A Novel of a Blog Post: The Struggle With Foreign Food, Traffic, and HEAT

This week was very eventful and tiring. I’ve also come to know some of the common struggles expats and Indonesians must feel living in this incredibly crowded city (9.6 Million people in 255 square miles). From what I’ve learned so far it seems like the growth of this city was haphazard and unplanned which shows through in the quality of the public transit and the massive amounts of traffic. Jakarta has a train and bus system that is easy enough to use and is super cheap, but it will take you 3x longer than a car unless it is rush hour then the train and the streets are packed and there’s no way you’ll get anywhere in under an hour. It’s different to assume you need at least an hour to get somewhere across the city. Even most of the places I went in Budapest (which used to be three cities and is now one so it’s giant- slightly smaller than Jakarta at 202 square miles) only took about 20-30 minutes to get to, and half the time that was when I walked! The bright side about all the transportation mess is that taxis are CHEAP here. It costs less than 4 US dollars to take a 20 minute ride (try doing that in Boston haha).

That’s another point I should make. Walking in Jakarta is a dangerous activity. The sidewalks are filled with debris and/or street vendors which can make them impassable leaving you to walk next to the cars and motorcycles on the streets. Cars also have 0 regard for pedestrians so you must just force them to stop by literally moving your body in front of their car. On the bright side of this you will feel massively accomplished after crossing a 5 lane (ish honestly are there even lanes in this city? People just drive wherever the heck their car will fit) road.

I guess maybe people don’t like walking around here because you will probably die of heat exhaustion. On Sunday night I played frisbee for two hours and there wasn’t enough sunscreen in the world to keep me from getting burned. Luckily it started raining to save us from the sweltering heat. Frisbee was really fun and I am so happy to have picked up the hobby that essentially gives you automatic friends and activities wherever you go. Indonesia has a very small frisbee community made of mostly ex-pats from the States, but it is laid back and quite perfect for me to join in. I played frisbee in Hungary too, but they were a little intense (as all Hungarians seem to be honestly, but I suppose it’s a charming feature of theirs too).

I can’t help but compare my experiences in Jakarta to those I had in Hungary despite these two countries having incredibly different cultures and histories. Of course I’m just doing this since these are the two foreign countries I’ve spent extended periods of time in and the human brain can’t really help but compare. The truth is I probably couldn’t have picked two more different countries to explore. You may wonder, “which one do you like better, Cali?”, and I could only answer based on a detail by detail basis or a current mood.

In Budapest I often thought that people on the streets looked angry and like they might want to hurt someone due to the way people would hold your gaze with a cold look and then just walk passed you without really acknowledging your presence (Hungarians I actually met are quite lovely though; don’t misunderstand). In Jakarta people seem to do the opposite. From across the road people will look at you and smile and everyone talks to you even if you clearly don’t understand what they’re saying. Sometimes it’s so nice that people are friendly, but sometimes they seem too friendly and it creeps me out. Like why do the strangers keep calling me “miss” and “madam” and asking me where I’m from? Well, it’s a cultural thing I know but it takes some convincing yourself that they aren’t plotting to rob you or something. So, what do I prefer? Maybe the people in Boston who seem to be closer to a Hungarian level of street friendliness, but not quite so stern-looking. But maybe by the end of this summer I will just talk to strangers on the streets and make new friends haha.

Another thing that’s funny about how fickle I can be is how I feel about the food wherever I am. In Hungary I would try terrible restaurants just because they served “Asian” food and I missed it so terribly (I got super tired of gulyas and chicken paprikash. Can you blame me?). I usually ended up cooking my own version of stir-fry after trying this “Chinese” restaurant in Budapest called Olive Garden (I really should’ve had Megan help me find a decent place to eat haha). But mostly I ate Hungarian food and liked it sometimes and hated it a lot of times (it turns out you get picky when nothing is familiar anymore and you’re homesick). Now I’m in an Asian country with fantastic Asian food and you know what I’m dying to eat? That’s right, gulyas. If I found a Hungarian restaurant in Jakarta I’m sure it would be expensive and terrible, so I won’t even bother. But, it sure is funny that I have such a fondness for certain Hungarian foods after all this time. I’m sure I’ll miss many Indonesian foods when I leave here.

Despite being a little tired of eating predominantly Indonesian and Chinese food, I am eating some really fantastic food. It turns out the little Warung (kind of like street food but more like an open air restaurant) at the bottom of our apartment seems to sell the cheapest (seriously costs like $3 a meal) and most delicious food. It’s funny that we’ve even gone to a few really nice restaurants (like Cafe Batavia in Old Town which is on the top of the Trip Advisor list for Jakarta) and they’re not as delicious as this Warung food. We’ve even gone to other nice Indonesian places and I’m convinced the best cooks just sit down stairs and cook all day in Kalibata City (which is excellent news for me I suppose).

To curb my missing western food so much I’ve cooked a few meals this week and had a bit of success. I made my own pasta sauce then cooked spaghetti, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli. It was more expensive than a Warung, but tasted like home and therefore was delicious. I also really miss Mexican food (which is unfortunate because buying cheese is a mistake around here-- an 8 ounce block of parmesan will put you out $20 USD) so I managed to find some black beans (expensive too but only like $2 instead of 60 cents) and bought a lot of vegetables to make some version of black bean soup with avocado that was slightly reminiscent of Mexican food and very delicious. My cooking adventures are kind of hilarious though in a kitchen without an oven and a grocery store that seems to work against me. I actually googled “easy stove-top recipes american food” this week which is kind of pathetic. But hey, if you have some advice for my 1 to 2 American(ish) meals a week plan please send it my way (or advice for Hungarian food honestly -- I will probably cook some gulyas before too long).

Now I guess I should mention a bit about what I’ve been up to this week. I’ve done a lot of working and made some promising progress (especially since the dev project I’ve been assigned is a bit of a confusing pioneer assignment).  I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet with a local Indonesian student who may work with us and also to meet the director of the Roshan Learning Center here in Jakarta. The Roshan Learning Center does amazing work to provide quality education for refugees from Afghanistan and Iran. I was interested in meeting with them as my Albright Institute project was about researching how we can create quality education for refugee people around the world. It is an impossibly hard issue to tackle and I have been very encouraged by the progress the Roshan Learning Center has made here in Jakarta. Part of my work this summer is thinking about how a learning platform like Next Thought can contribute and maybe even getting a project or two in the works to help people have access to better education all around the world (it’s a big pageant dream, but hey why not?). The woman from the learning center invited Ega and me to attend Jakarta’s world refugee festival on June 20th and I am really excited to go and learn more about ways in which I can begin to help people. I wish I had been able to help more of the people traveling through Budapest last fall, but I felt a little too scared and was warned against it. Now maybe I’ll have a chance to see what I can learn and bring back to communities in America that are in need too.

On a fun cultural note I visited Kota Tua with Ega on Saturday and explored a couple of the big tourist sites in Jakarta. First I went to this old bank museum that ended up being really creepy and really empty. The cool thing was that they had all these old computers and typewriters. Then I went to an art and ceramics museum that was also quite cool albeit a little creepy too. The artwork was very cool and culturally relevant, so I was happy to explore it. I was saddened that the museums were both more run-down and far less curated than any of those I went to in Europe. But, it made me think that museums were probably invented by white people just so they could show off all the old stuff they stole from other countries. So, maybe it’s a good thing Jakarta’s museums are different. I definitely paid more attention than I usually do in an art museum (which is saying something because I’d live in an art museum if it were possible and not super expensive to buy good art). All in all I’m very happy I visited that area and hope that I will continue to explore more and more of the city. I’m also trying to learn more as I study tiny bits of Bahasa and read “Indonesia Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation” by Elizabeth Pisani.

Now that I’ve written a novel and exhausted myself by playing frisbee I should finish this up and get to sleep. Thanks for reading!

I want to go home.

I feel sick, tired, and scared on the streets. But, worse than all of these, I've found myself with so little freedom that I'm going nuts. I'm completely reliant on Ega and what she feels like doing or eating. It's so nice of her to give me a place to stay and to help me with so much, but maybe it'd be better to just suffer through this city on my own and at least have some freedom.

In my two weeks here I have only been allowed to go off on my own twice. All the rest of the time I've been stuck spending all my time with Ega and I'm not even sure I could sustain this with my best of friends (I'm sure Christine or Alexandra would've murdered me or locked me out by now). I feel so guilty about being annoyed since she's really been nothing but kind and helpful, but I need to take care of myself before I lose it.

To make matters worse Ega attends the most awful church and I've gone with her twice. I've got to make up some excuse to never go again because it physically pains me to sit through the bullshit. Last week I was ecstatic to go just to get out somewhere new and this week I was resigned to my fate of chaining myself to Ega and felt that I had to go if I wanted to get to play Frisbee today. Then Ega left me on my own anyway so I wish I'd skipped church.

Church was another level of awful today as we sing a lot of what I can only describe as "Christian Crusader" songs where we said all this stuff about God saving our souls with Jesus's blood and God being better than all things. Which honestly is OK except I much prefer to keep things a little more thoughtful than just crying out Jesus a bunch of times and calling it worship.

Then of course their sermon notes are fairly unintelligible and the sermon is all about the "oneness" of marriage. It was not surprisingly homophobic and sexist as well as pretty dumb. They spent all this time noting all the sinful distractions people have from their marriage and concluded that everything is best when wives are happily submissive to their husbands. Honestly what the fuck??? It made me never want to partake in any form of a "Christian" marriage as it seems wrought with false impressions of Love and all forms of self-suppresion.

I've never felt like more of a heretic atheist than I do now and I'm dying to reunite with all the beautiful, liberal and often queer Christians that surround me at Wellesley. Or even the mildly more tolerant Christian family in OK. I honestly don't know what's in the water here but people seem ridiculous. Maybe it's not fair to be this judgmental, but it's scary that these people, an entire country, hold such narrow views. I worry for all the young people here and hope that people are able to find truly loving communities.

The church even had the audacity to ask us to pray that Muslim people find the gospel during Ramadan. They're hell bent on converting everyone into their cult like they don't see how insanely similar they are to all the other religious people around.

To make matters worse there was a Muslim guy in the audience who felt the need to stand up and deliver a diatribe about how much Jesus would love Muslim people and how Christian hatred and dismissal of the muslim religion is sad. I almost died. I cannot return to that church. I just could not survive it. I believe in the power of love and God and they talk too little about love for me to believe they've really understood God. I ought to be a little less self righteous, and I suppose this church is really fine for those who are fulfilled through it, but I need to just say it's not for me and move on.

We also had to sing this hella culty song about our houses serving the lord. At least there was a bit of humor in it as this very Christian family broke Jewish Challah bread at their dinner in the video.

Even with this annoying international church situation and this whole city seeming to suppress my liberalness and my queerness I know that I will fall in love with little pieces of it and that I am really having a good time even if it's a hard time too.

On another note I haven't had a single drop of alcohol since I landed on this island. And I've definitely broke my streak of more drinking days than sober days since 21. Ega says we will drink some beer and go to a night club, but I highly doubt it. Plus the only beer really available is basically heineken so do I even want to drink it?

Also, I've been writing a poem to share with you all, but it's unfinished and this blog is so gigantic already. So, I'll share it later.