Top Ten

A rising tide of ‘why are we doing this again mom?’ has resulted in good amount of insecurity (on my part at least) prompting me compile a list of my favorite things about Indonesia thus far. Its an old trick but generally, as my therapist always said, a pretty effective one.

1. Ibu Kasom, our pembantu, who does all of the shopping, cooking, makes amazing sambal, does the cleaning and the laundry, brings the kids lunch to them at school every day, and still has energy to teach me Indonesian. She is super patient, very kind, and a fabulous cook even if the kids are a little sick of chicken & rice. Ibu Kasom is a very wonderful addition to our world.

2. Clothes dried in the sun. I really do love the smell of clothes that have been dried in the sunshine, especially bed sheets! When I get back to Bozeman, I plan to start the Fir Crest Court Outdoor Drying Revolution.

3. Banana trees. Not sure why, I just think they are super cool. I have to do a little reading on banana trees. I’m pretty sure there is a Zone 4 article in here somewhere.

4. My flower lady at the pasar who never fails to be so happy to see me blundering down the alley despite the fact I only buy one bunch at a time and I am sure she never makes any money off of me because the bunches are a buck a piece.

5. Watching my kids exceed expectations I didn’t even realize I had. If these were in order, this would be number one.

6. Belum. Indonesians don’t like to be negative so instead of saying you don’t do something or you can’t do something they say belum which literally means ‘not yet‘. It doesn’t matter what it is -- you could say you have never been to the moon and they would smile at you and say most sincerely, ‘Not yet anyway!’

7. Those wonderful, little stainless steel stacking lunch boxes. I love those things although this might be a tie with the bamboo hula hoops. I have to give this one a little more thought.

8. Snack food. These people love their snacks. Why they are all not 10,000 pounds I have no idea because around every corner are freshly cooked cassava chips, banana crepes, sate of all varieties, and what S. and I call, Miscellaneous Fried Bits. There are several street vendors that sell MFB in our neighborhood. S. and I were taking the bus downtown the other day and the driver pulled right over at one, put the bus in park and hopped across the road to fill up his lunch box with MFB which he proceeded to eat as he drove.

9. Misprinted t-shirts. S. and I have started a list of favorite t-shirts seen around town, silk-screened with English expressions that are just a tinee-tiny bit off of which there are so many in Indonesia. His favorite thus far was a young woman wearing a shirt that boasted: Smexy Girl.

10. Torrential rain storms. The rain storms here are great. They get storms like this in Montana sometimes but they are usually accompanied by hail. The ones here come on all of a sudden, one or two drops than the entire sky seems to fall on you. God forbid you should be caught out in one without an umbrella because there is no escape. And, really an umbrella won’t do you any good anyway, you just have to wait it out. Within minutes, the streets are nearly flooded. Fortunately, it is a warm rain, so you might look a sodden mess when you get where you are going, but it feels great.