So you thought the “Great Blog Drought of Lebaran” was big (the last time I was severely out of date)…. Well here I am to break the “Great Blog Drought of no other reason than I’ve been having fun”… which is fair enough, don’t you think?
Since it has now been over two weeks since I last posted, please forgive me for the likely long post that will ensue. However, I will attempt to recap as succinctly as possible, with extra detail given for my premiere as a “rock star”!
All the way back on the 18th September, Red and I went along to a church I had been invited to by a guy I met at a warung, David. The service started at 8am! That’s right 8am! Oh golly…. That’s a tad too early for me on a Sunday morning… but apparently not for Indonesians. As Red and I rode our bikes there, we saw soooo many people out and about exercising and chatting. I’m not entirely sure when Indonesians sleep though, because everyone seems to stay up late then get up ridiculously early!
But anyway, we got to the church, sat down and I noticed the massive screens, massive band, massive stage and abundance of chairs. “Red,” I said, “I think this is a charismatic church”. Just putting it out there that I don’t have any issues with charismatic churches, but I think I’m incapable of that much energy at 8am. After the service David found us and we joined him and his friends for lunch, while being bombarded with questions about Australia. It was nice though sharing stories about each others’ cultures, including attempting to explain AFL with cups.
The rest of that Sunday involved a fair bit more bicycle riding, to Nanamia’s Pizzaria (where their vegetarian pizza is pretty much tossed salad on a pizza base - yummier than you’d think!) and to Chocolat (where a fair bit of time was spent explaining why a certain gesture made by Indonesians in many photos is quite inappropriate in the west).
Monday involved my second class of Antropologi Ekologi . I didn’t quite understand as much this time, but it was still interesting. I then rushed off to what I thought was my praktikum (lab) for Pemuliaan Pohon Terapan (Applied Tree Breeding). I asked for directions to the lab and was led to one of the lecturer’s offices. The lecturer wasn’t sure when or where the lab was either (positive sign), but her workmate offered me “cake” (really, just sweetened bread) while my lecturer searched for the answer. She had a quick break though to chat to me a bit and offered me more cake when I was only halfway through my first piece. I was then offered a seat in a random lab directly outside her office door while she continued her search for the answer. In the meantime, a past student of the other lecturer brought her some chocolates, which she promptly offered force-fed me as soon as the student left. After a bit more of a chat with the two lecturers and another chocolate I was sent on my way. Apparently the lab just didn’t run because I was the only student that turned up.
On the way home from uni I had the most amazing juice I have ever tasted in my entire life! It’s just from a little stall run by a super-husband-wife team. As Nick put it “It’s like juice is their life”. I can’t describe anymore how awesome that juice is, aside from saying if you haven’t had this juice you haven’t had real juice. If you visit me in Yogya I promise I will take you there! Also on Monday we had a meeting with everyone from the kos to discuss a “get-to-know-everyone” beach trip for the weekend.
Tuesday was a massive as day. From 9am until 2.40pm I pretty much had straight classes, Bahasa Indonesia untuk Riset, Pemuliaan Pohon Terapan and Gamelan. My only breaks involved walking from one end of the campus to the other and my bum was extremely sore from all the sitting I did. Needless to say I decided to drop a subject – Pemuliaan Pohon Terapan – mostly due to the subject material, with the decision sealed by the massiveness of my day. Gamelan class was a lot of fun though, it’s hard to remember the instruments, and they have a weird as notes/counting system, but it’s nice to have a relaxing practical class.
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| A sketch of the instruments that make up gamelan music. |
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| My classroom is a lot more compact than this, but it gives you an idea of the layout of a gamelan performance. |
In the evening I had tea with Teal, later joined by Tim, Joey and Jack, at “Cowmad” – such an odd name for a restaurant but anyway – before heading off to rock practice. We were asked to volunteer for a rock performance, the only information we were given prior was that it would involve clapping rocks. I thought this meant we would just be sitting down tapping rocks to different patterns and that was it. It turned out that we were divided into three groups, all with our own rock clapping pattern. That was ok, we managed. Then the dance moves were introduced. And finally, when we had “mastered” clapping our rocks to the pattern while doing our dance moves, we were “informed” (actually figured it out from what we were doing) that we would be in a parade!
On the Wednesday morning Nick and I went to meet Pak John around Malioboro (the tourist area of Yogya). Pak John is a lecturer from Monash in the chemical engineering department who frequently visits Indonesia. He is a good friend of our lecturer Bu Yacinta, who were both friends of a man called Herb Feith. Herb was an amazing guy whose family were German Jew refugees in WWII who moved to Melbourne. Herb came to be a renowned Indonesian academic, worked to foster relations between Australia and Indonesia and was the first ever Australian volunteer overseas, which happened to be in Indonesia. Herb stayed in a village, called Pendoworedjo, and became very close with the family he stayed with there. Herb passed away in 2001, but a biography was published about Herb just before Nick and I left for Indonesia. So Pak John asked if Nick and I would like come along with him to Pendoworedjo to give the family a copy of the book and a translation into Indonesian of the pages about the village. So we chatted with Pak John a bit, ate some yum as banana bread and organised to meet at 6am on Saturday morning to go to the village.
On Thursday I went to Moviebox for the very first time! I was pretty excited! Moviebox is a place with a whole heap of lounge rooms with screens and dvd players that you rent out to watch a dvd you have brought along or that they have there. We chose “Julie and Julia”, which was quite apt as I went with Red and Teal (who both love food), Wahyu, Paul (who is from New York) and Vremita and a few of her friends who all study French. Watching all the yum as dishes, and especially desserts, being cooked made our mouths water! (And our stomachs miss home just a little bit).
Friday marked the end of the second week, meaning that it was the last day to chop and change subjects. In the end I dropped my FISIPOL and Forestry subjects and so now am only studying in FIB (Arts Faculty). My updated subject list is:
Antropologi Ekologi – Ecological Anthropology
Bahasa Indonesia untuk Riset – Indonesian for Research
Karawitan – Gamelan (The best way to describe Gamelan is a traditional Indonesian orchestra consisting of percussion instruments... I particularly like playing the gongs!)
Sejarah Australia dan Pacifik - Australian and Pacific History
Linguistik Historis Komparatif – Comparative Historical Linguistics
Aside from study, Friday just involved skyping and more rock practice.
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| Pracitcing the rockin' routine! |
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| Teal and I trying on part of our snaz as costumes! |
So that’s it for part one of my update. Stay tuned for part two (which may or may not be today or tomorrow). Hope you’re going snazzily :)
Salam hangat,
Katrina
