1.6 million people…16 stoplights.

If my calculations are correct, that means there are enough stoplights in the city of Makassar to serve 4 intersections with a light facing each way. Of course, who says that we need a signal for each lane? Can’t we just drive based on context clues? Maybe we should just rely on an obnoxious musical horn to get us through the intersection. That is hardly an exaggeration. In some areas, rather than invest in a stoplight, the government has erected concrete barricades to direct the flow of traffic to either the left or right. Want to go straight? Take a left and then a few blocks later make a death-defying u-turn straight into the onslaught of oncoming traffic. Needless to say, this type of behavior makes navigating the city both exhilarating and extremely difficult.

The busy street in front of Pesantren IMMIM--note the blue pete-pete on the left.

My days on the town begin with the most difficult transportation feat—crossing the street. Long gone are the days of safety patrol volunteer students outside of the school ensuring a safe crossing after a short wait under any circumstances. The first time I watched a student at the Pesantren cross the street, I closed my eyes and winced because I literally thought I was going to witness the death of an adolescent boy right before my eyes. Since then, I have learned that one just needs to walk into the street…there is no such thing as a crosswalk and even if there were it would most likely not be heeded. There is no chance of waiting until the traffic is clear both ways on a four lane street, you could be there for hours. The best thing to do is to work your way across one lane at a time, sucking in your gut and standing perpendicular to the broadside of the passing cars that whiz within inches of your face blaring some bastardized version of “Mary had a Little Lamb” on their modified air horn. The cars may not have bumpers, or four windows, or even reliable breaks…but one thing no Indonesian driver can do without is a loud, fully functional horn that lets everyone know that they are joining the masses in the eternal struggle as one of the many grains of sand looking to squeeze through to the bottom of the traffic hourglass as quickly as possible. Police officers’ liberal use of whistles accompanied by hand signals during rush hour only serve to exacerbate this veritable cacophony. The entire traffic situation is complicated by the fact that I still instinctually look the wrong way when crossing the street, as this colony was one of the European ones where everyone was required to drive on the left side of the road.

Day trippin' inside of the colorful pete-pete.

A politically correct and culturally sensitive statement would classify the traffic rules as “innovative” or “representing the closeness characteristic of a collectivist culture” yet I would lean more toward “completely chaotic and virtually nonexistent”. However, one truly innovative aspect of the transportation system is the sheer variety of vehicles willing to take you somewhere for a small fee. The main mode of transport is the pete-pete, the Indonesian bus, which is really just a small van with two benches facing one another in the back. Despite its size, these vans have an amazingly large capacity, and the driver will vociferously pack ‘em in as he strives to earn more fares. It costs 2,000 rupiah (25 cents) to travel anywhere in the city on these things, which could be up to 10 kilometers. The only catch other than the cramped conditions is the extremely loud techno remix of the popular American pop song from 1998 blasting from the 250 watt stock bass system that seems to come standard in these vehicles. By the time you squeeze out the side door, you are completely disoriented and over stimulated, and it is hard to know if you just rode a bus or are desperately clinging to reality after emerging from a bad trip in the moshpit of a hardcore rock concert.

Bule party in transit.

The pete-pete have set routes, they don’t go everywhere in the city, so if by the time you dismount you still haven’t reached your final destination don’t fret. Most likely, you have arrived at a street corner with a small army of becak drivers on hand eagerly shouting “haaloo meester”, clapping, and banging bells—all enthusiastic displays that serve to signal that they are ready and willing to pedal you to your destination. A becak is like a bicycle rickshaw with the nimble legs of the driver steadily powering a rear wheel connected to a wobbly, two-wheeled carriage in front designed to hold two small passengers. The front-mounted carriage means that you get a great view of the city at a slightly-faster-than-walking pace, yet you are the most vulnerable part of the vehicle and frequently exposed to near collisions with other larger and more powerful vehicles sharing the road. Once, on a particularly fruitless becak ride, I looked to my right and saw a full-sized tour bus bearing down on us with the driver laying on the horn. My heart ricocheted off my sternum, backbone, stomach and throat like my chest cavity was momentarily a racquetball court. I actually thought I was going to die. Looking back on it, that would have been one hell of a way to go, in a smash and flurry of bamboo and flimsy metal, leaving the driver stranded in the middle of the road on his accidental new unicycle.

John riding the becak in style.

Finally, undoubtedly the most exciting “way to go” (very true to the double meaning of the phrase...'to travel' and perhaps 'perish') is by ojek—a motorcycle taxi. Motorcycles are definitely the preferred method travel in the cities of Indonesia, they probably make up 60 percent of the vehicles on the road. Quickly weaving in and out of traffic and braving potential head-on collisions while making a risky pass is all in a day's work for the experienced ojek driver. To quell your misgivings the driver will provide a helmet that is only slightly thicker than the plastic of a disposable water bottle and Indonesian-sized for a head that is about the same circumference as my palm. Nevertheless, the ride is exhilarating and you feel like you are taking part in a real cultural event as you cling for dear life within inches of fellow motorcycle drivers and passengers on their daily commute. Rest assured mom, I only take an ojek under dire circumstances.

Street scene in Bandung, West Java. Note the abundance of motorcycles. Also one of the rare stoplight sightings.

Of course, there are a few private cars and some taxis...though my personal view is that if you take a taxi when public transport is an option you have “copped out” and resigned to the fact that you are an ignorant and uninformed bule (gringo) who would rather rely on your pocketbook to get yourself home rather than your sense of direction and very limited language abilities. Needless to say, this attitude has wasted hours of my life riding in circles on the pete-pete; and then it hurts that much more to resign myself to the taxi when the clock strikes 11 PM and I am still no closer to my (new) home.

Selamat Datang ke Rumahmu Meester Jon!

Welcome to your house Mr. Jon! Wowza! Living and working at a Pesantren (Islamic boarding school) is near to the most extreme type of culture shock I can possibly imagine. Pictured above is the mosque in the center of campus. I live alone in my own house, yet simultaneously I am a member of the Pesantren community, consisting of 900 outstandingly enthusiastic male students (grades 7 through 12) and a slew of teachers and faculty who are equally if not more eager to interact with a big, tall, white American.

Everyone here has a different expectation of me, some contorted and exaggerated schema they developed in anticipation of my arrival, most frequently incorrect or impossible to fulfill. The director of the Pesantren expects me to teach from 5 AM to 10 PM, the English teachers treat me as a living textbook, hoping I will immediately transfer my fluency to their untrained tongues, and the students’ respect for me creates a general atmosphere of extreme shyness punctuated by outbursts and celebrations when I perform sports feats during recreation time. The latter is not too difficult on the basketball court given my height advantage, yet the superhuman expectations inevitably result in disappointment. When 100 high school boys lined up to watch me dunk on the basketball hoop, and I never quite performed the one-handed hanging massive air time dunk they expected from someone who comes from the same country as Kobe Bryant, the look of jaded dismay across their faces made it seem as if their grandma had just died. Similarly, I received a glance of alarmed consternation when I responded to one of the teachers laughingly stating that no, indeed I did not pack an LCD power point projector from America in my suitcase.

Case in point. August 17^th: Indonesian Independence Day. Who better to say a few words on the day dedicated to the independence of their country than the American guy? This ceremony was followed by a series of nonstop sporting events, of which I was the constant center of attention. The first event was a sport that I have since deemed dance interlude soccer. It took a while to explain the rules, but eventually I figured out that I was unanimously voted by the teachers to play striker (the most difficult and glorified position) but the twist was anytime somebody played this crazy traditional Indonesian music the game was put on pause and all players on the blacktop field needed to dance by themselves in place. Ultimately my dancing role as striker inspired more awe than my mediocre soccer abilities.

As soon as I leave my house, privacy is nonexistent. Everywhere I go on campus I am surrounded by a radius of short, young Indonesian boys in uniform five deep. When I engage the one in the front in conversation, he carefully crouches down and slinks to the back of the group, the space he left quickly being filled by two more eager uniformed bodies. Even when I am not surrounded by students I am confronted with constant stares that, once looked upon, pretend that they never existed.

Miscommunication is rampant. I can go through an entire day and be almost sure that nobody has fully understood what I wanted to say. Communicating with the English teachers is especially difficult. Today, all 11 of them met with me to talk about my teaching schedule. Rapid and lengthy exchanges in Bahasa Indonesia were interrupted by brief sentences or sometimes mere single words in English for my benefit. I felt like a terrified and helpless bunny rabbit locked in a cage with a pride of lions arguing over who gets the first bite. Ultimately, very little was resolved and I still don’t really understand my teaching schedule. Oh well, we will see how it goes.

Although it is tough, for now I am reveling in the experience of culture shock. This is a very genuinely different world, legitimately off the beaten path, an experience that many people my age purportedly strive for yet rarely achieve. It feels good; I am privileged to have this opportunity, although it is at times very lonely and intensely uncomfortable. The good side of the coin is that everyone’s enthusiasm for my presence has rubbed off on me. Although I may never understand them, and I feel more alone than ever standing in a crowd of hundreds of bashful Indonesians, I can’t help but smile at how privileged they feel just to be in my presence. This smile causes a chain reaction of reciprocal smiles and then for a few spare moments each day I feel the loneliness momentarily dissipate. Reason enough to wake up again at 5 AM and hop straight into that cold shower—exhausted, gasping with the shock of the water, and dizzy at the overwhelming possibilities the day may bring on a planet that I can scarcely still believe is my own.

First Day of Work

Straight of the plane and onto a bus, we sped through the renowned capital city of Jakarta en route to Bandung, a mountain retreat built by the Dutch so they could escape the heat—now the fourth largest city in Indonesia. A 35 or so hour commute, little food, even less sleep, and the social pressures of meeting thirty other Americans with whom I am sharing the Indonesian experience exacerbated the surreal feeling of this final leg of our journey. Rice paddies, trash
fires, insane traffic and formulaic conversation (So what school did you go to?) made the ride seem short compared to the excruciating jaunt from the United States to Singapore. Since arriving, we have risen early every day only to spend most of our time in a classroom setting learning how to be culturally sensitive and not get ourselves killed in this place. It is an agonizing experience for recent college graduates fresh from a summer of recreation to have their day filled with structured activities and presentations from 8 am to 5 pm. The hotel feels a bit like a summer camp where everyone has their own room and we “interact casually” during and after dinner, staying awake much later than is customary for the piously Muslim Indonesian. The problem is the jet lag. Even when I arise with the sun, my body can’t seem to get over the fact that 4 AM here is 10 AM in the States, so I wake up feeling fully rested even if I had gone to bed only two hours before. Rather annoying.

The only real event to report so far is my “first day of work” experience, a report especially dedicated to the former members of the private residence. I am one of the special English Teaching Assistants who was placed in a Pesantren—an Islamic boarding school—which basically means the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation thought I was qualified to handle the most extreme version of culture shock available in this country. When a Pesantren is mentioned, all of the Indonesians in the room begin to ooh and ahh like the institution itself is as mysterious as an obscure archeological find or as mythical as a secret style of kung-fu reserved only for the most learned masters. I had no idea until today.

Bandung is a city in Java, in the midst of many population centers and Java is probably the most “touristy” island second only to the infamous beautiful beaches of Bali. Nevertheless, the majority of English teachers at the Pesantren I visited had never spoken to a native English speaker or even seen one—except on American Idol. Even more shocking, the students (from elementary to high school) had spent most of their lives within the confines of the Pesantren forbidden to leave the campus. Their only connection to the outside world: internet and a monthly visit from their parents. This is a co-ed Pesantren, but the boys and girls are absolutely prohibited from talking to each other ever! Imagine graduating from high school and leaving the Pesantren at age 18 never having exchanged a word with a member of the opposite sex save the occasional bashful glance. That is a different kind of life.

The students treated me like I was Carson Daly on an episode of MTV’s Total Request Live…begging for photos and screaming with delight. Their exuberance was more invigorating to me than shotgunning 5 rockstar energy drinks. They were hanging on my every word, and the girls screamed and giggled with delight and embarrassment when they found out I wasn’t married. All of the teachers treated us as celebrities as well—following us around the campus shooting video, imploring our assistance in teaching English, and taking as many pictures of us as possible. We were incredibly honored guests. They brought out their finest food and even took us on a tour back to the female dormitories, a place where my friend the male teacher had not once set foot during his six year tenure on campus. When it came time to leave, the principal was begging us to stay and live there to help teach the students and staff. I can’t stop thinking about those two hours. In terms of “cultural experiences” it is my single greatest. Unfortunately, there are no teaching assistants scheduled to be placed there, but the visit really boosted my confidence and excited me to teach in my Pesantren in Makassar. Check out a few of the photos from the Pesantren visit. Big smiles from everyone!