Not in Kansas

Okay, sorry for the infrequency of these posts but I've been really busy here, which is great but it also means that finding time to post is a little challenging. I know many of you want to know about family and school and daily stuff like that, which I will get to soon, but some really interesting stuff has happened to me over the past couple of weeks and this post is more about those events than my day to day routine.

As many of you know, I celebrated my first birthday abroad a couple of weeks ago. On that day, I had to go get my KITAS, a card that says that I can stay in Indonesia as an expat for a year, so I didn't go to school and I wasn't expecting much of a celebration especially from my friends. My family woke me up in the morning with singing and a cake, but I thought that that would be all. Little did I know, my host family and friends from school had been working together to plan a surprise party for that afternoon. I had been taking a nap (being an exchange student is very tiring) and when I woke up, my friends had decorated the entire family room and were waiting to surprise me with a cake, some cool new batik (a type of traditional Indonesian fabric and design) and the Indonesian tradition of making a cake on someone for their birthday. I got a watered down version where they just sprayed flour all over me, but normally Indonesian high school students celebrate birthdays by covering their friends in flour, eggs, coffee, honey, chocolate and anything else that might be normally used to make a cake. Overall it was a really great experience.

Me with many of my new Indonesian friends on my birthday, as they prepared to cover me in flour...

...and as they actually start dumping the flour.

The next noteworthy event happened about a week after my birthday. My family took a trip to Bogor, a smaller city about an hour away from where we live, to attend a cousins circumcision party. It was actually the second circumcision party that I'd been to, apparently getting circumcised is a big deal in Islam, so the family and friends of the boy get together to celebrate the milestone. Anyway, there was live entertainment at this party, and after a little while one of the emcees noticed me in the crowd (I'm about 8 inches taller and several shades whiter than the average Indonesian so I stick out just a little bit). They pointed me out to the leader of the music group that was playing, and I ended up on a stage in front of everyone playing a drum with an Arabic singing/drum/dance group. My host mom got a video of it so enjoy!

The next day I had the chance to tour Istiqlal, the largest mosque in southeast Asia. For those of you who don't know, Indonesia has the highest Muslim population of any country in world and is much more open about religion in general, so I'd seen and experienced Islam quite a bit while I was here, but I'd never actually been inside of a mosque. One of the first things that I found very interesting was that I was the one who had to cover up. We hadn't been planning on going to Istiqlal, so I had been wearing shorts, which in Islam is seen as immodest before God, so I had to put on a long grey robe to be appropriately dressed. Other than that the tour, such as it was, was fairly simple. Mosques are meant only for praying, so besides the main praying room and the minarets (pictured below), there isn't much of the art or architecture that people go to see at many big churches or cathedrals to go see. I was not allowed into the main praying room, because I was not Muslim, but I did get to see it from an observation deck on the second story. While outside the mosque there were some vendors and people just hanging out, once we were inside, everything was focused towards prayer and reverence towards God. One of the final things that I noticed as I was leaving the mosque was that just on the other side of the street is where Indonesia's national cathedral is. While it may just be a coincidence, I believe it does show something I've noticed over my past month here, that different religions can coexist here, not because people hide their religion and keep it private, but because people are willing to show and discuss their religion with members of a different religion. I've had and heard many conversations about religion while I've been here, with both adults and high schoolers, and I've found that everyone is genuinely interested in hearing about different religions and about having respectful and intelligent conversations about religion, without judgment or attempting to change the religion of the person they are talking. I find it quite different from the US.

The inside of the dome above the main prayer room at Istiqlal.

The main prayer room at Istiqlal, as seen from the second floor observation deck.

Monas, the national monument and a symbol of Jakarta (think Washington Monument), as seen from inside Istiqlal.

A random cat that decided that my robe was the best place to hang out while I was at Istiqlal.

A few pics of the national cathedral from the front door of Istiqlal.

The final experience I am going to write about in this post is my first time going to Car Free Day, an event that happens every Sunday in downtown Jakarta. Each week, the police shut down one road in Central Jakarta to cars and open it for anyone to come down and exercise, sell goods, or perform. I went with my family and joined the tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of people walking up and down this massive in the center of the city. Some highlights included having an Asian civet crawl back and forth across my shoulders, trying some street food, seeing a couple of the national monuments and buying my first completely genuine American t-shirt in Indonesia:

My absolutely authentic American t-shirt.

Me with a civet on my shoulder.

Me with my host family and grandparents in front of the Jakarta welcome monument.

Anyway, I hope you all are doing well back in the US and I will try to be slightly more regular in my postings. I do get and read any e-mails or Facebook posts/messages that you guys send my way, even if I don't always get the chance to respond to them quickly, so feel free to contact me in any of those ways or to comment on these blog posts. My first month here has gone by so fast, I'll be back to see you all before you know it! 

Welcome Party Video

As an addendum to the previous blog, a video of the US performance at the welcoming party.

Airplanes and Orientations

So, I made it to Indonesia in one piece and I'm posting...finally. It took me from early morning on August 19th to even earlier on August 22nd to actually get to Indonesia with a total of 22 hours of flight time. We landed in the Jakarta airport just after midnight on the 22nd and got to Taman Mini, the theme park/outdoor cultural museum where we stayed for the in country orientation, at about 3:00. Because it was so early in the morning, my first experience of Jakarta was of completely empty streets and a relatively cool 80 degrees. The next few days were a combination of information about Indonesia, preparing for the talent show, and meeting exchange students from different countries. There are 37 of us total here, 9 from the US, and the rest from Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, Iceland, Panama, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, and Australia. In addition, a few dozen AFS Indonesia alumni, or kaks (big brothers/sisters), helped us to understand more about life in Indonesia. We learned about squat toilets and basin showers, Indonesian food, and the proper way to greet elders with a salim, or touching your forehead to the back of their hand. On the second day of orientation the staff took us out into Taman Mini to go to the Museum Indonesia and play an Amazing Race style game throughout the rest of the park. My team didn't win the overall competition, but we did have the best cheer. Day three was mostly preparation for the welcoming party talent show in the evening. Each country presented a song or dance from their country, like salsa dancing from Panama, a mambo from Italy, and a traditional dance that I don't know the name of from Thailand. The Americans all dressed up in matching t-shirts and did the Cha-Cha Slide. I wore the cheesehead that I brought; it was quite popular among the other exchange students. The welcoming party itself was held at a cafe about an hour away from Taman Mini. Many former AFS Indonesia alumni and host families came to welcome us to Indonesia and watch our talent show, although of the representatives from each embassy who apparently usually come, only one person from Spain actually showed up. Overall, the orientation and welcoming party were a great introduction to Indonesia.

 The courtyard where we did an exercise/dance routine to wake up one morning while at Taman Mini.

Random picture from the Desa Wisata hostel in Taman Mini.

 The hostel that I stayed in during orientation at Taman Mini.

 There were lots of cats like this one running around Desa Wisata.

 My alarm clock every morning during orientation.

 I didn't manage to get many pictures of Taman Mini outside Desa Wisata, but I did get this soccer ball building from the bus. Other buildings I didn't get pictures of were the traditional housing from each province of Jakarta and a building shaped like a komodo dragon.

 Creating a world of Packer fans, one person at a time.

 Typical Jakarta traffic, although usually both sides of the street are full.

 The American contingent of exchange students in Indonesia.

The American booth at our welcoming party, made of the hodge-podge of Americana stashed in our luggage.