Indonesia Research Program

I cannot believe that it has already been over a week since my last post. Life has been very hectic. There is so much to talk about. I guess the best place to start is where I left off. Last Friday afternoon Alex, Colin, Alia, Elizabeth, Amanda and I took a two and a half hour train ride through the countryside of Central Java to Bram and Sari’s village near Ngawi. Bram and Sari have a beautiful home, surrounded by vibrant organic rice fields. Their rice fields are located right next to inorganic rice fields that are supplemented with chemicals. The difference between organic and inorganic rice fields is incredible. The rice plants in the inorganic fields lack the vibrancy and greenness of the plants in the organic fields, and the soil of the inorganic fields looks very unhealthy.

Last Saturday might have been the highlight of my experience Indonesia thus far. We woke up early, around 4am and traveled to Mount Lawu, a volcano that has a lot of significance in Javanese culture. Its elevation is 3,265 meters, or 10,712 feet, above sea level. When you are about 15 minutes away from the peak there is a special water well, which if you bathe in, according to Bram and Javanese legends, you will become a distinguished person in society. The mountain is also populated with small “Jalak” birds with golden beaks. They are the protectors of the mountain and seeing them is considered a sign that the mountain has welcomed you. We began our hike a little after 6am and reached the peak around 11am. It was my first legitimate mountain hike, and it was a tremendous experience. The beauty of the mountain was overwhelming. The trail was steep and surrounded by beautiful, simple flowers, shrubs and small trees. Naturally when we reached the well, we all bathed in it. So perhaps one day we will all become distinguished individuals in society. Regardless of whether or not the myth of the well actually comes true, I was grateful to wash myself with its cool, refreshing water. My favorite part of the hike was simply reaching the summit. There was no better feeling that day than conquering the mountain. From the peak we could see two other mountains off in the distance peaking through the clouds. I do not know which mountains they were, but it was a sight that I will never forget.

We spent Sunday mostly recuperating from our adventure, and wandering through Sari and Bram’s beautiful rice fields with young children from the local community. Sari and Bram often invite the children to play and read at their house during the day. It is amazing how energetic young children are. I spent a fair amount of my Sunday afternoon swinging children in the air and chasing them around the rice fields. Overall, our weekend in Ngawi was incredibly relaxing and refreshing.

Early Monday morning we went back to Jogja. Our research presentations were on Thursday, so Laksmi and I spent much of our time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday organizing our research for the presentation. Here is a quick summary of what we found:

Our main research questions are outlined in a post below, but basically we wanted to know whether or not the “democratic government” of Indonesia is promoting and protecting freedom of expression in society. We also wanted to know what impact (if any) the violence committed by hard-line Islamic organizations such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Indonesian Mujahedeen Council (MMI) has had on pluralism and freedom of expression in Indonesian society. We conducted 18 interviews over the last four weeks, eight of which were in English. So I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday transcribing the English interviews. Our interviewees included artists, victims of religious violence, filmmakers, journalists, Indonesian academics, NGO activists, LGBT activists, devout Muslims, literary critics and college students.

We had to boil all of our research down to a ten-minute presentation. After sorting through all of our transcripts, Laksmi and I picked out some basic themes and ideas that came up constantly in our interviews. Many of the artists we spoke with referred to hard-line organizations as “thugs” who are using Islam as a “mask” to protect their criminal acts. Articles published on Insideindonesia.org, like this one, confirm that some Indonesians are trying to use religion as justification for corrupt behavior. Another theme that became apparent based on our conversations with three Indonesian academics is that a “silent majority” exists in Indonesia, which opposes the militant acts of a vocal minority. However, the majority of Indonesians who oppose this violence are divided about a number of issues, and sometimes, different sections of the majority are co-opted by the smaller hard-line organizations about moral issues, like pornography for example. One academic also suggested that the Indonesian central government is a “democracy in name only,” and that it is “toothless.” He pointed to recent events in West Java, where the mayor of a city has refused to allow the building of a church despite a ruling from the Indonesian Supreme Court that the Church is legal. The central government has yet to take action against the mayor. There are many other cases of violence or blatant disregard for the law that the Indonesian government has failed to stop or take action against.

While it appears that the Indonesian democratic government is weak, there are many signs that Indonesian society has become more free and pluralistic since the fall of Suharto. One example is the increase in “horizontal conflict” that many of our interviewees have witnessed over the past fifteen years. Conflicts in society are no longer between the government and the people, but rather the people and the people. Indonesian citizens are no longer afraid to express their beliefs and criticize the government. However, violence committed by hard-line organizations is certainly intimidating some members of society. One has to wonder why the Indonesian government has failed to stop the violence, or punish those who commit the violence. One theory I have is that the Indonesian government does not want to crackdown on violent organizations because it does not want to be compared to the Suharto regime. Other people we have interviewed suggest that many members of the hard-line organizations have infiltrated Indonesian government and are turning a blind eye towards the violence. Whatever the case may be, the Indonesian government needs to strike a balance between promoting freedom of speech and expression, and cracking down on violence.

I think that is enough about my research. There is a lot more to say, but I don’t want this post to turn into an essay about violence in the name of Islam and its relationship with pluralism in Indonesian society. Friday we had a day off to relax and pack our bags, and on Saturday we all split up and moved to different host families throughout Jogja. I am living with a Dentist named Agus and his two children: Bayu and Ratri. Bayu is an 11 year old boy and Ratri is a 13 year old girl. Earlier today Bayu had gamelan lessons with his friends, and I got to join in. Check out the Wikipedia link to learn more about gamelan, but basically it is a traditional collection of xylophones, gongs, and drums, which was first developed during the 200s AD by a God/King who coincidentally lived on Mt. Lawu and used the first gamelan to summon other Gods. Bayu also likes to play FIFA (a soccer video game). We’ve played a couple games, and I also played a few with his friend Rafi. I’d say the competition is a little stiffer back at Haverford. It has been fun so far to play and interact with my new brother and sister, especially because I have been able to practice my Bahasa Indonesia more. Bayu and Ratri are both learning English so our conversations are often an amalgamation of both Bahasa Indonesia and English.

Tomorrow I start my internship at Satunama. Laksmi has gone to work at Planned Parenthood with Alex (she is studying Medicine and Public Health), so I will be working with Britto, a history student from Sanata Dharma. He previously worked with Amanda during the research institute, studying patterns of educational discrimination against Papuan students in Jogja. Satunama is an NGO that works throughout all of Indonesia to empower marginalized members of Indonesian society. One potential project that I might be working on is a current conflict over water pollution on Mount Merapi, another volcano about 30 kilometers from Jogja. From my understanding of the conflict, it is illegal to mine the sands on the slope of Merapi, but many companies and villages choose to mine the sands anyways because the sands are very valuable. Some villages have been mining the sand near the top of Merapi, and have polluted the water supplies for villages that live at lower levels of the mountain. Despite the fact that mining is illegal, the government has refused to act because of the profit companies make off of sand mining (probably there is some lobbying from big corporations influencing the government’s behavior). Satunama is trying to give a voice to the villages whose water supply is being polluted. I do not know yet what other projects I will be working on with Satunama, but I am looking forward to my first day.

If you have made it to the end of this post, congratulations! I will try to report back more often over the next few weeks. We are starting a new stage of the program and I am very excited to begin my internship.

I’ll admit that I’ve occasionally been a little homesick (and Haversick) in Indonesia. Yesterday was the first time in my life that I was not in America for the 4^th of July. There were no fireworks; no day off from work; no delicious cheddar cheeseburgers, hotdogs, grilled bbq chicken, shrimp cocktails, corn on the cob, Caesar salad (definitely miss my Mom’s salad dressing), and watermelon. Clearly I could go for a barbeque right now. One of my favorite things about Indonesia though is the food, and even on the 4^th of July it is a great cure for homesickness. We recently discovered that the Gule and Soto restaurant we go to for lunch, which Colin detailed in his earlier post transforms into a delicious seafood restaurant at night. It has been by far my favorite restaurant here, and it is quite affordable. For my 4^th of July dinner I had a hot plate with shrimp, squid, chicken and vegetables covered in a spicy “sweet and sour sauce.” I think Colin might have to adjust his rankings based on this restaurant- move over Milas, we’ve got a new number one.

Laksmi and I have had some fascinating interviews this week. Last Friday afternoon we went to a Mosque for Friday (Jum’at) prayers. The mosque was small, so many people prayed on the street outside. The street had been barred off from other streets so that no cars or motorbikes would interrupt the prayer session. In order to participate in midday prayers on Friday, one must be a Muslim man, so Laksmi and I just watched from the back. I think my favorite part about observing the prayer session was watching two little boys goofing around while praying next to their father. It reminded me of those times in synagogue when me and my friends would sneak off to play tag while our parents were focused on services. Judaism is not a recognized religion in Indonesia. Indonesia officially recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Every Indonesian citizen is required to have an identification card that lists one of these six religions. While many of the Indonesians I have met recognize that I am a foreigner, I wonder if they would perceive me differently if they knew that I was Jewish? Laksmi and I have had some interesting conversations about Judaism, especially about the Holocaust, which is not discussed often in high school history classes in Indonesia. Laksmi is curious about everything. Our conversations, in addition to Judaism, range from discussions about American and Indonesian sports (especially basketball- waking up to see that Steve Nash was signing with the Lakers instead of the Knicks was devastating today), to comparisons of Indonesian and American democracy. She is also studying to be a medical student, so sometimes we talk about science and public health.

On Sunday, in addition to interviewing Dede Oetomo, who Alex detailed in his post below, Laksmi and I went to the Jogja Arts Festival to interview some artists for our research project on freedom of expression in Indonesian society. We spoke with one artist who paints with his feet because he does not have arms. He said that he does not make political statements with his artwork because he would not be able to protect himself if he angered the wrong people in society. He sticks to painting nature. Many of our other interviewees have said that the acts of violence committed by hard-line Islamic organizations over the last 14 years have intimidated advocates for pluralism, but it has also motivated many activists to respond peacefully in their struggle for freedom of expression. Laksmi and I also interviewed a book critic at the private library Indonesian Buku to discuss the recent book burnings in Jakarta. A major publishing organization in Indonesia burned its own books because members of hard-line organizations were offended that the book referred to Muhammad as “a pirate and a murderer.” It is fascinating how much power religion commands in Indonesian society.

Today Laksmi and I attended a lecture on Indonesian democracy given by Alissa Wahid, the daughter of the first democratically elected president of Indonesia following the fall of Suharto, Abdurrahman Wahid. Mrs. Wahid spoke of the complexities of uniting the diverse cultures that exist in Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth largest nation in the world behind China, India, and the United States. Unlike the three nations ahead of it that are mostly connected by land, Indonesia is an archipelago of approximately 19,000 islands. Also the concept of Indonesia as a nation is less than 70 years old. Bahasa Indonesia, the national language, did not exist until the unification of the Indonesian archipelago. In addition to Bahasa Indonesia, there are more than 300 other native languages spoken in Indonesia. So imagine trying to unite millions of people with over 200 different cultural identities, who speak many different languages, and are spread out over 19,000 different islands behind the concept of one state and one national government: a pretty intimidating endeavor to say the least.

That’s all for now. On Friday we will be traveling to Ngawi, Sari’s (our program coordinator) village in East Java. It is about two hours away from Jogja by train and I am excited to explore the countryside of Java!

Dede Oetomo is the supreme overlord of the Javanese gay community, to the extent that such thing can be said to exist.  Many words can be used to describe him: activist, scholar, human rights defender, corpulent, gregarious, founder of Indonesia’s first LGBT-rights organization, bespectacled.  He is, like his best-known (and deceased) American analog, Harvey Milk, oozing with charm.  In a weekend of events in the Jogja LGBT scene, Mr. Oetomo is always present, even if its just on the tips of the tongues of the activists, dancers, friends, and hangers-on who eagerly anticipate his arrival at whichever event (in a day full of such events) he is on his way to attending.  Maybe Mr. Oetomo is unaware of his power, perhaps he doesn’t demand the reverence he is routinely shown, but for all the world he resembles nothing more than a fabulous Uranian mafia don.  Take, for instance, our field trip to Jogja’s second largest gay club this past Saturday night.  We walked in five minutes past the start of the weekly drag set – a two-hour medley of vampy Bollywood routines, Streisand hits, Indonesian pop music and, most movingly, a tribute to the late, great, Queen of Divas, Whitney Houston sung by a muscle-bound counter-soprano.  As the tuxedoed maître d’ led us in, I took a look around, eyeing the audience — a curious mix of families with children, men with men, and, in our corner, a bunch of eager-eyed students — and to my dismay I saw rows of floor-tables arrayed before the stage.  In traditional Javanese style (even in this conspicuously non-traditional setting), we were made to sit on the floor at a table less than two feet high.  I’m not slamming traditional culture, but in a country whose men average 5’5’’ in height, the tables are clearly not made for someone over 6 feet tall (notice how I always have to mention the height differential here?).  Once we were seated, with much effort and knocking of knees, my research partner Tiwi pointed, with the reverence of the converted, to a portly man straining the establishment’s lone chair in his own private corner of the room.  “That’s Dede! There’s Dede!” Interested as I was in this stranger’s seating arrangement and wondering how he procured a chair in a country seemingly devoid of such perfectly practical furniture, I missed what Tiwi had said.  “Dede! DEDE!”  The words I was hearing, coupled with the sight of this gentleman surrounded by an phalanx of leather-clad consiglieri, finally fell into place.  Here was the legend, the winner of international Human Rights awards, the tireless advocate for equality, the author of numerous books and articles, the perennially doomed – yet unflaggingly persistent – candidate for public office.  And he was sitting in my chair.

Fast forward to Sunday morning.  I had to wake up distressingly early (re: 10 a.m.) to get across town to attend a talk given, in Indonesian, by none other than Don Dede himself.  After a long Saturday night spent at the drag show, sampling some street-side santoso and crepes and being unable to afford entry to a nightclub, I was in no mood to leave my bed.  However seeing as I was trying to schedule an interview with Oetomo for my research (more on that in my next post hopefully) and with the omnipresent promise of free food lingering in the air, I rolled out of bed and onto the back of my friend’s motorbike (no worries Mom, he’s a very cautious driver, if only because I shriek when he goes above 25 mph).  The organization hosting the event was PKBI, the local Planned Parenthood outfit I’ll be interning for later this summer.  Oetomo’s +2 hour-long talk – on LGBT advocacy and the struggle to maintain sexual identity in Indonesia – was at turns moving and funny, judging by the varied tears and laughter from those audience members who could understand him.  After failing to follow the flow of conversation past the first ten minutes, I contented myself with the plate of (free!) fried bananas in front of me.  Once the talk was over and Jacob and his partner Laksmi had stolen Mr. Oetomo for the same lunchtime interview slot I had been angling for, my future boss, Gama, took me on a tour of the facilities.  On my previous visits to Planned Parenthood, I had been to the city headquarters, but here on the outskirts of Jogja was the actual Youth Center in which I’ll be interning full-time.

PKBI’s operation is relatively small – 12 divisions staffed by 18 multi-tasking workers and a devoted, if limited, group of volunteers.  Mostly a collection of buildings built to tropical specifications – where the transition from indoors to outside can be hard to establish – centered around a pale dirt courtyard, the compound isn’t exactly up to modern standards of construction, especially for a health-services provider.  But on the edge of the compound, housed in a nondescript concrete building, is the actual clinic in which they perform all their tests and operations.  Walking in I was struck by how modern the facility was – and clean.  In a country where often the best advice is to ignore the (lack of) cleanliness of even the most delicious restaurant’s kitchen, it came as a surprise, though perhaps it shouldn’t have, that PKBI’s clinic was up to every standard of medical hygiene I can gauge.  Gama described the services they provide as he pointed out the equipment and medical supplies set around the room in clear green – that universal aseptic color of medicine – cabinets and shelves.  No moment was more striking and more sobering than the sight of an empty obstetric table and its dangling lithotomy stirrups as we entered the back room of the clinic.  It was weird feeling, despite my unwavering support for every operation they perform on that table, to see where their procedures occur.  I won’t easily forget this as the moment when, for me, women’s health – and public health in general – became more than an intellectual concern and entered the realm of reality.  This is real; PKBI’s patients have real and often life-changing concerns that are so much more than numbers or statistics bandied about by health ministers at government conferences or by college students in late night bull sessions.

PKBI also provide the same emergency contraception that President Obama, in one of his greater lapses of intelligence, publicly worried would be confused by his daughters for bubblegum if not placed behind the counter and out of the reach of those who need it.  In Indonesia the problem is less pandering politicians (does anyone actually believe the President is against the off-the-shelf-use of Plan B?), than overtly antagonistic politicians fueled – and largely subservient to – hostile religious groups.  In a direct reminder of this societal divide, a neighboring mosque has its loudspeakers pointed directly at the PKBI office, so that five times a day, everyday, conversations in the office are put on pause until the protracted lines of the azan cease.  The sound is deafening, and on Fridays (so I am told) the mosque supplements its call to prayer so that the volunteers, employees, and patients of PKBI are also harangued on the sinfulness of contraception, abortion, and the hell-bound ways of all within the compound.  Though to many the moral and ethical commitment of PKBI is never in doubt, the legality of some of their essential services is, and many of the procedures practiced by PKBI, as they will be the first to admit, operate in a decidedly gray area of the law.  But they move forward openly, with government officials completely aware of their practice.  These same officials denounce the procedures (some as simple and essential as a pap smear) performed by PKBI even as they allow them to continue unhindered in an indirect acknowledgment of the operations’ often life-saving importance.

We’ve just begun our final week with our research coursework, in which I, along with my partners Tiwi and Tere, are continuing our exploration of Waria families here in Jogja.  We finally landed our interview with Dede Oetomo, the aforementioned doyen of Indonesia’s LGBT community, over a lunch of lotek and es jeruk today.  His wealth of knowledge on the subject of our research has firmly set us in our final push to get our work in order by the end of the week and begin preparing for our final presentation next week.  As excited as I am to continue this project, especially with two partners as helpful and brilliant as Tere and Tiwi, I can’t wait to begin working with PKBI.

Okay, it’s been a while since we posted any photos. Between talking about our personal experiences, to classes, to food forays, here’s another photo blog.

I would say Colin’s Bill Simmons-esque post on our Indonesian meals is about 99% accurate. I might bump The Loving Hut up to B+/A- status. It’s not quite A range, but it is on the borderline. I also must admit that my taste buds have failed me a couple times. Normally Alex bails me out, he’s pretty conditioned to eating spicy food and general enjoys eating Sambal straight (seriously).

I mentioned in an earlier post that driving in Jogja can be a nerve-wracking experience, but I want to add that crossing any big street is even more terrifying. We Americans are used to looking left and then right as we cross the street, but it the complete opposite here in Jogja. Also there are no stoplights, so one’s ability to cross a street in Jogja really comes down to his or her ability to jaywalk. And in Jogja, jaywalking requires that you skillfully maneuver between speeding motorbikes and cars that wait until the last minute to stop. You really just have to put yourself out there and authoritatively stare down oncoming traffic. It is a very intimidating endeavor- Kind of like trying to cross Broadway in Times Square minus the traffic lights and crosswalks and plus more cars (if that is possible).

I want to talk about the research that I am doing this month, but bare with me for another paragraph about adjusting to life in Indonesia. Indonesians often start their day around 4 am with the call to prayer. We do not have class until 8:30am, so I still would like to ideally sleep in till around 7:30-8ish everyday. I’m a heavy sleeper so I have learned to sleep through the call to prayer, but our Wisma is located right next to a school and every morning around 7am I am woken up by the noises of furniture moving and children yelling. I know I sound a little silly, but who doesn’t like to sleep an extra hour? Anyways, Saturday during the day we went back to Jalan Malioboro to check out some Batik, and that night we went karaoking with our Bahasa teacher Ade. I was quite tired and really looking forward to sleeping in a little later on Sunday (perhaps 9am???). But this dream of mine was just not to be. There was a motorbike race on Sanata Dharma’s campus (which is adjacent to our Wisma) at 7am on Sunday, accompanied by a three-hour concert that lasted from 7am-10am. Who has a concert at 7am on a Sunday? I can sleep through the call to prayer, but I definitely cannot sleep through a three-hour concert. What would happen if someone tried to perform at Haverford at 7am on a Sunday? I shudder at the thought.

Ok, so a little bit about my summer research. For this month, while we are studying research methodologies with Leslie, we are also doing a mini-research project to practice what we are learning in the classroom. My partner, Laksmi Amalia, and I are studying the emergence of hard line Islamic groups since the fall of Suharto, and their impact on the Indonesian Government’s ability to promote a pluralistic society. Here is an excerpt from our project proposal:

“Since the collapse of the New Order government and removal of Suharto from office in 1998, Indonesian government and society have undergone numerous political and cultural changes. Politicians have attempted to introduce a variety of reforms during this time period including the development of a democracy and the failed implementation of a new educational system. The reformasi period of Indonesian politics has led to the development of government support for the right to freedom of speech. Indonesian society since the fall of Suharto has experienced free flowing political debate in the news media and increased artistic and cultural expression.

In recent years, Indonesia has also experienced the emergence of a powerful Islamic political and societal presence. The organization Front Pembela Islam (FPI) serves as one example of the many radical and violent religious organizations present in Indonesia. FPI and other hard line Islamic organizations have committed many acts of violence during the reformasi period of Indonesian democracy including attacks on members of the National Alliance for the Freedom of Faith and Religion, Shia Muslims, Catholics, Lady Gaga and other LGBT activists. These organizations have used violence to intimidate and silence people who have attempted speak freely and openly about a variety of sensitive issues in Indonesian politics. While the Indonesian government supports a pluralistic society and freedom of speech, it appears that some religious organizations are undermining these democratic efforts.

This research project endeavors to investigate the effectiveness of Indonesian democracy in promoting a pluralist society and to determine the actual strength of freedom of speech in current Indonesian society. Specifically, this research project will focus on the impact of radical Islam on the individual in Indonesia and whether or not that individual feels safe expressing his or her opinion in society. What impact have hard line Islamic organization had on the Indonesian individual’s capacity to express his or her beliefs? Do artists, members of the press and media, LGBT rights advocates and other vocal activists in Indonesian society feel intimidated by radical Islamic organizations? What is the impact of hard line Islamic organizations on the effectiveness of Indonesian democracy? Does Indonesian democracy promote a pluralist society?”

Laksmi and I are still trying to narrow our scope of research. We are hoping to interview people who have been the targets of religious violence, and learn more about how the presence of hard line organizations has made vocal members of society feel. We want to focus on gathering a variety of stories and perspectives on the issue of pluralism in Indonesian society. In addition to interviewing a variety of activists who have born the brunt of religious violence, we also want to speak with members of more moderate Islamic organizations and potentially even members of hard line organizations (although that might not be possible). Hopefully by the end of class today, Laksmi and I will have a solid list of people we can interview.

The next few weeks are going to be pretty interesting and intense. We are all starting to settle into a routine, and my life here in Jogja is getting pretty comfortable. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, now that I am comfortable it makes it easier for me to focus on the work that I want to do for the next few weeks. On the other hand, it means that I am not pushing myself to explore more of Jogja. I balance most of my days around 5 hours of class, readings, delicious meals and evening workouts. I am going to keep fighting the natural inertia that accompanies the development of daily routines. Hopefully I can use my research to take me to places that I haven’t been to yet. I would like to go to a Mosque and I still have yet to explore the Jogja Art Festival.

That is all for now. We have class soon. Sampai Jumpa!

Hey all!  Colin’s been hard a work devising this delicious ranking of some of our favorite food haunts in and around Jogja, but somehow he hasn’t gotten around to making a blog account, so I have to post this for him.

Lubelczyk’s Food Rankings:

While my compatriot Mr. Jacobs has been obsessing over and trivializing every aspect of our Saturday afternoon beachside chat, I have decided to dedicate my blogging energy to an endeavor that won’t necessarily bore our 10(+/-) readers to death: ranking our favorite Indonesian restaurants. Apart of time spent inside the friendly confines of USD, we spend the most time patrolling the streets of Jogja either staking out new places to eat or visiting old favorites. As food has consumed our minds for an embarrassing amount of time thus far during our stay, it surely deserves its due time in print here on the blog. To do this in the most reader-friendly way possible, I have decided to devise a system of “Power Rankings” to determine which restaurant can claim city-wide bragging rights.

Let me offer a few points of clarification before embarking on the tough task of picking the group’s favorite restaurants. Because it would be impossible to rank every restaurant and food stand (warung in Indonesian) we’ve indulged in over the past three weeks, I’ve decided to restrict my rating system to only the places that have received us on multiple occasions. Though I will provide information on how expensive each restaurant is, this rating will not weigh in heavily when determining the overall rank because no matter how fancy or exotic a restaurant may seem, we have yet to pay over the equivalent of $5 for a meal (which might be my favorite part about the trip thus far). A final note: all of these restaurants are rated on Indonesian standards i.e. an Indonesian place earning a “C” is still akin “A” restaurant back home in the states…yes the food is that good.

Power Rankings

Food and Beverage Quality: Graded on the traditional A-F scale

Price: $$$- expensive (by Indonesian standards), $$- moderate, $- cheap

1. MILAS Food and Beverage Quality: A+

Price: $$

I find it hard to believe there will be much griping from my fellow travelling companions about Milas’s coronation atop the rankings, as even our most picky eater (cough cough Elizabeth), found something that she thoroughly enjoyed. Though I’m not usually one to be swayed by ambiance because in my book, food always comes first, I must say the dimly lit, jungle-esque atmosphere provided by Milas actually helped set it apart from our favorite places in Jogya. It’s vegetarian cuisine of flavorful curries, spicy stir-fries, and appetizers doused in city-renowned peanut sauce also helps Milas emerge as the clear winner. The only complaint I’ve heard during our two trips was that too many delicious-looking options crowd the menu, causing the decision-making process to be somewhat excruciating.

2. Warung Gado-Gado Food and Beverage Quality: A

Price: $

After taking into account the cab ride, somewhat slow service, and burning desire to stay in their alluring oasis for hours after your food has been consumed, a trip to Milas is surely a night long affair. The opposite can be said for the place boasting second place in this week’s rankings. Warung Gado-gado dispels all the myths that Milas propagates by proving that good food doesn’t need to be prepared in a picturesque atmosphere and a menu doesn’t need to consist of more than two items. Every time I eat at this food stall for lunch (I’ll spare you of the ever-rising tally), I know both exactly what I’m going to eat and that I won’t spend more than 30 minutes or 10,000 rupiah ($1) doing it. While the “Lotek” I order each and every time is merely an assortment of diced vegetables mixed with homemade peanut sauce, I have not once been disappointed by it. It’s quick, simple, and top of the line. As Boston sports teams have proved throughout my lifetime (hence the city being dubbed “Titletown”), here’s something to said for being consistently above average, and Warung Gado-gado’s lofty position amongst its competitors is another example of this adage.

3. Phuket Food and Beverage Quality: A-

Price: $$

If eating at a Thai restaurant while amidst hundreds of traditional Indonesian places is sacrilege, we are repeat sinners. If I remember correctly, there was one stretch during which we turned up at Phuket’s doors on three consecutive days. Though this place doesn’t possess the “wow” factor of Milas or the proximity and quickness of Warung Gado-Gado, apart from an unfortunate ordering misstep that ended in a repulsive avocado beverage, I have yet to be disappointed by a meal at Phuket even though I’ve ordered different things each time I’ve visited. Being located within walking distance of our living quarters also scores it points. Though it is improbable (I hope) that we ever break our own record of three days in a row, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were able to stroll in to Phuket and demand “the regular” by the end of our time in Jogya.

4. Warung Soto Food and Beverage Quality: A-

Price: $

As our #4 favorite place is located right next door to Warung Gado-Gado, we are always confronted with the difficult decision of which food stall to invade after class for lunch. Like its competitor next door, Warung Soto specializes in giving customers the choice between two savory options, but instead of Lotek and Gado-gado, this food stall specializes in chicken soto and chicken curry. The heaping plates of fried tempeh and homemade sambal littering the tables cause some to give Warung soto the leg-up on its next door rival. While none of us have yet managed to come close to Alex’s record of 7 (yes you read that correctly) pieces of tempeh in one meal, we still have plenty of time and given the quality of the tempeh, the task seems surmountable. While the food is surely top of the line taste-wise, one should avoid looking too far back into the kitchen, as its state of cleanliness bears a striking resemblance to my own beloved kitchen in the HC apartments. My mother will be the first to tell you that this is by no means a compliment, but as long as the Indonesian Board of Health remains at bay and none of us comes down with a mysterious food-borne illness, Warung Soto will surely continue to receive our business on a weekly basis.

5. Nanamia Food and Beverage Quality: A-

Price: $$$

Not surprisingly, the first restaurant on the list to classify as “very expensive” is the most touristy spot we have visited. Complete with Italian style cuisine and atmosphere, Nanamia provides us Westerners with a nice break from the local options that, though delicious, are also usually quite spicy and can sometimes be overwhelming for Prince Jacob’s sensitive stomach and taste buds. However, because Nanamia is hilariously positioned beside a food stall specializing in dog meat, it doesn’t take much for travellers to remember they are in Jogja rather than Florence. Though Nanamia’s options are tasty and different from most other places, their high prices and small portions (an especially important factor when pizza is the topic of discussion) prevents Nanamia from climbing above the 5-spot in the current rankings.

6. The Loving Hut Food and Beverage Quality: B

Price: $$

Despite its arguably average menu options, the Loving Hut has become somewhat of a staple for our travelling group in the early going primarily because of its ability to provide everyone with a decent and quick meal. Though we aren’t often wowed by this vegan establishment, I think its safe to say it has never truly disappointed us. I liken it to Gado-Gado in terms of consistency minus the out-of-this-world menu options. At this point however, it’s a fallback option that I wouldn’t mind not visiting for the next couple of weeks. It’s tough to find seating and I am beginning to wonder…”If it tastes like meat, smells like meat, and looks like meat, how the heck isn’t it meat??” One of the many mysteries of the Loving Hut that should, in my opinion, be left forever unsolved.

7. Bakso Warung Food and Beverage Quality: C

Price: $

Until this past Wednesday, I would’ve liked to consider myself someone with pretty good judgment. That is, until I made the mistake of eating at this food stall. In my defense, I was driven into madness by both gnawing hunger and a local recommendation by our usually-trustworthy Indonesian research partners.  The grayish meatballs served up at this cart didn’t look like anything a sane man would want to eat and in retrospect, I wish my picky-eater side had kicked to dissuade me from making the self-sacrificial decision to chow down anyway. Despite an extremely rubbery texture, once I closed my eyes and tried not to think about what type of dead animal I was ingesting (a combination of rats and lizards immediately came to mind), the bowl of meatballs was actually pretty edible. Once the tasty mixture of noodles and vegetables was thrown into the equation, forgot altogether the questionable decision we had made. The next morning however, we paid dearly for our mistake. All I will say is it that the situation would have been made much less tense if our apartment was furnished with more than one bathroom.

This past Saturday, we had the privilege of making two remarkable visits in what added up to my favorite day in Jogja thus far.  Though to be precise none of our Saturday was actually spent within the city limits.  Together with our Indonesian research partners, who encompass a range of ages between 20 and 30 and a wide variety of academic disciplines, we left Jogja at 10 a.m.  We headed first to the farm and home of Iskandar Waworuntu, a farmer and educator whose property was located an hour’s rickety car outside of the city center.  The ride, which for us passengers in the back of the van was filled with stunning views of the coast and surrounding mountains, was surely less enjoyable for our driver as he struggled with the manual transmission up the sharp ascent, leading to some exciting/terrifying engine stalls and uncontrolled reversals back down the road.  Nevertheless, we survived and our effort (rather, the driver’s) was well worth it, paid for by panoramic vistas and one of those hope-I-never-forget-for-as-long-as-I-live moments (which are rapidly piling up for me in Indonesia) with my first sight of the Indian Ocean and the sun bouncing off its telltale Tiffany blue waves several miles away.

Iskandar met us in the driveway of his home, a large compound of buildings with the characteristic pagoda peaks and moss-covered terracotta tiles of traditional Javanese architecture.  Iskandar filled a room already packed with Indonesian and American students with one of those rare outsized-presences, which despite his soft-spoken demeanor, expanded far beyond his self.  His presence was magnified by his height – he is huge by Javanese standards, though my ego, which has been inflated to dangerous levels since I realized I’m far taller than any Indonesian I’ve met, could rest easy – I still had a couple of inches on him.

Iskandar took us on a tour of his farm, which was constructed as an irrigated grid system resting on a series of tiers built into the mountainside.  The farm’s tiered design, efficient use of space, and completely sustainable operation aided by a surprising amount of modern technology recalled an illustration of a settlement in the Martian desert off the back of a paperback version of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles that I read in middle school.  Like Borobudur Temple in my last post, this farm emanated a sense of otherworldliness.  Not a square foot of land was allowed to lie unused.  Iskandar doubles the seedbeds as chicken feeders, so the chickens can aerate the soil in their search for worms that are raised in buckets under the cages of rabbits whose urine adds nutrients to the soil for the worms’ consumption.  Got all of that? The rabbits are raised for human consumption, and their waste, plus the human waste that they become (what a delightful image), and the waste of the goats, cows, and other livestock on the farm are all added to two large sealed concrete domes.  The domes, to continue with my sci-fi references, looked just like the farm buildings on Tatooine that you see at the beginning of A New Hope.  Instead of housing the Skywalkers, however, they are actually bio-fuel generators, filled with a mixture of waste and pressurized water that push the methane emitted from the decomposing biological matter up the hillside through a series of vents and pipes to the main house, where the gas is used to cook food.  I had a bit of a chuckle to myself at the thought that the food you’re eating is produced from the food you just ate.  Talk about sustainability.

Following his tour, Iskandar spoke to us about the need for humans to not only take from nature what can naturally be replaced, but to give back and offset the centuries of misuse and abuse of our natural resources.  He spoke too of the spiritual and ethical impetus for living a sustainable life.  Iskandar, a practicing Muslim, said that “even if you don’t believe in God, and just believe in good – which is God’s most important part – you can still see the need to take care of all that we have been given.”  With that he bid us to dig into one of the more memorable meals of my trip, a feast of catfish satays, cucumber curry, roasted eggplant, fried tofu and tempeh, all made, grown, raised on the property.  Even the water was ridiculously good; it was drawn from a 200 meter-deep well tapping into a 100,000-year-old aquifer, untouched till now.  The freshness of each ingredient made the Whole Foods produce counter look like a raccoon-inhabited dumpster behind a Taco Bell.

After the farm we drove another hour to the beautiful black sand Parangtritis beach where we – the six Bi-Co students and our Indonesian counterparts – enjoyed an afternoon of intense waves (the largest I’ve ever seen), coconuts, sunburn, and, well, I’ll let Google image search do the rest of the talking.  As we got ready to leave the beach, we were seated in a circle with Joan Scanlan, a woman of American birth who has lived in Indonesia for close to twenty years and has two daughters with an Indonesian man.  The subject of her talk was “cross-cultural understanding” and since she occupies such an interesting position at the intersection of the cultures of the students in our group, I was excited to hear her thoughts and suggestions for us as we try to get to know each other in these first few days and weeks of our partnership.  Yet after we sat in our circle for half an hour, I increasingly felt that the conversation – through no fault of the students’ – was, for lack of a better word, lame.

Side note: to my mind, one of the more tiresome practices that Haverford students (myself included) engage in – and perhaps college students in general – is the habit of turning any experience into a somehow problematic event.  I understand that’s a broad, vague statement, but so too are the ways we problematize (hate that word) so many aspects of modern life as evidence of post-colonialism, globalization, late capitalist excess, Western hegemony, etc. – all words I similarly try to avoid, if only because they seem to be so persistently misused.  Platitudes like “the world is so messed up” and “it’s just a product of his white privilege” or “stop being so hetero-normative” can trivialize and simplify those human events, relationships, and basic tenets of our individuality that are so much more complicated than those allowed for by a black-and-white worldview in which every situation provides another problem to whine about.  That is not to say that racism, nationalism, neo-colonialism, homophobia, and injustice do not run rampant in our world.  They do, and must be fought and opposed at every opportunity.  All I’m saying is that they’re not the only forces in the world and that our actions can also be the product of positive forces, not just negative ones.  But like I said, this is an issue I have with college students — both myself and my peers.  The rest of the world suffers from not confronting these questions, but I think college students sometimes lose sight of the broader picture by focusing on them at the exclusion of others.  For me, a central part of college is to analyze the problematic models and pathways of power and abuse in the world that we might not otherwise notice, but I don’t think it’s necessarily useful to apply these paradigms to every minute action or occurrence.   Not every experience can or should be reduced to a pile of crap – though Iskandar would probably like the unlimited fuel for his home.  I know that this line of reasoning might be/definitely is unclear, so as an example, consider the time my friends and I went to a Pakistani restaurant in Philly last year.  One friend, who I love dearly, treated us all to a lengthy remonstration on how the meal he was preventing us from enjoying was really the product of a post-colonial system of migration that came about because we (i.e. white people – not a wholly accurate description of our group, anyway) had robbed the Asian subcontinent of its human resources through a global system of capital exchange that favored western countries and left little opportunity for employment or social mobility in the rest of the world.  Or something like that.  I’m sure that’s true – and I do believe it is essential we question the systems of power and exploitation that drive the world – but dude, leave my mango lassi alone.

This is all a way of saying that I hate what I’m about to do.  I’m fully aware of my hypocrisy as I dive into what was on the surface a beautiful event – sitting in a circle on breathtaking beach, sipping water straight from the coconut, meeting six new, exciting, brilliant students from Indonesia.  What could be so bad about that?  The issue I have is that Ms. Scanlan’s discussion was based around difference.  Specifically she outlined the supposedly insuperable differences between Americans and Indonesians that we will have to confront if we have any hope of working together this summer.  She told us that Indonesians are offended if you touch them on the head or eat in the street.  We were informed that bathrooms here don’t have toilet paper (as if we hadn’t yet noticed).  And we were told that Americans are independent, that we speak our minds, that we are more comfortable being ourselves in public than Indonesians.  Indonesians, we were told, are a withdrawn, self-effacing, modest people who – according to Ms. Scanlan – can be so reserved and eager-to-please that it can take years before “you figure out what an Indonesian person is really like because they hide themselves from you.”  When I suggested that in my limited time in this country, the biggest surprise was how similar – despite all our differences –Indonesians and Americans (two inadequate demonyms that broadly paint over the diversity central to our two countries) were, my observation was treated as naïve and cliché, the kind of thing any young idealistic college student would say.  Ms. Scanlan made no mention of the characteristics our American and Indonesian cultures share, just the differences.

It is vital for us to be informed of the cultural norms and customs of the country we are in.  And it is essential that we don’t fulfill the “ugly American” stereotype believed, with good cause, by many people around the world to be the only type of American traveler.  Yet when our differences are highlighted at the exclusion of all else, when we are told, “Indonesians are the opposites of Americans,” we lose sight of the ways in which we can connect, which was the intended purpose of our talk.  You can’t build bridges over gulfs of polarity.  Instead I think we can aid cross-cultural understanding by combining lessons on what makes each culture unique with a discussion of the similarities we share.  And there is reason for hope for increased cross-cultural understanding, for such similarities, in this global world we live in, are ever increasing.  The more I work and hang out with young Indonesians, the more I feel that we belong to a global youth culture with which we more strongly identify than any national or ethnic identity.  That this youth culture is heavily dominated by the West is a problem I recognize, but if our goal is to connect, to bridge, to bond, I think that focusing on what we share should be the first order of business.

So in addition to making sure we Americans don’t go around patting strangers on the head or expecting toilet paper where there is none, why didn’t we have a conversation about the things we share? Like the European soccer teams we, Americans and Indonesians alike, support (or detest – Italy I’m looking at you). Or we could have discussed our lives as college students, which despite the gap between the styles of the American and Indonesian education systems, are similarly filled with questions of undecided futures and self-exploration.  These points, among many others, are the points where I have best connected with my Indonesian peers, and they with me.  Maybe I’m making mountains out of molehills, but I left our beachside discussion feeling that we were being set up to fail in our cross-cultural relations, that our differences were made out to be insurmountable.  I’m happy to say that with just a few minutes of un-moderated peer-to-peer conversation, those differences, both real and imagined, fade away once a couple of like-minded soccer fans can gleefully bash Gianluigi Buffon and Mario Balotelli for their latest on- and off-field buffoonery.

Well that’s all for now.  Though my tirade with respect to our “cross-cultural understanding” course might suggest otherwise, Saturday remains, several days later, the most enjoyable day I’ve had so far in Indonesia. I hope to update you soon with some news about the research I’m doing with my wonderful new partners Tere and Tiwi on the LGBT community here in Jogja.

Selamat tinggal teman-teman!

If there is one thing I miss about America, it’s the NBA and American sports in general. Every morning Colin, Alex and I check ESPN and Grantland just to keep up with everything sports wise that’s been going on in the States. I’m a big Oklahoma City Thunder fan, so I’m a little nervous right now about the NBA Finals. My Mom has been keeping me updated with emails detailing her emotions during the last two minutes of the games. Oh the drama of the NBA! But enough about American Sports! Colin and I played basketball with some locals a few hours ago, and I’d say we faired pretty well. For the first time in my life I was one of the bigger guys on the court and I actually made a couple of jumpers and a layup (shocking, I know). Colin’s ball handling skills reminded me of a young Steve Nash. We made some new friends, including Rio and another guy whose name I could not remember, but I just called him Shaq because he was wearing a full Shaquille O’Neal Lakers Jersey, shorts included! Colin has also been playing soccer every few days with a local team.

A really great aspect of playing basketball with the locals is that I get to practice my Bahasa. I am still definitely struggling to hold a full conversation in Bahasa but I can make small talk about where I am from and what I am doing in Indonesia. I have embarrassed myself a couple times. It is very easy to confuse the numbers here. I definitely feel inadequate when I make simple mistakes in a foreign language, but I am here to make mistakes. The best way to get better is to practice speaking with native speakers, so I am going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Today we had our first day of class with Professor Leslie Dwyer. Leslie is a former Haverford Anthropology Professor and now teaches at George Mason University. We are going to spend the next month learning how to do fieldwork research with her, and also conduct a field study on a topic yet to be determined. The idea of this month is to learn field research methodologies so that when we join with our NGOs we will be able to conduct an independent study of our own. While we are studying with Leslie we will also be delving deeper into Indonesian culture, history, and politics. Over the next month we will attend a number of lectures about Indonesia, and also continue to explore the city of Jogja. Our next big adventure is coming up this Wednesday. We are going to the opening of the annual Jogja Arts Festival on Malioboro Street. I am looking forward to seeing some awesome Batik designs, but I don’t really know what to expect, so it should be an exciting experience.

Alia’s post about being a Filipino in America really captures how people throughout the world often make snap judgments based on appearance. Skin color and race relations really are significant issues everywhere. Our time in Indonesia has helped me reflect on my own experiences in America. What type of snap judgments do I make about the people I meet everyday at home? I wonder if I will notice them when I return to the states, or are my own biases so deeply ingrained in my mind that it will be impossible to realize them?

Over this past weekend we went to an awesome self-sustainable organic farm in the mountains surrounding Jogja as well as a beautiful beach on the Indian Ocean. Stay tuned for a blog post from Alex about it! We also met our Indonesian research partners. They seem really great, and we are still getting to know each other. They know a fair amount of English, but we still have to break through a lot of language and cultural barriers together. It’s going to be quite challenging, but I think it’s going to be a really fun and rewarding process. The past two weeks we have spent a lot of time studying Bahasa and viewing Indonesia as tourists, but I think the opportunity to interact with Indonesian peers on a consistent basis will really allow us to immerse ourselves in Indonesian culture!

As always, there is so much more to write about, but it is getting pretty late and I am off to bed. Selamat tidur!

Okay, since I am the only non-white/stereotypical-looking member of the group, you’re probably wondering what the experience has been like so far.

Or not, but here it is anyway.

The best thing about coming from another Southeast Asian country with a similar root in the Malay language is that bahasa Indonesia has some similarities with my national language, but especially with the two other dialects I know. Driving around Jogja and reading street signs, billboards, and store signs is one of my favorite things to do. I love recognizing a word, forming new sentences with the ones I already know, and trying to talk to Indonesians. The reactions are the best – when they nod vigorously in encouragement, smile widely, or burst out laughing with joy at the correct sentence. I always join in readily.

On the other hand, Amanda said that people are just ‘confused’ by me, and I think that’s an apt description.

It’s slightly disconcerting to walk into a restaurant and have the pelayan makan or waiters talk to me in bahasa Indonesia, or that they all seem to be speaking directly to me whenever we order. Though I can understand about 30-60% of what’s being said depending on the situation, it’s an effort without the full command of the language. I respond as best I can, but often end up inserting some English words or just overall talking in English.

Also, this raises some issues on how I should act or dress or talk. Should I wear the same length skirt as Elizabeth and Amanda? Can I speak just as freely in every situation? ‘Bule’ or foreigners are not usually subjected to or expected to comply with the same social codes as Indonesians. I love that my fellow interns are culturally sensitive and very respectful. In my case, though, sometimes I am unsure on how they will consider me and what types of conduct they expect of me. Whether they will consider me bule or local, or how I should navigate this gap.

It’s also different in terms of the NGOs and the people we meet who we’ll be working with. Like Amanda also pointed out, there’s always something that each of us have to explain at some point during the ‘getting-to-know’ people process: i.e. Alex has Javanese blood on his mother’s side and so has eaten spicy food ever since he could remember, or that Elizabeth is vegetarian/pescatarian. But these things you don’t especially need to know immediately after meeting the person. On the other hand, every single time we meet someone new, they usually assume I am: a) some random Indonesian, b) the Indonesian guide or coordinator, or c) an Indonesian student intern working with the program.

I have had to explain that I am an international student from the Philippines who studies in America. Most of the time, Sari explains this; or, if they doubted who I am, they ask me afterwards if I am Asian or Indonesian. However, there have also been times when the host turned to me and spoke in bahasa Indonesia, while I listen and try to understand what he is saying and wondering whether I should go into that extended explanation or not.

Also, if that’s not the case, I am automatically considered among the ‘American participants’. Drawing attention to my citizenship risks disrupting the discourse or situation, and I usually just let it slide. I don’t know how this affects their perception of me, either. I must admit, though, that it does make me feel a little awkward. If told I study in the US, most people also assume that I grew up as a US citizen. After everything has been cleared up, however, it’s great because in each NGO or place we have been to, there’s usually somebody who has been to the Philippines, knows a Filipino/a, or has a friend there or who has gone to visit.

On the positive side, I did not realize that Philippine music and art has also entered Indonesia. Christian Bautista, a Filipino artist, is quite popular among the people I’ve met, especially my teachers. I’ve heard Filipino songs playing on the radio. Though I haven’t been back in the Philippines for sometime, I don’t remember Indonesian music having the same popularity as Korean, Japanese, or American songs. (Translation is no obstacle, given that there are usually subtitles to everything). In fact, I haven’t heard Indonesian songs on the radio at all. Which is a shame since I got the down-lows on and learned more about the politically and socially aware lyrics of the bands’ songs after attending the concert in Boyolali. They were often direct criticisms of the government (especially the Suharto regime), environmentally friendly, etc. I wish that they were more popular in my country.

In this way, I feel like it becomes more of an inter-country dialogue. In addition to this cultural exchange, Satunama, one of the NGOs we’ve visited, had apparently gone to the Philippines to acquire skills and learn with Filipinos on techniques to be applied in the field of civil societies and negotiating with indigenous peoples on water resource management, land management, mining, and other related issues. I was especially excited to learn about this, since I believe this is a step in bridging gaps between Southeast Asian countries in order to tackle similar issues. The Pacific Ring of Fire, with its wealth of natural disasters that plague the countries like clockwork, definitely shares some characteristics environmentally and geographically. Communities in these areas could benefit from a sharing of ideas, and this is something that I hope to see and learn more about in Indonesia.

Ok, I’m not completely floundering. But my experience and presence in Indonesia has certainly seemed as if I were riding on a magic carpet that is ripped out from underneath me periodically.

But I don’t mind it at all, when I fall straight into ‘holes’ like discovering more of the grinning Indonesian interns, who are always happy to give me tips and pointers. Or when I recognize a word I’d heard from a pelayan before. Or when I successfully and sneakily pull off speaking bahasa Indonesian (two or three sentences in proper grammar at the grocery store, ha!). Or when a short conversation about coming from Southeast Asia turns into an interesting explanation on Indonesian history.

I’m sure more fascinating holes will turn up in the future.

Sampai jumpa!

Greetings from Yogyakarta!

We’ve been in Yogyakarta, or Jogja, for almost two weeks, time that’s gone by both fast and slowly.  My sense of time here is warped for a variety of reasons, not least the jet-lag and the challenge of following baseball games some 10,000 miles away happening, by Indonesian time, yesterday.  Or the fact that on my return journey home, I’ll be leaving Jogja August 10^th, arriving in Hong Kong on August 11^th and then arriving in Vancouver on August 10^th before finally landing at JFK on the 11^th – again.  Do they count all the days, lost and gained to travel, in the final tally of our lives?  Temporal disjunction aside, time here does seem to move at a different pace.  It can be slow, with long lunches you linger over that don’t leave you feeling pressured or rushed before you get to your next class, meeting, whatever.  And in the blistering heat (even worse, the humidity) of the afternoon, I doubt there’s any way your body can move other than at a sluggish, snail-pace.  Recommendation #1: don’t go for a run with the sun out unless you wont to bonk or burn within the first two miles.  Yet some things here also seem to move much faster than at home in the Philadelphia suburbs.  The most common language here, Bahasa Indonesia, blurs before my ears, with seemingly no breaks, breaths, or pauses.  Then there are the hundreds of mopeds, motorbikes, and Vespas (which I have quickly learned are different from each other, lest you dare confuse them) quite literally speeding by at every time of day.  When I say every time of day, I mean every time of day, as most Indonesians, at least on predominantly Muslim Java, get up before the sun at 4 a.m. for both the pre-dawn’s practical cool and the muezzin’s first call to prayer.  Recommendation #2: for the secular or just plain sleepy visitor, bring earplugs – in the world’s most populous Islamic country you’re Muslim until proven otherwise.

By some measures – such as those provided by that unproven, un-citable wonder known as Wikipedia – Jogja is Indonesia’s second largest tourist attraction after Bali.  Bali has beautiful beaches, clubs, killer pork dishes (missing, alas, in Muslim Java), and, according to at least one Indonesian friend, a peculiar sub-culture of dreadlock-sporting, Rasta-loving Australian expats.  With all that to offer just a few hundred miles to the east, why would anyone come to this small city in central Java?  Again according to Wikipedia, “Jogja is a center of Javanese culture,” with batik, a special wax-dyed fabric, and gamelan music oozing out of every city pore.  The other fiver interns and I have gotten a taste of Javanese culture – literally, with respect to the food (oh the food!), but also in our unsuccessful 5-hour-long lesson on batik making this previous weekend.  All I have to report from that particular day is that I now have an immense respect for any practitioner of batik.  The hours upon hours of dyeing and drawing and dyeing and drawing, in wax, the intricate and interweaving designs unique to batik pains my mind to consider.  I’m sweating just thinking about it.

We’ve also experienced the rich religious diversity and history of these islands.  Beyond the ubiquitous mosques and calls to prayer, still so foreign to my American ears, there are Hindu and Buddhist shrines throughout the city.  Whenever we pass one and I see the telltale swastika painted on its front, I have to remind myself that the symbol’s history is much longer and decidedly less odious than its brief turn as the Nazi party’s emblem.   On the outskirts of Jogja we visited, on two different occasions, the 1200-year-old Hindu Prambanan temple compound.  Majestic and otherworldly are the only words to describe the temple.  Just as old, but perhaps even more impressive, if only for its rural setting wedged between multiple mountains, volcanoes, and rivers, was the Buddhist Borobodur temple compound we were lucky enough to visit this past week.  The temples, though different in their geography, age, history, and though serving different religions, unexpectedly reminded me of sites of worship in the West, from Washington’s National Cathedral, to Westminster Abbey, to Notre Dame in Paris.  Whether on the slopes of Mt. Merapi or residing on the Banks of the Seine, these paeans of brick and mortar were built from a universal spiritual awe felt by men and women for millennia.  And even though I’m not the most religious person (recall those earplugs), I can’t help but feel some of the awe the builders must have felt, marveling at their world and existence.

But what about the reason the CPGC has sent has to Jogja?  We are here as budding “social change agents” and as fledgling researchers, jumping into the sometimes-chaotic world of non-profits and NGOs (or, as they say in Bahasa Indonesia, LSMs).  We have visited all of the organizations the six interns will be working with research with this summer.  From LKIS – an Islamic organization trying to check the power of fundamentalist Islam in the Indonesian education system – to WALHI – a collection of environmental activists combating the degradation of the slopes of Mt. Merapi – to my own organization, Planned Parenthood, the groups we will be lending our efforts to are all doing praise-worthy and challenging work.  My favorite moments thus far have been those when we’ve been able to see, on the ground level, the kind of work these organizations do, and the devotion they bring to the job everyday.  I cannot wait to being working with PP, and look forward to updating you all with some more adventures in the upcoming days and weeks.

Until next time, sampai jumpa!