Today at a University in Banyuwangi, on the east coast of Java - the place where we once took a ferry to get to Bali - I met with a group of students and teachers for a one day workshop. (Supposed tone only teachers, but it ended up mostly students - more about that perhaps later). They had another big banner with my name on it - now the national count is three, and I think it will be four by the time I get home - actually five, because there were two for me in Madura, one stretched between two palm trees over the road that entered the boarding school.
So, this will be a race of a entry, I think, skittering over details somewhat quickly. I can't bother at the moment to do all the rigamarole of downloading and then uploading pictures, so it will be imageless. Perhaps I will post some later.
Drive from Madura to Surabaya Thursday - five hours. As we were leaving Sumenep I said "Oh shoot I forgot to by Madurese salt," which, because we are in Indonesia, let to pulling over on the side of the highway, walking into a salt farm, up to the two men working the place, talking to them about the process with the help of my two hosts, and picking up a giant crystal of salt from one of the dozens of piles of salt that sat glittering in the sun.
Wait in the train station in Surabaya - two hours. Nothing exciting, except Umi is wonderful to travel with, and we are constantly laughing together, so we had a good time anyway. The train to Jember was ekonomi - we traveled a few times by train when we lived here before, but always executif which I promise you does not exactly translate to "executive" but it is perfectly fine. Ekonomi is sort of funny - I was sitting with Umi in a seat for two that faced across from us a seat for three. "Across" is a word that seems to convey a sort of distance, but I mean 18 inches in this case - two woman and a rather tall man were in those seats, and then there were four on the other side and the train itself was fairly packed. I was briefly internally petulant, which I think crossed my face, because for the first time on the trip Umi clearly felt bad about it, so I pulled myself together and it actually ended up being kind of fun. It was air-conditioned, and even better, I wasn't sitting under the air-conditioner, which drip drip dripped on to the seat below it. It was four hours, though, so arrival in Jember was a relief.
Umi's husband and two of her sons - Mecca and Egypt (Jordan, her older son, joined us later) - met us at the train station and we drove to a restaurant where I ordered on Umi's recommendation bisstek lidah, which was delicious. After I finished it Umi said she was glad i liked it because her family liked tongue too and then I remembered what lidah meant. Then they dropped me off at a fancy hotel for one night - the rest of my time in Jember, beginning tomorrow, I'll stay at Umi's house, but she wanted me to stay one night in hotel comfort, and it was nice. I had a beer in the bar and listened to a jazz trio perform a very soulful rendition of "Summertime."
Friday Umi had a trip to the Indonesian National Coffee and Cocoa Research Center, which was on a beautiful plantation very close to Umi's house - it was super cool, with an overview of the entire process of roasting and preparing coffee, right up to the way to make it into instant coffee, and with the cocoa from the bean to the chocolate bar. They make all their own processing machines on site, and they bring people in from all over Indonesia to promote home industries - they also make small machines for those industries on site. It was really cool, and the coffee and chocolate were delicious. I have rekindled my appreciation for Indonesian coffee, which they make by grinding the beans very fine, putting them in a cup, pouring the water in, and letting the grounds sink to the bottom, which they do. It's a rich delicious coffee.
Umi insisted i drive while we were in Jember, and it was really fun to navigate the Javanese road chaos again. She declared it a success, saying, in reference to the only alleged fatality attached to my previous Javanese driving experience, "Not yet killed chicken."
Then we visited a school where Umi volunteers (she is a work-horse and I have no idea how she does everything she does). It's for students who dropped out of other schools, and I met with students and teachers there for a short visit and conversation. It was that moment when - like some sort of flame of the holy spirit - I felt my Indonesian descend upon me again. I still can only say things that make my conversation sound like the pretend conversations in a language books, but I said them with fluidity and I was relaxed. It was a short visit, and after it the director brought me to his house with a big spread of food where I ate lunch with the teachers and then Umi spirited me away to the beach where I talked with students about writing and got interviewed by a reporter from Radio Indonesia. (I am going to be interviewed on national radio on Wednesday, and it is live-streamed, so if you're in the US and up between 1 and 3 AM Wednesady morning make sure to tune in.)
I already mentioned the wonder of meeting the fishermen on the beach as they left and as they returned - I didn't mention the charge of the angry monkey who bared his teeth and who I thought was going to give me a giant rabies laden Indonesian trip ending monkey bite. He was only about two feet away when he stopped, and damn that monyet had some teeth.
Okay - I have reached the limits of this entry. I will write tomorrow about my workshop today, perhaps. Tomorrow I will hike up a mountain with Umi where they mine sulphur. It really is a head-spinning trip this time around. I have squeezed past that obligatory moment where the thrill of arrival suddenly gets overwhelmed by exhaust fumes and rotting garbage. I am here again, and not complaining like a put-upon colonizer. I will sleep well tonight - the man pressing the doorbell appears to have given up - and tomorrow more transport - the 4 hour drive back to Jember. I am not driving that route, thankfully, because it's a narrow mountain highway with the usual lack of restraint and excess craziness and every kind of vehicle - it's really something. How everyone doesn't die everyday in a country wide head-on collision really is astounding.
So, this will be a race of a entry, I think, skittering over details somewhat quickly. I can't bother at the moment to do all the rigamarole of downloading and then uploading pictures, so it will be imageless. Perhaps I will post some later.
Drive from Madura to Surabaya Thursday - five hours. As we were leaving Sumenep I said "Oh shoot I forgot to by Madurese salt," which, because we are in Indonesia, let to pulling over on the side of the highway, walking into a salt farm, up to the two men working the place, talking to them about the process with the help of my two hosts, and picking up a giant crystal of salt from one of the dozens of piles of salt that sat glittering in the sun.
Wait in the train station in Surabaya - two hours. Nothing exciting, except Umi is wonderful to travel with, and we are constantly laughing together, so we had a good time anyway. The train to Jember was ekonomi - we traveled a few times by train when we lived here before, but always executif which I promise you does not exactly translate to "executive" but it is perfectly fine. Ekonomi is sort of funny - I was sitting with Umi in a seat for two that faced across from us a seat for three. "Across" is a word that seems to convey a sort of distance, but I mean 18 inches in this case - two woman and a rather tall man were in those seats, and then there were four on the other side and the train itself was fairly packed. I was briefly internally petulant, which I think crossed my face, because for the first time on the trip Umi clearly felt bad about it, so I pulled myself together and it actually ended up being kind of fun. It was air-conditioned, and even better, I wasn't sitting under the air-conditioner, which drip drip dripped on to the seat below it. It was four hours, though, so arrival in Jember was a relief.
Umi's husband and two of her sons - Mecca and Egypt (Jordan, her older son, joined us later) - met us at the train station and we drove to a restaurant where I ordered on Umi's recommendation bisstek lidah, which was delicious. After I finished it Umi said she was glad i liked it because her family liked tongue too and then I remembered what lidah meant. Then they dropped me off at a fancy hotel for one night - the rest of my time in Jember, beginning tomorrow, I'll stay at Umi's house, but she wanted me to stay one night in hotel comfort, and it was nice. I had a beer in the bar and listened to a jazz trio perform a very soulful rendition of "Summertime."
Friday Umi had a trip to the Indonesian National Coffee and Cocoa Research Center, which was on a beautiful plantation very close to Umi's house - it was super cool, with an overview of the entire process of roasting and preparing coffee, right up to the way to make it into instant coffee, and with the cocoa from the bean to the chocolate bar. They make all their own processing machines on site, and they bring people in from all over Indonesia to promote home industries - they also make small machines for those industries on site. It was really cool, and the coffee and chocolate were delicious. I have rekindled my appreciation for Indonesian coffee, which they make by grinding the beans very fine, putting them in a cup, pouring the water in, and letting the grounds sink to the bottom, which they do. It's a rich delicious coffee.
Umi insisted i drive while we were in Jember, and it was really fun to navigate the Javanese road chaos again. She declared it a success, saying, in reference to the only alleged fatality attached to my previous Javanese driving experience, "Not yet killed chicken."
Then we visited a school where Umi volunteers (she is a work-horse and I have no idea how she does everything she does). It's for students who dropped out of other schools, and I met with students and teachers there for a short visit and conversation. It was that moment when - like some sort of flame of the holy spirit - I felt my Indonesian descend upon me again. I still can only say things that make my conversation sound like the pretend conversations in a language books, but I said them with fluidity and I was relaxed. It was a short visit, and after it the director brought me to his house with a big spread of food where I ate lunch with the teachers and then Umi spirited me away to the beach where I talked with students about writing and got interviewed by a reporter from Radio Indonesia. (I am going to be interviewed on national radio on Wednesday, and it is live-streamed, so if you're in the US and up between 1 and 3 AM Wednesady morning make sure to tune in.)
I already mentioned the wonder of meeting the fishermen on the beach as they left and as they returned - I didn't mention the charge of the angry monkey who bared his teeth and who I thought was going to give me a giant rabies laden Indonesian trip ending monkey bite. He was only about two feet away when he stopped, and damn that monyet had some teeth.
Okay - I have reached the limits of this entry. I will write tomorrow about my workshop today, perhaps. Tomorrow I will hike up a mountain with Umi where they mine sulphur. It really is a head-spinning trip this time around. I have squeezed past that obligatory moment where the thrill of arrival suddenly gets overwhelmed by exhaust fumes and rotting garbage. I am here again, and not complaining like a put-upon colonizer. I will sleep well tonight - the man pressing the doorbell appears to have given up - and tomorrow more transport - the 4 hour drive back to Jember. I am not driving that route, thankfully, because it's a narrow mountain highway with the usual lack of restraint and excess craziness and every kind of vehicle - it's really something. How everyone doesn't die everyday in a country wide head-on collision really is astounding.
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