"Mom" pronounced with an Indonesian accent doesn't even sound like Ma'am. I'm so happy I already can correct their English without even having met them yet! The wonders of social networking.
Currently, I am still in Bandung until Thursday. Things remain pretty great here. We had the day off on Sunday, so the husband of one of the fellows (who has free time to walk around the city while we're all at meetings) chartered a bus for 12 hours to drive us three hours to a white crater lake near the peak of a mountain called Kawah Putih (White Crater). It was really cool--people commented that it felt like you were either on the set of Star Wars or some land from Lord of the Rings. Greenish-white sand everywhere, and this boiling, white, sulfurous lake in the middle of it all. It actually reminded me a little of Blue Lagoon in Iceland for anyone who's been there. Although I'd never go in that boiling water because 1. it's too hot and 2. apparently you're recommended to spend only15 minutes at the lake, as breathing in the sulfurous steam is bad for your lungs.
After we'd gone to see the crater, we went to a delicious lunch (sitting on the floor, of course, with a really low table) where we got way too much food and nevertheless spent about $5.50 each (I'm getting so used to this! Dangerous!). Then we picked more than a kilo of strawberries--apparently Bandung is famous for strawberries--and headed back to the hotel. We had actually hoped to visit a tea plantation on the way home, but our driver (whom, again, we were paying for 12 hours of driving, and who had only been driving for about 6 hours at that point!) was insistent that there was too much traffic and it would take too long. While we were discussing whether or not we wanted to go to go to the plantation, the driver took it upon himself to turn the bus around and start driving back towards the hotel. So we gave up and accepted the decision, apparently made for us, not to go to the tea plantation.
Still, it was a fun trip, and it was wonderful to get out of the city. I'd post photos from all the stuff I've been doing recently, but I didn't bring the cord to upload pictures from my camera. So I'll post them as soon as I can, once I get back to Surabaya in mid-September.
One other semi-crazy experience for a group of us happened a couple nights ago. We rented an angkot (cheap, tiny bus) to drive 10 of us to this beautiful restaurant, Dago Teahouse, located at the top of a hill overlooking the city. We had another amazing dinner sitting outside in the quiet (Yes! Finally peace from the roaring motorcycles) and relaxing. After the dinner, we were told there was some kind of traditional show going on, potentially involving machetes and people being put in trance-like states. Tabitha, who is a renewing Fellow and therefore has some experience with Indonesia already, was a little unsure; she said that those things can be kind of creepy. The people who practice that stuff are sometimes into doing self-mutilation (to show how they don't feel any pain while they're meditation or things like that).
In any case, we decided to give it a look. On the stage, there were about 10 men sitting in the back, chanting and drumming. A couple other men were kind of wandering around on the stage, not really doing much. One of the guys sat down and started meditating, and after about a minute, he got up and was given a machete, which he started rubbing vigorously on his bare shins and arms. He didn't draw any blood, but it was still kind of disturbing. Then he was given a green coconut, and he started ripping it apart with his teeth, and then after he had eaten most of it, he started drinking huge amounts of water (apparently when you are filled with the "spirit," one of the effects is you get really really thirsty). While this was happening, a woman in the audience started freaking out, because she apparently had also become possessed by the spirit. People jumped up and carried her (kicking and screaming) away to a room inside the building.
By that point, I was pretty much finished with the whole experience, as were a couple other people. Too weird and creepy for me! So we hitched a ride back in a taxi, as Jess (another renewing person) told us that the people we'd seen were comparable in a way to Java's Amish people--the performers are part of a sect that totally cuts themselves off from the rest of society, and refuses to use modern technology. They also practice animism, the oldest "religion" of Indonesia. In conclusion, I'm glad I got to see a performance by locals, but I hope that in the future, I can avoid the more disturbing sides of traditional practices and beliefs. Perhaps a traditional ballet in Yogyakarta?
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