November

I can’t believe its already been a month. So far, i’m having a fabulous time here. 

My school is great. I’ve probably said this before, but everyone is so welcoming and has been so generous. My favorite part of school is how chill it is. Often the teachers won’t come into class.. so someone will hook their computer up to the projector, and we’ll all just watch crazy korean horror movies, or ‘Despicable Me’ hahaha. I’ve been trying to join a bunch of extracurriculars and events, and they’ve all been really cool.

Last weekend was an event called ‘Sepeda Dakwah’. It was a biking event and also a religious event. The juniors (what would be freshman in the US..) rode bikes (bike =sepeda) to a village, and then spent the night there. The Christians, Hindu, and Buddhist students all stayed in one house, and the Muslim students stayed in a much bigger place because there are so many more of them. The bikers were all in themed groups.. hello kitty, tinkerbell, etc.. it was super cute. I went with the kids in my grade who were supervising the juniors,so I didn’t bike. But instead i just basically helped  lead the event. Just as a side note.. i’ve noticed at my school, most of the events are student lead. All the events are put together by students, and Its really cool how independent everyone is here. Anywhoo.. so I took the bike route by motorcycle with my friend. Going towards the mountains, the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. I still love ridding on motorcycles, especially when the scenery is cool.. its just ahh. I love it. So we got to the house, and after all the bikers arrived, everyone was given a little bird that we were to cook over fire, then eat. Kinda like a barbecue. So we all barbecued our own little bird, and then ate it. I had no idea how to go about eating this bird.. my friends all just started tearing it apart and I was super confused. But I eventually figured it out.. and while figuring it out I accidentally ate the bird’s butt. Yep, it’s butt. I didn’t even realize it until someone was like oh ya that was the butt of the bird.. did you like it? And i’m like.. what the heck.. i just ate a butt….. it was a very odd realization, but I couldn’t stop laughing because seriously.. i had just eaten a bird’s butt. Like.. what? Who does that? After that we were all talking about the strange parts of the bird that people eat here.. and they were like oh yeah the brain.. people eat the brain! You have to try it! So i did. I ate the brain. My thought process was like so.. alright you already ate a butt, it can’t get much worse.. yolo [you only live once] right? So i ate it. The brain tasted fishy.. i can’t say weather i liked the butt or the brain better because I don’t remember eating the butt… BUT I can tell you the brain definitely isn’t my favorite. So after we were finished eating the strange parts of the bird.. we hiked across a river and up to the top of a hill to pray. It was night time, and the moon was huge. You couldn’t see many real stars, but because we were on top of a hill, we could look down onto the city, and there were so many lights.. so it kinda looked like stars. But the moon was gorgeous, I couldn’t stop staring at it. Indonesia is so much closer to the moon than the U.S. because it’s on the equator.. so the sun is always super bright, and the moon is always super big, i love love love it. After the hike, we went to bed. Then we woke up the next morning, and the Biking groups had to hike up another hill, and stop at posts along the way. I was manning a post with my friend. At our post, the group was tied together, backs facing each other  and a ballon was put  in between their backs, and they had to pop it. It was funny! But aslo it was hot out. Extremely hot, panas sekali.. which I suppose i should be used to by now, because its hot all the time… but i’m not. Anyway, after the groups went through all the posts, we ate lunch.. then everyone went home. It was a good weekend because I got to know all the christian kids from my school, and in my grade, which is cool to compare our similarities differences in faith.. I being christian, and they being christian. 

So other than that event, i’ve joined theater, and cheerleading. You may ask.. cheerleading? Why cheerleading? I asked myself the same question.. and still sometimes do haha. One of my good friends in my class does it, and she really wanted me to, so i just did. Everyone thought that i was a cheerleader in america too.. but its funny when i say i play badminton instead. I just realized.. i play badminton in america, and cheerlead in indonesia…somethings wrong there haha. In any case,I have a new respect for cheerleaders. It’s actually a difficult sport, and I was sore for a good week after my frist practice. 

Idul Adha- Kurban was also last weekend, a Muslim holiday where cows and sheep are sacrificed.

“Eid al-Adha is one of two Islamic Eid festivals that Muslims celebrate, the origin of which comes from the Quran. Also known as Hari Raya Haji, Hari Raya Kurban, Qurban, or the Festival of Sacrifice, the Eid al-Adha is one of the several religious festivals celebrated by Muslims all over the word. Here, the Muslim community commemorates God’s forgiveness of Ibrahim, or Abraham, from his promise to sacrifice his own son Ishmael as commanded by Allah. “

We had school off friday for it, and Sabine and I got together to see a parade that came out of the Sultan’s palace. The parade consisted of all the different sultan solider/guards marching through Alun-Alun which is a park type thing near my house. After the first parade, we were told by someone (one of the many people who came up to us, asking for pictures, who we were.. etc haha because we’re ‘bule’ or foreigners)  that there was another parade at 4pm. But actually, because sabine and I can’t actually speak and understand Bahasa Indonesia yet, we didn’t catch a very important part of what that person told us.. the other parade actually had already happened.. it was at 4AM, so we were just  a little late…haha. So instead, we went to Tamansari Water Castle, which was absolutely gorgeous, especially because we went around sunset. Before the parade, I also went with my host dad to see a sacrifice across the street. There were people all gathered,singing together as they slit the throat of a living cow… and it was crazy. Not good, not bad, just different. Very different. My family also had a sheep and a goat that we kept in the shed of our house, to sacrifice. We had them for maybe two days before we killed them, and it was so weird for me to see them living at that moment.. knowing that i’ll probably be eating  them within the next 48 hours. My intuition was correct.. for on friday night, we barbequed sate kambing! (goat kebabs…understand now?) It was actually delicious though, so all in all, Kurban was a success, and a very cool experience for me. 

As far as learning Bahasa goes, I am coming along.. slowly and steady. School has been very helpful, many of my friends speak english so its easy for me to understand things, and they’ve been really nice about teaching me too. I also just recently received four new language learning text books, and audio lessons from a package from my amazing mother in america..(Thank you mom, i know you’re reading this!:) ) so now I really have no excuse to not be studying all the time, which is good. The sooner i’m fluent, the better haha. My goal is 3 months. So now I only have two left..I have to start learning faster, time is running out! 

Well i think thats all for now. Just as a side note, i’ve definitely gained around 10 pounds. The food is absolutely delish here. Soto, Nasi Goreng, Sate, Batagor, Mie Ayam, blah the list goes on and on..I don’t know the name of half of the things i eat but i eat it anyway because its just too good. 

I hope everyone in America is doing alright with Hurricaine Sandy… I’ve been thinking about you guys! Semangat!! 

Sampai Jumpa!

xoxo julianne.