A little international news

Happy Election Day! I won't write much on the election because I know that most of you have been ten times more saturated with election news than I am and are consequently ten times more exhausted, but I thought you might be interested in an international perspective. Briefly, almost everyone wants Obama, some for political reasons, some because of Obama's connection to Indonesia, some (students) because McCain looks too old. When my boss Joseph put up on his door a "Who should I vote for?" survey for passers-by, Obama was the overwhelming winner. I voted a week and a half ago by email. I had no idea that the state of Indiana was so progressive, but after completing a couple of forms (including one that waived my right to voter privacy), I printed my ballot, filled it out, scanned it, and sent it back. One piece of interesting election-related news that you might not have heard is that Obama's former home in Jakarta has gotten a lot more attention recently. One Dutch man is offering to buy it and set up an Obama cafe. My favorite part is that it would feature "Obama blend" coffee made with beans from Kenya and Java.

I read about that in the Jakarta Post, and I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of it more often so that I can be better informed about current events in Indonesia. My favorite part is the letters to the editor section, where you can see a wide range of opinions on news and Indonesian issues. What I've noticed recently in some of the articles and comments is the struggle in Indonesia to maintain local culture and to create a unique national identity out of the incredible diversity that comes from being a nation of islands. Language plays a really interesting role as local languages are threatened by Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Indonesia is threatened by English.

In other international news, the financial crisis in the United States has actually been really good news for me, since I get paid in dollars. The Indonesian rupiah (with other Asian currencies) has dropped significantly against the dollar over the last month. When I first got here, one dollar was about 9200 or 9300 rupiah, but yesterday one of my co-workers got more than 10,000 Rp to the dollar at the bank.

Bandung was interesting this weekend. I went on Sunday with Yuli, one of my co-workers, whom I didn't know very well before, so it was a great time to get to know her better. We went to drop off a student for a computer design training camp, but we stayed just to have fun. It rained a lot in Bandung (streets-flooded rain), so we didn't get to go to see a volcano like we had hoped, but we did some shopping and ate some good food, so it was a good trip. Bandung is at a higher elevation than Jakarta, so it was blessedly cooler. The bad part was the rain made traffic nasty on the way back, so it took about an hour longer to get home. But Yuli and I talked about our college experiences, and it turns out that college students in the United States and in Indonesia do some of the same kinds of crazy, spontaneous things. Good times.