New Life

Today (Wed) we found the perfect place for us (our 1st home ever actually), made a contract & put a year's rent down. We happened to come across a mamma goat that had just given birth (literally still cleaning her 2 kids)...we thought it was a great reminder of the new life coming here to Calang & how we're blessed to be here!

Fri Nite Picnic

Our 1st night in Calang we had a picnic by the sea on our poncho. We’re in the process of tracking down housing – will keep you posted once we know!

Arrived Safely

Well, for getting into Aceh from Bandung we fly a normal flight for most of the way but the last leg is in a little MAF plane that holds about 9 people. Here’s Elissa showing you what you too can ride if you come to see us :)

Heading to Sumatra

We’ve had fun connecting w/ our homestay family & neighbors here recently surrounding the celebration of the end of fasting month. We’re now in Jakarta heading into Aceh to check out housing options for when we move at the end of the year. Here's final pix before we fly out of Jakarta - a "baji" ride - Indonesian's call it their national car :) More pix soon!

Malu Mascot

Fantasy World’s mascot was too malu (embarrassed) to come towards this foreigner…since J’s so intimidating ‘n all.

Sticky Monkey

We thought this big stuffed monkey looked funny hanging out on the ground. Elissa was going to pick him up but he was quite sticky . . . maybe from kids coming from the candy shop across the hall? Gross!

House of Mirrors

So this past Monday we had the chance to join Arief’s family & restaurant employees to a Jakarta amusement park called “Dunia Fantasy” which means Fantasy World. We had fun in the “house of mirrors” where J could look even taller than he already looks here in Indo ;)

Combo?

So, this sign says “Taman Es Krim & Steak” which means Land of Steak & Ice Cream – now there’s a combo for ya!

This Ain't No KK!

Here in Bandung there’s a doughnut place called J Co. It’s pretty close to Krispy Kreme but not as sweet . . . Jason likes it better but Elissa’s a faithful KK girl :)

Awesome Indian Food

We just finished helping Mom & Dad Drummond book tix to come see us the beginning of December. They’ve just left FL to move back to Cambodia so they’ll be living much closer soon :) We were so excited we decided to go out for lunch & start thinking thru fun stuff we wanna do together – looking forward to it!

BK

So after a year of being in Indo, it was finally “our way right away” on a trip to the nicest Burger King we’ve ever been too – 1st Whopper in what seemed like forever!

Jakarta Fish Market

We visited the Jakarta fish market at night. It was like a seafood flea market. Here is a video of some of the catch lining the sides of the street as we walked out...

Here is a close up of a bin of fresh lobster.

We had dinner with Arief's family at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant right there at the pier. The food was awesome! Here is a shot of our meal on the grill.

Marin's Funny Lips

Here’s a pix from our fish dinner w/ Arief & Poppy’s fam. Their 1 & ½ yr old son, Marin, has a new habit of making funny faces to see people laugh – totally adorable.

Here is a video of Marin making his funny lips in the car...

Waterbom Water Park

Arief invited us to come along on a little family vacation to a water park in Jakarta. It was great to spend some more time hanging out with the family in a relaxed setting. Here is a shot of Jason, Della, and Raula in the swimming pool.



And here are a couple of shots of Della, Raula, and Elissa on the waterslides!

Peddle-Power

Now, this pix was taken awhile ago but gives an idea of what you might see at a traditional market on a busy day. This dude is running a portable, peddle-powered mini-ferris wheel – how’s that for compact! If you look carefully you can see he’s smoking while biking…it’s the manly thing to do here…kind detracts from the “magic” of the moment though.

Pak Bandi's Hometown

Pak Bandi took us to the big attraction around the corner from his family’s home – the local traditional market. He, Jason, Fia & Sarah are on the right w/ Elissa & our neighbors on the left.

Visiting Tjut Nja' Dien

On our trip to Sumedang to visit Pak Bandi’s family on the 2nd day of Lebaran, we stopped by an Acehnese heroine’s grave. She’s quite famous in Aceh & so we’re hoping this pix will win us some brownie points in Calang. We decided to take the picture Indonesian style - very serious, no smiles!

Visiting Ibu Noneng

After our visit to Pak Bandi’s home, we went to visit our friend Ibu Noneng & her family. She has been an amazing help in our home & friend – we are truly blessed with her!

Visiting Bandi Family

Following the community forgiveness ceremony, we headed over to Pak Bandi’s. This is Pak Bandi’s livingroom full of guests and food!



Pak Bandi & Ibu Bandi (Mr & Mrs Bandi) are holding a Lebaran must - hand woven coconut leaves full of sticky rice.

This is Fia & Sarah looking so sweet :) in their Lebaran outfits

Forgiveness Ceremony

We had the chance to participate in a very moving ceremony in our kampung (neighborhood). On the first day of Lebaran (week long celebration at the end of the month of fasting) hundreds of our neighbors came together to greet one another and, more importantly, ask for forgiveness of each other for know and unknown wrongs. By the time we got to the end of the line, Elissa was overwhelmed and cried her way through the last twenty people or so – it was so clear how much our friends long for forgiveness and release from guilt.

Departure to Aceh Delayed

Our departure to Aceh has been delayed until the end of the year due to visa issues. It has taken us a little while to get our heads around what this will mean, but we are glad for the extra time to finish well in Bandung.

Rush to Break the Fast

Things can get pretty crazy at one of the main intersections near our house during fasting month (Ramadan). This stretch of street is famous for good food cooked at stalls set up every night on the side of the street. During the month of Ramadan, everybody swarms the stalls about 5:15 to buy food and drinks to buka puasa (break the fast). Here are a couple of videos Elissa shot from the back of our motorbike.

You can see the food stalls and flowers (only sold here at Ramadan) in this first video



This second video shows how crazy the traffic can get!

Night Long Calls to Prayer

On the last night of Ramadan (month of fasting) each mosque holds an all night call to prayer in which the phrase "God is great" is repeated over and over through the night. Since we have 4 or 5 mosques quite close to our home, we choose to spend the night with our friends Arief and Poppy. This is Arief with his son Marin...













You can't see much in this video, put you can hear the multiple calls to prayer echoing across the valley (they are quite loud, so you may want to turn your volume down a bit).

Last Day of Class

We can't believe we've completed our formal language study...now comes years of informal language study! We've spent alot of time in class over the last year...

We are going to miss the teachers at our school, but are looking forward to getting back into the "real world."

Battered, Deep Fried Spinach

We went out to a Japanese steak house to celebrate our graduation from language school. It took us a while to figure out what we were doing...but the food was awesome. We were most fascinated by the tempura, deep fried spinach. I'm sure it wasn't great for us, but it tasted good. Maybe since spinach is really healthy, if you fry it, it just becomes neutral...

Gorgeous Hotel

We went up to our friend Arief's hotel in their hometown of Garut last weekend. What an amazing place. It is built around a small lake fed by artisian springs. The rooms are traditional bungalows built out of local materials. Guests can either use small foot paths to get to their rooms or gondola-like boats.

Arief offered us a couple nights stay for free at the hotel before we move...I think we are going to try and fit it into our schedule :)

Be the Fish

Digital photography is a dangereous thing - we no longer have to be responsible. We can now "waste film" on silly pictures of fish and us in coffee shops (and not feel guilty about it). Elissa and I really needed a good laugh a couple of days ago after our final day of language class (yes!). Turned out snapping self portraits of ourselves got us laughing pretty hard :) ...

Feeding Fish...Aggressive Fish!

We had fun feeding the fish in the lake at Kampung Sampireun...especially since they would practically beach themselves to get the food. As you can see, Elissa had quite a following by the end.

Mango Salsa

We love Mexican but have found it quite difficult to find “good Mexican” here in Indo – go figure! When we left OH after our 1st year of marriage our good friends the Johnsons & Wilsons hosted a going away party for us. This was our 1st exposure to mango salsa & we’ve never been the same again . . . now here in Indo we’ve been able to make it in the comforts of our own kitchen w/ the greatest mango on the planet – here’s the recipe:

2 ripe mangoes, peeled & diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 green peppers, chopped
3 TB chopped fresh cilantro
2 TB chopped fresh mint
6 shallots, chopped
2 TB honey
2 TB fresh lime juice
¼ tsp ground red pepper
½ tsp salt
(Chill 2 hrs before serving)

Marathon Cerama (teaching)

Last night we also attended the big event in our kampung (neighborhood). It was kicked off with a women's group singing a few songs in Arabic. They did a good job even though the projector was right in their faces. After that a teenage boy read from the Al-Quran, and then a guest Imam (religious teacher) came and spoke on seven things Muslims today need to do. These included encouraging young people to be faithful in worship, conducting one's self appropriately with the opposite gender, remembering to say "peace be upon him" when using the name of the prophet, being good friends with other people of faith such as Jews and Christians, and several others.

He used a PowerPoint presentation with pictures from his hagi (pilgrimage) to Mecca which included a short video clip of the cave where Mohammad is said to have received his revelation, pictures of the massive hotels planned for the city of Mecca (one from Google earth), and a number of other video clips including several from the movie, "The Message" (Hollywood's version of Mohammed's life). We started a little after 8:00 pm and ended about 11:00 pm. I was amazed that the Imam was able to keep people engaged for that long! The original plan was to watch a movie about the revelation of the Al-Quran after the teaching, but that got scraped because everybody was too tuckered!