Selamat Ulang Tahun Yogyakarta!

     Yesterday, September 6th, was the city of Yogyakarta's birthday. How the people of Yogyakarta decided that this day is the official day of it's founding and just what constitutes that founding 276 years ago despite there being people here for centuries I never really found out. But nonetheless, September 6th is the day, and with it comes a few things.

     That night, Malioboro was closed to traffic and all street vendors (not food vendors, just the people selling knock-off goods and various cheap wares) leaving the places more open and subsequently filled with people. There were also a couple of stages set up however I only saw one band performing on one stage. I don't actually know why there were three except that one of them was used by XL, a wireless provider, and there a bunch of schools did this dance contest of sorts, mine included.

     First, every school was dressed how they saw fit. SMK 1 wore their gym class uniforms with crazy straw hats for example. My school made masks out of boxes that we painted, and then a bunch of people painted themselves white, pretty much just because they could. We looked a little something like this:

This is Gambit (not his real name but I honestly only know his nickname) who is probably the most ridiculous kid in my class.

SMK 1 standing beside us in their garb.

My class gathering in a circle for out chant.

     Once your school was up, you had to do your chant. I'm still not really sure why but everybody was pretty pumped up so there was a whole lot of energy which made it pretty cool.After that, you all faced the stage and performed maybe 40 seconds of this dance that we learned at school earlier in the week. After every school had gone through, each school went a second time, but instead of doing the dance we had all learned, each school performed their own variation of it. I, unfortunately, had missed this little lesson, so I learned the dance about five minutes before doing it. Needless to say, things went mediocre for me. In the end, I don't know who won because I couldn't understand anything the MCs were saying, but I'm about 99% sure it wasn't us.

     After the contest, I had to go get a shirt for the next day (will explain this in a moment) on the South end of Malioboro and then forced myself, along with some friends and other exchange students, through an exceedingly thick crowd to get my bike to finally get home. We finished dancing at about 8:30 and I wasn't leaving Malioboro until 9:35, so the crowds were pretty thick. Despite the crowds, though, we still managed to take a picture with the becok and horse carriage drivers:

     The next day at school, everyone wore various traditional clothes (that's where the shirt I needed to borrow comes in). My particular class wore the clothing of traditional Javanese farmers, so nothing too fancy:

Getting dressed at one of my classmate's homes who lives close to school.

     Other classes were dressed differently, most wore more wealthy clothing and they showed off a few different styles. What is most interesting, however, is that almost all traditional clothing from the area (and I think Indonesia at large, but I can't say for certain) mixes very old local styles with Dutch clothing. Typically, men would wear a 19th century Dutch military-style jacket and a jerek, or traditional Javanese skirt for men. Women would also wear a jerek (although it may have a different name for girls even though it seems the same) and then have a pretty ornate blouse of some kind. This half and half combination is found pretty much everywhere, especially among members of the royal family of Yogyakarta. That's right, Special Province Yogyakarta is still ruled by a sultan as its governor. How sweet is that? Here are a couple examples of fancier clothing traditional to Jogja:

     We didn't actually have any school that day, we just came all dressed up, walked about, hung out for a bit, then went to a classmate's house to eat. Nothing is more Indonesian feeling than eating a chicken and a huge pile of rice with your hands, on the floor, with about 30 people.

Bule on a Bicycle

     Starting this past week I have begun biking about the city of Yogyakarta and it has been wonderful. I bike the 4 or so kilometers to and from school everyday, which is pretty darn short, but usually takes about twenty minutes because: a) it's always hot so nobody rides a bike very fast except at night otherwise you will sweat profusely, and b) the traffic here is crazy which makes going anywhere a bit difficult.

     Speaking of traffic, I'd like to attempt to make you understand what I mean when I say "traffic here is crazy". First off, lanes are suggestions. Actually, lanes aren't even suggestions, they are just lines painted on the ground for the amusement of the government. Anybody can drive anywhere at any time. This includes using turn lanes to go straight, not having turn lanes to pull u-turns causing traffic to back up, and the "bike lane" existing simply as another car lane. Additionally, the motor (a term used for pretty much any two-wheeled vehicle with a motor, be it true motorcycle, scooter, moped, etc) to car ratio is about 5 to 1. Even fewer rules apply for motor and they freely whiz about, weaving between cars and slower motor drivers. Right of way as we know it does not exist. Pretty much whoever is going fastest and is most aggressive gets the go ahead. This is particularly true when pulling out onto roads, pulling u-turns, and backing out of parking. You just slowly creep forward until you block the entire lane forcing any oncoming traffic to stop, allowing you a chance to get out.

     Parking is another fun aspect of life her. There are rarely parking lots and the streets are by no means wide enough for a parking lane. Usually in front of all shops there is just a slab of cement that you pull into or sort of parallel park in so that at least you aren't in the middle of the road. Because the cost of labor is so cheap here, pretty much every place, be it a restaurant or a perfume shop, has a parking attendant. These guys helps you park as close together as possible and then yell at oncoming traffic, sometimes they even have whistles, to get them to stop and let you out. They also collect the 2000rp it costs to park a car or 1000rp it costs to park motor anywhere in the city. The price is standard for every parking space except at special events. By the way, 2000rp is only about 20 cents.

     Getting back to riding bicycles, I have also ridden down to Molioboro, which is the main shopping and tourist visiting street here in Jogja, which is only 15 minutes or so away. The best, however, is the Jogja Last Friday Ride. For the last Friday of every month, teenagers from all over the city gather at the stadium near the center of the city and go for an hour long bike ride. I'm talking hundreds of people with all different types of bikes, including these crazy 6ft tall bikes that everyone here seems to own, riding in a mob that occupies half the street they're on. This last Friday, a couple of my friends from school took Samantha from Brazil, Romane from Belgium, and I along for the Jalafara (Jogja Last Friday Ride). Sadly I did not snap any pictures because I forgot my camera, but I plan on going again next month so I'll try to remember then.

     As for the term "bule" which is something along the lines of the Spanish term "gringo" but a bit more endearing. It's used specifically for white foreigners I believe, but I'm actually not positive on that one. Sometimes when I'm with my family or friends, I can tell when a stranger is asking about me because they will usually refer to me as bule. I can't understand what they are saying about me, but at least I know it's about me.

     That's all for now, I'm just about to leave to visit Kraton, the Sultan of Jogja's palace, so expect a post about that soon-ish. Cheers.

It's been a while, let's have a chat

Alright, so first off I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with this in the slightest. As of tomorrow I will have been in Yogyakarta for a month and I've only done one post since arriving. I've been exceedingly busy doing things that, quite frankly, I'd rather be doing than sitting at home on my computer. So here I'll just be posting some highlights of my first month. Maybe I'll dive into some cultural aspects along the way, we'll see.

One of the first events that I took part in was a part of this thing called "Hash". Now I've seen some banners that refer to it as the "Hash House Harriers" but I've done no research and still don't fully understand it. Regardless, it is essentially just a bunch of people who go on short hikes, 4-7 kilometers depending on how adventurous you are feeling, and then eat soto (asian style soup, as opposed to sop which is western style soup) with bakso (essentially meatballs but, well not exactly meatballs. I think they're made with chicken, which is why I think the have a texture akin to chicken sausage, but it's rather hard to explain) once you return. It's not like a group hike, everyone comes and goes as they please, but its organized as a group. Well, at least the first two to Merapi, the rather active volcano just to the north of the city, were like this:

 Pretty much all of the fertile parts of Merapi look like this due to the nutrient rich soil. Lush vegetation would be a bit of an understatement.

There are small roads up and down the mountain and plenty of people living both in the foothills (like this picture) and further up. Most of the people immediately around the volcano are taking advantage of the fertile soil and are farmers.

A week or so later, however, my host family took me as well as Samantha from Brazil, who is being hosted by the same Rotary Club here, to the Pan-Indo Hash. Apparently these Hashes take place all over Indonesia (possibly even many parts of the world, that was hinted at but never made clear) and once a year there is a single Hash in a single location in Indonesia and this year it happened to be right here in Jogja. For four days straight, right after school, we would go to some location and this time everybody was walking together; roughly 2000 people, sometimes wear the same clothes, sometimes not, walking beautiful routes right here in Yogyakarta:

 The first walk was down Molioboro, which is like the Champs Elysees of Jogja. There are an absurd number of shops, tons of street food vendors, and its full of tourists. Except on this day, there were too many Indonesians wearing red for tourists to get by.

Did I mention there were elephants walking down the streets with us?  Because there were. Samantha and I walked with these two for the second half and chatted with one of the zookeepers who works at the local zoo where these elephants are from.

 This photo doesn't do a sliver of justice to the awesome reservoir we started beside. We then walked across the dam and the through some of the hills further downstream.

 In addition to walking amongst hills we crossed a river that had only bamboo poles lashed together to form a bridge. It was shaky and bowed in the middle as anyone crossed it but we didn't see anyone fall in so I suppose it works just fine.

 The third day was at Ratu Boko temple, which is a rather old (think built in the 8th century) Hindu temple that is right next door to the better known Prambanan Hindu temple seen in the distance, slightly right of center.

This is the entranceway to the temple sight. It is actually a pretty large facility because it was also a bath house specifically for women. Most of the pools are still around even though most of the actual temple is gone.

 This is looking north of Parangtritis beach. The cliffs are pretty much gorgeous.

This is the beach itself. The waves are incredibly active and the sand is very fine and black. The whole place is absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to visit other beaches here in Jogja.

Since arriving, I've also had the opportunity to go to a couple of parties. The first was a birthday party for the daughter of a friend of the third host-mom. When I heard birthday party I thought, alright, sweet, a chance to meet some people and maybe other teenagers. Well I was right, but what I didn't know is that in Indonesia they have sweet seventeens, and this was a mighty sweet one. It was on the top floor of a very nice hotel owned by yet another friend of my third host-mom. There were fancy bartenders, the kind who flip around the shakers more than they actually make drinks but it looks really cool so no one complains about the fact that it took him six minutes to make a rum and coke; an absurd quantity of food that was all very delicious; a live band who almost exclusively played American pop music, American music is sort of a big deal here in general and usually I'll hear more English than Indonesian on the radio; and fireworks towards the end. The whole thing was pretty impressive.

The second event was a wedding reception which must have had at least five hundred guests and may have actually been a couple hundred more than that; the space was so huge it was hard to tell. The food was served at a series of stands, basically a cross between tapas style and a buffet. Of course everything was delicious, as pretty much everything here is, and there was more than enough for everyone.

Last week I had a bit of a change of pace and I attended the city-wide orientation for Yogyakarta. There are seven exchange students, including myself, in the city. For a week we studied Indonesian, learned more about Indonesia and Jogja, and just had fun. Most of the orientation was conducted by Rotex, former exchange students who all live in Jogja now and range from exchanging last year to exchange in 1997-98. There was also one guy, Max, who happened to be both a Rotex and a form inbound to Jogja. He exchanged to Indonesia two years ago, returned to Germany for a year, but decided that he'd rather go to university in Indonesia, so he returned and is in his second year now. Every day after several hours sitting in a room with copious amounts of snacks (if food isn't an obvious theme yet then it should be, I have never been this well-fed, particularly against my will), the exchange students, Rotex, and few Rotarians would go and do something such as:

Go swimming at Pak Candra's house, a Rotarian and all around nice man (fyi, Pak is not part of his name, the terms Pak and Bu, short for Bapak and Ibu which literally mean Father and Mother, are used in roughly the same manner as Mr. and Mrs.)

Go paintballing because it only cost $6 with everything you see here! And it's entertaining to try to communicate battle strategies when not everybody can fluently speak a single language.

Go to the local zoo and see some pretty sweet animals, including the native Komodo Dragon.

Celebrate the Chinese Mooncake Festival. I'll take advantage of this lineup to name the other exchange students I'll be seeing off and on throughout my stay here. From the left: Samantha from Brazil, Angelica from Columbia, Roman from Belgium, myself in a batik shirt from my host-family, Amy from Canada, Jiang-Wei (goes by James) from Taiwan, and Hideto from Japan.

To end it all we had a closing ceremony/party that was also a speech contest. Every day at the end of our Indonesian lesson, we had to write a short, four to eight sentence speech that was then filmed and would be watched the next day. So to cap it all off we had to write a two to three minute speech and present it to all of the host-parents, Rotex, and several Rotarians.

Another lineup with appropriate flags. Except James who managed to forget his.

I took second in the speech contest behind Romane and followed by Samanth. There were tons of host-parents there so there were tons of cameras, thus we all are looking in different directions, particularly away from this one.

Most recently, yesterday in fact, I visited Merapi once more and Borobudur. At Merapi this time around, I took a jeep tour through what used to be a riverbed, but following the eruption in 2006 is a barren ash valley. Before the eruption there were several rivers that led down the mountain; today there still are but in different locations than before. When the volcano erupted and the lava began flowing, it tended to follow the paths that were already laid out for it in the form of rivers. With the water being replaced but lava, the water was forced to redirect, creating the rivers that exist today. after the lava cooled, the riverbeds were nothing more than rock and ash. Today that ash is essentially mined and mixed with of dirt to create nutrient rich soil for farming. Here are some awesome pictures of all of that:

 Merapi in all its glory, although seriously this doesn't do the thing justice. Also, that is just a conveniently placed cloud, not smoking rising from the top of the volcano.

 Driving through a riverbed composed of ash.

 This is a bunker with Merapi in the background. The bunker was designed to protect those who could not escape the mountain fast enough but could get there from ash. Unfortunately for the three men who holed up in the during the 2010 eruption, it was not designed to protect from lava and the three were basically cooked inside. Morbid, but historically important. Also the people of Jogja are pretty superstitious and no one else in my group would actually go inside the bunker because ghosts remain there.

 The jeep that took us around along with some of my classmates who I went with.

Some burned out remains of homes.

After the merapi tour we went to Borodudur which is the largest Buddhist temple outside of India. Rather than bothering to describe how immense and beautiful it is, here are pictures:

 The approach from the East side

 A portion of one of about 600 reliefs, this one depicts Siddhartha Gautama attaining enlightenment.

 The view to the South. Pretty much every direction looked like this though, the entire surrounding area was gorgeous cliffs and expansive farmland.

 One of a couple hundred statues. Most no longer have their heads and all are in slightly different positions.

The statues on the top two tiers encased in cage-like stone structures. This temple was a sight for pilgrimage and you are supposed to climb the temple, pray, then reach in to the cage and touch the statue's hand to aid in your journey for enlightenment. Today people just say that if you can touch the statue's hand while keeping your feet on the ground you will have good fortune.

So that's what has been happening in terms of major events and sights. From here on out I think things will be slightly less hectic so I will be trying to post with some regularity. Cheers.

Home Sweet Home

     A few hours after my last post we met up with the Belgian exchange students and a few minutes after that the exchange students from France.We were able to chat a bit, exchange some pins and cards, and snap a picture. The bright blue blazers are the students from France while the navy blue blazers are both the Belgians and us Americans however you can tell us apart because the Americans have so many pins as a result of the epic pin swap at Central States Conference. Third from the left is Romane from Belgium who is also spending the year in Jogja.

After that we made our way to gate 41 and onto Jakarta, a nine hour flight.

     Stepping off the plane in Jakarta was equal parts exciting and terrifying. None of us were entirely sure how to get from arrival to domestic transfer, the poor French and Belgian students were speaking English as a second language to immigration officers who were speaking English as a second language also, and we had no idea where Mas Indra (the executive secretary for Rotary Youth Exchange in all of Indonesia) was and we were supposed to meet him. But at the same time, we had finally made it - we were actually in Indonesia!

     It was pretty obvious I wasn't in Wisconsin anymore. The warmth hit you as you stepped out of the door and everything was green and tropical looking. The walkways at each gate that led to the actual, physical gate to the plane, were glass and between each walkway was beautiful green space, like so:

     As we made our way through immigration and luggage claim, to customs and eventually domestic transfer, we realized things were going to be just fine. The workers at Garuda Indonesia, a domestic airline, were beyond excited to see us with our blazers full of pins. I think we had about 20-30 pictures taken of us with various staff members and security guards. With boarding passes in hand, although now separated into a few groups of two or three, we made our way to the domestic terminal, said a couple of goodbyes, and each of us went to our own gate.

     From there, I was on my own. The flight from Jakarta to Yogyakarta was about an hour, but even with a delay on the tarmac of about 20 minutes, the flight felt extremely short compared to the previous 13 hour and 9 hour marathon-like flights. Despite the flight being so short, it was apparently long enough to warrant a snack of bread filled with some kind of curried meat and a cupcake-esque pastry. Here is the first food picture of many:

     In Jogja, I was warmly welcomed by not only my first host family, but also my second host parents, my third host mom, and my club youth exchange officer and her husband. They had a banner, my 10-year-old host brother, Jovan, gave me a Javanese hat whose name I don't remember right now, and were just as excited as I was.

This isn't everyone, but from from left to right is my second host mom, Lili; my first host mom, Marissa; myself; my first host brother, Jovan; my Youth Exchange Officer, Lina; and her husband, Yohannes.

     From the airport we drove to a restaurant; well drove would be putting it mildly, we more or less did battle on a road in a car with all of the other cars and an insane amount of motorcycles. As far as I can tell, the rules of the road are roughly that there are no rules of the road. So long as you don't actually hit someone else, you can get as close to them as you want; car, motorcycle, pedestrian, you name it. But more on that in another post. At the restaurant, I met Amy, an exchange student from Canada, and my host club's president whose name I was never actually told. The food was good, all five different things they had me try, but with the jet lag my eating and sleeping schedules are so out of whack I couldn't eat a whole lot. From there we went back to the airport where we were supposed to welcome Samantha from Brazil who will begin by staying with my second host family, however her flight was delayed a few hours, so my host family and I left to go home.

     My new home is directly above the optical shop my host father owns. There are sort of three stories, but it is very open in the middle with stairs zig-zagging from one level to the other. From the garage you go up the stairs to the kitchen on the right, then more stairs take to to a main level with a family room area and both my host parents' room and my host brother's room, then some more stairs take you to the final level where my room is as well as a bathroom and a nice little terrace that is dominated by the clothesline. Hopefully some pictures will help to clarify what my words cannot quite describe:

This is the garage, which is openly connected to the rest of the house, from the stairs connecting the second and third levels. At the bottom left, is where the kitchen entrance is and that green line in the orange wall there is actually an opening above the sink.

This is from the third level looking onto the second level where you can see an orange sofa in the back and just behind that and a bit to the right is the door to my host brother's room. The last picture was taken at the top of the steps right in front of this one and ninety degrees to the left.

This is my bedroom before unpacking.

This is my bathroom which doubles as the shower. Yes, the whole room is the shower. Just to the left of the toilet you can see a little sprayer, that's your handheld bidet.

     So that's where I'll be spending the next three or so months of my life. And with a view off the terrace overlooking Mt. Merapi, I think that I will be just fine.

The Great Crusade

     "You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months... The eyes of the world are upon you." -Dwight D. Eisenhower.

     Now I'm fully aware that Eisenhower was talking about the epic undertaking that was D-Day when he wrote those words, but I think anyone in a position like mine can appreciate them all the same. 

     Getting onto that plane in O'Hare was one of the biggest actions I've taken, and will spawn many more very important actions; but my exchange truly began nearly 10 months ago and I have been preparing ever since. Between interviews, conferences, and speeches, I've done a lot more than just hop on a plane to get here (here, by the way, is Doha, Qatar where I'm currently waiting for a 2am flight to Jakarta).

     I also didn't get on this plane all by myself. From Ed True, the Asian Southeast coordinator for Central States; and Dennis Swetlik and Kelly Mundell, district 6270's former and new chairs; to my family and girlfriend; and the other exchange students I'm seated beside, people everywhere have devoted themselves to helping me get here: the eyes of the world are upon me. And for that, I thank them.

     That's enough seriousness though. On a more down-to-earth note, flying with Qatar Airlines was pretty awesome (that pun was completely intended). The food was definitely the best airline food I've had, which I know isn't setting the bar too high but the lamb I had for dinner was solid. The flight was long, about thirteen hours, and I only slept for a couple hours, but it wasn't all too rough. Having the seat next to the window seat, I was still able to see the landscapes of Eastern Europe, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and of course Qatar.

     Touching down in Qatar was something else. As we descended, we saw desert, just a lot of desert. But as we got closer we realized that there we concrete houses scattered about. They were clumped together with a bunch of desert in between, something like this:

Now this was cool and all, but what really did it was after another period of desert, there was this very new, very wealthy looking place. The picture is a little Bluetooth, but if it had a few more lights it very well could have been Las Vegas:

Actually looking at the picture doesnt do it justice, but suffice it to say that it was impressive.

     After landing and taxiing for nearly five minutes, we deboarded on old school stairways pulled up beside the plane. Mind you we were on a 777-300ER, which is huge. As we stepped out of the hatch, we were blindsided by scorching winds. It was if someone had installed wind tunnel fans in a sauna, and this is at 6pm so the sun is setting. We hopped on a bus which drove us pretty much everywhere possible in the airport I think, and eventually took us to the departure terminal where we are now.

     I'll give another update in a few days once I've made it to my final destination: Yogyakarta. T-five hours until our next flight.

Central States Conference

     I just returned yesterday from Grand Rapids, MI where the Central States Rotary Youth Exchange Conference was held and it was wonderful. Central States is a collection of Rotary districts - or as I like to call it, a super district - that all work together to coordinate Youth Exchange. There are tons of benefits including an increased "buying power" of sorts such that we exchange with 43 countries, a distribution of labor which makes each coordinator responsible for about a dozen countries each, and most importantly a massive conference of nearly 500 exchange students at various stages of their exchange. No other district or super district in the world has something quite like our conference.

     Getting to meet more inbounds, particularly the gals from Indonesia (special shoutout to Cayla from Yogyakarta for giving me tons of helpful information on Yogya and just being super nice) was excellent and served to answer plenty of questions. I also had the opportunity to meet the other outbounds who will also be going to Indonesia from Central States, which I believe constitutes about half of all US originating Indonesian inbounds. Perhaps most important, however, was talking with all of the rebounds: the ones who know it best. I first met Sam, a rebound from Jakarta, Indonesia whose real home is Racine. He was an absolute wealth of knowledge and will probably continue to be so until about 14 months from now when I no longer have any exchange questions. Daisy, a rebound who actually spent her year in Yogyakarta, was particularly helpful at covering some more detailed questions about day to day life.

     Beyond all of this conversing were the epic dances that took place all three nights we were there. With very few kids dating anyone there (I say very few only because I'm certain someone somewhere in that vast collection of kids was breaking one of the D's) and most just out to have a good time with no nonsense, lots of kids were actually dancing. Hardly any of the dirty, annoying, American grinding that burns our eyes at homecoming dances. We were just dancing, even if you were awful like most of the Thai kids, you were dancing. It was a great time. Particularly noteworthy was McKim, an outbound from my district, 6270, going to Thailand, who could flail his limbs in a fashion that was equally terrifying because it looked like he was seizing and about to pass out, and amazing because he didn't look completely stupid and was actually doing it all to the rhythm of the music.

     On Saturday night, after the evening's dancing, everyone in our dorm went to the basement and we all had an after party of sorts. We were mostly seperate by our districts, there were probably five in the whole dorm, but as time passed, we began mingling a bit. Around 2am, we grabbed some sheets and donned togas, as it is district 6270's tradition to make the event into a toga party. When we were urged off to bed, we all proceeded to remain awake. For McKim, Joe, and I, along with a handful of girls, we would remain awake until about 9am on the bus ride home. 

     The most difficult part about the trip came on this bus ride home. Saying goodbye to individuals was certainly hard. For McKim and Sam, both of whom I've spent less than ten days physically being with, it was particularly hard. This may have been the last time we see each other for an entire year if we are unable to coordinate a last minute get-together before McKim is off on 5 August. But worst of all was the realization that this was the last time seeing everyone like this. For the past three conferences, pretty much the only things we have done for RYE so far, all of the outbounds were always there together. We have always been learning and talking and just being together, even if we didn't all necessarily hang together all the time. Next time each of us goes to something for our exchange, it will be an airport without any other district 6270 outbounds. To any of you guys reading this: best of luck to you in you new country, I already miss you and we're not even gone.

     After everything that has happened these past four days, I am ready to leave right now. I couldn't be more excited and feel more prepared than I am right this instant. I'm writing this after just getting off of work and while I was there alone, our sole customer began talking to me. Once I mentioned how I will be going to Indonesia next year we began chatting about it because he had exchanged to Spain in his senior year at UW-Madison. We talked for about an hour and a half until another customer came in, who then joined us in discussing something about healthcare and economics. Randomly conversing with other exchange students, even those who exchanged several years ago, is a beautiful and heart-warming thing that I look forward to, amongst so many other things, in the year, and years to come.