Disclamer

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are mine and do not reflect those of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

I think I will do a post about one aspect rather than a time frame.  That will make it easier for me to include everything.  This will also allow anyone who is interested in a particular aspect to ask me to do a blog post about it.

This Post is gonna be about my down time and schedule in my host family house.
 
I live in a sweet house in Batu.  I have an adik laki-laki (little brother) named Aril.  He is a very energetic little ten year old.  I asked around and found out that he is kind of a trouble maker at school but he has some of the best grades.   I think he is afraid of me or something because he has a tendency to not know how to act.  We still have some bonding to do yet.   The main toy that the little boys play with is homemade whips.  They are always cracking those suckers. My Bapak (Father) is named Rofik.  Super chill dude.  He mostly just hangs out with friends, smokes alot, and passes out in front of the tv.  He and I hang out alot.  We mostly just sit there in silence with the occasional attempt at communicating something.  My Ibu (mother) name is Mujianik.  She is awesome.  she is so dang sweet.  she always has a cup of tea or coffee ready for me.  always with too much sugar, but we are working on that.  She tends to tell me what I should be doing.  she will say "Dan!  Mandi"  which means "Dan! go take a shower".  she tells me to eat and when I should leave for school.  My kakak perempuan (older sister) name is Arin.  Her and her husband Opick speak relatively okayish English so I have it kind of easy.  They are able to translate basic things for me so I am not totally in the dark. 
One of the other volunteers said that the community in an Indonesian village is just like a college dorm.  This is a relly good analagy.  Everyone pretty much leaves their doors open and people just come and go as though they are all part of one big building.  As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone knows eachother and what they do is chill in eachother's houses.  there seems to be a wedding every night and everyone is always invited.  You will probably be able to go somewhere in the village and find a big party with loud music playing well into 11 oclock or 12 oclock (that's pretty late considering people go to bed generally around 8 or 9)

People generally wake up around 4 or 5.  This is because it gets very hot midday so everyone wants to get everything done early.  I have been going to bed around 8 and waking up at about 6.  For those of you who don't know me very well, this is fairly different than my normal schedule.  if left to my own devices I will generally go to bed around 3 and wake up around 12.  It is pretty hard to stay asleep past 6 though considerning that EVERYONE is up super early and I have like 12 sheep outside going "daaaaan....daaaaaann" at about 4.  then at 4:30 the morning call to prayer is blasted out of every mosque (and there are many) in the village.

As I mentioned before, we watch alot of tv.  Mostly we watch Indonesian news and soccer.  But evry once in a while we watch a little spongebob, shawn the sheep, Indonesian Voice, or Indonesian Idol.  It is quite funny watching Spngebob with an Indonesian voiceover.  fortunately it has been a pretty good language learning tool because I am able to figure out what they are saying most of the time.
Generally at about 6 or 7 at night all the homies of my bapak and ibu stop by and we hang out in the living room.  I mostly just sit thre as they talk to eachother in jawanese.  Jawanese is not Bahasa Indonesia by the way.  Bahasa Indonesia is the main language of Indonesia, but I live on Jawa.  the main dialect of jawa is Jawaese.  this mean that my family and all the people in the village speak a language which is similar, but also totally different from the language that I am learning.  They all can speak Bahasa Indonesia, but only do when they are speaking directly to me.  this makes it kinda difficult to understand... pretty much anything they are saying.  I am starting to understand a little more every day, but this whole jawanese/Bahasa Indonesia thing is hurting my, and all the other volunteers, progress. 




When I chill with the homies we have a good time and they usually laugh at how white I am and how dark their skin is compared to mine.  The women ask me if I think that women with dark skin are beautiful and I tell them of course I do.  Then they make fun of my mustache and we all have a good laugh.  then they tell my if I shaved my mustache I would be alot more handsome and I tell them that that will never happen.  This type of conversation is pretty much all we ever have.  but considering I have only been here 2 weeks, I feel like that is relatively advanced.

When we aren't hanging out in the living room I usually go on some jalan-jalans (walks).  these consist usually of going to other peoples houses and hanging out in their living rooms and having more awkward conversations and them giving me tea and rice based snacks.

2 comments:

  1. Dan, those folks all seem so nice. You are definitely a lighter pigment and like when Di was in Brazil, she said stood out pretty obviously compared to the population. Sounds like you are getting treated very well.

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  2. Hey Dan! Really cool reading about your experiences settling into your place there. That sleep schedule I'm sure will take QUITE some adjusting to. Anyway, really excited to read more about what's going on as you continue to settle in and really get to work on what you're there to do. Take care!

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