Jakarta journey
The students are very enthused, though their lessons vary greatly in scope, methodology, and content. They dash around the room constantly to snap pictures of their classmates and their creative activities: some student-teachers rearrange the seating. Others use small groups, handouts, PPTs, drama, or illustrations. We are ordered by one teacher to "Sit! Stand! Sit! Stand! Sit!"to explain the power of words. It's good fun, as well as instructive to see the class ideas.
W and I take my students for brunch to "Mr Parata" where they choose pancakes with banana and chocolate, potatoes and chicken curry, egg and bacon, etc. The bill for 15 people, including drinks? $47S (about $35US). Our stomachs are a bit queasy in the morning after last night's Indian feast, but a few charcoal pills settles them nicely.
The class session winds up an hour early Friday, after the last of 7 presenters and a review of what we covered in 2 weeks. I'm pretty direct - my review and closing prayers take less than 15 minutes: students pray one thing they are thankful for and one request as we wind up "Teaching Methods." The students evaluated each other, and I'll print their eval comments and send them back to them as feedback. They have hand-in two assignments (write reading report on their textbook and gather some useful resources)... then they're done.
"Great shopping. I think we got most of the things I was hoping for," says Kirsten of her morning trip to Chinatown. "It's fun to have Jonathan (brother) along." They barely beat us home from their excursion.
Jay takes us from church to the apartment to drop our teaching gear and pick up the suitcases we packed Friday morning. He deposits us with our carry-on luggage at the Changi Airport, one of the friendliest and most comfortable transit stations ever. The noodles at the airport cafe are ok, but we agree they are never as good as hawker stalls.
Our uneventful Air Asia flight to Jakarta takes 1:45. Indra and Yayu, parents of the Indonesian girls who lived with us a few years back, meet us at the gate. Their police friend takes us through security in record time, so we bypass the lines waiting for visas.
"Hi, hi!" the welcomes are warm as Kristi meets us for supper at Pepper Lunch restaurant. Szzzzzzizzle. The plates are hot as we stir chicken, vegetables, rice and noodles into a delicious combination of flavors. This country knows food! It is less fatty than back home with more reasonable plate sizes and portions. Usually we can't finish the rice or main dish. Our stomachs are starting to settle down after rumbling post-Indian meal in Chinatown Thursday night.
The Bramonos have another hour's drive before they're home, but we are staggered by their hospitality during the weekend. They or their driver chauffeur us through some of the world's most congested intersections throughout the weekend. Two lanes are striped on the pavement, but I watch as three cars merge across the space, flanked and interlaced with motorcycles. The bikers zig-zag across lanes and between vehicles, bicycles churn up the sides, while pedestrians run through it all.
"I think I'll drive differently when I get home. More aggressively, after seeing this," Jono comments. "I love watching how people go in and out. Look how much traffic keeps moving."
"No, no, don't even think about changing your habits! Seattle drivers are unaware of others, bad at signaling intentions and noticing others. You'd be in a heap of accidents," we protest.
Kirsten reminds Jono, "Yeah, don't forget that Seattleites are cautious in merging, and even rain slows them down. It's taken me 45 minutes to go a mile across the bridge, remember?"
Meanwhile, Jakarta moves more people in a steady ebb and flow than anywhere we've seen. Both Indra and their driver are calm and watchful, moving across the lanes as opening emerge, tooting the horn to caution other drivers, watching for near-suicidal motorbikers. Families of four whiz by on their two-wheelers, a young child seated in front of dad, while mom with baby in a sling sits behind them.
The hotel defaults to air-con when we remove our key card from the room slot to leave. We reenter, shivering at the low temps, and turning off the fans. We set the temperature to 30o, but we wake a few times at night from the cold, turning over to find a "warm spot" before falling asleep again. The pillows are soft, the mattress comfy, and bedding luxurious.
Saturday morning, I do about 20 laps of the 40 meter pool while W sits nearby. Palms sway over the clean, beautifully maintained courtyard. My swimsuit has short sleeves and 8" legs, perfect for middle age and appropriate for the Muslim context. The air, smokey from traffic, drifts over four bronze turtles spitting water back into the pool.
"Tea or coffee, madam?" asks the waiter as he seats us.
"Tea, please." We unfold crisply laundered white napkins and tuck in.
Kristi takes us to a vendor market mall. Our kids are bemused and astonished by her transformation. From dazzlingly competent alumni worker and quiet "sister" at our place, she morphs into animated tour guide and negotiator par excellence in her own setting.
"Jono, shall I bargain for you?" She explains that there are three grades of imitation: super, first, and second, pointing out the vendors who deal in them. Kristi politely but firmly haggles down the prices for a messenger bag for Jonathan, a few handbags and scarf for Kirsten, and finds me the best deals on a "super-super" Hermes knockoff purse and some swimsuits.
We linger too long to get across the city to the spa Kristi has booked. But she finds a 3-in-one massage @ $7US for W, Jono, and me (back, hands, feet), and a "cream bath" Indonesian hair treatment and styling for Kirsten and herself. The girls look fabulous!
"I think I need a rest," Kirsten says after the whirlwind day. The driver drops her and me at the hotel at 7pm, where we crash into a deep sleep. W, Jono, and Kristi head out for the teen service at church. W presents a short blurb on Northwest University with Jono, and Kristi leads her teen small group.
At 8.30pm, Yayu calls, "Kristi is almost there, if you would like to come for supper." The ringer wakes us and we head to the lobby and out to eat the best fish-and-chips since our trip to England. W and K have "New York" cheddar wrapping, while Jono has "Philly" cream cheese wrapped around his portion. The portions are big, and we try to eat as much as we can - it's just delicious. Light, crisply fried, breaded white fish and fries. Nearby, a full-size sailboat bobs on a shallow pond, banked by a 30' lighthouse. Diners eat inside the boat or along the shore.
Jono snap-snaps photos madly as we drive. "Oh look at that!" for the outlines of buildings. "I love the juxtaposition of old and new," click-click. W found a new lens for his Olympus camera, which Jono is borrowing.
Sunday morning, W leaves at 7am to speak at a branch of the IES church. Pastor Bernard's driver comes for the rest of us at 8.15, after we eat another stupendous breakfast. Traffic is already moving as we drive a half-hour south. Five motorcycles to every car, lanes going from two to five cars across, a ceaseless competition forward in the surge of busses, cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, cars and bikes.
The worship service in the high-rise bank building refreshes us: the band plays and sings together. A few words from the keyboard leader direct our thoughts as he plays short transitions between the flow of songs. Our attention moves in coherent and purposeful music and prayers, without distracting personal stories, jokes, or endless repetitions. It is a musician's dream set between the excellent band and worshipful intentionality. W, the kids, and I relax to worship and focus our hearts before he speaks.
"Who is Christ, and what do we have to believe to be his followers?" W explains dogma (what we have to believe to get to heaven), doctrine (what we have to believe to fit in with a particular group of believers or a denomination), and opinion (things that can be negotiated, like the form of baptism, the style of music, the place of meeting, etc.) The congregation questions him afterwards, and when the meeting dismisses, several come up to ask about what puzzles them in the Christian faith.
"I've only been here 45 minutes, no problem." Kristi and the driver are downstairs in the lobby. Ah, our phone ringer is off, and we have had a hard time getting out the door between post-service conversations, chocolate cake, and amazing cupcakes baked by a church member.
"So you want a messenger bag like Jono's? Kristi asks W. She steers him and me through the maze of vendors to the back of the mall. She negotiates not one, but two!, bags for W and a folding tote for me, and orders fruit juice as we wait for the driver to get back to us through the jam of vehicles moving in front of the mall. Mango, kiwi, pear for most of us; starfruit, mango, orange for Jono, mango for her. We watch the peels slide off the fruit as the vendor wields a huge knife, chopping the pieces and lifting them into the blender.
Kristi's friend is starring in Dreamgirls at the local "Broadway" venue. We drop Kristi off downtown to see the show, while the driver takes us back to the mall near church for "cream baths," luxurious shampoos, conditioning, with scalp and back massage. It takes longer than we think, so only Jono gets his hair cut. Spiky, trendy, standing every which way, in plucked and ruffled Asian style. Cute, but by morning he has patted it into submission.
Indra and Pastor Jeff come for us in the church van, just as we are finishing. We race through the narrow lanes of a kampung neighborhood, a local arren of alleys, shops, and housing.
"It would have taken us over half an hour on the roads," explains Jeff as Indra squeezes the passenger van past rickshaw cards, around stalls and motorcycles, through narrow openings beside parked cars. Not a scratch on us as we burst through into the church parking area 10 minutes later.
Up eight floors to a beautiful meeting hall with PPTs on Korean alumnum screens, polished to 5 micron thickness. After a music set, we're on stage for the "Living Room Conversations" segment. Each Sunday night from 5-6pm, Pastor Dave Kinney interviews famous sports, entertainment, or political figures and persons of interest, or chats about qualities of Christian living, like forgiveness and peace. And this week, it's the Kowalski family. Not so famous!
"How did you deal with your illness? How has your walk with God developed through this?" Pastor Dave asks Kirsten and us about her arthritis. Kirsten is articulate and clear about how God has deepened her understanding and trust in him, but remarks that she has told God she hopes she can be almost done with lessons learned through pain and sickness. It's the first time we've heard Kirsten speak in public about the RA that has claimed 5 joints and continues to attack her body aggressively.
"Tell us about what you do, Jonathan," so Jono explains his work at a robotics company and his studies at NU. We talk about raising our kids in the faith and W's job as professor.
Afterwards, I can't tell if we're hungry or not. The Pizzaebierie parlor has a delicious menu: Peking duck, BBQ chicken, mushed mushroom pizzas appear in short order, followed by an Oreo dessert pizza. Zoolander pops up on the movie screen at one end, and we laugh our way through the first half hour of the ridiculous spoof.
Then it's time to say goodbye to Kristi, who is off to see the second half of another show of the Dreamgirls production (she left at intermission to hear us on "Conversations".) She's a working girl now, and will be on the job early in the morning. I have sharp separation pangs at the thought of leaving her here in Indonesia, rather than taking to Seattle with us. But she's back home with a good apartment, excellent work and a great church, a plethora of affordable beauty treatments nearby, and fashion malls at hand. Kristi is forever intertwined in our family since she and her sister Daniela lived with us a few years ago. Dae has another year at NU in Seattle, and Jono happily packs the treats the family sends along for her.
Air-con blasts us as we quickly adjust the room temp after the Bramono's driver drops us off at 9pm. We fall into sleep again, waking with the sun after 6am.
Suitcases are packed before we head downstairs for one more breakfast buffet. I taste beehoon noodles, wuntun soup, toast, and a small omelet with my tea and juice. Portions are small, but we're all more-than-full when Indra and Yayu pick us up at 8am. We buck traffic to arrive at the airport by 9.
There's time for a warm good-bye and "See you soon... in May!" before they head out the door and we go through security. Shops line the gates, but we are sated and happy to sit until our plane is boarded.
"What a hospitable family," we say to each other as we walk to the gate. "They left their home early on their day off, picking us up, personally delivering us to the airport... and now they have to drive all the way back home!" It boggles our North American minds, demonstrating a personal care for others missing in our own culture. We hardly comprehend the warm generosity and interpersonal kindness.The airplane takes off across the islands and lands lightly in Singapore at 2pm.
Kirsten and I head back out the door, taking the shuttle to the Tampines Mall for a few last-minute things for K. She packs up when we get home at 8, while the guys eat the food we brought from the hawker stall. We finally get to sleep after 10.
And we all have to wake up again at 2.45am. The taxi takes W and the kids to the airport at 3.15 for the kids' 6am flight. He's back at the flat by 5.30, but I sit down to write until 6.30. It's definitely time to go back to bed.
