Idul Fitri at MY House

Actually, the title is a little misleading because I celebrated Idul Fitri just about everywhere in Makassar except my house. I initially wanted to have some people over, but I realized that I couldn’t possibly compete with the mass cooking skills of a seasoned Indonesian wife. For those of you unfamiliar with Islam, Idul Fitri is the day that marks the end of Ramadan—the fasting month for all Muslims. Basically, this means that everyone is really stoked to munch on a grand buffet of their favorite foods during daylight hours. The week after Idul Fitri is known as Lebaran, and (from the perspective of an Indonesian anyway) it is a full schedule of the following:

1. Wake up early as always. Usually, everyone gets up for the call to prayer at 5 AM. Lebaran is no exception, because we want to get up and out so we can eat as much as we can!

Wait a second. Here I have to digress about the waking up thing. I have realized that the students at my Pesantren actually have no concept of sleeping in. They never do it. They don’t look forward to their day off so they can sleep in, because they get up at 5 for prayer regardless. I consider sleeping in to be one of the primary activities of an American high school student (other primary activities would include flirting with members of the opposite sex and experimenting with drugs and alcohol—2 activities that also certainly do not occur within the context of an all-male Islamic boarding school.)

2. Go wake up the American guy, drag him out of his house, and put him and his inquisitive tongue (which we can’t understand) into a cramped van with 12 other people or just make him cling to the back of a motorcycle.

3. Speed off to house number 1 with a crew of about 20 Pesantren teachers and staff. The person who lives here is a relative of one of our friends or something like that. When we walk in the door, the food will be ready and waiting, we need to shake hands with everyone (that totals about 40 handshakes) and make sure to comment on the height and whiteness of the American guy. If we are really shocked or particularly honored by the American’s presence, we will begin an unrelenting and interminable cell phone photo montage in every possible place with each possible combination of people at the party. Luckily for Mr. Jon, this doesn’t happen every time.

4. Silahkan makan. Makan! Makan! Please eat! For some reason, we always want Mr. Jon to be the one to start off the buffet line, and he must try a little of each dish (even the weird bouncy meatballs—luckily for me, I like food a lot and I can eat a good amount of it, so an eating holiday is certainly not the worst case scenario).

5. After no more than 20 minutes of eating and quick conversation in Bahasa Indonesia, we leave as rapidly as we arrived, but not before shaking everyone’s hand again. Pile back into the van and onto the motorcycles, and let’s roll to the next house!

Some of my Indonesian female friends in full formal Idul Fitri garb. Don't worry mom, they're all already married.

From my perspective, it took about as long to shake hands on the entry and arrival as the actual time we spent eating at each house. Nevertheless, it is quite efficient, especially given that one day I ate five meals before noon. The female head of the household never eats with the guests on these occasions, she is too busy setting up folding chairs, distributing individually packaged single-servings of water, and refilling the buffet from giant pots she brings out of the kitchen. This holiday is clearly about being all-inclusive. The more people at your house, the better, even if you don’t really know who they are. I tried to explain that we frequently do the opposite for Christmas in America—we always bring cookies and treats to our friends, relatives, bosses, and coworkers, but meal time is reserved for the closest family and friends and often takes place over a period of several hours. It certainly was nice to see everyone’s house and eat their food on the buffet tour, but I felt like meaningful conversation never came about because we spent most of the time engaging in the formalities of greetings and salutations. Still, throughout the whole week, when not touring buffets, everyone else was spending some good quality time with their families (though not around the Christmas tree). I spent some good quality time by myself reading and watching movies in my air-conditioned room. It is infinitely inexplicable to the typical Indonesian Muslim that I am able to live by myself, which brings me to my next subject.

Being a single male home-renter in Indonesia brings about some unique interactions and funny looks. Because I am tall and can grow a lot of facial hair, everyone assumes that I am much older than 22. Even when they find out that I am 22 (asking someone’s age, weight, marital status, or religion is not considered offensive here) they are surprised that I have not yet found a wife. The next questions, followed by laughs and/or looks of sheer bafflement are the following: Do you cook? Do you do laundry? Do you go shopping? Wait, you cook? How can you cook? What do you cook? Tik tik tik. The “tik tik tik” is the most common Indonesian noise, made by pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth and flicking it against the back of your front teeth while inhaling to create pressure. As far as I can tell, this noise is reserved for situations in which they are very impressed (like when a 3-point shot is made on the playground) or when someone is being rude or violating cultural norms (like when my friend Jane shows a little too much skin or the driver of my pete-pete almost crashes). So they are either impressed or disappointed…in ambiguous situations like the marriage conversation it is hard to tell how I am being judged—only that I am certainly being judged. Several of the men have suggested that they give me their Indonesian wife in exchange for one of my American girlfriends, and my quest to find an Indonesian wife has become my chief source of humor in a language where I still sound like a four year old.

The facilities: Kitchen and bathroom. Note: I am way too tall for that bathroom door.

So home-renting in Indonesia comes with a certain amount of social implications, but these pale in comparison to the logistical challenges of living in my house. Other creatures squatting on my property and sharing my living space are my primary concern. As far as I can tell, my house is the most infested of all the ETAs. John, a fellow ETA, stayed in my house for two nights and assigned the accurate yet hardly endearing title of “bug kingdom” to my humble abode. So far I have confronted roaches (I kill about 6 a day), ants, mosquitoes, frogs, giant spiders, a snake, rats, cats, geckos, flying bugs that I have never seen before etc. Just last night I was straining pasta into my sink, and poured the boiling water down the drain. Seconds later, as if someone rang the roach fire alarm, they started crawling out of every crevasse in the kitchen sink area and running for their lives in all directions!! Luckily I was Johnny-on-the-spot with the toxic spray and was able to chemically exterminate all of the stragglers. It was a triumphant victory and no doubt a significant blow to the bug kingdom, though I must admit I lost a lot of my appetite.

Attempting to wash dishes in my Leprechaun-sized kitchen. I have hit my head countless times on that cabinet as well as the doorframe in the background.

I have included some pictures of my house as it was the moment I first walked in the door on August 16^th. Pretty stripped down, though I do have AC (amazing and essential!), a washing machine, a fridge, western toilet (i.e. not just a hole in the ground) and a gas stove. Any of you who went to my dorm room or apartment in the last four years will know that I couldn’t live with the bare walls for long, so I am slowly decorating. I plan to take another set of pictures the day before I pack everything up, so I can see the impact my presence made on the place. Since these pictures were taken I have acquired a microwave, toaster oven, wok for stir fry, DVD player, and an Ipod speaker system. It almost feels like home, except when I have to engage in an aggressive bend just to get down to the level of my kitchen sink to wash some dishes (see photo). Also, two of my doors are too small for me to walk through with a good posture, so sometimes I feel like I am living on a submarine. The house itself is actually quite spacious, a little too spacious, because there is one room that is still completely empty. I just can’t think of any thing to put in it. So far, it is my secret planning room, devoid of furniture but covered with maps on all walls. It instills me with desire to take leave of the bug kingdom and explore more of this fascinating country—especially as I notice movement out of the corner of my eye, look down, and see another creature denizen of the kingdom scurry across the floor.

My living room. Clearly a couch deficit.