Yesterday was graduation day! And I passed all my subjects and now have a shiny new diploma saying I speak, read and write Indonesian, Yay!

Hair and makeup

This is a picture from Saturday morning, getting hair and makeup. I had to show up at 6am to have a kilo of makeup smeared on my face, fake black hair pinned on my head and jewelry added to the bun. All this would have been ok, except for the fact that I was at a Sigurrór concert the night before and came home around 2 in the night. So I was preeeeetty tired.

At Sigurrós!

We got to the concert hall at 6 since the concert was supposed to start at 7. We waited until 9. Which was pretty frustrating. But then they started playing and it was all worth it. Jónsi playing his electric guitar with a violin bow, Amiina, the lights and the pictures, and the singing! Oh the singing!

When Hoppípolla was played several hundred Indonesians sang along in Icelandic, it was pretty magical!

And now I am almost on my way home! I am looking forward to it, I think I have been here for long enough this time and I am ready for the comforts of my regular life. And I am ready to eat healthy and work out and get things done and not just hang around all day. And I am ready to move into a new place and start putting my life together again. I fly just after midnight on Thursday, so I´m leaving on Wednesday. Almost there.

love

This week is the last week of school, and tomorrow I only have two weeks left in Indonesia. So I should be working like a mad woman trying to finish all my projects…

My old house

Last weekend I went to Semarang, probably for the last time until I go home. I was on my way downtown on Saturday but decided to stop at my old house, where I lived when I was an exchange student. My host parents moved out a few years ago and downsized considerably due to some money problems. It looks totally different now. I must say that I don’t get the new owners’ choice of exterior decorating, they seem to not have been able to settle on any one color, so the house is now peach, green, yellow and blue. With exposed red brick in certain places. I am not even kidding. It looks like a rainbow on acid inside a vandalized paint shop.

I saw my friend W on Saturday night, I haven’t seen her for seven years. We convinced each other that we both still look the same, although that might just be collective wishful thinking.

Two high school girls

We look seventeen, non?

I finally finished my batik last week. It went from this:

Half-done batik

To this:

Batik done!

My fathers collection of artwork by his adult daughter is ever growing…

love

I know I haven’t written for a while, I’m still alive. I’ve just been busy eating heavenly mangoes.

Javanese Opera

Although I did manage to go see a Javanese Opera with a friend. I only fell asleep a little bit, because I understand very little Javanese (it is quite different from Indonesian).

Oysters on fire

And me and my friends from the program celebrated the birthday of our favourite Japanese person by going out for sushi. We went to the all-you-can-eat-buffet-a-la-carte place I’ve written about before and I ordered for everybody, which was fun. We ate until we were all about to explode, but the chef kept putting stuff on our plates that we hadn’t ordered. Which was kind of scary, because if you don’t finish you have to pay a fine.

After dinner we all went to the birthday girl’s apartment and had some sake her parents had smuggled into the country last month.

I am so tired! I think its the heat. I am kind of looking forward to coming home to Denmark very soon. And my project is not going very well, the hospitals I want to do research at are taking a very long time to get back to me. But I think it will all be fine…

sara

I have a very good friend from the States, her name is J. J identifies as pro-life, while I identify as strongly pro-choice. Now, for me a few years ago, this would have been a complete deal breaker, I would either have had to ignore the subject completely in order to maintain our friendship, or I would have gotten angry and loud and probably broken the friendship off in the end. But thankfully, I am a little older, and a little wiser so I could calmly discuss the matter without taking it personally.

So here is the thing: the more we discussed abortions, the more I found myself agreeing with J. Did I change my mind? Not in the very least! Did she change her mind? Not at all either. What happened? We just agreed (and on some certain points we agreed to disagree).

So here we go:

Both J and I agree that the less abortions take place, the better.

• My primary reasoning:  abortions are neither fun nor nice. The woman goes through social stigma, has to take time off work at least twice, it is physically and psychologically difficult, there are risks to a surgical abortion like any other surgery (it is done in full anesthesia). So basically, I feel like an abortion should be a last resort, because, like I said, abortions are not fun.
• J’s primary reasoning: a fetus has a right to life.

So far so good, we agree on the what but only in part to the why. I would also like to mention that I am incredibly proud of living in a country where abortion rates are very low, in both Denmark and Iceland the abortion rates are 12 per 1000 women of childbearing age (15-44 years) and falling.

So how will we reach our goals of reducing abortions? Here we agree again:

• Easy access to safe and effective birth control and lots and lots of information, which means that a woman will not likely get pregnant unless she herself wants a child.
• A welfare system that means that a woman will never have to decide between having a child or feeding her self and her family. Research has shown that in America, most women who have abortions already have other children, and choose abortions due to economic reasons.

Both of these methods are effectively in place in both Iceland and Denmark, which is reflected in the low abortion rate. In some states of the United States, sex education is limited, and so is social support. That makes it a lot more difficult to keep from getting pregnant, and to keep the baby, in case of an unwanted pregnancy. Which again results in higher abortion rates, officially around 15-20/1000 women of childbearing age (and/or more poverty/unhappiness). The numbers depend on the source and obviously only include legal abortions.

If we succeed, abortions should become a last resort only.

So all in all, we agree on the most important bits, the only difference is that I call myself ‘pro-choice’ and she calls herself ‘pro-life’.

It is very nice to disagree with people, which is something I have been discovering only in the past few years. Imagine this same conversation between me and one of my med-school classmates from Scandinavia. It would go like this:

• Me: I am pro-choice. I think abortions should be free and available to all.
• My friend: I am pro-choice too, and abortions are freely available to all.
• The end.

And that would just be boring. So remember, disagree politely, and make friends with people with different backgrounds and opinions.

Easter came and went in Indonesia, as it did in the rest of the world. Here I am during easter dinner:

Easter dinner

Me, American J and Dutch K having chicken steaks. Not pictured are three of our yellower friends

This weekend was very nice. I started out with a trip to Jakarta to see a friend of mine play some music.

Indonesian Music

Afterwards I got to stay the night with my wonderful classmate from America. She made me pasta, grits (a Southern kind of gritty porridge) and let me use her hot shower (oh the luxury) and listen to some wonderful gospel and jazz.

On Sunday I went to a city called Bandung with two Indonesian friends and two Italian girls. We stayed with one of the Indonesians grandparents, in their rather grand guesthouse (13 beds in 4 rooms, three bathrooms and of course, full service). On Monday we went to see the white crater lake in the mountains.

Crater lake

Jumping at a the crater lake. Due to the toxic fumes, we were only allowed to stay at the lake for 15 minutes. Everybody was walking around coughing loudly and covering their faces, but since it was sulphur, it just reminded me of Iceland.

Adios!

Last weekend, me and 9 friends went to the 1000 Islands, a popular vacation spot just outside Jakarta. And by ‘just outside’ I mean like a 3 hour boat ride.

We were all pretty tired from the ‘Day of speaking Indonesian’ the day before, so we were looking forward to some snorkeling and playing cards.

Since the boats leave at 6 (or so they say) I had to get up at 2.45 in the night to get a taxi from my suburb to the harbor. I woke up, showered, got dressed and went to the door, only to find the gate around my house locked. This is probably just as much to keep filthy, horny men out at night, as it is to keep us fragile, easily corrupted womenfolk in (oh if they only knew how corrupted I already am!)
Unfortunately, the owner of my building was away at a wedding so nobody could open the gate. So I had to get a chair, put it next to the gate , climb up, throw my bag down at the other side and then jump. I broke out of my own house. I think things like that are the reason Indonesians think white people are crazy.

I finally got to the spot where 8 of us got two taxis. Now, when I wake up super early, my stomach kind of revolts. So I was sitting quietly in the cab, trying to think of rainbows and unicorns, and all of a sudden I have to throw up. Thankfully, the taxi driver managed to stop before I jumped out of the car and fell to my hands and knees to throw up the little breakfast I had.

To add to my humiliation, the other taxi stopped as well, so I effectively had 9 people watching me dry-heavy by the side of the road.

Anyways! After a long taxi ride, and a longer boat-ride we finally made it to out island and got our (very spartan) rooms for the night. We had lunch and went snorkeling, we fed the fishes chocolate bread and played some Jungle Speed and Uno. And we did a whole lot of just hanging out.

Rainbow hug – M’s photo

Here is a triple-continental rainbow hug. Which is, like, one of the best kinds of hugs.

The next morning we went to a turtle hatching centre, where they help sick and young turtles, and release them back into the ocean when they are better/older. We got to hold some turtles, which was cool. Turtles carry salmonella, which is not cool.

The whole group – M’s photo

This is the whole group as we were waiting for our boat back to civilization. I must remember not to sit between the two darkest people of the groups for photos again. This is starting to get very awkward.

All in all, I had a pretty wonderful weekend.

The flying turtle

Later!

They ‘Day of Speaking Indonesian’ was on Thursday. The first semester students set up booths in the parking lot in front of the Japanese Culture building and sold traditional foods, drinks, some even had shoes and clothes for sale. The second semester students had presentation- and singing competitions on stage, and the third semester students had to nominate two people from each class to join a speech competition.

Now, I don’t think I’ve told you, but I got selected in my class. Probably since I am the most white/aggressively outspoken person in class.

This is me giving a speech:

Sara talking about stuff

The theme was ‘me and Indonesian’. The two best speeches get to have another speech at graduation. I was a bit worried about mine, since I said ‘penis’ twice to explain a little language misunderstanding from when I was here in high school.

But it went great! Everybody laughed and thought it was good, and I even won second place as ‘the Favourite’ with a bit more than half the votes. Which also means I have another speech in May.

It was a hot day, I had some Korean food, some Swedish chocolate balls, took some pictures and talked to a lot of people. After the winners were announced I went to Jakarta to change my flight ticket. I come home to Denmark on the 16th of May instead of the 20th, to be able to prepare for work and see my gymnastics team compete at the Danish Championship.

The next morning me and 9 other people, mostly from the Indonesian program left for the 1000 Islands, a popular holiday destination for busy Jakartans. But that is a whole other post.

The advertisement and us

Here is a picture of me and American M standing in front of the ad for ‘Indonesian speaking day’ that we were models for. Because we are totally representative of a program that is 95% Japanese and Korean, haha!

The third night in a row a woman next door is practicing singing the same two lines of the same song very loudly. And not very well.

Here are my feelings about that, expressed with a picture of a cat:

Sick cat

This is what you look like when you get superstition from both Europe and China:

Superstition in Indonesia

There is no floor number 4, because in China that is an unlucky number. There is no floor number 13 because in Europe that is an unlucky number, and finally, there is no floor number 14, because 14 contains 4, 4 is an unlucky number, ergo a 15 floor apartment building has 18 floors.

love,

sara

This weekend I went to Yogyakarta with three crazy friends from the program! We took a minibus there, it costs 17 dollars. They pick you up and drop you off where you are going, for example at your hotel. It took 13 hours, even though they always say it will take around 8! I didn´t sleep at all. What was even worse, French M slept the entire journey right next to me with a sickening smile on her face, taunting me!

It got better once we got to Yogya. We got dropped off at the airport where we met M´s boyfriend and his British friend. Then all six of us went to Prambanan. This is Prambanan:

Prambanan

Prambanan are Hindu temples.

Prambanan gymnastics

I know it’s not very good, but I was a little scared that I might fall on my face and break my teeth. And I’m pretty sure my insurance won’t cover that.

More Prambanan

Some more temples. The Prambanan temples were hit very hard in the 2006 earthquake (I was living in Semarang at the time, so I felt them). Only some of the temples have been rebuilt. A lot of it is just rubble, as you can see on the picture.

Drag Queen

That night we were cultural and went to see a drag show. This guy did a very good Whitney Houston, complete with jiggly breasts and a quivering mouth. The audience was mostly young Indonesian men, but also a lot of women wearing headscarfs and also some very young children with their mothers. At one point I saw a mother make her toddler give  a gyrating drag queen a 1000 rupee note stripper style.

The Sultans swimming pool

There is a Sultan in Yogyakarta, but unfortunately he has only one wife and 5 daughters. And daughters can’t become Sultans, so maybe this is the last one.
In the old days, the Sultan had 40 wives.  He also had three swimming pools. Sometimes they would all go swimming together. The wives would swim in their own pool, and the Sultan would climb up to the tower where I was standing when I took the picture and throw a flower down to his wives. The one who would catch the flower would be allowed to go to the Sultans swimming pool for some hokypoky.

My ride

Yogyakarta is full of these guys. Its a bicycle taxi. Very nice. Until the chauffeur starts telling you that you are fat and heavy. Which they do. Because they think that it will guilt me into paying them more than the negotiated price.
All right, I know I have been having a bit more avocado juice than I need, and I haven’t exactly been working out every day, but no need to call a girl fat, though…

I need to go to sleep now! Goodnight!