Emma’s Year in Indonesia

I flew back into Sydney yesterday morning, so here is the last post for my blog.

I did the flights as directly as possible, flying from Yogya to Jakarta in the afternoon and then from Jakarta to Sydney that evening. Doing that made the whole trip feel quite quick, and caused me to feel quite weird. One moment I was in Yogya, the next I was in Sydney. I had a lot of trouble yesterday trying to convince myself that being home wasn’t a dream or temporary, that this was it.

Yogya already feels a world away, although I’m already missing my friends there. At the moment I’m enjoying the novelties of being back - the nice weather, being able to wear whatever I want (today I’m wearing a singlet top and am finding the sensation of wind on my bare back really strange, having footpaths to walk on (not climbing around bikes, on busy roads, up and down drains, trying to not fall in holes) having carpet (everything is tiled in Yogya), having more freedom because I can drive here and getting to eat and drink things like unsugared bread and real milk. I know that it will only take a few days to start missing Yogya,  though I can honestly say life here is much easier, and I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead of me where I can enjoy my comforts again, and catch up with all the family and friends that I have missed so much.

When I was leaving the airport at Yogya I felt so mixed because in one sense I was going home but in another I felt like I was leaving home. It was hard to think that I wasn’t going on another holiday, that I was moving somewhere permenantly and that visits to Yogya again would be my holidays. But I told my Indonesian friends there not to worry too much, because I’d be back again, and soon too. There’ll always be an abundance of reasons to visit Yogya again, it would be pretty hard to keep me away. I also felt proud of what I’d done, and the experiences I had behind me. Being back home in my old environment again has made me realise how much the experience has made me change and grow. I’m so glad that I did it.

I’ve finally finished for the semester! It feels like its been a long semester, its gone for nearly 5 months. I had my one and only exam today and handed in a couple of essays. Handing in the essays was chaotic, and I’m hoping they make it to the lecturers.

The past few days have been really really busy, finishing everything for the semester and getting things ready to go home. On Saturday I met up with some of the other few students still in Yogya for what was meant to be a Becak race, where foreign students decorate becaks and then ride them. But unfortuntely there were no other entrants so we were invited to be part of a parade down the main street of Malioboro. It was heaps of fun, but it got a bit intense at times, with heaps of people taking photos and laughing at us. We were wearing things like rubbish bags on our heads and riding a becak so it was warranted. Steve and the others came up with an environmental theme on the bike, with a sign saying “Reduce CO2 emissions, ride a becak”. I was meant to be helping them decorate things that morning but couldn’t make it until the time of the race. What happened was that I went to the post office to send some things back home. I went to the atm to get money out to pay for it, but the atm ate my card. I then used my backup Travelex card but that had insufficient funds. I was going to get some travellers cheques but then I remembered that immigration has my passport so I can get the right stamps to go home. So after hours of running around trying to find some money I eventually did so and was able to post my things. It was a huge day, which ended with a taxi driver trying to kiss me (girls - never ever sit in the front seat of a taxi! I did so by accident).

A lot of busy-ness, a lot of adventures still unfolding even right up to the end. I don’t think my experiences here will really sink in until I’m home and have a chance to sit down and think about everything.

I’m back in Yogya after a couple of days in Bali with Jess and her boyfriend Josh. I had a really good time there. We spent 2 nights in Ubud and 1 in Legian. We managed to fit a lot of stuff in, including travelling around the east, shopping, eating great food, sipping cocktails and enjoying the freedom we had there. It was nice to do some things that we can’t do in Yogya, like wear singlet tops and drink cocktails. I only wore a singlet top on one day, and I found it really weird. I felt so self-conscious and felt like I was walking around topless. I kept waiting for people to stare or comment. In Klungkung I visited the place where Dad did a fair bit of his research for his PhD. I took a few photos of it for him but couldn’t find anyone who remembered him. Not that I asked that many people.

Coming back to Yogya is strange because I’m just starting to realise that most of my friends have gone and in many senses, things have finished already. The friends that I would see every day are now just in photos, and places I go just trigger memories. It’s a strange feeling, and I’m feeling so mixed up about everything, mainly about how things coming to an end feels. I’ve got essays and study to distract me, so I hope that works.

The few of us that are still here are trying to figure out what we’ll do on New Years Eve. Some seem to already have plans, and seeing as my kos has a curfew, I also need to find somewhere to stay, So it looks like Jess, Josh and I will be having our own party at their hotel.

I’m killing some time in Jakarta today because the airline decided to move my flight to Bali back by 4 hours. Fortunately they sent me an sms this morning, otherwise I’d be sitting at the airport. The benefit of flying with a Malaysian airline (Air Asia) instead of an Indonesian one I guess.

My time in Jakarta this trip has really helped me to get to know the place better. Aside from the almost daily trips to huge malls (most are the size of westfields back home, I think I’ve been to around 6) and being shown around local oddities such as Taman Mini ( a theme park conceived by the wife of Suharto, its a miniature version of Indonesia) and other interesting places I wouldn’t see otherwise, such as Universitas Indonesia (where Tatap, who I’m staying with, works) I’ve learnt a lot more about the people of Jakarta, and the concept of Jakarta as well. As Tatap told Paul and I, Jakarta is still searching for its identity, its not Indonesia, its not a global city, in many ways its just a large collection of people trying to figure out what they have in common. There is no planning in Jakarta, so its really hard to get a sense of geography, as well as a sense of where the heart of the city actually lies. So much of it is crowded and chaotic. There are suburbs after suburbs of densly populated streets, with toll roads towering above them. Nearly every major road here is a toll road, many with 5 lanes of traffic each way, and usually jammed with traffic. Its also been interesting to look at the huge contrasts between the wealthy and the poor here. On the way back from the UI campus, we went through a suburb called Pondok Indah, which is home to the wealthiest people in Jakarta. There was block after block of enormous mansions, like those you see in areas like Vaucluse in Sydney. Apparently most of them are empty because they are just the 2nd home of their owners, their “weekenders”. We passed a nightclub that advertised a cover charge of Rp350,000 (around $40), which is the average monthly wage of a servant in Yogya. Apparently most of  the wealthy here made their money during the Asian Financial Crisis, because they had investments in dollars, which blew from Rp2000 to Rp22,000 in value in the space of a few months.

Christmas yesterday was fun, if not a little unusual for me. These days I’m used to just small gatherings of my immediate family, usually around 5-10 of us. Yesterday there were around 40 people at the house. It was strange because you can tell that the norm isn’t to do something for Christmas, because everyone called it a Christmas Party. This was a strange idea for me because it just seems natural to have a gathering on Christmas day, and a Christmas Party is normally something you attend before the day itself. It also made me identify myself more as a “Christian” - in Australia you can celebrate Christmas Day without really being religious, but over here if you want to celebrate it properly you need to seek out Christians. It made me see Christmas more as an event of significance to my cultural background, and not just a norm that everyone is involved in. There were a lot of family members there, along with some “friends” who you could tell just came along for the food and present. The food was catered, and Tatap’s family, as the hosts, provided everyone with a present. It didn’t seem like people reciprocated by giving them a gift in return. The day had a routine to it, at 12 people started coming over and chatting, then at about 2 one of Tatap’s sisters led everyone in prayers and hymns. After that we ate, and Paul and I were stuffed to the brim by lots of people saying “oh you have to try this dish, its the local delicacy in the area I’m from”. Once that was done, Tatap’s sister decided to hold a singing competition, with each family performing a song. Seeing as pretty much everyone there were church-goers and members of choirs, these involved one family member playing the piano while the others sung and harmonised. Paul and I were told we had to perform a song, and so we split up and hid for about an hour until it was all over. Then it was present time, and one person would go and fetch a present that was in their name, then choose another and call out that person’s name. I was given a souvenir tshirt of Jakarta, as was Paul. Once this was done it was time for everyone to go.

Paul and I had a lot of fun chatting to people yesterday. At the end of the day we’d made a few friends, swapped stories and learnt some more about Jakarta. It was a good workout of our Indonesian, and I was pleased to realise that I was able to hold my own in a room full of strangers speaking another language. In terms of insights into Jakartan mindsets, some was eye-opening. Particularly when I was talking to a woman about the beggars in Yogya, and she spoke of them with such disgust, saying she calls them the “lazy people”, particularly the street kids. There were a lot of really well dressed Jakartans that popped in, wearing clothes often worn by the upper classes back home. One thing is for certain, there are a lot of really, really rich people in Jakarta. It was a really different experience to what I get in Yogya.

Sorry I’ve been so terrible with updating this for the past week, truth is I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance! Nearly every night has filled up with farewell dinners for everyone heading back to Australia this week (which is most of ACICIS), last minute assignments for the last week of the semester, and a minor relapse of illness.

Last Thursday I went to a conference which was on freedom of the press in Asia. It was really interesting and really well organised, I was really impressed! There were 2 speakers from Indonesia, one from Singapore and one from Malaysia. The guy from Singapore was really interesting, he really got stuck into Singapore. He started off by commenting on the title of the conference “Rethinking the fourth estate”, by saying that he’s not sure that he’s qualified to speak at the conference because Singapore can’t rethink the fourth estate when they haven’t thought of it in the first place. It was interesting to hear about the varieties of freedom of the press that exist in the three countries. Indonesia is the most ‘free’ of the lot, with so little regulation these days that the government don’t even know how many newspapers there are (a change from the Suharto era, where there were exactly 72), however journalists still complain of threats and abuse, and some are murdered. So it is very murky under the surface. Singapore is an interesting case because the media is left to its own devices to an extent, as long as they don’t criticise the government, because their status is below that of the government. Malaysia’s is still very oppressive. So yeah, it was a really interesting day and I learnt a lot!

On Friday was the INCULS closing ceremony, which wrapped up the language classes. A representitive from beginners, intermediate and advanced gave speeches, and we were all given certificates. I got one, which was strange because I didn’t do any language classes. At the end of the ceremony we were asked to give cultural performances. We Australians sank into the shadows but some others performed (INCULS is very diverse, with students from Japan, Korea, Iran, Kenya and Germany), including a great performance of Japanese dance, in which they kept forgetting the moves and were killing themselves laughing.

That night we had the ACICIS farewell dinner. It was at Parsley, one of the regular haunts of ACICIS students. It was really good fun, and we had a buffet that included steak! Phil gave a really nice speech, thanking us for supporting him during this hard semester, Sinta was inducted into ACICIS with a tasting of vegemite (very salty she thought) and we were all given fun awards. I got the “newspaper boy tease” award. Jess got the “most rajin (diligent) student” award, Sarah got the “angel” award and Ally the “sugar addiction” award. There were some funnier awards given out too, and some that got close to being offensive, but of course you had to be there to understand it, so I wont go through them all.

On the weekend a group of us went to the beach at Krakal, as a kind of farewell trip. It was really nice to go there with everyone, there were around 12 of us who decided to go. We spent the afternoon lying around the beach, the evening chatting, singing (we had about 3 guitars) and playing games. Unfortunately, there was a band camp going on at our small, humble hotel. It was an overnight camp, literally. They had booked the hall but no rooms for the 50 or so students to sleep in, so they had speeches and music till around 3am, and then sat around talking until sunrise, when they began playing soccer. It was crazy, clearly they didn’t have the budget to get rooms so it meant none of them slept! And neither did we, despite our best efforts. On Sunday we returned to the beach, only to find it occupied by hundreds of local, who were there for the annual “pesta laut” - sea party. There was music and dancing, which we didn’t discover until we went looking for lunch. However, the main thing we noticed is that when we tried to lie on the beaches in bikinis (yes we know it was a bad idea but normally the beach is deserted!), groups of young and old boys would sit in groups on the sand above us and stare at us. Women who walked past gave us disapproving looks. We tried hiding in the water until the boys lost interest and then retreated to the hotel to cover up. When I was waiting to have a shower, I was sitting in my swimmers with my towel wrapped around me. One of the guys from the band camp came up and asked if he could film me. I said no, as I in compromising clothes, and got Erinn, who was dressed, to talk to the camera instead. But once she was done the guy swung the camera onto me and started filming me. Becky was standing nearby and yelled at him and told him he was rude. He got the message and left me alone. But its the last time I show my shoulders, let alone my stomach, in Indonesia. But all up it was a really great weekend and a good adventure together, even if it was tinged with sadness that it was our last together. It was good to realise just what good friends we had become.

Monday till today has been filled with classes and assignments during the day and farewells at night. Annie left on Monday, Emma and Leah left yesterday, Becky left tonight (which is really sad because I live with her and now I’m watching my Ibu Kos clean out her empty room), Sarah leaves on Friday and Ally leaves on Saturday. I’m glad that I’m going on holidays to Jakarta and Bali on Friday for a week, as hanging around here would be very sad. I’m looking forward to a big family Christmas with the family I hung out with when I was last in Jakarta.

Today I had my last class at UGM! I’m so happy that I’ve finally finished the classes, I’ve still got a couple of essays to write and an exam to do but that’s nothing. I’ve been so frustrated and bored with my classes this semester. They have been as chaotic as the traffic, when they were on they usually consisted or unplanned raves or “class discussions” For some of my subjects I only had about 3 actual lectures for the whole semester. And of the lectures that were on and the assignments that were set, we were never asked to analyse anything. It seems like such a strange idea, that you can go through your university education never being asked to do more than describe and summarise, and can use wikipedia as a prime resource for those purposes. Its a shame because Gadjah Mada is such a prestigious university and so many of the lecturers have taught overseas or have studied overseas. I’m sure that if they made their teaching their first priority they could give these students a really good education, instead of a half-hearted one, with as few lectures and assignments as possible, to minimise the amount of effort they’d have to expend. This semester I’ve been set assignments that reuse the question from the last assignment, so the lecturer doesnt have to think of a new one, been set a 2 page essay to be written by a group of 8 students, and in one subject, after having no assessment all semester, have been set the final essay “write about something related to the subject”. The pattern of lectures was: have about 3 or 4 in the first few weeks, have an absent lecturer for a couple of weeks, have more absent classes after exams, and then set class discussions for the rest of the semester. The lecturers don’t know who is in their classes, so its really obvious the class discussions about previous topics raised aren’t marked. For international relations, the lecturer, who is the dean of the faculty, never turned up again after the mid-semester exam. These students, and their parents, bust a gut to get a university education, and they’re let down by their teachers. At the end of their degree they wind up with an overview of lots of topics, but not many skills to accompany them. When I ask graduating students what employment they’ll seek they’re really vague about giving an answer, because the truth is they don’t really have much to go on.

On another note, and yes another negative one, I apologise, I went grocery shopping today. When I got out my wallet to pay for my groceries, the woman behind me put out her hand, like beggars do when they want money. This middle-aged woman was well-dressed and had a big basket of groceries. She clearly was not poor! But I was more offended by the fact that she treated me like this, and in a place where I want to be left alone and treated like everyone else. I’m used to being asked for money when I’m on the streets, and am happy to be generous with the many poor people I come across. But this was not something I expected in the queue at the supermarket! Let alone from someone who is clearly an opportunist. I ignored her left in disgust, hating how much it had upset me.

Tomorrow is Idul Adha, which up until last week I knew nothing about. It is the day of sacrifice, where most people buy a goat, sheep or cow and slaughter it and give the meat to the poor. I’m not looking forward to it. My neighbours have 2 goats in their front yard lined up ready. Everywhere you go there are goats and sheeps in yards or sticking their heads out of windows. We saw a truck load of cows being taken through the streets before.I try to not look at them. Apparently the streets are awash with blood and the sound of dying animals :-S. Which makes sense because its not like anyone has backyards here, the streets are the only open spaces. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow! A group of us are going to the Kraton to see a big ceremony there. I’m not sure what it will involve, apparently they sacrifice animals but only at the end, so we can leave before then. Other than that I’m cooking coconut ice to take to Jakarta with me, using my Gran’s recipe that she passed on to me. She always used to cook it at Christmas and so these days I maintain the tradition, and figure its a tradition worth carrying with me here. If I can hear the goats dying from my kos tomorrow I’ll retreat to the Yogya Plaza hotel and lie by the pool there in an ignorant bliss.

Well its been back to the usual routines and sagas this week. The routines being that I’ve returned to my classes to find that they’re still either not on or have turned into “class presentations” to allow the lecturer to not actually lecture. In my class this morning, which I haven’t been to for a couple of weeks, there were group presentations, and a reference to a group assignment due next week. I stood around after the class hoping that someone would come up to me and say that I was in their group, but that didn’t work. So hopefully I can figure out something by next week…

The sagas of my bike continue, and yes I’m guessing you’re sick of hearing about them. On Monday, about 15 mins after I’d gotten home I was sitting in my room when I heard a really weird and loud SSSSSHHHHHHH noise, which sent half my kos running somewhere. I assumed someone had knocked some stuff off a table or something, until one of the girls appeared at my door and told me that I had a puncture. I said yeah I did but I’d gotten it repaired, while shaking my head in amazement that she could know such a thing when I hadn’t seen her all day. She looked confused and said ah no, its punctured. I went into the garage to find out that the loud noise was the back wheel exploding, for the second time that day. It seems that the tubing keeps splitting, and really needs to be replaced, but the bike repair guys just keep patching it up.

I had my final exam for Javanese today, meaning that its one subject wrapped up for the semester. Last night I invited everyone over to “study” and cooked spaghetti and meatballs. We had a great time, but didn’t get much study done of course. The problem with doing things at my kos is that I can’t invite any males, as they’re not allowed in. So Paul had to sit this one out. Tonight we’re going to see an Indonesian movie that apparently is really good and funny. Its called The Quickie Express, and sounds quite risque for an Indonesian movie! So it should be fun.

Its hard to believe that its less than 2 weeks until Christmas, which means I really need to start getting myself organised because I fly to Jakarta next Friday!

Today has pretty much consisted of going to the airport to see Roz off. Now, I’ve returned to my kos with the realisation that I have one full week of uni left - the week after next will only consist of 2 days as the semester ends on a Wednesday. This also means that I have a final exam and major essay to do in the next week and a half. It also means that it is less than 2 weeks until the majority of the ACICIS students go home. So this upcoming week will be a pretty big one for me - my last proper week at UGM.

In the end we decided that Roz had an unusual holiday. In the past 2 weeks she’d gotten to do a lot of touristy things, a few non-touristy things and some very strange things. The touristy things were the standard things to do. In Bali we went to Ubud and saw the Elephant Cave, in Yogya we went to the Water Palace, Borobudur, Prambanan and the Kraton. On the way back from Borobudur we’d stopped in the beautiful village of Kaliurang, on the slopes of Merapi, with cool and fresh air and visited possibly the best museum in Yogya, the Uller Sentalu Museum of Javanese culture and art. In terms of non-touristy, she got to experience the life of ACICIS students here - staying in a kos, going to the giant mall Amplaz and hanging out with a bunch of Australians. As for strange, well, ending up in hospital is definatly one of them. Another was the night that we got roped into teaching English. My friend Miko had been asking me to be a guest in his English class that he teaches, and I agreed and took Roz along with me. The class turned out to consist of 6 men in their late 30s-early 40s who were employed by TNT and had obviously been made to do the lessons. They knew very basic English, and were told to ask us whatever they wanted to know about us in English. You can imagine the results! Amongst other more…normal…things, we were asked what our plans were for marriage, what we liked in a boyfriend, whether we wanted one of them. When we tried to get them to talk about other things, such as “what do you like about living in Yogyakarta?”, one of them replied “because its full of pretty girls like you.” Another joked that he had a wife and child but no mistress, so one of us could be his mistress. After an hour and a half of this the class was wrapped up, thankfully.

So yes, it turns out I’m the provider of unusual and different holidays. A bit more than just the tourist experience.

Today is another recovery day. Roz’s holiday here had been going great for the first week. We’d been to quite a few places - Water Palace, Malioboro, Borobudur, Kaliurang and I’d shown her around UGM. Paul had also arrived in Yogya, and we’d all gone out for dinner for a couple of nights. It turns out Paul is living in a kos that’s only about a 10 minute walk away from mine. Which is great. But on Saturday things ground to a halt after I either ate something dodgy or was exposed to some bug somewhere. I then spent Saturday night trying, without luck, to stop my body doing everything it could to purge itself of its contents. I spent the next day in bed, unable to eat or drink or get up. After throwing up something like 16 times I was so dehydrated I was seeing black spots. Later on Sunday afternoon, Roz started doing the same thing and I developed a fever. So we had yet another sleepless night, and the next morning got Phil to take us to the doctor at the hospital. We wound up being admitted, as we were terribly dehydrated and still unable to eat or drink.

We were at the Bethesda hospital, a Christian one about 10 minutes drive away from where I live. They were really full so we could only get second class rooms (travel insurance goes a long way here normally) and started off in seperate rooms. These rooms were small boxes that the bed could hardly fit in. The walls were only partitions, so it was very noisy, and there was only one little fan in the room and a toilet at the end of the corridor. Later in the day we were moved to a different room, which was much better as we were sharing a room and had our own bathroom and a window that let a bit of a breeze in. The nurses were lovely and I think we were visited by just about all of them, wanting to know who we were and why we were here. We didn’t think we were going to be admitted, so all we had on us was our wallets, phones and cameras. We spent a few hours amusing ourselves with those until Phil and Bec came and brought us some books to read.

Luckily we were discharged the next day. I was relieved to get the drip out of me, as the needle was inserted in my wrist and was really painful after a while because everytime I bent my wrist it would move the needle around. We still need to take a round of drugs to be able to eat, and can only eat small amounts, but we’re gradually getting better. Hopefully we’ll be able to do a few more things before Roz goes on Saturday. At least she’s not too fazed by this turn of events in her first overseas trip.

I’ve spent the past 4 days in Bali in what I decided would be a ‘retreat’. Basically I hung out in a resort in Sanur. It was really nice, as Bali’s only an hours flight away and I went from the busy chaos here to a quiet, pretty beach there. I had quite a hectic flight, so once I actually got to the beach I found myself stopping, sitting down and enjoying the quietness for a while.

My flight to Bali was interesting, as it featured an incident. After boarding and going through the usual procedures - pulling out from the bay, watching the safety video and getting into position to go onto the runway - we then pulled back into the bay. about 5 officials and airport security guards got onto the plane and started looking up and down the aisles. They eventually found who they were after at the end of the plane. We were all starting to get a little nervous. Eventually flight attendants explained to us that they were checking that a man had a boarding pass. Eventually the man, a westerner, was removed from the plane. The flight attendants said that he didn’t have a boarding pass and wasn’t listed as having a ticket for the plane so they didnt feel safe taking him. It seemed that he’s just wandered onto our plane at some point. Very strange!

The flight itself was lovely, as it was a clearish day and I had great views of volcanos sticking out above the clouds. The highlight was seeing Mt Bromo from the air. Its a big crater that contains about 3 smaller volcanos inside it. Its really pretty, and hopefully I get to see it close up one day. When we left the coast of Java I realised that it was my first time off the island since I arrived there, 3.5 months ago. Then I started to pick out features of Bali. I got a little concerned when instead of banking and swinging into the airport we kept going, and soon the coast of Bali was well behind us. I started to worry that I was on the wrong plane! We wound up doing a low-flying loop over Lombok and swung back towards Bali, with an impressive view of Bali’s volcano, Mt Agung.

I had a day and a half until Roz arrived, so I made the most of the peace and quiet of the resort - relaxing by the pool, relaxing in my room, wandering around the beach (dodging pushy sellers).

Roz arrived late on Friday night, and on Saturday was eager to discover the new country (this is her first overseas trip). Feeling a little overwhelmed but coping quite well, she took the day in her stride. We went to Denpasar to vote at the Australian Consulate, and then on to Ubud. There we went to the Monkey Forest (satisfying Roz’s desire to walk through a rainforest) and then to the markets. We dropped into the Elephant Cave afterwards then headed back to Sanur to lie by the pool.

Sunday morning was spent shopping, then we headed over to Yogya. Again, Roz has to adjust to new surroundings, as Yogya is quite different to Bali, but is going well.

Last night a group of us went down to the main street of Yogya, Jalan Malioboro, for dinner with Becky to see her off on her holiday to Thailand. Emma, one of the UTS girls who’s been here since the beginning of the year took us to a lesehan, a temporary eating place set up on the side of the road at night time, that was in one of the streets off Malioboro. It was a really nice place with good food and a lovely, chatty woman running it. Despite being in the tourist area, we were the object of great fascination, as Westerners around here don’t normally eat in these places. Others sitting near us would come over to look at what we were eating and talk to us. They were all impressed that we could speak Indonesian, and were killing themselves laughing when a few of the girls started speaking in Javanese to them. Everyone that came to the lesehan to get food was asking the owner who we were and why we were eating there. It was a really fun time and a great atmosphere.

Its funny how you can be so used to something but then have a moment where you are struck by it. This happened to me last night in regards to wealth and poverty here. As some of us were waiting outside the mall I looked up into the glass windows of McDonalds. McDonalds here is quite expensive by local standards, with meals often costing five times the amount they would elsewhere. So only well-off Indonesians can afford to eat there. I was watching a table of a family of five eating, thinking about how their meal would have cost what quite a few less-well-off people earn in a month. I looked up at this scene, and then looked down to find a street kid, probably around 7 years old standing next to me with his hand out waiting for me to give him some money. These kids don’t have a house or family to go home to at the end of the day, they just survive on the streets.

Indonesia can be such a land of contrasts like this, this is a scene you see and experience nearly everywhere. Like the other night when I went into the family quarters of my kos to find someone to refill the water dispenser. I was surprised to see how many people were there. It seems like quite a few of the extended family sleep on the garage floor. Meanwhile, in the very same building I can afford my own room with my own bathroom that has hot water, a comfortable bed, a desk and the internet.

Its hard to say whether this is the result of the enormous population of Indonesia or whether its the lack of state welfare and services. Probably a combination of the two. Population pressures are always very obvious, with the hardest thing being to find enough jobs for everyone. Businesses seem to have a duty to provide as many people with employment as possible. This means that a lot of things are done deliberatly inefficiently to maximise the number of people required to complete a task. For example, whenever you visit a department store, there are always millions of shop assistants standing around, looking bored. If you want to purchase something, one person will take that item to another place, write a receipt for it, give you the receipt and then take it to the cash register. You then go to the cash register, hand over your receipt and make the purchase with a different assistant, while yet another one puts it in a bag for you, while another 2-3 assistants watch over your purchase.

Nearly every day I see people who I think have the most boring jobs in the world. Things like opening the doors to the bank, or being one of 5 staff who stand around in an empty cafe waiting to serve the odd visitor. But these are the lucky ones, they have a job. They have an income, that’s all that matters.

But the thing that always cheers you up about this place is the friendliness and community spirit, as we experienced when we ate at the lesehan. Everyone sticks together, shares everything and look out for each other. Its what puts a smile on your face and reassures you when you see things that make you sad.