Last week Wednesday night and I was at Legend Cafe with some school friends and some other exchange students, as per usual. The place is wonderful because it is relatively inexpensive but also has some more expensive meals if you'd like, including some not-too-bad pasta. More importantly, though, there is a pool table, foosball, Wii, Xbox with Kinect, and a PS3 with FIFA 13. You can buy a latte for about a buck and a half and then lounge around playing whatever for three hours; obviously a good hangout for broke high school kids.
I was crushing Romane in FIFA - six to nil if my memory serves me correctly - when Oza arrived to take me to UNY (Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta or Yogyakarta State University). I still didn't really have any idea what I was signing up for, in part because my cellular provider had been having issues all week and my ability to send and receive messages was spotty at best, but also just because nobody had yet really explained what this Culture Festival would all entail.
We arrive at the auditorium of UNY where I see students running about building stands for the four different countries represented, arranging chairs, setting up the stage, and who knows what else. As I was watching all the construction take place, Oza comes back to me and says the other Americans are at a nearby restaurant and we should head over there.
The restaurant took just a minute to get to, and once entering it wasn't too hard to find the Americans; there were only three white people in the place. We walked up, and before saying anything else, Jessica blurts out "No way! You're from Wisconsin?!" noticing my UW Madison t-shirt. "Ya I am. You are too?" I replied, only to be answered by Jenni who said "No, but we both go to school there. We are at Beloit College! Oh and this is Mario, he goes to school in Boston."
Waukesha to Beloit is probably no more than an hour, and here were the three of us all in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, a full 12 time zones away, about to get way over our heads in a festival sponsored by a university none of us were remotely affiliated with.
It turns out that the three of them were in Indonesia on a research program that includes a culture and language study stint for a couple months in Bali. After that, they were free to choose anywhere in the country to do their research, and these three chose Jogja. After all of our introductions, they explained to me their plan: we had to have a performance and food item, so they thought we could sing Build Me Up, Buttercup and make a nice, big batch of chili.
I was totally down for the singing, few songs get you a-moovin' and a-shakin' better than that, but my previous experience making chili for the Rotary Food Festival made me wary of trying it again. Considering we had a limited budget from the university and would be making almost five times as much as I did last time, I strongly recommended against it, and instead offered the breakfast bagels I had also previously made. They liked the idea and we set off to go shopping that very night, because that was the other issue: the festival was the next day.
With 50 bagels to make and 35 eggs to scramble, no kitchen I knew would suffice except for, perhaps, a bakery. I gave pak Syarial, a Rotarian and owner of R&B Restaurant and Market, a call remembering that a section of the kitchen was specifically for all of the delicious bread that was baked every morning. Once I explained the situation, he said that I could head on over and have at so long as the chef was in the loop. Great. It's already 8:30pm but we we have all our baking supplies in hand and a kitchen at the ready.
We arrive and I explain the situation to the chef. She said she would consult the bakers first to see what breads remained to be made that evening. To our dismay, they anticipated being done at around 9:30, only a half hour before closing and an hour and a half before the employees close up. Fifty bagels would take much longer than that, not to mention the hour needed to let the dough rise. Things looked grim until the chef said she could talk with the bakers about tomorrow's schedule.
After a bit of negotiating, it was decided that 8am the next day, the day of the festival, we would bake our hearts out with the help of the restaurant's bakers, since their bread would already be finished. Considering it was going on 10, this was a great relief to us Americans as well. Funny how less than a week prior I was told all I would be doing is talking about the US.
There are only two really good pizza places in Jogja. Mediterranean, my personal favorite, which is on the south side of town, and Nana Mia's, which is a bit east of the city center but close to a lot of university campuses. On this particular occasion we were eating at the latter. Samantha and I had been invited there by a Turk by the name of Ahmet. There was another Turk with us, Akif, who was Ahmet's business contact in Jogja and the reason he was even here at all.
Samantha and I had gotten ourselves invited when we happened to be in grocery store while the Turkish men were shopping for some exotic fruits to sample. I recognized them first, having met two days prior, and walked over and introduced Samantha. They said they were going out for dinner and we should come along, and so we did.
We ate and chatted for at least three hours in no fewer than three different languages, none of which was a common language for all four of us, and had a really great evening. At one point, an Indonesian girl behind me heard me speaking English and asked if I was American.
Being a fairly common question, I responded in Indonesian, much to her and her friend's surprise. She went on to ask if I was staying in Yogyakarta and if so, would I still be around by next week. With two more yes-es, she finally asked if I would be willing to help her by joining UNY's culture festival along with a few other Americans. With my school now over and little else that needed doing, I quickly agreed and gave her my number so we could meet up again and go over specifics, something that didn't end up happening until the next Wednesday, only a day before the event.
I'm quite certain that had I not been speaking English to my new Turkish friend I never would've been invited to participate in much of anything.
It was tourism season in Jogja for Rotary students from all over. On this particular night at Legend Cafe, there were three. Beyond the non-Jogja exchange students, there were five of us staying in Yogyakarta, two Rotex, and an outbound student as well. Our table was packed and we were probably the loudest group in the place.
Around 8 or so, we noticed three white men sit down at a table near ours. This is a kind of strange event at Legend as it really isn't frequented by tourists or expats. Not only did we notice them, however, but they too took notice of us. The eldest of the three come over to us and asked me if I was an American. When I said yes, he laughed saying he thought so, something about the way I looked struck him as particularly American. He called over the other two men, who appeared to be still in their mid-twenties, in Turkish and they all pulled up at the table adjacent to ours.
This middle-aged Turk's name was Ahmet and he had lived in New Jersey for the past 13 years running a business importing Turkish marble. The other two men were a manager at a charcoal factory and a lecturer at UGM, Indonesia's most prestigious university. Having just moved back to Turkey six months prior, he was here in Indonesia on behalf of his brother who was looking to expand his import of charcoal from the region for use as the charcoal briquettes used for sheesha.
So we all talked and shared stories of our times in various countries, Ahmet showed me his family still living in New Jersey, and we all enjoyed meeting people from completely different walks of life with the tiniest link to one another. I have had little experience with Turkish people, but if these three were any indication of the friendliness of the nation, it is a place I would very much like to visit.
From exchange students from France, Brazil, and Mexico; to businessmen from Turkey; to students at UNY from all over Indonesia; to Americans going to university in my own home state; it is truly amazing all the people you meet when you study abroad and allow yourself to be open and friendly to anyone. Some of those people I only shared a meal and a conversation with, some a slaved over ovens to bake 50 bagels with, others still I have their contact info just in case I ever make a trip to their home town, but all of them had some impact on my exchange to Indonesia and my life as a whole.
As a reward for reading all the way through my reverse chronological saga, here is the video of us dancing and singing to Build Me Up, Buttercup:
Today, however, I depart for my trip to Bali, Lombok, Komodo, and other small and tropical islands. I will be out of contact, but rest assured that I will have beautiful beaches looking after me.
