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| Random shot of Udik cooking burgers on 4th of July! Expect pictures to be random and sporadic as I upload with slow internet! |
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| Shopping at the big grocery store in Mojokerto is just like shopping at home! Here is Nurul with Adira, enjoying his toy car shopping experience! |
It is 6 PM and you have bathed, eaten, and are tired enough
to go to bed.
Your ibu burps in your face and says nothing.
You are technically a millionaire each month that you get
your Peace Corps stipend.
You freak out you will get in trouble for returning home
after dark (read: 6 PM).
You are desensitized to the fact that women are riding
sideways behind their husbands on a speeding motorcycle wearing no helmet and
simply carrying a newborn baby.
You are a woman but you no longer flinch or respond at all,
really, when you are called "mister" five times a day.
You are sweaty, red-faced, smell gross, and are wearing the
baggiest clothes of your life, but everyone still calls you "cantik" (beautiful).
You wake up at 2 AM to find a mouse running around your room
trying to eat your snacks, freak out, and go downstairs to find someone to
help. Of course your ibu is up (do moms ever sleep here?!), but her response to
your fear? "Tidak apa apa" (“Nevermind,
it's fine.” Which can also be translated to: “What a dork. Go back to sleep,
it's just a mouse”).
You have no problem walking out of the bathroom with your
pants or skirt all wet. That means you are clean.
"Sudah
mandi?" (“you already shower?”) is not a creepy pick up line, but a
perfectly common question.
Your greeting to the locals as you pass is, “Monggo,” (sorta like “Hello” and
“Please, keep doing what you are doing”) is met with a slow, drawn out, “Nggeh,” pronounced GAY.
You are sweating like a fiend in English class, try to wipe
your sweat off discreetly, and are not laughed at by the students as you unknowingly
have just wiped black whiteboard marker all over yo’ face. (In the US, they
would have been laughing instantly. Maybe these students will too, after they
know me more than a week!)
That tan you were hoping to get is non-existent because
you are respectful and wear long sleeves and a floor-length skirt every day of
your life. If fact, you are potentially more pasty pale white in Indonesia than
you were in the negative degree winter in Minnesota or Wisconsin.
No meal is complete unless you eat copious amounts of nasi putih (white rice)
You do not freak out when there is no toilet paper left.
There was never toilet paper to begin with...
You find yourself living in fear of two main things: the
rats in your house, and that someone will see you dressed immodestly. Another
volunteer, Emily, sums it up perfectly. “You
can sleep in [yoga pants] when you’re nervous about sleeping in shorts, because
you have a fear that the rats in your ceiling will fall through on nights when
it’s raining, land on your bed, your subsequent screams will alert your Ibu who
will bust into your room, see you covered in rats and wearing shorts, and then
be offended by your immodesty.” Yup,
that pretty much sums it up!
You think buying something for more than 15,000 Rp is expensive.
That’s $1.50 back home.
The wrinkliest, shortest old woman you’ve ever met grabs
you, without fail, every day when you pass her on the street, blabs
incoherently at you in Bahasa Jawa while squeezing your arms until they are sore, and only lets you go when you
sorta wiggle out of her grip and mumble something about going to school first.
Keep in mind that she is so short that when she reaches up to grab your arms to
squeeze, she pulls you down about a foot to stick her face approximately 2
inches in front of hers (she’s old, maybe her vision is going?!?), offering you
a close up of the potentially only tooth she has remaining. Yes, this happens
to me…every time she sees me.
You are frequently offered by anyone you are visiting to sleep
at their house that night. Doesn’t matter if you’ve known the person for 30
minutes or more!
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| For Kelsea |
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| Fitri and I at Gerak Jalan (students and community members do a military-style marching parade!) |
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| Marching ibus is serious business! |
This is best post ever. lol
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