Celebrations

My village is never short of celebrations and/or gatherings. You gather to pray if: someone dies, someone is born, someone is getting married, someone is going on the hajj, someone got back from the hajj, it is someone’s birthday (though last week was the first Indonesian birthday party I’d heard of), for the weekly prayer gathering time, for a holiday, for someone’s new house, for a new musholla (small mosque) opening…you get the point!

Gosh darn it, I hope I look that regal on my wedding day!

                                              

The process of these gatherings is always the same…

Nurul and THE SPEAKERS. Small lady, big sound!

Prep:

- Big speakers (usually borrowed from my rich host family) are turned up to full-blast so any music or speaking or reciting Al Qur’an that is done automatically makes me want to scream, “Doesn’t that hurt your ears!? And it doesn’t even sound good!”

Yupi, a distant relative who love to give me free salak and
oranges at the pasar. Prepping the take-home boxes for her
niece's wedding with over 250 guests...

- Cooking for mass quantities of guests for at least 5 hours (usually more like 10+ hours) before guests come. Add hours and days accordingly based on guest size (weddings have over 300+ guests, all of whom eat there and then take food home…)

- Move furniture away and put down rugs that the guests will sit on.

- Slap on your nicer hijab at the last minute so you look pr woman esentable to guests!

For my friend Indah's wedding, I was strategically
placed at the very front of the receiving line. To flaunt
the white lady or so the Indonesian girls wouldn't have
to stand in the sun and get darker?? Hard to say. But the
result? I was in the sun for only like 15 minutes and the
sun burnt me through the mesh holes of the kebaya...an
interesting tan, to say the least! 

The Event

- Welcome guests by extending your hand. The guest will take it and not shake it like we do in the US, but just give it a quick grasp. Some people, often men (maybe because I’m a?), don’t even really squeeze your hand, they just do an open palm touch, like holding hands with a teenage boy during the Our Father at church situation. If the guest is younger than you or you are important for some reason (old, rich, teacher, respected, etc), the guest will bring the host’s hand to the guest’s face, lips, or forehead. This is called “salim” and most children (as young as possible through adult children) will do it every day with their parents when they leave the house to go to school or work. Then the newcomer will proceed to shake everyone else’s hand and I’m not kidding you even if there are like 40 people crammed into one prayer circle I am prodded to shake everyone’s hand. Maybe it’s cause I’m a random white lady and people want a good look at me? Cause I’ve definitely seen other people just shake a few hands and then sit down. 

The mysterious food baskets!!

- At some of these events, women come with baskets of food. At first, I was confused: “How is one family gonna eat 100 baskets of food from the guests!?” Then I asked about this and learned that the women all bake and bring snacks, and when it is time to go, the hostess distributes the snacks into take-home bags, so really it’s like a cookie-exchange! You come with your cakes and you leave with a couple of other ladies’ treats!

- Guests will sit down and usually, if there is praying, that happens first, and usually just a few minutes. Then the guests are forced to eat and it doesn’t matter if you just ate at 5 other homes, you better eat or people will be upset. I have learned to plan for this and purposely do not eat beforehand!

I told you, this food prep is serious business! (Wedding) 

Vats of food!! (House warming)

Host brother's 13th birthday party. 

   

The take-home food bags ready to go!

- After you eat, and sometimes before you are even done, the host will hand you your second meal to go, all wrapped up and ready for the motorcycle ride (or bike ride!) home.

- Guests immediately leave, after shaking everyone’d hand on the way out. If I’m lucky, I leave, too. The whole process is relatively painless and usually happens in under a half hour. But sometimes I get stuck because I’m the lone white lady who “bisa Bahasa Indonesia?!” (can speak Indonesian) so the trapped bule (foreigner) proceeds to answer questions for a while, despite sweating like a hunting caveman and being tired. 

Fahris' 13th! 

First birthday party he's ever had...I helped him with the decorations, all of which
the guests (13 and 14 year old neighbors) found to be very odd decorations! And
check out those rugs to sit on!!!

Effie as the emcee...hilarious! 

 

And for some good measure, the day I taught about Thanksgiving in English Club. Don't let these awesome pictures fool you, as a whole it could have been 100x  more fun and engaging. I lectured for a long time about the Native Americans and English and how it was a similar take-over with the Dutch and Indonesian ethnic groups. Many different ethnic groups get a label slapped on them, like the Lakota, Dakota and Cherokee become Native Americans and the Javanese, Sundanese, and Dayaks become Indonesians Also, I really tried to push the idea that the Europeans were jerks to the Native Americans, thought not sure how well that got across...anyways, then I ended with a quick story about how in the beginning, the Native Americans helped the Europeans and then had a big meal together, thanksgiving, before sh*t went down and the Europeans turned bad. I may have thrown out the word genocide, but clarified that this genocide was manifest differently than others. Land, food, and other essentials were taking away so Native Americans had no chance, while in other countries with genocide people were systematically hunted down and killed. (Though some battles between Europeans and Native Americans aimed to do that, too. And I'm also not very educated on the whole history of Native Americans versus Europeans, so in this case Native Americans very well could have also been systematically hunted down and killed, too). It's complicated and a crappy situation that may have left my students really, really confused now that I think about it, because why would we be celebrating this terrible relationship between the Native Americans and Europeans? I hope I was clear that the celebration happened first, then all the bad stuff...

  

Post Miss-Sarah lecture, we had like 5 minutes to make hand turkeys or the famous (maybe infamous, it took sooooo long!) turkey boxes I made for teacher's appreciation in high school.

   

Kris, "I am thankful that I got a present."

Chindy, "thankful for enough money." (I may have prompted that one!)