A Walk in the Fields

A few weeks ago my Ibu took me for a walk through some of the local fields. It was an amazing morning, and finally I have gathered together enough internet time to upload all of the pictures. Enjoy!

Coffee Beans

Watercress

Oranges

Green Apples

Guavas

Just eatin’ a guava in the fields!

Look at these beautiful women!

Hanging out with the ladies.

I forget what this is called, but we eat it a lot.

Art shot

Red Apples

Big flower

Little flowers

The name of this flower translates to “shy princess.”

Avocado

Apple Blossoms

More flowers

Ripening Chilis

The Story of a Guitar

This story is about a guitar and its journey through my first three weeks living in the desa. It all started late one evening during week one when my Ibu and Bapak, along with some other relatives, drove down into Batu so that I could buy a guitar. We made our way to a department store counter where a few guitars were hung high on the wall. Being a guitar novice, and feeling a little awkward under the curious gaze of my extended host family, I quickly picked the most expensive one, which only came out to about $30. I tried it out for a brief moment in the store, but the instrument was so out of tune, that I just decided to go with it and hope for the best. My Bapak, who I think was a rocker in his younger days (handle-bar mustache, drummer, and electric guitar and keyboard player – all the signs are there), said he thought it looked good, too.

I only started to notice once we had brought it home that the strings weren’t quite evenly aligned and that it was nearly impossible to tune. My Bapak and I each tuned it multiple times only for all the strings to go out as soon as one of us strummed a chord. Exhausted, but nevertheless pleased from our outing, I put it away in my room for another day.

My days were busy and the guitar sat unattended in the corner until early the next Saturday morning. I had been taking my malaria medication since shortly after arriving in Indonesia, a medication known for giving some people vivid dreams and intense anxiety, but hadn’t experienced any of the negative side-effects until that particular morning. I had had some crazy vivid dreams and woke up with my heart racing and my mind filled with anxiety. I turned all the lights on and paced in my room. I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep and I desperately needed something to do. And that is when I noticed the guitar. I had brought good strings with me from the U.S., and, at 4:00am, I started putting them on the guitar. It kept my hands busy and eased my mind.

Once again, the days of the next week were filled with language classes and training, and the guitar sat untuned and unplayed with its new strings. I, thank goodness, had no more vivid dreams or intense anxiety, but exactly a week later I had come down with a cold. After sleeping for most of the afternoon I was bored and needed something to do. I tuned the guitar, tried to even out the alignment of the strings with my pocket-knife, and played a few songs.

Another week passed, and (like clock-work), the weekend approached with a new trial: I became terribly ill Friday night. Emptied of substance and emotion, I lay curled up in my bed next to the bathroom for all of Friday. By Saturday I was feeling much better, but was still exhausted. After spending most of the day in my room I was beginning to question all of my recent life decisions. I knew that I couldn’t trust my emotions at that vulnerable moment, and that, most of all, I needed to get out of my room. I took a cold mandi (a.k.a. bucket bath), and went out to sit with my host family in the living room. My sister brought me tea, and then my Ibu told me I should take my guitar out and play it. I wasn’t looking forward to being stared at by a bunch of Indonesians while I tried to strum out a few songs with my stiff, tired fingers, but I was encouraged by my little host nephew who sat next to me jamming out on his small toy electric guitar. I decided to take one for the team – how bad could it really turn out?

My family curiously looked through my songs, I strummed through some chords, and before I knew it my older host sister was singing along as I fumbled through the chorus of Edelweiss! Soon enough my Bapak was rocking out and my sister and Ibu were singing in Indonesian while I slowly ate my stomach-friendly rice and vegetables and downed some ginger tea and oral-rehydration-salts.

And that is the story of a warped, chipped, and perpetually-out-of-tune guitar that has saved me from the anxious desperation of anti-malarials, busied my brain after hours of mind-numbing illness, and bridged the gap between two vastly different cultures. I think we both have an exciting and eventful two years ahead of us! And yes, I am taking name suggestions – this one has certainly earned it!

A Day in the Life of a Peace Corps Trainee

Some of you may be wondering if my life now consists of beautiful walks and gorging myself on pisang goreng. This post is to inform you that this is not (entirely) true. The Peace Corps is keeping us pretty busy, and here a short description of what a typical day here looks like…

4:15am Call to Prayer – I’m usually lying awake in my bed or searching through my drawers in the dark for my earplugs.

5:00am – Time to get out of bed and change into my running clothes

5:30am – Meet a fellow PC Trainee to run to a neighboring village and back, meanwhile huffing and puffing up and down multitude of hills and avoiding motorbikes

6:15am – Back home to take a cold bucket bath, otherwise known as “Mandi”

6:45am – Get dressed, apply bug repellant, apply sun screen, sweep my floor, wipe my floor with a damp rag as instructed by my host sister

7:00am – Drink tea, eat breakfast (ex. rice, tempeh, veggies, egg, a variety of fried foods, etc.), chat with my Ibu

7:30-11:45am – Bahasa Indonesia class (lots and lots of language!)

12:00pm – Drink coffee, eat lunch (ex. rice, tempeh, veggies, egg, a variety of fried foods, etc.), chat with my Ibu

12:40-1:00pm – Walk to class, sweat, perhaps buy some coconut water on the way

1:00-5:00pm – “Link Sessions” on everything from health to culture to teacher training

5:00-5:30pm – Walk home, sweat, mourn the fact that the coconut seller has gone home

5:30pm – Stare at the cold water in the mandi, mandi

6:00pm – Eat dinner (ex. rice, tempeh, veggies, egg, a variety of fried foods, etc.) while watched by various family members and children

6:30pm – Stare at my host family while they stare back at me and we all wonder what to do with one another…

6:45pm – Various activities (ex. meet relatives and eat more, “study” at home while my family debates over the answers to my homework, “study” at another trainee’s house where we are offered food and discuss our host families and mandi experiences, pretend to go to sleep and write blog posts in my room, pretend to go to sleep and read by the light of my headlamp, etc.)

8:00pm – Let’s be real, I am usually in bed by now and probably asleep.

Every day is a little different. Some mornings I do my laundry instead of run. Some evenings I jam out to Jack Johnson and clean my mandi. Some days I don’t understand anything my family is saying to me, and some days we have limited but meaningful conversations about our families and our home nations. But every day is full, every day I am thankful for where I am and the people who are here with me, and every day is definitely an adventure!

Pisang Goreng

In many ways travel is about overcoming our fears, both rational and irrational. After two failed attempts at frying food back in the states (okra and fish, to be exact) I vowed that I would never EVER fry food again. I had tried and failed, with the oil stains to prove it.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that fried food is everywhere in Indonesia. From fried tempeh and rice to fried veggies and eggs (even boiled eggs that are then fried), fried foods seem to make up a major part of the diet here in East Java. The smell of hot oil drifts through the streets of my desa from the morning call to prayer to late in the evening. And I thought America was the home of fried foods!

For the sake of my waistline, I have tried to balance fried and boiled varieties of meats, veggies, and tofu, but there is one food that has absolutely stolen (and, if I don’t control myself, may one day stop) my heart.

Bananas, flour, sugar, and a little salt.

Pisang Goreng, or fried bananas, is the perfect combination of sweet, doughy, and oily. What more could you ask for when steaming in the hot tropical sun than an exotic fruit caked in a toasted layer of floury, sugary goodness? Pass me some fresh coconut water and I might be caught in Indonesia’s spell forever….

Despite my vow to never fry food again, my love for pisang goreng has grown beyond the size of my fear. In a desperate attempt to fuel my perpetual craving for these crispy pieces of heaven, I expressed to my Ibu in broken Bahasa Indonesia that I wanted to learn how to make them myself. Out of the kindness of her heart, or because she saw the intense longing in my eyes, she agreed to enable my addiction.

A little blurry…I was probably in a daze of fried banana goodness.

With the exception of one rogue banana that went sailing from the spoon I held into the hot oil, the whole process was painless and quite simple! You start with ripe bananas; cut them into sections; mix flour, sugar, salt, and water in a bowl; coat the bananas in the flour mixture; gently spoon them (per Ibu’s splash-less technique) into the oil that has been heated in the wok; fry; turn; fry some more; remove; drain; EAT!!! Sweet, sweet oily goodness!

So good. So very, very good.

And thus my deep distrust for fried foods is changing one pisang goreng at a time. Who knows what’s next…anything could happen half way around the world!