Jakarta My, my, my… Since I got this new website online I’ve been resting on my laurels/petards. So I’ll quickly churn out some form of update in the name of timeliness. It’s late Wednesday evening and I’ve just confirmed that the girls’ lights are out. Tomorrow is the first day of classes – school starts at 7:30am and the school bus is expected at 6:30am. Interestingly, school gets out at 2:40pm and we’re told they’ll be home by 3:00pm. An hour to get there and 20 minutes to get home. Such is life in Jakarta. As we anticipated, traffic is our greatest foe here (if you don’t count the pollution and the threats of terrorism, bird flu, food poisoning, and dengue fever). It’s the unpredictability of traffic that is most troubling. Arianna has been going to an 8am soccer camp for the last several days and our travel time has varied from 20 to 45 minutes. One feels a small sense of triumph upon arriving somewhere exactly on time; the norm ranges anywhere from 20 minutes early to 30 minutes late. However, the travel time continues to be endlessly entertaining (for me, anyway). Small shops line almost every roadway, regardless of the size of thoroughfare. The shops are often highly specialized (e.g., the nearby 6’ x 10’ shop filled with car-window-cranking mechanisms) or remarkably varied. Contributing to the sense of mercantilism are the strolling vendors, offering their wares from either the ubiquitous pushcarts or from the poles and baskets carried on their shoulders. The roving restaurant is a particularly common feature on the streets and one to which I intend to devote a photo essay sometime soon. Also on view is a wide variety of modes of “public” transportation. These range from mid-size busses, which may be about half the size of a U.S. big- city bus and which come in a variety of colors, to smaller busses, to minivan- size busses that seat about 10 passengers sitting face-to-face along side benches, to the many taxis (or “taksi,” as it’s written here), to the bajai – small, orange, exhaust-spewing, three-wheeled, semi-enclosed motorcycle carts for hire – to the motorcycle taxis which, as far as I can tell, are entirely unmarked. Annaliese is, for some reason, desperate to ride in a bajai and Arianna is fascinated by the women riding side-saddle on the motorcycles without holding on. As the throngs of vehicles weave, nudge, lurch, and otherwise insinuate themselves among one another, the key is to never look another driver in the eye. Although the Indonesians (those from the island of Java, especially) have an elaborate code of politeness and respect in their interpersonal dealings, these mechanisms are dispensed with entirely when in any sort of vehicle. Oddly, pedestrians are continuously and spontaneously helpful, often at what would seem their own peril. Whenever our car meets an oncoming car while threading along some narrow alleyway, there is always some man or boy sizing up the clearance and helping us negotiate the passage. These spontaneous traffic directors may be seventy years old or, more often, seven. Although I often find myself holding my breath and fretting as we drive past toddlers at the road’s very edge, it’s a treat to see these tykes waving cars past as they’ve seen others do. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a female of any age offering this guidance. And the wave is quite characteristic – the arm is down, showing the back of the hand, with the fingers generally kept straight. We’ve read that a wave or similar gesture with the fingers up and the palm toward the “waver” (i.e., the way an American might beckon a waiter) is lewd and is to be avoided. Other activities that seem to keep the children of Jakarta occupied (aside from working or somehow helping out from a startlingly young age) are streetside soccer, improvisational badminton (a very big sport here), and kite-flying. Actually, although there were many kites in the air when we were in Bali, I’ve seen only a few here. I infer the popularity of kites by the quantity of colorful kite remnants clinging to electrical wires all over the city. Finally, for you music-lovers in Houston, I’ll tell you that our house on McKinney has been rented by some aspiring musicians – the more upstanding members of a musical ensemble called ScabrousSphincter. They say it’s a jazz combo. Our real estate agent tells us they seem the picture of wholesome, caring, thoughtful youth and we’re glad to help keep the arts alive in Houston. But should you find yourself in our old neighborhood, we’d appreciate you cruising slowly past the house to verify that the door is still on its hinges and that no small-mammal carcasses have been tacked to the picket fence. Thanks, friends. |