Already, Not Yet

When learning a new language, most people begin with the obvious most important words and phrases: "Hello," "Goodbye," "Please," "Thank you," and "Where is the toilet?" being the top five, in general opinion.  In Indonesian, however, the list of Most Important Words To Know is only two deep, and neither of them have to do with being polite or going to the bathroom.  

Most Important Words to Know in Indonesian (in My Opinion)

1. sudah -- already

2. belum -- not yet

To the layperson, these two words might not seem very important -- but little would that layperson know that sudah and belum are actually rich, nuanced units of language, possessing a depth of meaning far beyond their literal English translations.  Most significantly, the concepts of "yes" and "no" don't really exist in Indonesian in the same way they do in English, such that if someone asks you if you're married or if you've ever been to Bali, you would answer sudah instead of "yes," or belum instead of "no."  Not "I'm not married," but "I am not yet married" -- because as everyone in Indonesia believes, you're going to be married sooner or later.  Just like you're probably going to go to Bali sooner or later too.

Sometimes, sudah and belum are even used in the same sentence -- for example, "Sudah mandi belum?" which translates literally as, "Have you already showered or not yet?"  There are only two correct answers to this question, obviously: already, or not yet.  Since if you haven't already done something as important as shower (in a culture where people shower two to three times a day), that activity should definitely be in your immediate future.

Ever since I first learned the concepts of sudah and belum I've been sort of obsessed with them, in a way that couples fascination with deep affection -- and as I prepare to leave this country where I've made my home for the past year, that deep affection has only deepened.  It's nice to think about the things I've done, seen, tasted and accomplished while I've been here in Indonesian terms: sudah pernah ke Sulawesi, sudah pernah coba pisang goreng, sudah pernah mengajar Bahasa Inggris -- or, in English terms, I have already ever been to Sulawesi, I have already ever tried fried banana, I have already ever taught an English class.  In my opinion, the idea of "already ever" doing something (which exists in Indonesian but not in English) makes the experience more specific, somehow -- better situated within the context of your lived life.  It's not just something you did once, a random event floating in your past, but rather something you have, to this date, already done at least once, and might do again in the future.

Which brings me to what is my favorite Indonesian concept these days: the idea of belum.  It's hard to think about what leaving Indonesia means -- leaving behind my friends, my favorite grilled tempe stalls, and all the things I didn't have the time, money, courage or circumstance to do while I was here: visit Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) or any of the islands of eastern Indonesia, go scuba diving among some of the best reefs in the world, see a Komodo dragon, travel in a longboat, eat chicken feet, or teach a course I designed from scratch myself.  But not having the opportunity to do those things, and countless others, this past year doesn't mean I won't ever be able to do them -- it just means I haven't done them yet.  There's a lot of things I haven't done yet, but that's okay because there's also a lot of time left in my life to do them.  Belum is wonderful because it opens up to us our entire futures; reminds us that spectacular things still await.  Belum is to "No," I think, as See you later is to "Goodbye" -- it doesn't cut you off.  It gives you back all the time that is still ahead.  I am reminded of a line from a poem called "A Color of the Sky" by one of my favorite poets, Tony Hoagland:

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.

I like that idea -- of ends turning out, in fact, to be middles -- especially now.  Even though this is probably the last entry I'll write for "Indo the Wild," you can rest assured that it won't be the last time I'll be writing about my adventures in this wild wild world, and it definitely won't be the last time I'll be trying to get you all to read about them.  (Cue your deep sigh of relief here.)  So as I gather my things and say my see you laters, I also want to say: here's to the middle.  Here's to being in the thick of it, to the now, and to everything that comes next.

Don't Judge a Bule* by her Color

* For those who don't feel like doing their homework, "bule" is the Indonesian term for "foreigner."

Fifteen months ago, as I was sitting in the PiA Director's office being offered the job I'm now about to wrap up, my would-be boss looked at me and said, "You know, it'll be interesting -- people are going to think you're Indonesian."  I accepted this statement with the same clueless enthusiasm with which I greeted all of her musings on my future over those next few weeks, including her warnings not to get on boats and her prediction that, because of Indonesian rubber time, my visa would not come through until absolutely the last minute.  As it turned out, my visa came through with a few minutes to spare, and I've been just fine on the few Indonesian ferries I've boarded -- but she could not have been more accurate in her first prophecy about the way my nationality would be perceived in this country.  I thought I was ethnically ambiguous in the U.S., but here I just confuse the pants off people (or the sarongs, as the case may be).  Being ethnically ambiguous is now the story of my life.

There is easily one sentence I have heard with far, far more frequency than any other single collection of words since last August, and it always comes at the same point in a conversation.  I will be conducting a transaction in Indonesian, and after a few moments the real Indonesian person on the other side of the transaction realizes that, contrary to their initial assumption, I am not, in fact, Indonesian (or at least not a native speaker of the language).  "Where are you from?" they proceed to ask, and, as I have a thousand times previously, I always answer "From America."  "America?" they repeat, looking either baffled, surprised, or amused (or all three).  And then it comes: "But you look Indonesian!"

Wow, really?  I've never heard that one before.  

If there is one thing I've learned during my time in Indonesia, it's that I don't fit the bill of what a typical American is supposed to look like.  This lesson, confirmed for me again and again over the last eleven months, was presented to me on my very first day -- within my first five minutes, in fact.  I had de-boarded my final flight in Yogya, collected my luggage, and exited the baggage claim area, and was looking for the university staff who were supposed to be meeting me at the airport.  I saw them right away, holding up a sign that read: "PiA -- Fiona Miller."  As I approached them, smiling and waving, they continued to look over my head, scanning the crowd  for their idea of Fiona Miller.  It wasn't until I was standing directly in front of them, introducing myself, that they realized it was me.  "Oh!" they exclaimed, and laughed.  "Sorry -- we were looking for someone with light skin!"  This sort of surprise (shared by many) speaks, I think, to an interesting truth about the way Americans are perceived abroad (or at least in Southeast Asia) -- as the blue-eyed, blond-haired, wealthy, big-car driving, hot dog-eating, premarital sex-having, "All-American" of Hollywood.  Isn't that what all Americans are like?  No?  But that's what it looks like in the movies.

I've gone through different stages in my reaction to the oft-received exclamation that I "look Indonesian."  At first, I thought it was funny.  My boss had been right!  "Yeah, I know!" I'd reply, and laugh along with them.  Then, I thought it was cool.  If I wore my batik and didn't open my mouth, I could actually pass.  Real Indonesians didn't give me a second glance, thinking I was one of them.  I had never really fit in visually to my environment before, but for the first time in my life, I was exactly the same color as the vast majority of the people who surrounded me.  This was pretty sweet.  The next phase was irritation.  Not that I'd ever been particularly proud to be American, but not being able to be perceived as such rubbed me the wrong way.  One time someone went so far as to suggest, "But you don't look American," and that really pissed me off.  So what was the deal, I didn't get to fit the visual profile of "American" in the United States or anywhere else?  I AM American, I wanted to snap.  Get over it.  

The stage I'm in now, I think, contains a little bit of everything.  Sometimes the disbelief still exasperates me, but I also can't complain when the color of my skin and the structure of my face gets me the local entrance fee to tourist sites for which I would otherwise have to pay a steep tariff.  I've always been grateful for my mixed heritage and have counted it as an enormous blessing, but I think being multiracial in Indonesia has given me one more reason to be appreciative of the ethnically ambiguous color of my skin, in that it has allowed me to embody an alternative American reality for a lot of Indonesian people.  Most Indonesians I've encountered have never met a brown-skinned American before, and now each of those individuals knows we exist, and has a new understanding of the United States as a nation much more diverse than the whitewashed version of itself it projects to the world.  The election of Barack Obama did a lot to shatter this projection all over the globe, of course, but I'd like to think I also have a small part to play in teaching my Indonesian friends that America is not Hollywood, and that some of us look just like them.  Sometimes I feel like I don't fit in here or in the United States, but it's also true that, looking the way I do, I can move between these two worlds more easily than a lot of people from either one.  Fitting in nowhere can also mean, in other words, fitting in everywhere -- and that's something I don't think I'll get tired of.

CrAsia, je t'aime

Last Wednesday, I taught the last section of my Business 1 course, which also may or may not have been my last class ever in Indonesia.  You would think that at this point, eleven months in to my stint here and with only two weeks left, that my schedule would be solidified enough for me to have a clear idea of when my last class is.  But if you thought such a thing, you would be mistaken -- because, of course, this is Indonesia.  Earlier this spring I spent a few months designing a brand-new writing course with another teacher in my office, which my boss originally wanted to get enrolled and underway by the beginning of May.  The beginning of May came and went, however, with no students enrolled and no immediate signs that this course would come to fruition.  The middle of May came and went, and then the end, and each week I was informed that they were still getting students enrolled but that the course would begin "next week."  When I came back to the office last Monday after a week off for my Sumatran vacation with Isaiah, I was told that, finally, the course would begin next week (i.e. this week).  But when I checked again with my boss on Wednesday, she said that the students in the course had been scheduled to go to Bali for some conference, and therefore the course would start the following week -- which is next week, and also my last week in Indonesia.  Why the fact that the students would be unavailable to begin the course this week was known last Wednesday, but not two days earlier on Monday, is still unclear -- but the moral of the story is that the course will begin next week.  For real this time.  Maybe.

Part of me can't help feeling frustrated at this lack of organization and ever-changing schedule, because not knowing what my commitments at work will be means I can't commit to anything else -- like a one-last-fling beach vacation in West Java with Luna during my last week, for example, which we tentatively planned and then had to cancel because in case this course really does start, I will have to be here.  But part of me (the part with a sense of humor) recognizes that this scattered, amorphous, wildly flexible sense of planning and schedules is truly Indonesia, and while I can't say I'll miss it when I go back to the States, it does seem a fitting way to wrap up my year in a place where time is rubber and expectations are a joke.  Welcome to crAsia, one more time.

And anyway, if this new writing course never materializes and last Wednesday with my Business 1 students was indeed the last class I'll teach in Indonesia, I'm kind of glad I didn't know.  If I had, I probably would have felt some weird pressure to make it "count," but the truth is, it counted anyway.  I had to give each of them an individual oral final exam, but before that I gathered all seven of them into the classroom so I could hand out the cookies I'd gotten for them in Sumatra, and give a sappy farewell speech about how much I had enjoyed teaching them through two sessions, how much their English had improved, and how I wished them the best in their continued studies.  They, in turn, presented me with a gift box, which included a small wooden statue of a wayang puppet, a traditional Javanese cap, two pairs of earrings, and a t-shirt which read "Jogja: live in my heart."  The best part, though, was the note at the bottom of the box, which said: "Fiona, thanks a lot ... For Everything that you've done for us ... Hopefully, you always remember Indonesia which is Yogyakarta.  Good luck in your carrer.  God Bless You --" and was signed by all seven of them, complete with three hearts at the bottom.

Then I gave them their oral exams.  I can't really think of a nicer, normal yet special maybe-last-class than that.  I know I must sound like a broken record by now, but it's the truth -- my students rock.  And as I move onward with my "carrer," if I meet anyone half as cool as all of them along the way, I'll be golden.

The Motorbike Diaries

As the long-term readers among you might remember, one of the candidates for the title of this blog was "The Motorbike Diaries," as a play on the title of the book (and later film) "The Motorcycle Diaries," which chronicles the travels of a young Che Guevara across South America.  Regaled with stories of the living organism that is motorbike traffic in Southeast Asia, before I came to Indonesia I entertained colorful and elaborate fantasies of myself as the intrepid, motorbike-riding traveler, dodging buses and water buffalo as I set out on the road less traveled around the world's largest archipelago.  As those same readers might also recall, however, upon my arrival in Yogyakarta I discovered two things: 1) motorbikes are expensive, and 2) the traffic here is whacked.  These two discoveries, combined with the third discovery that "themotorbikediaries" was actually not an available URL on blogspot, ultimately contributed to my initial decision not to procure a motorbike in Yogya.  Having neither the funds to purchase or rent, nor the desire to die a gruesome roadkill death, I settled for walking, taking the bus, bumming rides off Luna, and bicycling -- which is how, last October, the lovely Maurice entered my life.

Just for the record, having Maurice has been wonderful -- he has always gotten me to my three main destinations (school, the gym, and Luna's house) without fail, has kept me in shape, and has fostered in me a deep love for bicycles that I expect I will carry with me home to America.  But as this spring has worn on, I have become more and more frustrated with the limitations that the lack of an engine imposes: not being able to travel far afield from home, always having to arrange rides for myself, and showing up sweaty everywhere I go.  As awesome as Maurice is, it's obvious why these circumstances would aggravate me -- after all, who wants to arrive home, having just come from a shower at the gym, newly bathed in sweat?  Less clear, however, is how or why, over the last ten motorbike-less months, I have built up the idea of driving a motorbike in my mind so much that it has become a sort of insurmountable hurdle that I can only look up at, discouraged, from the ground.  Plainly put, I felt defeated.  I felt that I had let myself -- that intrepid traveler of my fantasies -- down, allowing nerves and inconvenience to balloon into a larger-than-life obstacle between me and a set of wheels that I was unable, or unwilling, to conquer.  Driving a motorbike would have been badass, and clearly I was not badass enough.  

You could cue the forlorn music of defeat here, but you would be too hasty in doing so, because luckily for me, my brother is awesome.  As Isaiah and I hung out and caught up from ten months of sibling separation when he was here visiting me over the last two weeks, I described to him how discouraged I felt on the subject of motorbikes and not driving them, and, because he is a good brother, he gave me a big fatty attitude check.  If lots of people can do it, so can you, he reminded me -- you just have to give yourself a chance.  I had been too embarrassed to really express these hang-ups to anyone before, but a little encouragement went a long way -- all the way to Sumatra, in fact, where, on the island of Samosir in the middle of Lake Toba, we rented two motorbikes one day to explore the island with.  It took me a little while to get the hang of balancing the bike and and maneuvering the throttle, but with the hour I was cruising along.  A little shaky, sure, but cruising nonetheless.  And it was glorious: zipping up the coast, the largest lake in Southeast Asia to my right and gorgeous volcanic hills to my left, the wind on my face, driving -- something I had convinced myself I couldn't do.  It made me realize that the only thing standing between regular me and badass me was my brain; and if my brain could tell me that I didn't have what it took, it could just as easily tell me that I did.  And as it turned out, I did.

Which is why last night, back in Yogya, I rented a motorbike.  I had been toying with the idea all week since Isaiah left on Monday, but last night I was presented with an opportunity, and because I now know that I have what it takes, I took it.  I was hanging out with Luna at a coffeeshop when she got an SMS from a friend of hers who is starting a motorbike rental business, advertising a special promotion for rentals.  In a twist of true Indonesian serendipity, the coffeeshop we were at just happened to be around the corner from her friend's house, so she called him up, he drove the motorbike over, I filled out a form, and within half an hour I had a bike.  Simple as that.  

The critic in me wants to scoff at this situation: here I am, with less than three weeks left in Yogya, and only NOW do I finally grow a pair and rent a motorbike?  But the badass in me doesn't listen, because she knows: it's never too late to face the music (or the traffic, as the case may be).  And in a way, it's kind of nice to be embarking on a brand new adventure so soon before I leave -- it keeps things fresh.  Indo the wild I go again!  And this time, I have an engine.

Departures and Arrivals

Well, it looks like the race to the finish has officially begun.  I can feel the momentum of leaving taking hold of my brain, and even though I keep trying to tell my brain "Stop that!  It's too soon!" it doesn't really help, because that's just my brain attempting to contradict itself, which winds up being mostly schizophrenic and not very effective.  What also doesn't really help is that my friends are starting to leave -- Lolly took off a week and a half ago, and just last night I had to say goodbye to my much-beloved housemates Emma and Cyrus.  It poured all afternoon yesterday and was still raining when the car came to pick them up and take them to the airport, and as I stood at my front gate in the drizzle, crying like a fool and waving as their car drove away, I realized that this whole leaving thing isn't going to be as easy as I thought.  When I think about going back to the U.S., what comes to mind are all the wonderful reunions I'm going to have with family and friends on the other side ... but still being here, now, it is sometimes easy to forget that going back home will also involve leaving this place, where I have formed lifelong friendships and deep attachments to people, routines, and the little quirky quotidia that make life in Yogya absurd, adventurous and wonderful.  Suffice it to say that bidding farewell will be no piece of cake.

On the other hand, I still have a whole month and some change before I have to bid those farewells, and it is jam-packed with goodies!  The most important goody being, obviously, that my brother Isaiah arrives TONIGHT!  I'll be leaving in a few hours to collect him from the airport, which will officially commence the Supreme Awesomeness that is the next twelve days, which we will split between adventuring in Sumatra and traipsing around Yogya eating delicious food, seeing spectacular sights, and trying not to die from heat exhaustion.  It's going to be off the hook.

Isaiah and I will report back at our earliest convenience -- stay tuned!

A Week in the Life of a Grammar Monkey: Sunday (Part 7 of 7)

Well folks, it's Sunday night -- so that's pretty much a wrap.  I don't know about you guys, but I'd say this little week-long experiment in finding joy (or at least amusement) in the quotidian mundane went rather well.  It gave me reason to pay attention to the little quirks of daily life in Indonesia that I don't notice anymore, and it gave you a brief window into the sometimes-humdrum, sometimes-hilarious existence that I've built for myself here over the last nine months.  Plus, now everyone knows I'm currently keeping a liquid-filled slug on my leg.

Which brings me to the bad news -- this evening, sadly, I popped my slug.  I was sitting down to dinner with my friend Lolly at our favorite Indian restaurant, and I guess I wasn't paying proper attention to the whereabouts of my right calf, because the next thing I knew I had a clear, slightly sticky liquid coursing down the back of my leg, and my slug was lying wrinkled and deflated against my skin.  I know this is probably too much information for those of you not medically inclined (or maybe even for those of you who are), but I realized I'd grown kind of attached to what I had begun referring to as "my slug," and it's a shame it lives no more.  It is also a shame that my tailpipe burn blister has become an open wound subject to infection, since now I have to work extra hard to keep it clean.  Hey dad, any suggestions?

On the other hand, I also have some good news -- something happened to me this evening that reminded me why living in Indonesia is actually pretty amazing.  Before dinner, Lolly at I stopped by the thrift store across the street from the restaurant, and I locked Maurice with my big fatty bike lock because I am in the habit of doing that (no one likes a stolen bike!).  The lock is basically a huge chain sheathed in some kind of super-hard plastic casing, and at one end there's a bolt that plugs into a hole on the other end and clicks locked with a key.  The key has been getting stuck in the lock recently, but I figured it was because rainwater had got inside and rusted it a little bit, and anyway all it usually takes is a little wiggling to unlock.  So I didn't think anything of it when I went to unlock it after the thrift store and the key got a little jammed, but the usual wiggling didn't seem to be working, and then -- oh dread -- the key BROKE OFF inside the lock.  And then I flipped out.  

Of the approximately four to five hundred thoughts that immediately rushed through my head, the relevant ones included the following: 1) there is now no way to unlock my bike, and therefore no way to ride it home; 2) even if I could go home, get the spare key and come back here, there would still be no way to unlock my bike, and therefore no way to ride it home; 3) I cannot walk home carrying my bike, so I will have to leave it here and will probably never see it again; 4) the only way to be able to ride my bike home will be to get someone to cut the lock off, which is something I will be unlikely to accomplish on a Sunday night, even if I could get the bike to such a person with such equipment; 5) I will not be eating Indian food with Lolly tonight.  This was largely the nature of my flip-out, although I think I voiced a few bad words, which is something I don't usually do.  I just couldn't believe I had spoiled my evening out with Lolly, put Maurice in a terrible position and eliminated my one form of independent transportation, all in one ill-fated flick of the wrist.

Taking immediate action, Lolly and I walked down the street a few meters to see if we could find one of the motorbike repair guys who set up shop on the side of the road and ask if they might have any ideas, but we came across a hardware store first, which I figured was a good place to start.  We walked back up to the thrift store, and I was getting ready to pick Maurice up by his frame and walk him down to the hardware store to see if they would have anything strong enough to cut the lock, when an old man who had also been shopping at the thrift store and had seen the commotion (I think he probably heard me say the bad words) came out to inquire after the problem.  I showed him the broken stub of my key and did my best to explain what had happened, although it was pretty obvious the predicament I was in.  He first motioned across the street and said it would be possible to get the lock cut over there, but when I kept asking "Wait, where exactly?  Over where?" he took pity on my incompetent self and matters into his own hands.  He asked for the key, which I handed over, and then he tried to fit the stub into the opening of the lock, even though the entire length of the key was still inside.  Yeah, like that'll work, I thought -- and it first it didn't, but when I took the key back from him and tried it one more time just to see, totally miraculously, it did.  Somehow the key stub was able to turn the rest of the key enough to disengage the lock, and the chain popped open.  Maurice was free!  And now Lolly and I could go get Indian food!

I thanked the man profusely and then we parted ways, but the whole incident just made me realize how lucky I am to live in a place where there are people like this man, and this is how things operate -- where strangers help strangers in need.  Sometimes the lack of systemization in Indonesia and the informality of processes that are standardized in the U.S. infuriates and confounds me -- for example, in this country, if something gets stolen, people are just as likely to call the dukun (a traditional magical healer, like a shaman) as they are to call the police -- but sometimes, grassroots problem-solving works better.  And it feels better too.

So from where I'm sitting on this Sunday evening, I'd say: another great week in Indonesia accomplished.  It wasn't the most exciting or the most exotic, but sometimes all it takes to make a great story is just to tell the ones that are happening around you.  And I mean, come on -- impromptu interviews, homemade kite-flying, personalized field trips, bicycle near-catastrophes, and liquid-filled blister slugs?  Just TRY to tell me you weren't wildly entertained.  Just go ahead and try.

A Week in the Life of a Grammar Monkey: Saturday (Part 6 of 7)

Solo was sweet.  It's actually a lot like Yogya from what I could tell, but having my own personalized tour guide in the form of my awesome friend N just put the icing on the cake.  Sweet, like I said.

Trains run between Yogya and Solo all day, so I just took myself to the train station at 8:30 this morning and was in Solo by 10, where N met me at the station.  Our first stop was the Puri Mangkunegaran, one of Solo's two palaces, where, touring the compound and the incorporated museum exhibits, I got to see all manner of ancient Javanese artifacts, including sword-cum-headdresses, miniature currency, and gold-plated genital covers that the king and queen supposedly wore when they were separated, just to be sure there'd be no monkey business on the side.  People must have been a lot smaller back then -- and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Next stop, the Kraton Kasunanan (the main palace) where we got to wander through a lovely grove of huge leafy trees in an open courtyard and see more old Javanese artifacts, like the royal carriages from the 1800s with wheels whose diameter was taller than me.  (Can you imagine if I got wheels like that on Maurice?)  The palaces were nice, but I think the fun part really started after the kraton, when we went to N's aunt and uncle's restaurant for lunch.  I got to try the traditional Solonese salad, which consisted of a mix of vegetables, egg and beef floating in a dark broth, and chat with N's aunt and uncle, who seemed just tickled pink that an American who didn't look like an American but nevertheless was a real American was sitting in their restaurant.  (For the record, this has been a theme throughout my travels in Indonesia -- the most common sentence people to say to me, after "Where are you from," would have to be a tie between "But you don't look American!" and "But you look Indonesian!".  Occasionally it can be annoying to be told I don't "look" like my nationality, but mostly it's fun to bust up people's preconceptions about the face of America.  And if they're serving me delicious food, then hey -- I'm not complaining.)

After lunch N and I headed to a well-known batik museum and workshop, which was absolutely amazing -- I had never seen so much beautiful batik in one place before, and getting to tour the workshop in the back (and pose with the artisans for the requisite photos) was a huge treat.  Apparently all the fine linework is done by the women, and the men handle all the stamping -- when I asked our museum guide why, he said because the stamps are too heavy for the women, so the men have to do that part.  The feminist in me growled reflexively at learning this, but then I thought about whether I'd really want to be yielding ten-pound iron stamps dipped in boiling wax -- and then I decided it was probably fine to leave that task to whoever wanted it. Also it was pretty amusing to look out across a big warehouse room and see forty shirtless men stamping intricate patterns in wax onto large pieces of cloth.  I'll get some pictures up soon, so be sure to check back.

Last on the list was picking up some srabi, a traditional Solonese snack that's like a thin crepe with a mound of sticky rice in the middle topped with chocolate and bananas (GAH so delicious) and then N put me on the train back to Yogya with a promise to come again soon.  The verdict: Operation Field Trip a resounding success!  I made it back home in time to go out to dinner with Luna (because how could my day be complete without a meal with my partner in too-much-free-time-crime?), and I didn't even pop my slug.  Score.