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.

Home Again, home again

We’re back in Bandung now getting ready for Elissa’s sister Crissy to come up for a month of language study with us. Looking forward to having family just around the corner :)

Sweaty Mess

We headed to Bali for our team meeting after our break. After conference we ran a 5K which was a part of Bali’s first triathalon – hot, but nice setting & free massages – no complaints from us!

Day of Snorkeling

Jason picked up a sea urchin, tried to lift it out of the water & got stung. A local guy showed him the “proper way” to pick it up – stab it w/ a stick! For those animal lovers out there, don’t worry the urchin got thrown back in & is fine . . . . we think.

Sufferin' big time

Here’s a pix of Elissa reading by the pool. Thanks Seth & Sarah for the great books! A can of chili beans may be 3X as expensive here but hotels are about ½ price – it all works out in the end :)

Snail Libre

For those of you shell collectors out there – we found a gorgeous one – only problem was it still had its inhabitant! We settled for a pix instead & let the little guy go.

Sluggin' away

Now this one didn’t “get away” so easily! Elissa was walking around in the ocean across a rocky area & accidentally stepped on this sea slug that meshed in so well w/ its surroundings. Weird thing was his back opened up like french doors & magenta ink came spilling out. Kinda like an octopus inking for a quick getaway except this guy is still a slug – so make that a S-L-O-W getaway!

We're in Lombok now - a small island off Bali for a break. Here's a pix with a baby sea turtle :)

Our good friends just opened a new restaurant called "Raja Melayu" - with foods from all the different ethnic groups in Sumatra. This is a pix of their kids & cousins in traditional Sumatran dress.

There’s a restaurant here in Bandung w/ food from Aceh – went there before heading on break – evidently this rhino beetle had the same idea . . . .

Our Place

We thought folks might like to see our place here in Bandung. The family we rent from has been so much fun to get to know, and we really enjoy our neighborhood.

At least our folks will enjoy seeing our place. If you have suggestions (we didn't pick the pink tile), please don't tell us - we don’t have time to make changes before we move :).

If you're looking for a place to rent, it’s available end of Oct. Seriously, maybe you should consider coming here – or some other place. We only live once, why not?

Anyways, welcome to our home!



Front Porch - we live on the second floor.
View from the back of the livingroom / diningroom towards front door
View of livingroom from the front door
Diningroom
Kitchen
Kitchenette

View of bedroom from livingroom entrance

View of bedroom from front porch entrance.

(For view of the kamar kecil (little room) see Dysentery Diaries post.)

Dysentery Diaries

Wed night at about 8:00 I was treated by a cranky doctor at the local hospital. Perhaps my doc subscribed to the merger of the magazines Commentary and Disent - yep, you guessed it, Dysentery (Thanks Woody Allen via Wikapedia)...amoebic dysentery. The news comes as no surprise given my frequent trips to the kamar kecil (little room) over the last week. Unlike Sir Francis Drake, Hernando Cortes and a couple kings of England and France who died of dysentery however (thanks again Wikapedia), it seems like I'll probably pull through. Here's to antibiotics and less frequent trips to the little room!

Pangandaran Tsunami Projects

I was just down in the beach town of Pangandaran a couple weeks ago. In the summer of last year, a tsunami hit this area and did extensive damage to the beach front and claimed about 300 lives. Renovations of the infrastructure seem to be coming along well despite the usual corruption. The major decline in tourism since the tsunami, however, has made the city’s comeback slow.

Here are some pictures of the CAMA funded projects there I’ve been assisting with:

The “Goat Blessing” project provides two female goats to poor families. Participating families commit to returning the goat’s first kid to the “goat bank” and the third kid to another family in need. CAMA also purchased two male goats for breeding. After an initial miscarriage, all seems to be going well. The first goat blessing baby was born last week.















CAMA partnered with a local youth org. to plant over 600 trees on the beach. The project helped revitalize the group post-tsunami and should help with tourism as the trees grow and add to the natural beauty of the shoreline. About 4 months after the trees were planted, the department of tourism decided the beach needed to be “flattened.” They hired a bulldozer which began to mow over the trees. When the local people realized what was going on, they ran out and stopped them. About 350 or the 600 trees are still doing well.

CAMA also helped provide vegetable seeds and has an on-going project to provide small loans to local business people. These trips to Pangandaran have been a nice change of pace from language study, and a great chance to be involved in community development efforts on the ground here in Indonesia.

Those Aren’t Peanuts

We fried peanuts a couple of days ago, actually peanuts ++. As we sat down to eat our sticky rice with sweetened condensed milk and peanuts we noticed some black things. I guess I fried some little peanut beetles. The peanuts tasted so good, though, that we just picked the little fried guys out and kept on eating. Drummonds -1 Bugs – 0.

Grocery Stores & International English

The language of my homeland (which let us Americans not forget is a hand-me-down from the Brits) is taking new form in many countries and cultures. I’m not convinced economic globalization is an altogether great thing, and I’m even more skeptical that any good will come of Westernization, but at least the explosion of the English language as an “international language,” is allowing a lot of people from a lot of places to talk…even if what we say in this “international language” sometimes still comes across as not quite what we were intending.

The other day we were in the grocery store and happened to have our camera, so we thought we’d take some pics of products whose names don’t quite translate well from Indonesian / Asian English to American English.

We all know sports drinks taste like sweat, but why advertise it? (This is what the doc. perscribed when Elissa was in the hospital with dengue fever & typhoid.)









It’s hard to see, but if you look close, below the label “Abon Sapi” is the description, “Beef floss.” Pretty novel idea actually – why floss after you eat beef when you can floss with beef?

I think this is my favorite. If I had kids, I’m not sure I’d want them eating these.

















Or these actually - especially with childhood obesity on the rise. At least they're warning us…











Now these guys are just plain confusing though…












And this one…go on, “Take-it” – nobody’s looking – no one’s going to miss one candy bar - and we complain about the morality of kids these days.









At least after all that chocolate, there’s “Happydent, white, baking soda” gum to keep your teeth…happy? (I wonder if you’re suppose to use this before or after beef floss?)









And if that doesn’t make you happy, try the whole tin!


















Yep, not the flavor of breath mint I was looking for.











Bag-o-mistakes?









Cereal for bullies?


















Only slightly less popular than Hello Kitty.


















And last…if you’re looking for a mate, why not try a Ciggy Mate...getting Ciggy with it?











Anyway, we had fun shopping.

Take 2

Well...this is our second attempt at blogging - our first attempt (two years ago) began and ended with our first post. Here's to all the abandoned blogs out there and to second tries!