole days of planes and airports, naps in all the wrong time zones and countless breakfasts for dinner, lunches in the middle of the morning, and suddenly I’m standing in-line for immigration, officially in Indonesia. What am I doing here? That’s a question I’m still trying to get my head around. Especially when I find myself standing in the middle of the road with crazy traffic whizzing by in both directions. Which happens uncomfortably often, everyday, minimum 6x a day. In a country with no stoplights, stop signs, and although there is a double white line dividing the road, it’s more symbolic than mandatory. I find it more a suggestion really for where to stand when your trapped on both sides by bikes, cars, and open-sided vans that constitute the public transportation, jammed together. If it weren’t such a terrible idea I would need to close my eyes while crossing the road...

As it is, I really feel like I’m living on the edge, just like the inspirational posters make look so easy and fun. I don’t know about easy, but they may have something about marketing all that fun. Really what could be more fun than pairing up 10 American Students and 10 Indonesian students, currently studying in the US, transporting them to Indonesia, partnering them with different NGO’s based on their interests: economics, public health, education, art, and my personal favorite, the environment. Those 20 students are then dispersed between 3 cities in West Java: Jakarta the capital, Bandung the 3rd largest city in Indonesia, also know as Paris Van Java, and Yogyakarta, considered the spiritual, cultural capital of Indonesia.

I, along with my partner M, are working with Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) in Bandung, along with 4 others from the program in economic and public health NGOs. M is awesome, he has constantly saved me from myself and my terrible Bahasa Indonesian, getting lost, crossing the street on my own, incomprehensible menus, basically everything except putting my foot in my mouth, which happens at least once during every conversation. Like the time I accidentally asked the housekeeper how much his shirt was instead of where he got it, yeah, that was a big whoops. Possibly the Topping that is the time when I mispronounced a word I thought I knew and miraculously managed to inquire if our new friend was a virgin instead of what he did for a living, that was really awkward.

As for the other four students, they’re pretty awesome too. Who else would help cover you up and pretend you’re sleeping to avoid being charged the bule/tourist price, haggle on your behalf for market food, or alternately pretend you’re all famous to try and get into the club for free? And if I’m going to be stuck in traffic for hours at a time, hike up a huge hill every morning to be in class by 8:00, and try every bizarre and oddly good Indonesian snack, I’m glad it’s with them.

As for WALHI, each day is an adventure. Not just your bathroom variety either. Between the language barrier, treading all the cultural footpaths, and just working in an environmental NGO the works always different, seldom boring. So far I’ve sat in on some pretty cool environmental films, some from Indonesia and others from around the world. Unfortunately the discussions are always in Bahasa Indonesian, no subtitles. Translated a few films to be screened, viewed a peaceful demonstration from a very far, very safe difference, sat in an official/stockholder from several organization meeting for cleaning up the Citarum river (prepare yourself and then click on this link to see some of the issues we’re dealing with:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-460077/Is-worlds-polluted-river.html

).

Too be honest when I first applied to this program, I knew next to nothing about Indonesia. What I’m supposed to be doing is learning about working with NGO’s and West Java’s environmental issues, solutions, attitudes; while participating in and fostering a cultural awareness between Indonesia and the United States. An unbelievably cool program and fantastic summer Internship provided by the Freeman Indonesia Non-Profit Internship Program (FINIP).
So what am I actually doing here? I’m living in the moment (Indo time, or always late/stuck in traffic), learning to pay closer attention to all pronunciation in class, learning countless ways about the West Java Sudanese culture, about the environmental, political, social problems Indonesia faces environmentally, about how satisfying coconut, ginger and chili are in everything I eat. And I am most definitely completely falling madly and chaotically in love with this land of volcanoes and islands that I will be calling rumah saya—my home for 2 months.

Testing Tastebuds 1 2 3

I might just have to dedicate a whole new blog to the food here. It’s weird, and oh so delicious, irresistible really. Take this idea of the Avocado Float, sort of like an avocado milkshake, only with chocolate added in. Sounds, well, plain wrong and that’s putting it nicely. In fact, it’s delicious. The kicker is, the other day we had dinner at our house, the 6 of us interning in Bandung, and we had a stir-fry, rice, scrambled eggs, and one ripe and ready to eat avocado. When I proposed to just eat it with the eggs and sambal chili sauce three Indonesian heads whipped around and stared at me like I had just suggested making a cake with it. Avocado and eggs? Now that’s a crazy idea...

A Day Ahead, A World Behind

Please forgive me for not keeping in touch better, I went to Indonesia. There is no more internet in my life. It has been replaced with squatting toilets, bucket sinks(literally a large bucket with a ladle for scooping water, which coincidentally somehow replaces the need for toilet paper, still not too sure about that one..) and a constant fear of crossing the road. I didn't know what to expect when I left for Indonesia, but I'm not really sure how one prepares themselves for an experience so different than anything they've ever dealt with before. Before leaving from the US I compiled a wardrobe of modest office/large Muslim country conservative and appropriate clothing. I was horrified to learn wearing sandals to class/work are considered a sign of laziness and utmost disrespect.

So when Monday rolls around I’m outfitted in my best nice clothes and then my obnoxiously ugly grey and red running shoes and in fact the only close toed shoes I brought. I feel uncomfortably dressy, but worse with the combination business clothes and hiking gear including backpack, I look stupidly ridiculous. Turns out it doesn’t matter, because in WALHI, the environmental NGO that I am working with here in Indonesia, as with most houses in Indonesia one takes their shoes off before stepping inside.

And as I sit here on the floor sweating through my office blouse and swatting at the mosquitoes I try to pretend air conditioning, modern toilets, stoplights, or fans were never invented. Conditions are rough, I don’t know how to use the toilet here, I am the only girl, understand less Bahasa Indonesian than a 2 yr. old, and icing the cake: I have entered a pseudo work environment that more resembles a basic jungle civilization.. I feel sort-of like an urban guerilla, fighting against the injustices of a non-responsive government, rampant capitalism, and environmental pollution/overall degradation, not to mention the compost bin that’s currently being kept in the kitchen.

Needless to say, there is only so long you can pretend you don’t need to use the bathroom. At first, convinced that if I drank no water I might be able to wait until we got home, however lucky I was not—first day on the job 8 am to 9 pm. So I borrowed some house slippers, reminded myself that I come from a family of strong women, and resolved myself to enter the battleground...(keep in mind, this is no regular bathroom belonging to four guys, then factor in developing country plumbing).
Being in Indonesia is a lot about taking the plunge, sometimes you just got to do it, hope to survive, and enjoy the heck out of whatever comes next (this part in no way refers to the bathroom, nothing holds true in that case, but I am a survivor). Because camping in the office can be ridiculously fun, and beats slaving away in a cubicle air-conditioned controlled environment any day, five days a week. Plus squatting’s good for your legs. Perhaps one more reason why Asians are so much more fit than us, because it certainly is not all the rice, trust your source...

Well Hello Hielo

As a child I was always fascinated with icy things. Pop-out ice cube trays, frozen puddles, Flinstones push pops (I just threw that in because I really was obsessed with those), and icicles. Especially icicles. I was the kid who could spend hours outside stomping on frozen ice hoping to release the air bubbles (and be dumped into freezing water, little kids have no brains). Or running back and forth in a poor attempt at ice-skating, because constantly falling on your face is the epitome of graceful (remember, brains are not fully developed yet). When we got a snow-cone maker in middle school it was like winning the lottery and buying an ice cream parlor in place of our old freezer. The main point is seeing Perito Moreno, one of the largest glaciers in South America, brought back that sense of child-like wonder and awe. It was like I was seven again and fascinated that if I left juice in the freezer and returned an hour later I would find popsicles. Pure magic...

In the case of this unbelievably blue, unbelievably huge glacier, it was not magic that came to mind at all. Hellllllllo, maravillosa Mama Tierra, you’ve outdone yourself once again. As if looking at a huge snowflake, only the minutely etched crystallic patterns are huge cracks and contours of a giant glacier face, so blue that staring at it makes one even forget other colors even exist. Blue, blue, blue. Fresh pure blue, as high as a 15 story building, it’s a marvel that something so powerful is at the same time so delicate. This transient mountain of frozen water, is one of our most valuable resources and one of those we are least able to protect from disappearing. Standing before the massive glacier listening to all the pops and cracks of the ice expanding and moving, it seemed unimaginable that if I returned in 40 years later with my children it’s more probable they would find a completely different than the one I was so enchanted with right now. If I could live in a snow globe as perfect as the moment was right now, I could live every day feasting on the wonder surrounding me.

El Chalten, it ain't no Chateau

An early morning bus ride through the Patagonian badlands found us nestled for the night in El Chalten, a small climbing town tucked into the curves and corners of el nord de la Parque Nacional de Los Glacieres. The bus ride itself, was uneventful, each and every minute was filled with the most breathtaking landscape, husky purple and green hills dipping into turquoise lakes and stretches of cold plains stretching farther even than the early morning sun rays. It was a dream so arresting I couldn’t close my eyes for fear of missing it. A land where there’s one single solitary road cutting through the heart of landscape, the land of wild llamas and wilder beauty. A land of scarcity, mountains, ice, a wild land, hard but not without its share of promises.

Any other town in Patagonia wouldn’t quite fit like El Chalten. The town itself was small, one road that only branched off for beaten tracks, hiking trails, and mountain routes. The road was new, just put in the past year. The town was lacking much infrastructure, for this it was filled and over-running with beauty. A place in nature, it is the access point for climbers and trekkers to reach higher planes, the summits of glacier Mt. Fitz Roy. We made the 8 hour hike, just to get to a viewing point of the glacier, we all had to have siestas at the top...

Looking for Loot

Every good historic tales starts out “Legend has it...” But in the case of barrio San Telmo “History has it ...”. Dating back to the late 18th and early 19th century San Telmo was once the preferred stomping grounds of the wealthy European immigrants arriving to Buenos Aires. Later on in the 19th century, yellow fever swept through the calles and casas of San Telmo, and those with the plata abandoned their mansiones for the more saludable campo ringing the outskirts of the city. Most abandoned their mansions intact, believing their possessions were inhabited by the fever, and started over afresh. Soon after, the less affluent immigrants with nowhere to go moved into the un-claimed mansions or simply started storing away the fine china to be sold.

Hoy en día San Telmo is one of my favorite barrios in Buenos Aires, every one of its streets is a different treasure hunt, a portal into the past. Filled with fanciful facades off the street of Paris, the bottoms stories have been ransacked, gutted, and turned into antique stores. If you adore old junk as I do, sifting through a different era is more satisfying than going to a museum to see by-gone relics housed in glass cages. I like to pretend I can actually afford the things I admire, and can spend hours touching tiny details on inventions I never knew existed, turning over shelves, and drooling over old books, postcards, and stamps from a time when the world seemed bottomless. At the end of the day I’m always walking away with a little piece of history in my pocket and rose tinted ideas of a once and more worldly romance now settled to dust.

Cafe Cortado, With a Side of Borges

Grand. Splendid.

It’s easy to spend just a week in Buenos Aires and see a city in love. Easily escaping bustling streets into the dusty filled cafe culture. Where sunlight fades into the crumbling corners of architecture once reminiscent of another era rich in capital and European designs. A place where they always give you a small cookie nibble and a miniature glass of soda water with every coffee.

It’s easy to spend a week in Buenos Aires and fall in love with the city. There must be something in the air, or the atmosphere. Where they serenade you on a grand piano in a old restored theater, where you can sit with your cafecito in a private balcony, among rows and rows of books flipping through whims. That’s Buenos Aires for you, home to the most captivating bookstore in the world: welcome to El Ateneo Grand Splendid.

Attack of the Lobster Tourists

Lately when it has rained in Buenos Aires, it has poured. Sky opens, cats, dogs, full-on goldfish, and every other domesticated pet that would serve as an adequate metaphor, will rain down. The streets flood in some zones, mainly the ones I live and go to school in, rather conveniently. So on Friday at 4:00 o’clock when the sky turned a violent purple as I was just about to start the long 45 minute trek home, I was not the only one preparing for the next water world. I did make it home, but the only thing that made it home dray was the water inside my water bottle (irony!).

The rain continued un-abated despite the fact that we had very set plans for enjoying that Friday night. Nor did the weather forecast look promising, it seems Friday was only the start of the mini monsoon. Well, there was nothing to do but flee the rain, wish it good riddance, and escape to the beach: Mar del Plata, a beachside resort with a sunny weather forecast. Only the brilliance of our plan idea didn’t dawn on us until 10:30 Friday night. Lucky for us, Argentina was a country made for accommodating last minute impulses, or just a country that never, ever sleeps. The 5 hour buses complete with semi-cama seats (comparable to business class avion seats) to Mar Del Plata leave all hours of the night. Which is precisely how we wound up on a reasonably crowded (with all types of normal, average people, thank you Mom) on a bus at 3:30 am bound for the beach...

Mar del Plata is the Buenos Aires of the beach, and a popular escape from the city. Arriving just before nine, and upon rolling out of our bus beds we were instantly charmed by the plentiful sunshine and sleepy streets with their lack of traffic and bustle. We would only find out later, after we were already enamored with our getaway spot, the streets were only empty because everyone, but everyone, was already at the beach. It was packed so full of people there was nowhere to place your towel, I’ve never seen anything like from Miami to California. I was never one for crowds, but I actually didn’t mind for once. There was a great vibe, the sun was out, everyone was strutting their stuff*-- there was a really community atmosphere, everyone was here to enjoy the beach, so what if we each only had our little portion of sand and sun? There were entire families from grandparents to young kids all crammed together in their plot, as content as could be. Friends or even strangers, like the guy in front of us who helped two girls install their parasol, were engaging in mate sharing circles as if drinking a steaming hot tea in a gourd was the only natural thing to do at the beach. Actually, there were beach stands everywhere advertising they provided hot water to fill aplenty mate thermoses.

However, there is a moral to this story. Jumping on the bus in the middle of the night and other crazy ideas can be very rewarding and spontaneous. However, jumping on the bus in the middle of the night, not sleeping well, and going to the beach can be dangerous. True story. Naturally within 20 minutes of sun after a long night of restless sleep, and with sand constantly being kicked around the best defense was to lay back and close your eyes. It was the perfect setting for a small nap. A small nap that turned into an hour of deep sleep, in the sun, in the same position, into the worst sunburn we three have every experienced in any of our young, and apparently careless, rather than carefree lives. There’s no other way to shout out tourist in a beach town than to limp and moan around like a bright red lobster. Reaching deep, REM cycle sleep (I know I was dead to the world) at the beach is probably never the brightest idea, less so in South America. Apparently that hole in the ozone we humans always like to pretend will never affect us, will. This hole is very realizable in South America, I’m still peeling three weeks later to prove it, hellooo skin cancer.

*Cultural note: The beaches and beachwear in Argentina march to their own latin infused beat, carrying a definite Brazilian tune. Brazilian bottoms or less seems to be the model; the suits were skimpy no matter who you were or what kind of shape you were in. And forget having modest swimwear for the over 40 crowd, that concept simply doesn’t exist here. Mostly the general view was funny, sometimes it was a bit more then one would wish to see, but all in all I had to admire the people who had the confidence to stick it out, whether they had something to flaunt or not, apparently “no shame, no gain” mentality really goes here.

Into the 8th Wonder Wonderland

The cateratas of Iguazu falls may well be the 8th wonder of the world. Apart from that, they are completely unremarkable. Unremarkable only in the sense that words can do them no justice (neither really do pictures, though I did try). There is no way to describe the power and force behind the sheer amount of water rushing past at a dizzying speed in all directions as far as the eye can see. Let’s just say this is one falls you would not want to go over in a barrel. Indescribable, it’s the total experience of seeing and hearing the brute force of nature, and then getting completely soaked in agua dulce (ironically it is possible to feel both deaf and blind after staring/hearing the bright white water for lengthy periods of time).

Since the falls is something to be experienced and then left speechless about, here’s just a few random musings and un-factual based facts I can share to tickle your socks with:

• The National Park is located in the heart of la selva, and stretched across three countries Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. The Argentine falls, however, are the best, where you can get up close and traverse over the whole park

• This land is birthplace of the Guarani, one of Argentina’s indigenous tribes that still exist today where I was able to buy an authentically awesome blow dart contraption for my brother, who I’m sure will find a productive use for it in everyday life in Berkeley

• There are plenty cute and friendly coatimundis, resembling an oddly adorable mix of squirrel and raccoon, yet are far more social, throwing guavas on the ground to/at big groups below and chattering away. Apparently they’re only cute unless fed, when they become aggressive tourist attackers

• Even better than the cuddly coatimundis were the abundant and varied species of butterflies. In fact, Iguazu weirdly resembled a variation of a slightly more savage wonderland. Savage apart from it’s apparent mecca for butterflies fluttering about by the dozens combined with it’s proclivity for double or even triple rainbows just over every fall.

• The highlight of the trip (apart from watching the once dry people in the only 12 minute boat ride in front of the falls getting absolutely and completely drenched within seconds) was the hike through the jungle toward the swimming spot. A 3km hike through the jungle each way would bring you to the perfect swimming spot: a pool surrounded by slabs of unearthed rocks and a small (certainly in comparison to the rest of the park!) caterata of perfectly refreshing, sweet water. The hike had the added bonus of providing a more into nature experience with the surrounding tropical selva, less impacted than the rest of the park, as well as serving to keep away the crowds of tourists who don’t like trekking, which must have been everyone as we were the only people at the secret spot aside from one other girl, que buena suerte!

Where’s Wanda?

Wanda?

Yeah, the town with the mines. Only none of the other backpackers had heard of her, the town that is. Which is funny in a major tourist destination such as Puerto Iguazu, attracting millions of visitors each year for the rightfully impressive Iguazu Falls, but the town has little else to keep them. So on our ramblings around town, kicking up dirt to stir up some form of excitement, we tried to find out what other activities we could pass the time on. With a drought of things to do, we must have hit up every single souvenir shop on the street and side-street just for something to look at. The local kids caught on to this pretty fast, chasing us around with local crafts. More like local bling, they were chasing us down with hands full of jewels (okay, okay stunning quartz crystals) with these absurdly popular crystal trees fastened out of rocks and wire in the shape of well, trees. As I was admiring a particularly nicely fashioned rock tree, it suddenly caught my attention, where were they getting all this treasure?

Wanda. The elusive town with the small, yet richly supplied local mine, about an hour away by local bus. Unmentioned by the guidebooks, the backpacker network, and virtually unadvertised, we were chasing gold and bringing the our little dust storm to Wanda. Literally dropped off with a cloud of red dust swirling about us, we stared down the small town as the sun beat down on us. We we’re the only people, let alone foreigners in sight. However, we had nothing to be discouraged about as the taxi drivers, all two of them, swarmed our out of their shady posts to offer/accost us with a ride to the mines. We declined, perhaps stupidly considering the heat, and set off on the estimated 1.5 km towards the string of souvenir stores, stands, and shacks. It was hot, the dirt packed road so dry you could feel the mud cracks with the soles of your shoes. Everything was covered with the red dust, that seemed to be a mark of the heat itself. Yet still the kids managed to come from nowhere, hurtling down on us with arms full of rock trees.

The mines themselves, were small. Small, but the better for it. Owned by an argentine landowner in a country swarming with foreign investors and owners, especially in the business of mining. Run on a small scale, without machinery, making the mine safer for the workers and less damaging to the environment, it was a quaint and engaging experience. There was a lazy charm to the place, and a love and enthusiasm for geology. This was after all the same area that produced the Falls just an hour away, it was thick with geologic treasures and triumphs. The legend goes the owner had bought the land to farm Yerba Mate, well known is Missiones, as the region of the best Yerba Mate. But when he stumbled on some rare rocks, well, he just stumbled into a jeweler’s paradise. And Wanda, was, after all these years, a gem to visit, untouched by the tour bus circuit, it remains charmingly bright and many faceted. And yes, in the end, I bought a rock tree and got a free crystal in the bargain!