2nd Weekend -- New Digs with Charlie, Zoey and Uncle Henry

This post could also have been titled "The Honeymoon is Over." I think I've hit the point where the initial excitement and energy of being in a new place has passed and I am now dealng with the reality of having to live and work here for three months. For the last two weeks I've been content to spend whole days just staring out the windows and sitting on benches watching the Indonesian world flow past, but that is not so exciting anymore and I'm ready to start expanding the boundaries of my comfort zone. My comfort zone being the route from work to home and back.

I'm getting comfortable with using angkuts (mini-buses) and ojeks (motorcycle taxis), although I still have no idea how the fare system works and nobody has been able to explain it to me. It's based on the distance you travel and everybody seems to know how much a trip costs, but when I ask them to explain how many rupiahs correspond to a set distance they can't give me an answer. I've resigned myself to overpaying for now, until I can communicate well enough with the drivers to work out the correct price.

I moved into my new place on Friday after work. It is a room in the house of one of my co-workers grandmother, who is now my grandmother. I call her Uti which is the Indonesian word for grandmother. Her youngest son, Mickey and his wife Tree, also live in the house. We are one big happy family. The house is in a quiet neighbourhood near the Air Force base and I've taken to going for short jogs in the mornings before it gets too hot. Although on Saturday when I went for my first run I was more concerned about keeping a slow pace so as not to overexert myself that I didn't pay close attention to where I was going. Pretty soon I was too tired to keep running, had no money, no idea of what my new address was and no way of asking someone how to get home. I was a little worried, but I just turned around and backtracked my way home. For today's run I chose a shorter distance and essentially did a circle so that I would end up in the same place as where I started. I always hear the locals talking as I run by and although I can't be sure I would bet that they are saying "What is that crazy foreigner running for?" Indonesians don't see the point in walking or running anywhere because there are so many angkuts around and ojeks on every corner that you don't really need to walk anywhere. My co-workers are surprised that I don't mind walking the last stretch to the office, which is really about the same as walking from one of the outer parking lots at TRU to Old Main.

My room has a private bathroom, or water closet as they are refered to here. It comes complete with traditional Indonesian squat toilet and bak mandi, which is a water resevoir used to scoop out water for a bath. What I've always called a good old bucket shower. The WC also has three resident geckos that sun themselves in the window all day. The first I noticed was quite small and I called him Charlie, then later I noticed two other larger geckos who I have named Zoey and Uncle Henry. Charlie never leaves the WC, but Zoey and Uncle Henry can be seen commuting back and forth to the kitchen throughout the day. After my first shower I saw the biggest bug I've seen in Indionesia so far scurry out of the WC into my room and under my cupboards. I couldn't be sure if it was a cockroach since it wasn't hissing, I'm certainly not in Madagascar and Joe Rogan wasn't there to try and get me to eat it. I found out later from Mickey that it was a cockroach and I have been on the hunt for it ever since. But they are crafty little buggers, crafty I tell you.

Speaking of reality TV, they have Indonesian versions of Idol and Fear Factor here as well. The Fear Factor show is called Radical and the Idol show is pretty much the same as the American and Canadian versions. I watched Indonesian Idol with Uti last night and she was quite touched when the contestant started crying after being eliminated. I did my best not to laugh out loud.

I've also got a kick-ass mosquito net over my bed that gives me the feeling of sleeping in a tent. The whole household gathered to watch me put it up and were quite amazed. Last night I had the best sleep yet since I had confidence in my mosquito net to protect me from the malaria-carrying pests. And as a side effect of my malaria pills (Malarone for all you chemists) I've been having especially vivid dreams. Last night I dreamt I was staying in a haunted condo with a bunch of people before catching a flight the next day. I had watched a show on MTV earlier in the day that dealt with a similar story except it was travel show about models going to India and visiting a haunted temple or castle or something. There were also endless commercials for that movie, House of Wax,
on TV throughout the day and I guess they all contributed to the content of my dreams. The vividness of my dreams has been neat, but I wasn't so happy when I dreamt that my girlfriend cheated on me. I was in a bad mood for a while over that one.

Tomorrow is the Buddhist Day of Enlightenment and a national holiday. I may come into the office anyways to do personal stuff on the computer. I think everyone is getting warmed up for the holiday today, since hardly anyone is in the office. I'm surprised since I didn't know that anyone in the office was Buddhist, in fact I know that most of them are Muslim.

Later today I am going to the bank to get rent for Uti before she starts to think I am a freeloader and I may buy a cellphone too. I've been told it's cheap and everyone has one. Even people in villages with no cellular service have cellphones just so they can complete the look. I also think it's time to spread my wings, as they say, and head to Jakarta next weekend. I want to see the new Star Wars movie and I'm sure there will be lots of other stuff to do as well. I just need to make it through another week in the office first.