Last night, at our Indonesian neighbor Ibu Lala's house, with her family Pak Eko, Larissa, and Ezel, we had Thanksgiving dinner, with her sister's family and a Korean family who live down the block. We had written off Thanksgiving, with little grief, but when we got the invitation, we were of course delighted, and my pleasure at actually having a Thanksgiving reminded me of why I like this holiday so much. And it was a great Thanksgiving, a delicious dinner, and great company - Pak Eko is a television producer who develops Indonesian reality TV shows - he got written up recently in the New York Times for his reality TV productions - and he talked me through several of them: the hidden camera that sees if people volunteer to help strangers in pretend need on the street, the 12 hour version of Extreme Home Makeover, the I-almost-died true story reenactments. Though his house is 10 feet from my house, we had not yet met ("That is the American way," he said loudly - he lived in Tulsa for 6 years when we went to Oral Roberts, "but not the Indonesian way!" And he laughed, a big and very happy laugh). He decided last night that he wants me to be the host of his new documentary feature, Garbage Nation, which deals with the unbelievable problem of trash in Asia. In any case, we'll go down to Semarang sometime soon, the four of us, to watch them filming and producing one of the several reality TV shows he develops. It was the first time I wished I had a TV here, since some of the shows sound very funny, and reality TV shows are actually programs you can understand with limited language skills.
Turkey, stuffing (delicious from the wok), string bean casserole, mashed potatoes, salad, cranberries, all served elegantly from a table set up in the car port - we ate in the front hallway, since there was no table large enough for us all. Pak Eko's brother-in-law, a pastor, prayed in Indonesian, and then Pak Eko gave a wonderful prayer as well - that I might transform my students at the University, that our family will bring great things to Indonesia, that the Koreans will find a way out of their present conflict peacefully - and we ate, and talked, and ate some more, and talked. No wine (alas) and no pumpkin pie, but apart from that, it felt just like Thanksgiving, and we were so pleased for the invitation and the dinner and the new friends. It was one of those banner days.
That was yesterday - it's still Thanksgiving in the US as I write this, and we'll skype home to my parents in a few minutes, and then I have to teach (I presented yesterday at a conference - how could they hold a conference on Thanksgiving Day?) while Laura and the kids will go to Semerang. Seamus and Graham will go a movie, and Laura and our friend Ibu Maria will put together the supplies for the refugees we will visit tomorrow, outside of Yogyakarta.
They will purchase these supplies with the $2,300 that our friends, family, and fellowship contributed for the Merapi refugees, from a request we put out last week. Laura has been working to process all the money, get it in cash one way or another (credit cards, with limited exception, are largely useless here) and working through all the details. We'll report on the visit next week, in detail, and we'll keep track of every rupiah we spend, in scanned documents, so that you can track them money you donated. But I want to tell you, here, how enormously moved we were by the incredible outpouring of support. With several villages incinerated, over 300 people now dead as a result of the eruptions, and communities that have barely begun to consider the process of rebuilding (or not rebuilding), and as the event falls from the attention of the media here, I promise you that this will be money well spent, and we have never felt so close to home, so far away, since we arrived here. Thank you thank you thank. That's my biggest Thanksgiving message - on Thanksgiving weekend we will deliver the gifts you so amazingly provided.
(I was sorry that the pass-through with Mountainview didn't work out, because it had the makings of a great joke set-up: "Did you hear the one about the lesbians, the Unitarians, and the Jew who gave money to the Fundamentalist Christian School?" I'll keep working on that one.)
No comments:
Post a Comment