The Electric Slide in Indo?

Who would have thought traditional Ambonese dancing looks a lot like something they do down in Texas! :) (Check out Elissa in the back left) Our language teachers are tearing it up in the front.

Pak Yuyus & Ibu Tati

This is a video of two of our teachers doing a not-so-precise Sundanese (the people group of Bandung) dance. These two were so funny! The clip ends abruptly because we are being recruited to dance. The quality of the performance deteriorated pretty rapidly after that!

Traditional Javanese Dance

This is a clip of a young Javanese girl doing an amazingly precise traditional dance. (You might want to turn your speakers down though; the music was quite loud and didn't record well.)

I Hope You're Happy!

Here’s a clip from Jason’s Independence Day speech at our school (don't worry, he's telling a joke).

Mardi Gras in Our Kampung!

In Indonesia a parade is called a karnifal (carnival) and we're still not exactly sure what a carnival is called. Anyway carnival probably is a better description for the crazy procession our kampung put on for Independence Day. This picture was actually shot right in front of our house. FYI, the person in the green head covering in the back- yep, that's a man!

Leader of the Pack

Here’s Pak Bandi leading the karnifal (parade) with his granddaughter, Fia (1 of the avid Uno players from our update letter)

What Men do on the 17th of August

Tanjut pinang is one of Indonesian’s favorite Independence Day activities. Basically what you do is stick a huge, greased, bamboo pole in the ground with a lot of presents tied to the top and get a bunch of men to try and climb it. How could that not be entertaining! Jason managed to keep the recruiters at bay this year, but it’s not looking good for next year…

These guys are dancing around to rally the crowd before the competition. Pak Unen (far right) introduced us to Pak Bandi & to our community – great guy! The guy on the far left is holding a donation box which says, “Donations for the tanjut pinang.”







And the competition begins...






















Three hours later they finally made it to the top. Check out this video…

A Different Sort of Cheese Puff

Here’s a quick clip of a women’s krupuk eating contest. Krupuk is a hard, foamy type of snack that tastes like fish-flavored cheese puffs. They hang them from strings and make the ladies eat them without using their hands.

What Women do on the 17th of August

This was an Indonesian Independence Day event that Elissa had seen before! She won this heat, but was robbed of the title because of a puddle. Not sure why only the women were competing in the events, but Jason was glad to let Elissa represent!

E & Eels

While Elissa won her sack race, she wasn’t so successful in the “stuff a baby eel in the glass bottle” competion!




















Here’s how it’s supposed to be done!




















Most women in this competition were able to stuff anywhere from 3 to 5 eels in a bottle, but Elissa had to be satisfied with one. Afterwards she got a lot of strategy tips for next year: rub your hands on the ground between eels (to get the slim off), grab them by the head, etc. I think with a little training she has real stuff-the-eel-in-the-bottle potential.

Massages at Ardjuna

Elissa’s sister Crissy gave us a great gift – free massage certificates! The place Crissy choose for us was really classy. Incidentally though, you don’t even want to know how cheap you can get a massage here. Let’s just put it this way, “extra value meal number 1 or hour long massage?” If we weren’t neck deep in language study most of the time, I think we’d be regulars. Thank you Crissy!

Badminton

Indonesians are always competing in the badminton world championships. If they’re not number 1, the entire nation is convinced they’ve been robbed (and they probably have). We mentioned in our most recent letter that we went to a badminton competition with the Pak Bandi family to help celebrate Elissa’s birthday – here’s a short clip from the competition.











…And these are only teenagers!

100 cc's of Raw Power

This is the beast of burden that bore us all the way up the mountain for our break – Jason wore a backpack in the front, put another backpack below him on the bike, and Elissa hopped on the back. This little motorbike has been a great way to get around Bandung this past year.

The stairway to the left leads up to our home from this gang (narrow street) which, believe it or not, a car can fit through. In the back ground red and white flags fill the gang in preparation for the celebration of Independence Day (Aug 17)!

Bogor Gardens

To celebrate our 4th anniversary we went to a 190 year old botanical garden in the city of Bogor. Rubber trees and palm trees used for the production of palm oil were introduced to Indonesia via this garden. We were able to taste fresh cinnamon bark straight off cinnamon trees and enjoy time hanging out together

Bamboo seems more exotic in the US, but here it’s pretty commonplace . . . fun for an anniversary pix nonetheless :)

Public Speaking

This sea lion was hilarious – we thought she might be a good option for tour later :)

Eka!

We got to play with a baby orangutan named Eka! Here in Indonesia they call these animals “orang hutan” which means “jungle person” – this is one English word that we think came from Indonesian first! (Often it’s the other way around)















Eka is actually 4 yrs old. Side note, the restaurant in the background is SFC (Safari Fried Chicken) a quite distant rival of KFC here in Indonesia – wonders never cease. Eka and Jason bonded immediately – maybe they just clicked, or maybe it was his shoe laces, either way they had fun playing together






Elissa figured out that Eka is ticklish – if you look carefully, you can see she’s really laughing!

Us and Elephants. . .

The funny thing about this pix is that the elephant was actually trying to get into Elissa’s backpack while she was distracted with taking the pix! (maybe he smelled the peanuts? – which incidentally we feed to the monkeys later on; nearly started a riot, but everything ended peacefully with full primate bellies.)

These elephants are actually from Sumatra . . . the island we’ll be moving to in less than 3 months - soon to be our neighbors!

Feeding Semi-wild Animals

With Jason growing up here in Bandung, he had fond memories of visiting a place called “Taman Safari” as a child where he and his classmates wrestled freely with baby lions in the petting zoo (no joke, zero liability was a beautiful thing!) So for his graduation gift we decided to return & see if Jason could take on those same lions now grown-up . . . Now you have to pay a buck to take a picture with a chained tiger cub (commercialization is not a beautiful thing.) There’s a part of the park where animals roam freely and people ride around in vehicles. Here’s Jason giving a carrot away . . . the real question is, who’s the caged one here?!

This pigme hippo wasn’t picky – she’d eat it all! Weird thing about this little hippo was that she wasn’t just wet from the water she was in but had a slimy coat all over her body – ew!

Puncak Pass

We had a break from school, so we took the time to celebrate 3 things: Jason’s graduation, our 4th anniversary & Elissa’s birthday. Here’s a pix after traveling about 4 hours into the mountains via motorbike to Puncak Pass. We celebrated with dinner at a beautiful restaurant the first night. (Thankfully we don’t look as tired in this pix as we really were!) The next day, Jason got progressively sicker until he finally embraced the porcelain throne (not what he had been intending to embrace) which became his good friend for the next three days.

A little more Pi please

A shoe rack is a common thing here. People don’t wear their shoes inside of course because shoes are stinky, dirty things. On top of the shoes is our sister Crissy’s cat, Pi, (who we’re watching while she’s stateside). Pi likes to sleep on the shoe rack sometimes. Jason thinks it is because he is trying to camouflage his smell from potential rivals / enemies; Elissa thinks it is funny…either way, Pi’s love of the shoe rack can’t be because of the smell.
So here’s the thing, is Pi on top or underneath the table? Reality is this time we caught him underneath wishing he was on top! Since then he has learned to summit the table and does so with impunity despite the curses we frequently call down on him.

Sisters!

Sure enjoyed having Crissy around Bandung for a month – she’s visiting with fam & friends in the US & will return to Indo end of August to teach English for another year. This is a picture of the two of us at the Tangkuban Perahu Volcano near Bandung :)

Ladies Day Out

Not long ago Elissa & Crissy had a “ladies day out” with the girls from Arif & Poppy’s & Pak Bandi’s family together. We went out for a quick snack at A & P’s restaurant named “Raja Melayu” which means Malaysian King. (hence crowns for the visiting girls – Fia & Sara)

Della & Raula at Raja Melayu

Girlie Fun

Here we are doing crafts together after playing video games & winning prizes :)

Kite Fighting

On most afternoons the sky is full of fighting kites. It’s a national past time to watch them dart and chase each other across the sky. These pictures are from the front porch of our apartment. Kids fly their kites from roof tops (sometimes two or three stories high) because they are the most wide open places in the kampung. They cut each other’s lines using special string made from glass ground up from old light bulbs and mixed with paint. They hand make each one using thin paper and bamboo, so they only cost pennies each. Even if you can’t afford to buy or make one, usually one person’s loss is another’s gain unless a tree or power line snags it on the way down.

Men & Rocks

We took Crissy to the local volcano a few days ago. It is a great place. The ladies usually comment about the interesting flora and beautiful views while the guys (or guy in this case) amuses himself by picking up rocks and throwing them into the craters. Nothing like really light volcanic rock to bring out the primordial in the less than hugely statured man.

Papuan Predator

Not sure when this is coming out, but I don’t suppose there will be any denying the negative impact of Westernization on indigenous cultures after this bad boy hits the box offices. Maybe the plot has something to do with a lone, disgruntled, Papuan soldier who goes postal after seeing, “I’m Indonesian, I’m Loven it!” in the window of the local McDonalds. Do you think this is what Arnold meant when he said, “I’ll be back?”

Our Local Y

Just this morning I captured a twice a week event for me – aerobics in front of our local mosque with my neighbors – it’s great! At the end of this clip, you’ll hear the instructor’s voice saying “Mana suaranya?” which means “where’s your voice?” & then the women all respond excitedly – very fun :)

Happy Birthday to You

So a few days ago was the funniest language study day yet . . . I (Elissa) was asking my teacher about the cultural practices surrounding birth in Indonesia. (If you get grossed out by birthing stuff, read no further) Little known fact is that here an important practice when losing something from your body is having it offered back to you for safe keeping. In the case of birth, this means the placenta. (sorry no pix this time)

Now, my teacher explained that often people bury the placenta in a pot in the ground near their home. They also usually put a little lamp or candle on top that must stay lit for 40 days to keep evil spirits away. His neighbor in front of him had just given birth & the burial site was in front of her home. My teacher looked out his window one afternoon & saw his 4 yr old sitting down cross-legged on top of the burial site facing the candle . . . singing “Happy Birthday to you . . . “ & then blew the candle out! He quickly ran outside mortified, grabbed her & reignited the candle. He said “Whoa, thankfully to this day nobody knows . . . “

Call to Prayer in our Kampung

Now that we've figured out how to post video clips, I thought I'd post a video of a common experience for us here in our neighborhood. This clip is shot off our front porch during part of the Friday call to prayer. There are usually 5 calls to prayer a day with the first one starting at 4:30 am and the last one ending about 7:00 pm. Friday calls to prayer are longer and often include a broad casted sermon.

Cats at War

We are cat-sitting for Crissy (Elissa's sister) for two months. See has been teaching English at the National Islamic Univeristy in Jakarta for the last year and is getting ready to head to the States for a couple of weeks

How hard can cat-sitting be right? You feed it, you water it, etc. Well everything was going fine until the neighborhood tomcat showed up (we affectionately call him BigUgly). Since then it has been sofa scratching, cat calling, and peeing on walls. It seems it is time to take Bob Barker's advice...

Elissa captured this video of the latest cat war through the screen door. It starts off pretty normal, but when they get wound up, it is a thing to behold.