update

All is well here, although our internet access is not as good now that we've moved. We had to come all the way back to our old hotel tonight to visit our beloved 24-hour, internet-equipped Wartel ("warung telepon" or, roughly, "telephone stand"). We're going to try Starbucks tomorrow and see if we can post some pictures ... this blog is looking awfully plain.

Dictionaries

Apparently a load of slightly-imperfect dictionaries "fell off a truck" somewhere in Jakarta last night, because everywhere we go people are trying to sell them to us. They're actually really good dictionaries, Indonesian-English and English-Indonesian, the same ones I used to check out from the library in Bloomington. They don't just tell you "nasi" is "rice," they tell you how to say "nasi sudah jadi bubur," "the rice has already turned to porridge," which is how you say "no use crying over spilled milk." It's the kind of dictionary you can just open and read. There's a page missing and a couple of pages out of order in the U's, but I figure by the time I get to the U's I'll speak Indonesian already. Right?

These guys are standing on every street corner selling them, part of the ocean of commerce you wade through every time you walk around our neighborhood. Guys fixing motorbikes, people selling sate off little charcoal grills, other people selling phone cards or bottled iced tea or balls of colored string. The sidewalks are mostly made of uneven brick with pieces missing, and motorbikes are apt to pop unannounced out of little side alleys, so you have to keep your wits about you as you pick your way along.

Tomorrow we're trading in our slightly upscale $30 hotel for a $14 place in the backpacker area, Jalan Jaksa. The new hotel actually seems nice; it's a little homier than the Arcadia. We hope to stay a couple of weeks while we look for permanent housing. Tonight we have our first "date" with a potential friend, a guy I met on the Indonesian Expat message board online. And today we got a cellphone. So, life is taking shape. Someday soon we're going to stop spending money like water, and settle down and get some work done; either that or we're going to have to sell our computers to buy a ticket back to the States.

kopi susu 3

It's been a very good morning thus far, my favorite kind of morning to have in an unfamiliar city. We set out from the hotel to find food, and we got lost, got found, wandered down some narrow streets, poked our noses into an assortment of roadside stalls, and eventually had an excellent breakfast at a little place called "Warung Nasi," or "Rice Warung."

Warungs are sort of a step up from a food stall or cart; they're usually a little room in the front of a building, very spare inside, just a few tables and a counter. This one offered the long-sought kopi susu, served in a glass. The woman who ran it, who looked Indian and was very smiley and friendly, put condensed milk in the bottom of the glass, topped by ground coffee, and then poured in boiling water and give it a little half-stir. The condensed milk forms a layer at the bottom of the glass topped by a layer of coffee grounds and then the coffee itself. If you want it sweeter you stir it up some more to fully incorporate the milk. It was strong and hot and very tasty - we ordered one to share, and then another, and then another.

We also got a local green, I think it's water spinach, similar to kale, cut in strips and stewed in coconut milk with lemongrass - really good. Plus some strips of fried spicy tempeh, and plain rice. (By the way, my vegetarian friends out there, tempeh was invented in Indonesia - that in itself is reason enough to visit.) I think it was the best meal we've had thus far, and one of the cheapest, a little less than $2 for both of us. Chad got eggplant and some kind of spicy boiled egg. While we were there they brought out a huge bowl of tofu in some kind of delicious-looking sauce, but we were too full to order any.

Yesterday was our culinary low point - we were looking for books at Sarinah department store and saw a fancy-looking coffee shop. They served us instant coffee with creamer and charged us $2. Don't be fooled! Never order coffee at Sarinah's!

We are figuring out how to post pictures here - it doesn't seem to work well from this "internet cafe" next to our hotel - so I hope to have some images to share soon. Thanks for checking in! And don't be shy about comments. My blog gets lonely without comments!

be

We wake up at 2 a.m. on our first full day here. We try reading ourselves back to sleep, but it doesn't work. Then we watch a little TV. News in English, news in Indonesian, Islamic versions of the 700 club, music videos. We've just found an episode of the Simpsons when we manage to blow the fuse trying to plug in a power strip for the computers. By then it's almost light so we head out for breakfast.

I've prepared myself mentally for the smog and traffic, so they really don't seem that bad. The air appears cleaner than in Moscow, where my throat started burning and tears began running down my face the moment I stepped off the plane. Here my eyes and throat just itch a little.

What I forgot to brace myself for is the poverty: the shacks built out of scraps of wood, and the thin, tired faces you see on the street. People seem to sleep everywhere. A large, covered wheelbarrow hides one dreamer. When we stop into a French bakery for coffee, four people are sleeping on couches at the back of the room.

I feel overfed and conspicuously healthy. I don't know whether to look people in the eye or not, whether to smile. Besides the language barrier, there's a body language barrier. So much of yourself exists in relation to your surroundings. I feel like part of my hard drive has been wiped out, and the information will have to be replaced slowly and painstakingly over the next several months. Just observe, I think. Don't decide anything yet. Gather data. Try out small interactions. Be. The rest comes later.

the goatway

So you are here. On the airplane video screen you watch your plane dip toward Sukarno-Hatta Airport. Already you can feel the heat through the metal skin. Bump to a stop. Long lines for visas and customs but the immigration officials seem almost jolly, joking and smiling. They like to pound their stamps down on the documents with a bang, so the sounds of administrative approval fill the room like rifle blasts. Bang bang bang ... more people pour into the crowded city.

Heft your leaden baggage. Plow through the crowds of taxi drivers hawking their services, keeping your head down, muttering "tidak mau, tidak mau" ... "don't want, don't want." Find a guidebook-approved Blue Bird Taxi. The highway toward the city is busy but flowing. There are goats next to the road. Whose goats?

Toll road into Jakarta. Tin-roofed slums built out of scraps. High-rises. A sprawl of buildings unrelated by style or function, spreading out under a blanket of smog. Monuments. Palm trees. Flowering bushes.

Hotel Arcadia. Air-conditioning. The bliss of a hot shower washing away 34 hours' worth of travel grime. A hard but comfortable bed. Oblivion.

what we'll miss

I'm cleaning out the fridge, dumping little jars of things down the sink, and the kitchen smells like an Italian deli in IndoChina-
town: a mixture of red wine vinegar, fermented bean paste, and some chunky brown stuff called Gor Keri Pickle that makes me cough.

Lately we've been wondering what we'll miss when we're in Jakarta. Years ago when I spent a semester in the Soviet Union I brought curry powder, figuring I'd long for spicy food. But after a month, I was used to potatoes and cabbage and rice, and curry held no appeal. You may know what you love, but you don't know what you'll miss. For the sake of being able to laugh at it six months later, here's a list of things I think I will crave:

1. Drinking out of the faucet. I'm already looking forward to taking Tapwater Vacations in Singapore, the only place in Southeast Asia where you can stick your head under the tap and guzzle without fear.

2. Eavesdropping - my favorite hobby.

3. Blue cheese pizza from Rockits.

4. Snow.

5. Oatmeal. You may be able to get it there, but what about the milk and the maple syrup? As far as I'm concerned, it's a package deal.

6. Being able to buy something in a drugstore without a lot of pointing, pantomiming, and mispronouncing things out of the phrasebook.

7. The Monroe County Public Library.

Tomorrow we get on the plane and what I'll miss is fresh air, leg room, and the ground, not necessarily in that order. Then, a mere 34 hours later, we'll be in Jakarta. If I can only get all this stuff down the sink. If I can only get this other stuff into a bag. If I can only get there, at last.

A Message from the Oval Office

I guess I'm getting a little anxious about the move. This morning in a half-awake dream I distinctly heard George W. Bush say: "Because of the corruption in Iraq, everybody has a VERY LONG LIST OF THINGS TO DO." I woke up in a cold sweat.

There are advantages to moving halfway around the world, of course. You get to throw out all the underwear you never liked very much. You finally go through that box of stuff you've been dragging from apartment to apartment for ten years - the box of old letters and documents that you've never unpacked. People have parties for you and say nice things and give you cake. The to-do lists really are a killer, though.

The Pile keeps morphing. I think it's getting smaller. In a way that's a relief, but really I know it's either going into landfills, or going to Goodwill where it'll become part of somebody else's pile of stuff. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. That's never more clear than when you're moving.