On prices and passports

One U.S. dollar equals about 9100 Indonesian rupiah. This means that you only need $110 to be a millionaire here, but the first time I saw my 6-digit grocery bill, I think my heart skipped a beat. Unfortunately, this means that knowing how to count to ten (let me show off just a little: satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh) in Bahasa Indonesian doesn't really help me.

As far as prices, some things are very cheap here, but some are surprisingly expensive. At the grocery store, produce and most basic commodities are less expensive than you would find in the United States, but imported goods cost a lot more. Cereals can be $6-7 a box. One the other hand, I usually get to the grocery store by ongkos, which costs 2500 rupiah/less than $0.30. Most of the time, I "splurge" and take a taxi home, which puts me back around 12,000 rupiah/$1.30. When my taxi driver didn't know where he was going, and the ride cost close twice what it should have, I had to remind myself that I was still getting a ride home for less than three dollars. Today when I sent my mother's birthday present--wish her a happy birthday on August 30th--, a woman in a little shop next to the post office sold me a box, packed the present, and wrapped the box for 5000 rupiah.

However, most of the places where I feel comfortable shopping are pricey by Indonesian standards, and sometimes even by American standards. When I go shopping at the mall nearest my home, I'm not getting any steals. I've been looking for a watch for the last couple of weeks, and I can't find anything (besides large pink plastic ones) under 400,000 rupiah. Last weekend, I visited a very upscale mall called Senayan Plaza, which featured marble floors and designer outlets like Prada, Burberry, and Coach. In a country where people assume that I have money to burn because I'm white, it was interesting to find a place where I can't afford to shop.

My students certainly can. They come from extremely wealthy families with cooks and maids and drivers. Their jaws dropped a little when I told them that I clean my own apartment and ride the ongkos.

By the way, I have my passport back! I've been reluctant to tell this story until I was sure that everything was ok. When I first arrived, Suli, the head of administration at IPEKA, told me that I needed to give her my passport to get my kitas. I'm still not exactly sure what a kitas is. It's not my work visa, but it's still issued through the immigration office. IPEKA sponsors me and pays for it. When I forgot to bring my passport the next day, Suli called me that afternoon and told me that a man from the apartment complex would be coming by to pick up my passport and take it to the immigration office. With some trepidation, I handed off my passport to a man I had never seen before (to his credit, he did give me a business card and a receipt) and hoped for the best. I caught a glimpse of my passport when I went to the immigration office a couple of weeks ago to sign in half a dozen places and to be photographed and fingerprinted. However, I was not exactly comforted about my passport's safety when a co-worker reported that the kitas process is very expensive because of corruption. But as of Thursday, the school has my kitas, and I have my passport, which means one less thing to keep me awake at night.

There was another sighting of (newly christened, thanks to Megan Ranney) Walter the lizard this morning on my kitchen counter. Unfortunately, he's still a little camera-shy, but I promise that pictures from other parts of my life in Jakarta are coming soon.