Finally! A long juicy post to catch you up

So this will be a long entry with lots of pictures to make up for almost a month of non-entries. The last time I wrote, I was in the middle of our Ramadhan break. I stayed at home for most of it, but stayed busy. Things I did during break:

1. Watched the national finals for Australian rules football (which is different from soccer and rugby and American football, but looks a little like all of them). Imagine a lot of men on the field kicking and throwing the ball around and tackling each other.

2. Baked brownies with two 15 year old girls, both daughters of coworkers. Baked is actually the wrong term since the brownies were cooked in a steamer. Weird, huh? They tasted delicious, but we had to wait until the next day to eat them because they took forever to steam, and we had already pigged out on chocolate fondue by the time they were done. It was a perfect girls night, something that I've been missing in Jakarta.

3. Went to Taman Safari with Tim and Karla. It's this place up in the hills outside of Jakarta (my first time outside of the city) where you drive through different animal exhibits of bears and lions and tigers and zebras and cows and elephants and deer and hippos and monkeys and apes and you feed them carrots and then you can park and walk through other exhibits (like the Komodo dragon) or see some animal shows. You can also hold some baby animals. It's the kind of place that is a bit of a guilty pleasure because you know that this probably isn't the best way to take care of animals, but it's definitely a unique experience.


When you drive through the lion and tiger territory, they tell you to roll up your windows for safety.
Here's Tim feeding the elephants.

Yes, we were that close to the hippos. Yes, it made me a bit nervous. Yes, he liked the carrots we tossed in his mouth.

This beast is massive. Ok, maybe not quite as big as the hippos, but they can inflict some serious damage. I learned that Komodo dragons have some nasty bacteria in their mouths that will kill their prey if those jaws don't.

Me, Karla, and Tim with our tiger friend.

This little guy made me laugh because he was ticklish. And he had a cute potbelly.

4. Went to Taman Mini. Taman Mini is kind of like a world's fair just for Indonesia. You can go there and see architecture and dance and artifacts from different parts of Indonesia. Unfortunately, when Karla and I went, it was extremely hot and kind of crowded and people were staring at us, which made the experience less than pleasant. We left without seeing a lot, but we did take a gondola ride over the lake which has a model of Indonesia's islands (which are upside-down in my picture). I'm pretty sure the big one is Kalimantan/Borneo, but I'm not positive. They're hard to see in my picture, but there are some little white dots that are miniature volcanoes on the islands.

5. Got ready for my parents and Megan to come. Remember my locked bedroom? Because my apartment has two bedrooms and the school only pays for me to have a studio, one of my bedrooms is locked, but they let me open it so that Megan could stay there. I got to see a whole new part of my apartment.

6. Welcomed my parents and Megan at the airport! It was so good to see some familiar faces.

7. Went to Yogyajakarta and Solo in Central Java with them. We had such a good time. We visited a couple of incredible ancient temples (Prambanan and Borobudur), a batik factory and a silver-making factory, and two interesting palaces of the local monarchs. And after living on an island for three months, I finally saw the ocean. We waded in the Indian Ocean on the south side of Java. Awesome waves! We also drove through a lot of countryside, which is very different from American countryside.

At the batik factory: this is a woman putting the wax by hand on the fabric before it's dyed. Batik-making a very complicated and time-consuming process. In the background you can see a little more of the kind of thing she's working on here.

The Buddhist temple/pilgrimage site: Borobudur.

Taken from the top of Borobudur.

This is the Hindu temple Prambanan. The scaffolding and the stones that you see in the foreground are part of the reconstruction efforts, which have been complicated by extensive damage from an earthquake in 2006. Imagine it as the world's largest puzzle. It ties my brain in a knot just to think about it.

The Indian Ocean and Indonesian beach-goers.

8. Got back to Jakarta.

Megan and my parents spent about a week in Jakarta with me after we got back from central Java. My apartment was a lot busier with four people living in it, and it was really nice to have some one to come home to. They kept busy with finding their way to the mall and swimming in the pool at my apartment complex. Over the weekend, we went to a wedding of one of my coworkers (the groom is Australian and the bride is Chinese-Indonesian). I learned that it's not impolite in Indonesia to skip the ceremony and just come to the reception. We were among about 30 people at the ceremony, while more like 350-400 appeared for the reception.

Keep this a secret, but I played hooky from school on Tuesday (when I don't teach any classes anyway), so that I could spend their last day with them. We went to the Dutch district of Jakarta, which wasn't quite as interesting as I hope it would be, partly because it hasn't been very well maintained and partly because it was really, really hot while we were walking around. We managed to find a very nice restaurant for lunch, though, and we finished the afternoon at Monas, Indonesia's national monument. Up at the top, it was clear enough for us to get a great view of the city.
Mom and Dad and Megan left the next day (two weeks ago), and I've been missing them a lot. I really enjoyed introducing them to the people and places that I'm growing to love here. If anyone else wants to come visit, feel free. It makes me very happy.

Since then, I've been getting used to teaching eighth grade. They are so funny! They give me a little more of a headache than the 10th and 11th graders do, but they have so much energy and creativity. I got some great results when I had them write a fractured fairy tale, and I saw some interesting Powerpoint presentations yesterday on war posters. Two of my favorite quotes from eighth grade:
One male student to a group of giggly female students: "Stop acting like a bunch of howler monkeys!"
One student to another: "You're speaking unproper English!"

My tutoring student also cracks me up. When he doesn't want to do something I've asked him to do, he simple says, "No need. No need." How can you argue with that?

On Saturday, we had an all school social gathering at hotel restaurant. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet with Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Western food. It felt like Thanksgiving. My favorite part was the cheeseboard right around the corner from the breadbasket. I haven't had such good bread and cheese since I came here. It was a communal gorging on delicious food, so a good time was had by all.

I'm approaching my four month anniversary in Jakarta. It seems a little strange that I've been here that long because I still feel so new here and I still have moments where I think with disbelief: I'm in INDONESIA. But I'm learning a lot. God is good. All the time.