Posted by lara
Mon, 25 Apr 2005 02:32:00 GMT
For all of you out there who are wondering, the linguist in me has been having great fun learning some Indonesian. So, here is your lesson for the day: cognates.
I have been searching my dictionary, and here are some words in Indonesian that are similar to the word in English. How many can you figure out? (Pronunciation is mostly like Spanish, but with a few of our English-like vowel sounds - schwa, etc. Also, "c" always sounds like "ch".)
Read more...
Posted in Indonesia
Posted by lara
Sun, 24 Apr 2005 12:55:00 GMT
More pictures will have to come later, but we had a great time yesterday celebrating the wedding of our friend Reza. It was really neat to see some of the wedding traditions here. I am looking forward to looking through pictures with Reza and his wife so that they can explain to us better what was going on. But here's what I got out of it:
We started out at the groom's house. His family fed us breakfast as everyone gathered together. They had gifts for the bride's family that they were putting together to give to them as a sort of bride price. The groom was dressed in an Indonesian outfit.
From there we went to the mosque. They found some chairs for us and some others outside the mosque so that we could see what was going on. We didn't understand much, but it was interesting to watch. They all took off their shoes and sat on the floor for the ceremony, with the men on one side and the women on the other. There wasn't any music except for some chanted prayers. One of our Muslim friends borrowed our camera and brought it inside, so hopefully we got some good pictures and can get a better view from the pictures on our camera. :-)
Then after the mosque, we went to the reception at the bride's family's house. The bride and groom changed into traditional Acehnese outfits. A group of men ate in one room (including the village leaders), a group of the women ate in another, and then the rest of the people all ate outside. Since I don't speak Indonesian, I ate in the men's eating room with the rest of the PACTEC guys. It felt somewhat odd for me to be the only woman in that circle, but they didn't seem to mind. Everyone sat on the floor, and they had SO MUCH food spread out all through the middle of the floor, with all of the people sitting around it. The bride and groom sat at the head of the "table" in the men's room. The walls of the house were covered in fabric, and they had created what looked like almost a throne for the bride and groom. It was quite impressive-looking.
So all in all, we felt very honored that Reza and his wife would invite us to their wedding, and we had a great time.
Posted in Indonesia, Pictures
Posted by lara
Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:22:46 GMT
The airplane from LAX to Taipei was huge! It had 10 seats across with 2 aisles! And each seat had its own TV, which had movies and video games and music on demand. So I learned a little Mandarin and Italian and played Chinese Checkers with the computer. But of course I slept first! It seemed like we would never get off of the plane! Those 14 hours are just a very long time to sit in one seat. I sat next to some Indonesian ladies. So once we woke up in the "morning" (in quotes, because when you go in that direction you're following the sun so it was dark for a good long time), they discovered where I was going and they were teaching me some Indonesian. It was much appreciated.
So I went from LAX to Taipei (Taiwan), then from Taipei to Penang (Malaysia), and then to Medan (Indonesia) and then up to Banda Aceh (final stop in Indonesia). Marshall met me in Penang, which was an awesome surprise! I wasn't expecting to see him until Medan. However, he'd had to go into Malaysia so that he could re-enter Indonesia and get a new 30-day visa that way. So we both now have 30-day visas, and we are ready to be in the Internet Cafe tomorrow. Also, it was great to have one of the guys from JAARS to travel with. He is on his way to work at the Internet Cafe in Meulaboh, and he ended up on the same flight as me. That way we were each able to have another person to speak English with. :-)
This is definitely the closest I've come to being in a place where I can't understand anyone else. At least in Ecuador I had taken Spanish lessons before I left. Here the language is totally unknown to me, although the pronunciation seems a lot like Spanish and they do use the latin alphabet. And I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount of English I've heard and seen around me. English was spoken as one of the languages on all of the flights, and all of the flight attendants spoke English with me. So I am thankful to say that I have not yet been in a place where no one could understand me. But it was frustrating to me that even "yes" and "no" are different.
Also, traffic was of course interesting. One thing is that it's disconcerting to drive on the left instead of on the right. And then you add the people piled onto motorcycles or into small vehicles, plus the random cows... and it gets pretty crazy. Kind of like Ecuadorian driving, except that you're driving on the other side of the road.
Okay, well, it's been a long day of traveling and I am going to go to bed!
Signing off for now...
Posted in Indonesia, News
Posted by lara
Wed, 20 Apr 2005 21:09:29 GMT
I am happy to report that I now have a valid passport, and I am vaccinated for hepatitis A&B and I have a prescription for malaria preventative. I leave tonight! Yeah!
Posted in Indonesia, News
Posted by lara
Sun, 17 Apr 2005 03:07:50 GMT
Yes, it's true. I (Lara) am actually posting something to our weblog. I am excited to report that I get to see Marshall again soon. And not only that - but I will see him in INDONESIA in less than a week!
We were talking online on Wednesday night, and Marshall mentioned that they had still not found someone to take his co-worker's (Tom's) place when he heads back home to his family. So he asked if I would be willing and able to come so that we could both work in the Internet cafe for a few weeks. So he checked with Joy (Marshall's manager at MAF in Redlands) on Thursday morning (California time). And after some e-mailing back and forth, I spoke with Joy myself on Friday morning. I asked around at Trinity Church, where I have been working for just under a year, and they gave me approval to take a few weeks off. So on Monday I have an appointment to renew my passport. And Wednesday night / Thursday morning I am off to Indonesia. So I'm going to go work in the Internet cafe with Marshall for a few weeks, and then we'll be back in time for my sister's wedding in mid-May. Yeah!!!!!!!
Posted in Indonesia, News
Posted by marshall
Thu, 14 Apr 2005 08:33:00 GMT
For this week's Acehnese-version-of-American-food experience, we got hamburgers from a local stand. Tom and I each got the "special". This has many of the ingredients one would expect: a beef patty (or some kind of meat, at least), cheese, lettuce, and tomato. It also had a few ingredients one doesn't normally find at the local American burger shop: sliced cucumber, Acehnese hot sauce, and a fried egg.
That's Tom eagerly devouring his very own spicy egg burger. As with KFC, Tom and I found the local twist to be quite palatable. We also tried one of the more exotic (to our minds) drinks here: avocado juice. This is a blend of avocado, Milo, Nescafé, and milk. It actually tastes a lot like a chocolate-banana milkshake. It was recommended by David (one of our guards), as it's his favorite drink:
Oddly enough, out of the juices I've had here, it's probably the only one I'd order again.
Posted in Indonesia, Pictures
Posted by marshall
Mon, 11 Apr 2005 04:51:10 GMT
Last night we hooked the PowerBook up to the TV and watched the Fellowship of the Ring DVD, which I brought with me (Extended Edition, of course). Neither Patar nor Reza had seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies before. Patar speaks English fairly well, but Reza speaks only a little, so I wonder how much he understood from the visuals, occasional familiar words, and the explanations from Patar every so often.
One thing that I hadn't thought of before we started was the scenes in Lord of the Rings that depict the power of water: namely, the flooding of the river in Fellowship and the flooding of Isengard in The Two Towers. As soon as the rush of waves came, Reza and Patar said, "Tsunami!" That they could relate to. It's strange to think that what we regard as one of the more spectacular "fantasy" scenes in the movie is a real memory for the people here. I don't think it acted as a reminder for them so much as something they recognized, though.
For dinner last night we had martabak and martabak. That is, we had some martabak telor, which is a kind of omelette with red onions, celery, chilis, etc., and we had martabak padang, which is a sort of dessert pancake with coconut, chocolate, and rice. As we've come to expect with the local food, both were very good, although it took me a while to figure out that martabak was used to refer to two very different dishes.
Posted in Indonesia
Posted by marshall
Mon, 11 Apr 2005 04:50:00 GMT
I suppose it's fitting that it would take a good deal of badgering to acquire badges, and after two weeks we were finally successful. We were brought to the WFP security trailer at the compound, where they took our pictures with my digital camera (apparently theirs has gone traveling) and made up some badges, which we received the next day. So now we can eat and use the restrooms without being yelled at.
There was one night a little over a week ago when Tom was doing an installation of an antenna at a remote location, and Patar and I ended up being at the tent until 8 PM. I was wearing my sandals, and must have forgotten to put on bug repellant that day; my feet ended up covered in mosquito bites. And I do mean covered: I think I wound up with over 30 on my feet alone. The itching was pretty intense for a couple of days, and while it's stopped now there are still spots all over my feet, and they're still kind of swollen. One bite on my ankle has turned into a big red splotch; not sure what the deal is there, but it doesn't hurt or itch.
This past Friday night we went out to eat at a "real" Acehnese restaurant. There was plenty of white rice, and the table was full of various dishes: chicken, fish, vegetables, a sweet soy sauce, and other sauces with meat, all of them delicious. About the only thing I wouldn't get again was the coconut water to drink; regular water would have been fine.
There was silverware, but the locals eat everything with their hands, and so did we. Eating rice with your fingers and then using those same fingers to scoop more rice off of the shared plate went against pretty much everything I'd learned about table manners in my life, but our Acehnese friends insisted that that's the way to do it, especially among people considered to be family. It's an honor that they would regard us that way.
Yesterday (Sunday) we went to one of the beaches that hadn't been struck hard by the tsunami. It was beautiful. It's a bit strange seeing people playing in the same water that took so many lives and still keeps the bodies in its depths, yet at the same time it's great that a bit of normalcy is returning there. We saw a group of teenagers alternately dancing and playing musical games (e.g. don't be caught with the ball when the music stops), with one of them playing the guitar. We also ran into one of the guys who frequently comes into the internet cafe and talked with him for a while. He reiterated what so many others have told us: that he's very grateful we're here, that there's no other connectivity solution here that's nearly as good as ours, that it's wonderful to be able to keep in touch with his family while he's working here. Tom and I can't really take any credit; we didn't have a part in the planning or setup of this project. But I'm glad to be involved in keeping it going, and hearing that it's still a great help to others is always encouraging.
Posted in Indonesia, Pictures
Posted by marshall
Thu, 07 Apr 2005 01:24:00 GMT
Every Wednesday, the IT department in Redlands goes out for "Mid-Week Mex". It started out as visiting all kinds of different Mexican restaurants in the Redlands area (there are a lot!), but now we've settled into our favorites and tend to favor those.
I wanted to honor our tradition while I'm here, but as far as I know, there are no Mexican restaurants in Banda Aceh. So we settled for American food instead, and went to the local KFC. Hey, it's "foreign" for here.
I haven't actually been to a KFC in the US for quite some time, but I don't remember steamed rice, spiced Indonesian potatoes, french fries, or soft serve ice cream being on the menu there. In fact, about the only thing I recognized was the chicken itself. The women working at the counter had head coverings with the KFC logo on it, which I wouldn't have thought of but makes sense. The best thing was the poster on the wall advertising "New! Improved! Original Recipe".
It may have had a different selection of side dishes, but it was still all very good. The rice seems to take the place of the biscuits; it comes in a kind of ball wrapped up, and while some put it on their plates and eat it with utensils, others just unwrap a bit of the packaging and eat it from that as one might eat a fast-food hamburger. Packages of ketchup and chili sauce come with the meal; in our case the KFC folks stuffed the to-go bags full of packets, and we wound up with a massive pile of them.
All in all, a tasty meal, and a little reminder of home...with a definite local twist.
Posted in Indonesia, Pictures
Posted by marshall
Tue, 05 Apr 2005 15:32:26 GMT
Tonight we went out for dinner at a "coffee shop" -- which was more of a restaurant -- with Reza and David, another of our guards. The building was in a traditional style with wood floors and a woven bamboo ceiling. Very beautiful. We had nasi goreng, mie goreng, and a variation on a Chinese omelette. Reza and David ordered a couple of baskets of french fries, which they dipped in hot sauce. I think the whole meal for the table came to six dollars, which included five plates of food, two baskets of fries, three juices, three coffees, and a Coke.
In many of the rice and noodle dishes there are one or two little green peppers. These things are tiny, highly compressed, portable combination gasoline tank and lit match for your mouth. I accidentally ate one (two?) tonight, and I thought I was going to breathe flame. The Indonesian guys at the table just laughed as the silly American went through all of his mango juice, water, and coffee in seconds, trying to soothe the pain.
After dinner we stopped at a local drugstore to pick up some more Doxycycline, the anti-malaria medication that MAF recommends for Indonesia. I got three 10-packs for a total of 12,000 rupiah, or roughly $1.30. That's just a little over four cents a pill. Amazing.
Posted in Indonesia
