Week 10 -- Something New/Different

For a change of pace I've decided to start posting short stories about little episodes of my life here to give everyone a break from longer updates. Here's something that happenned a while ago, but still brings a smile to my face.

Uti (my landlady/Indonesian grandmother) and I get along really well and she is always laughing at something I say or do. Her grasp of English is really good and we talk about all sorts of stuff. The other day she complained that she was forgetting her vocabulary, I was silently amazed she knew a word like vocabulary considering she still asks when I'm going back to America even though I answer that I'm going back to Canada everytime. Anyways back to the story.

It was a lazy afternoon and Uti and I were the only ones home when Mickey's cell phone started ringing. Uti doesn't move around so fast and she wanted me to get the phone and see who it was. But of course the display was in Indonesian and I had no idea what it said. By now Uti and I were both in Mickey's room by the bed looking at the phone. I passed it to her so she could read it, but without her glasses the words were too small for her to read.

She got me to read the caller ID for her, but my pronunciation was so poor she had no idea what I was saying. In fact she found my attempt to read Indonesian so funny she smacked me on the shoulder as she started laughing. But she is so wobbly on her little 68-year-old legs that the force of smacking me sent her flying back on the bed with her legs in the air, laughing the whole time. Now both of us where laughing away at each other. We never did figure out who was calling.

That's it. You may not think it's so funny, but I still laugh when I think about it.

Week 10 -- Motorcycles, Monkeys and CUSO

The best part of my weekdays always happens in the morning on my way to work. After taking two angkuts, I grab an ojek for the home stretch to LATIN’s office. What makes it the best part of my day is that the road is less crowded and I can feel the wind in my hair as I ride on the back of a motorcycle. On a clear day I can see the mountains in the distance, usually the mountains are hidden behind clouds. And all along the road are trees and rice paddies until we get closer to CIFOR and then we are under a canopy of trees and jungle the rest of the way.

I’m not implying that the rest of my day is awful, but it’s better in the morning when everything is still possible and there haven’t been any disappointments or frustrations. Like yesterday when the power was on and off all morning, causing me to lose the first two drafts of this update, and then finally went off for good for the rest of the day. Or when I have a great idea for the website but then realize I can’t figure out how to make it happen with Dreamweaver, assuming it’s even possible in the first place.

Of course on the weekends I leave all those worries at the office and this past weekend was no exception. Nina and Pagitta from the office invited me to go to the Schmutzer Primate Center in Jakarta, so I got myself into tourist mode and loaded some film into my camera. But rather than spend the weekend in Jakarta this was just a day trip.

We went on Saturday and the place was packed with kindergartners and Teletubbies, thats me above with two of them, as well as picnicking families. The primate centre is located within the boundaries of the Ragunan Zoo but is a separate entity. This was good because the zoo is an unholy mess filled with trash from picnickers. The primate centre is a little cleaner since they have a bag check and security that won’t allow anything within the centre except cameras. You couldn’t even bring in a bottle of water. The primates are obviously a bigger draw with tourists since the facility was fancier with overhead walkways and tunnels for viewing.

We spent the whole day there and I realized it was the first time I had seen primates up close and I was struck by how their expressions are similar to us, especially in the eyes. Unfortunately all the primates were behind glass or a cage which means all my photos are through the bars of a cage. It makes a statement about how the primates are imprisoned for our enjoyment, but sometimes you just want a good, unobstructed picture. The gorillas were the only ones in an open air enclosure, but they spent most of their time in the shade or back in the trees so we didn’t see them much.

After getting lunch in Jakarta it was time to head back to Bogor. I was exhausted after spending the day on my feet in the pounding sun, but it was worth it. The only disappointment was that I didn’t get to ride an elephant at the zoo, the riding elephant only works on Sundays apparently.

Now you may be wondering why I mention CUSO in the title of this post, I had been trying to keep this under wraps until I had made a decision, but everyone here at LATIN knows already. And since they are the ones I was trying to keep this secret from it doesn’t matter if I talk about it here now.

The deal is that Melanie, the current CUSO volunteer at LATIN, is leaving prematurely which means CUSO still has some money left over in their budget. So they asked me if I would like to continue working here at LATIN as a CUSO volunteer for another six months or so. It’s a great opportunity for me, but also a difficult decision. I’ve been dragging out my education for quite a while and with the end so near I was hoping to finish it off and get on with my life.

I haven’t made a firm decision but I am leaning toward returning to Kamloops in September. Now I just have to think of a very nice way to say “thanks, but no thanks” to everyone that has been so nice to me here.

To see more photos from my day at the primate center click here.