As most of you know we don't own a car here in Indonesia but we do own two motor bikes. This might not seem like a big deal off the top of your head but then again what would you do when you go grocery shopping or need to buy something kinda big? Well, in many of these cases you can get something delivered but myself and some friends we like to 'do what we can' by ourselves if you know what I mean....
This picture is of Gwen and I going to the 'bird market' and buying our family bird. What do you do with a bird care and a motor bike? You cover the cage in newspaper and tie it to your back of course! Not impressed yet?
To mow our lawn at our house I have to drive to another mission house and borrow the lawn mower. Normally I borrow the mission truck but when I got there the truck was gone. No worries though, my Indonesian friend was willing to help!
This picture is of my best/stupidest 'carry ons' yet. We bought Addie a crib (picture below) and I figured the box wouldn't be THAT big and I could just fit it in between the front space of my motor bike. But the box was too big so I said tie it on my back! I got A LOT of looks driving home with this one. : )
Let's just say it was big & HEAVY! Your worth is though girl!!!
This is a picture of my friend Nate when he was moving homes. He took his entire rattan chair in one load! What an inspiration you are to me Nate!
**I apologize in that is 'culture of the Week' is NOT about Ramadan. I was planning on 'filling you in' with a bunch of little culture tidbids but my plan now is to make you a video next week. So stay tuned!
My new hobby is awesome! Many of you probably don’t know that RAT’S are kinda a big problem/annoyance here in Indonesia. And unfortunately for us we had a BIG family of them living in the roof space directly above our bed room. We would hear them fall, chew, run, & fight in the night and during the day pretty regularly. I had though about buying some d-CON poison but I then though if a rat was to die up in our ceiling that could be an even BIGGER problem. But praise be to God I found another solution. They make a wire cage here that has a nice weighted drop down ramp on the front and when something (rat) walks in to eat the bait it can’t get out! And the best part is.... Ladies you may not want to read on.... I have multiple awesome ways to exterminate them:
I have a traditional tribal bow and arrows that I can shoot straight through the brain killing it fast with minimal blood.
I have a BB gun (enough said).
The dog that we are borrowing (A big golden retriever) is an Indonesian dog, meaning that he too catches and kills rats...
And this one really is the best. I have a friend who has a pet hawk that will fly down and kill/eat the rat.
So needless to say I have yet found another great hobby that also helps keep things healthy and safe around the house! : - )
We had a school assignment recently that was to ask our Indonesia friends about what kind of superstitions they have here. Boy, were we surprised at the answers!
*If a bird poops on a person they will have a bad day (this one kinda makes sense!). :)
*If a girl sits and eats on the front porch of the house she will end up marrying someone who has had a divorce.
*If you step on a frog you will have a ugly spouse.
*You have to be careful about cutting down big tree’s because spirits live in them.
*If you poop in your dream that means you will loose something that day.
*If you loose a tooth in a dream that means someone in your family or extended family is going to die.
*You have to be careful not to die is a dream because you WILL die for real!
*If a snake comes into your home then someone in your family or extended family is going to die.
*And our Favorite! We have a newt/lizard that lives in our homes here in Indonesia and it’s called a “Cicek”. They mostly come out at night and they walk on the walls and some times the ceiling (this is normal...). O.K. here it is.... If a Cicek falls on you then someone in your family or extended family is going to die unless you catch it and break it’s jaw open! And they still believe this and do this today!!!
As some of you may have guessed We some times run into some pretty strange/unusual foods here in Indonesia. One of my favorite this past month has been eating (for the first time in my life!) fried chicken feet! My friend had ordered some and insisted I give them a try. And yes, to my surprise it tasted like chicken!
The most common way for Indonesians to travel/get around is by a motorbike. We have found that it is the most affordable way to travel in and out of the city, not to mention that easiest way to travel. Here is a quick shot of what we look like headed out for a drive. Can you find the umbrella?!
“Culture of the Week” this week is what we found in our back yard ‘just’ this week! The Spider is a BIG spider that lives up in some trees/bushes behind our house. We looked it up on the Internet and think we found it, it can eat birds when it gets big enough....The scorpion is also a fun story. Ruth saw a hole in the ground and said “I think that is a scorpion hole.”. Luckily for me, when I’m in the States I try to watch ‘Survivor Man’ on Discovery channel as much as possible! He says to dig out a hole in front of the hole and then place a cup in the ground so that when it comes out of it’s hole it falls in the cup and can’t get out. Sure, enough Chloe and I did this and in the morning there it was! I just chose not to eat it..... As for the rat, the girls were playing out back (why do we let them play there again?) and they quickly ran inside saying they found a big rat! And big it was! You can see for the scorpion and the spider I used a quarter and for the rat I used a bic pen to show you the size!
This may sound funny that I'm picking 'light Switches' as a 'culture of the week' but it's been one that I've been WANTING to do for a while! Check out the picture above: The 'turn nob' is for the room fan (a must for ALL rooms to keep it cool and keep the mold down....) and the double switch below is the normal looking switch here in Indonesia. The think that you DON'T know it the switch is opposite/backwards then what you (from America) think is normal! HERE up is OFF and down is ON! When ever I go to use a light switch here I always have to think first.... O.K. not what I think....
This last week it was Gwen's 4'th birthday. Yeah, Gwen! But the weird thing was having to deal with the time differant from here in Indonesia and back in the States. What I mean is New Hampshire (where Ruth is from) we are 11hrs ahead and we are 14hrs ahead of California (where am from). So what we had to do was call family on Gwen's B-day in the morning say 7:00am. Well, that meant it was 5:00pm California and 8:00pm in New Hampshire. So when it was Gwen's B-day here and we called the States it wasn't yet Gwen's B-day there... Pretty weird eh?!
Here is a link to a 'real time' map of the world with times to help you keep track! We are considered in the Jakarta, Indonesia time.
With coming back to Indonesia and un-packing our thing let's just say even Ruth and I were surprised to see what had occupied our things while we were gone!
We wanted to keep with our 'the effects of water' theme with Culture of the week because this time of year is rain season for us! So without further a due our title this week is:
Motor Cycle rain gear!
We've found (and have been told) that raining season is pretty much clock work. We usually get a good rain storm come in right around lunch time and will last for an 1 or 3. Then come evening again we'll get some more rain for a while or for the whole night. And then of course there are those days when it just rains/pours all day! Of course, our days can't just stop because it's raining so...
This is a picture of Ruth wearing her full body rain suit on her way to school.
This is a picture of me wearing my poncho coming home from school. Unfortunately today it rained so hard when coming home that I was still pretty wet and had to change when I got home... The cool/funny thing about my poncho is that it's a double header! Meaning that when I have a guest/passenger they have a head pop out for them also!
So the picture below is a picture of Ben's side of the bed. His head sleeps right next to his dresser and might even have some contact now and then while he's a bit of a mover/walker in his sleep! But all that to say 3 nights ago while we were reading 'Little House On The Prairie' (great book!) to our girls Ben noticed that the side of his dresser had mold all over it! Not Cool! So we moved it out of the room and took everything out and wiped it all down with bleach water to kill it off. Here's a couple of cool mold pictures and how we dealt with the problem!
Here is a closer look at the board side by Ben's head
Here is a closer, closer look at the mold issues!
This picture is one of my favorites! This is a picture of a watch that Ben's has. He has two so this one was sitting in the basket on top of Ben's dresser! It's now at this point that we tend to look all around the house for mold!
So the picture below is of one of the ways to remove/prevent mold in the dressers and other things here in Indonesia! Ben had his friend Mas Marwan come over yesterday and put in 4 5wt. lights in his dresser. The idea is the warm/hot dry air moving through the dresser will keep out the mold! A lot of other missionaries have these light in all their dressers but we were hoping we had a 'dry' house and didn't need them. But we've been getting A LOT of rain the past few weeks so I guess the moister finally got the better of us!
Now we just need to get use to sleeping with a night light again. It's been a while! : )
Do you have any mold issues? How do you deal with it?
As you can see from the picture this last week we had some 'building code' problems here at the house. I've been up in our attic a few times to fix something or put in new lights etc. But this last week while working on this fan (picture above) in my office I suddenly 'fell through' the ceiling! Luckily, just the one support beam busted out and as you can kinda see from the picture my bum & overall torso fell through the big middle whole and then as my back scraped down a rafter (ouch) my arm and leg were able to bust through the other ceiling tiles and then held my body suspended. Definitely a bit of a scary/painful experience but 'falling through a roof' is just one more thing I check off my man list!
Why 'Right side, left side' you ask? Well this week I was trained/check out on driving the mission van here in Indonesia. The first thing you notice driving this van is you (the driver) sit on the right side instead of the left and the stick shifter isn't on the right side of you, it's on the left! These two things were very strange to me because for one I've only been driving a motor bike for the last 7 months and it was of course a bit strange to just be driving a van again as well as I've never driven a foreign vehicle before! The other weird thing is the turn signal & windshield/lights controllers are switched... Luckily the pedals are the same! I just have to keep reminding myself that these things aren't wrong, just different! : - )
Rainy season just hit here about a week or so ago. And then the weirdest thing happened. Bugs! Everywhere! At night there are thousands of these little flying gnats things that are horribly attracted to light! They swarm around our porch lights and they do 'anything' to 'get in' our house as well. Unfortunately our widows & screen's aren't up to U.S. 'code' if you know what I mean. So we normally have quit a bit of sweeping to do in the morning....
This picture above is of our front porch this morning....
A bit of a closer look!
I do what I have to do to give you the best possible cultural experience. I thought the best thing I could do would be to pick up the pile. Gotta admit, it was pretty grouse picking up and holding 'all these' little bugs! And yes, the real 'volume' of bugs couldn't quit all fit in my two big hands....
P.S. I almost forgot to mention that I've heard it's pretty common for Indonesians to sweep up their bugs and fry them up for a little snack! yummy... : - )
Do you have a bug problem? Any other good stories out there?
With Ramadan going on this month we've decided to do our 'weekly culture' based on how Ramadan is effecting us and the community!
Fasting for lunch (Ramadan Month)!
Part of the Ramadan month is fasting all day (no eating or drinking). Muslims will eat a early morning breakfast before the sun comes up and then eat dinner after the sun goes down. During this time we have to close our dining room curtains when we eat (7-12-5) to be polite to those people around us choosing not to eat or drink while we are.
Our dining room normally...
This is how we now eat all our meals, with the curtains closed!
This 'being polite' to others has also effected local restaurants here. So places choose to close all together during the day while others just 'some how' block the view of people eating in side!
Even the 'small' whole in the wall sit and eat places will cover up!
Today marks a big change in our lives while living here in Indonesia. Today is the start of 'Ramadan' for all Muslims! This whole thing is new to us and we've been trying to read and talk to our neighbors to find out 'why' and 'how' this month is to take place and how it'll affect us.
During the month of Ramadan, Muslims must refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, marital relations or getting angry during the daylight hours. In addition, those fasting are supposed to refrain from bad habits - lying, getting angry, using bad language as well as to be more diligent in prayer and give to charities. It is believe that fasting heightens spirituality and develops self-control.
So Muslim's will be getting up at 4:00am and having breakfast before needing to go to the mosque at 4:30am, then again at 12:00-3:00-6:00 & 7:00. During the day hours they are not to eat or drink anything! Their not suppose to even swallow their own saliva. Then once it gets dark again (about 6:00pm) they are allowed to break the fast and eat & drink.
How will this affect us you ask?
1) Well we’ve been told that people will be banging pots and pans outside our house with calls to “Eat Breakfast” of “Sahuuuuuhuuuuur!” at 4:00am!
2) When we eat during the day (7:00-12:00-5:00) we’ll have to close our kitchen curtains as not to be rude to those choosing to fast. We’ll also need to keep an eye on the girls to make sure there not walking around the front yard with a bowl of popcorn or a chicken drum stick in hand!
3) This is a time when more beggars are out than normal, as well, as part of the pillars of Islam is giving alms to the poor, and the blessings received from Allah double for alms given during Ramadan. More thefts during this time also as we’ll need to make sure to LOCK OUR GATES at night and definitely our doors! Can’t leave things out, even sandals can be stolen! People are trying to accumulate money for the feasts at the end of Ramadan as well as travel home, “Mudik” or “pulang kampung.”
4) As Lebaran or Idul Fitri approaches (October 1st and 2nd ), prices of food and transportation will go up dramatically.
5) I read that over half of Jakarta’s work force (and Surabaya too) is from out of the region, many from Central Java, and a large percentage of them go home to family over the Lebaran Holiday (remember) again that this is the end of the month of fasting October 1st and 2nd ) . This “going home” is referred to as “Mudik,” which literally means “upstream, inland (away from the sea.” The people who mudik are called “pemudik.” Because of this flux of people going home, Jakarta becomes “sepi” or quiet, and cities like Semarang and Solo almost double in size for this week! Even Salatiga grows in population and becomes much more congested. In the States, our biggest time to visit family is Thanksgiving or Christmas so in a way, Idul Fitri is like Thanksgiving and Christmas wrapped into one for the Muslims.
OK, we hope this information helps your understand and your ability to pray for us more effectively during this time. We'll continue to update our blog as we learn and experience more from this 'new' culture we find our selves in...
If you’d like to read the link below or article below that, it’s good reading.
Jalan Santai that's what you call it in Indonesian. Every year around Independence Day for Indonesia every neighborhood plans different games/activity's. This is one that we all could do. Basically what we do is walk around our neighborhood with everyone in the neighborhood! It took us about two hours, with the girls and yes our arms were very tired from caring both the girls for different portions of it. Though Chloe did walk most of it! We found that it was a fun way to meet different people in the neighborhood and chat a little. Here are a few pics of the event.
Mt Merapi is our local volcano. About a week or so ago we took a little drive up into the mountains to see it up close and personal. It was amazing! Sure enough the thing was smoking like a chimney. I believe the last eruption was '04 or '06, so we should be good for a bit... :) Anyway it is about a 45 min drive up our other dormant volcano to reach the base of Mt Merapi. Here are some pics you might enjoy. ~Ruth
Last nights home work for us was to answer some questions on the board with the appropriate Indonesian response for telling people about ourselves. Today we are having a Chapel at school and we newbies are to try to memories this text and say it to all the students there. Sounds like fun huh?!
Selamat pagi! Nama saya Pak Ben. Saya berasal dari America, CA. Saya sudah menikah. Nama istri say Ibu Ruth. Kami sudah punya dua anak. Nama anak, anak kami Chloe dan Gwen. Chloe berumur tiga tahun dan Gwen berumur dua tahun. Kami tinggal di Grogol. Tapi, rumah kami tidak mempunyai nomor. Rumah kami besar dan berwarna putih. Itu saja, Terima Kasih!
Direct Traslation! Good morning! Name I, Mr. Ben. I coming from America, CA. I already married. Name wife I Mrs Ruth. We already have 2 kids. Name kid, kid we Chloe & Gwen. Chloe age 3 years and Gwen age 2 year. We live at Grogol (area). But house we no have number. House we big and color white. this done. Thank You!
I know with a direct staslation it might sound like bad Eglish. But it's not English but good Indonesian!
As some may not know, Indonesians drive on the left side of the road. This is the opposite of what we learned growing up. For safety reasons we are not allowed to drive a motorcycle or car for the first 3 months we're in country. We have a couple of choices for transportation; the public bus (which we use very often), call a friend to pick us up (which we don't use very often), or ride our bikes (we fill the gaps with this one). Riding a bike looks a bit different for us here then it did in the states. Here a picture of us ready to head out to our local playground. And yes, getting up the hills is much harder with two little people hanging on to you... :)
Our neighbors, Shad and Sarah Deal, came over to visit last evening with their son, Braden. The girls had a bunch of fun playing with little Braden, but Shad was not too excited about all the pink. So he ran home really quick and grabbed some of Braden's more manly toys. A couple of balls and some trucks. After we all had our share of fun, they grabbed all the boy looking toys and headed for home... but one little ball was forgotten! I think if I hadn't happened to look over the side of our porch the next morning, it would have been gone forever! I was very surprised to see this half buried green ball, swarming with ants! I think the ants here must be on steroids. They buried half the ball in one night! But don't worry I have rescued the ball and returned it to the owner. All is well. Here are a few pics of the crime scene. ~ Ruth
(All those little pieces of dirt on top of the ball are ants)
So last night here I was sleeping so nicely and then out of no where at about 2:15am that all changed. A roach was trying to crawl into my mouth! Yes, my mouth! :( I shot up like my life depended on it swiping it off my lip. Then after much spitting and a complete face and hands soap down it was time to hunt....
After finding a flash light and looking around our bed room for a bit I found it! But then it ran into the living room and under our couch, really fast those suckers can move. Our living room normally looks something like this.
I was determined to find this little nasty roach that violated me & my sleep! So after completely having to move everything around I was able to corner him and go in for the kill. It's safe to say though that I didn't get much sleep after that though. I think it still might take me a few nights or weeks to recover! ~Ben
Time change... This is the biggest thing we're going through right now!
During the last three mornings we've all gone to bed at about 7:00pm totally tired and then waking up at about 3am totally awake and not being able to fall back asleep! Kinda frustrating. The time here in Jakarta, Indonesia is 14 hrs ahead of where we've been living in California for the past 5 months. Our bodies are going through a 'total' sleep schedule change! Just think about how we've 'been trying' to go to bed here at about 9:00pm and at home in California everyone is waking up at 7:00am.
No worries though. Tonight I'm writing this to you at 9:35pm! The other missionaires here said that our 3'rd night is usally when our new schedule starts to kick in for us. And they were right! At least we'll see when we get up in the morning tomorrow...
We've got to tell you about our 'first' big cultural experience in Indonesia as a family.
This is a 'water bock', it's an Indonesian shower! They basically have this water reservoir in the bathroom and the rest of the bathroom is tile, toilet, sink & drain.
So this morning at about 4:00am we woke up and couldn't get back to sleep... We all decided to get up and take a shower. How is works is you grab this 'scooper' and scoop/fill it up out of the water basin and then just dump the water (cold water...) out over your body. Even though it was cold the girls enjoyed it because we told them this was a "Indonesian bath"! : - )
Every missionary goes through culture shock when entering into a foreign mission field. Some experience it worse then others but all experience it! So we've decided to start a weekly blog topic called "Indonesian Culture 101". We'll be posting different culture we see and experience everyday here in Indonesia. We're exited to begin documenting different culture for you because it's SO abundant here and SO very fascinating! Maybe some of this well also help you understand a bit of "Culture Shock"!
