down under update #1

Howdy everyone,
So, we've survived 3 (or 4?) weeks here now in Indonesia. If you've tried to check for updates, you'll see there's been very few since my original post below, just short additions to it until the next interruption... usually from Iza.

We are still slowly getting settled and adjusting to our new home. Like last country, I'm already picking up more of the language than Jill, and getting out of the house more to see the town and figure out where a lot of things are (and aren't). There's been a variety of school and 'ridge' events where we've met a number of people, most with much more global-wide work/live experience than us. Fortunately, we met Laura and Martin, who are both avid mountain climbers and fit as fiddles. Martin has a killer running loop through town that I hope to work up to someday and join him. Not sure if he's running with a pack or not. His goal is to climb every equatorial snowy peak before there aren't any. He better hurry.

I've done a few more of the group mountain bike rides. They can be very demanding on the body and the bike. Last Saturday morning, I was lying in bed listening to the heavy, heavy, incessant rain coming down. I thought it would be wise to skip the day's 'group ride' at 4 PM, which is always a bit out in the 'country' and just do the more urban 'pre-ride' on the concrete/asphalt. Well, the skies cleared later in the day and a lot of people on the ridge were gearing up for the ride, many of whom hadn't done the group ride ever or in a long while. Well, I thought, might as well join them and get to know all of them a bit better, too.

Well, I think I learned more about which people like which swear words the most, and which people had bikes in better condition than not (mine, sadly, was the latter).
The trail was never really technical, compared to previous rides. Well, "trail" is an understatement. We're riding on whatever surface we come across, including various heights of grass, broken brick, potholes, "fire" roads, etc. But this ride was beyond muddy. The soil here is held more together by clay than mud. Mud can slide off tires if you bunny hop the bike or go through a creek. Clay cannot. Clay lodges to sizes larger than coconuts on your tires and jams into your brakeset and frame and locks your wheel into place. Solidly. So solidly that you can't even roll it backwards to pop it out the other side. Sticks don't even help. You have to claw tooth and nail with these quick setting balls of concrete. It's nasty. And it's frustrating and it gets old fast. By the end of the ride we'd lost one guy's rear deraileur (literally) and my new headset was already shot. I was the only one with classic brakes, so my bike clogged more than everyone else's. I was wishing I'd taken Jill's new bike out instead of my old beast.
By the end of the ride, a good hour past sunset, everyone was so muddy and exhausted that no one mentioned going out for beers anywhere. Home to clean up and sleep was priority.
So, that was fun. And now after cleaning my bike I have a broken rear shift lever, too.

This was basically a 'one-bike ride.'

But I'll still go tomorrow!

Jill is getting in the groove with her small/tiny classes. Her largest now is 7 students! She's teaching drama this year and is liking the change to plain 'ol math for so many years. Her director is very different from past ones. He visits every teacher's class every day, sometimes several times a day. He's not hawking, he's just very curious to see what everyone's learning, seeing how all the kids are doing/behaving and to learn a bit about the world himself. Knowing how busy directors and principals always are, this is an impressive feat.
I got my app in last week. Hope to become an official sub, if not more, at the school. It'll be good for me to get more experience with little kids as I may prefer teaching them in the long run than the older kids.

Jill already had her first field trip, to some crazy named place that I can't pronounce, nonetheless spell. Hudoguorbornisti, or something like that. It was a middle school team building/getting to know ya kind of thing, with tree canopy walks, team trust areas, etc. It was rather spartan, compared to US/Euro ones, but still fun and did the job.

On Monday, Ramadan began. Indonesia is around 80% Muslim, and it seems possibly more than that here in town. The sun and moon council in Saudi Arabia, I think, are the ones whom decide exactly when it begins and ends every year. This time it happened to be September 1, so that's nice and easy to plan for.

Now, I was a bit naive about it all so here's what I've learned:

It is a one month, daytime only, fasting period. From sunrise/first light to sunset/last light no food or water can be consumed by all practicing adults and children, from a certain age on up (8?, 10? 12?). (Pregnant women don't fast, either) So, before and after those periods there's a whole lot of festive gorging going on, and always with family and/or close friends. So it is a very serious celebration and highly affects productivity over the month (which gets worse and worse as the month drags on).
Shops charge more for food items, and maybe for everything, as everyone needs/wants a bit more money to help them through the period, and to get gifts for all the children in the family (think a mega Xmas holiday). I went shopping today to the main vegetable/fish market and most seemed to charge me the same as usual... so not sure if it's cuz they know I'm not Muslim, or cuz I'm a frequent customer now, or maybe that they've already been charging me more than everyone else the whole time! ;-)

I went today with Iza and Bertha (BEAR-ta), our "pembantu". Pembantu is Indonesian for maid, or similar. Everyone here has one, and it is taking us some time to get used to it. Some people have live-in ones, some don't. Every house and apartment here (and all over Indonesia) that are first world-ish have these built-in units for these helpers. George, in Warsaw, was previously working in Jakarta and told us we'd have one and love it (eventually). Well, we didn't love our first one. She was on her 'trial one month period' and, in a nut shell, we were rushed into choosing her shortly off of the plane and she wasn't the right choice for our family. She was live-in, but we don't want that, as it's too odd for us to have someone around the apartment, period, and at early or late hours in the evening. She wasn't a great fit with Iza, too. We interviewed another gal on Wednesday, and in that short time Iza interacted with her more positively than with Bertha. Plus, Agustina, whom will now start on Monday with us, had a stack of very positive recommendation letters stretching back 20-some years. She, like Bertha, is a mother of one and a Christian. Odd odds in this region. At least we won't have to give either one a bonus for Ramadan, which is the norm here, even if they just started working for you. But an xmas one will be expected.
Ah, the things we learn.

So let's all cross our fingers that #2 is a keeper.

Yesterday I took the bold move of playing cards with some seasoned expat women on the ridge. I was the first man ever invited to play with them during their daytime ritual, and a brand new game to me. They whooped it up about Sarah Palin, 2.5+ karat diamonds, and the RNC. For that I whooped their butts with beginner's luck and will likely not get invited back ;-)

Iza had a new 'first' Thursday night, too. She said, "Iza"! She says it with a kind of fuzzy z sound, more like a Polish 'rz' sound... which is fitting, eh? Very cute and we got it on film. Our connection here is horrendously slow, so not sure if any video will be added to the blog anytime soon. Sorry :(

On Monday, Iza and I took an even bolder move and went to our first ever Baby Group/Mums and Tots meeting! We were members back in Warsaw but never made any of the weekly baby group meetings or outings, just too busy, I guess? But here everyone was urging me to go, and I think the crowd was rather excited to have a dad there! A nice French woman from Total was the host (rotates weekly) and I drove over there with another baby, Avae, and her pembantu, Etty. It was a fun, but odd event. The babies are definitely too young to really interact with each other, especially when about half were wall flowers, including Iza. She clung to me like a baby koala, she was so unsure about the whole thing. There were about 15 kids there, from 3 months to early 3. It was a nice mix of nationalities with Indonesians, Dutch, French, Columbian, British, Scottish and I may have been the only American. The host learned I came from Poland and was very excited. I spoke a bit of Polish with her and hers was rusty, so we didn't get far. I'll hopefully hear more later why she was there and for how long, etc. And if maybe there are some Poles lurking about in Balikpapan. It'd be fun to continue some of the Polish language and culture, for me and Iza.

All the moms were wives of guys who work for Chevron, Slumberjer (offshore oil), Theiss (mining), Total (French oil), Pertamina (Indo oil) and one or two other companies I didn't recognize. I know Haliburton has a presence here, but don't know any details yet. Fun company, eh? But they were all lovely and the kids played a bit more by the end and Iza got to meet her first French bully. I never got his name but his mom said it was time for them to go. As he headed towards the door, Iza had her back to him and he gave her a massive shove and she toppled over little Avae (just turned 1 last week!). Avae was a bit stunned but Iza balled. If she was a bit older I would've been very tempted to tell her to knock him on his ass. The boy got a good scolding from mum and Iza survived, of course.

So if you have some free time and want to know a bit about the culture of Indonesia, I've been reading a great book called Indonesia OK!!, by Chris Soebroto (Galang Press). He has done an excellent job of explaining all the funny nuances of his culture to foreigners coming to visit here, for any length of time, as there will always be some form of culture shock to deal with.

Yikes, it is absolutely pouring out right now (Friday night, 22:00/10 PM) and the lightning has begun. We've had a decent amount of rain this past week, but nothing as hard as this, and no lighting for about 2 weeks. Lighting is bad. Our buildings aren't grounded, so that means I must sign off. I was really working on editing our gazillion photos today while Iza slept so I could finally post some for you all... but not tonight.

Have a good weekend, and happy-belated birthday to my brother-in-law, Jim