Bule, or bulai, is the term Indonesians use to describe people like me. It means a Caucasian individual but it pretty much refers to all westerners. So the call out to us is usually first "bule, bule" followed with a "Hello mister." Yeah, mister. Although I may have blogged this before, it stands to be repeated because over the past two weeks I've had a lot of 'bule' time and it surprises me how refreshing it is to not be a mister, or as my students call me "mom" a translation of "Ibu" which can be either Mom or Ms.
My most recent bule action was last night I went out to pizza with some of the local bules here. One was the roommate of one I met back in September (Americans) and the others are an Australian couple and their 6 month old baby. The baby, Jack, kept staring at me as intently as Indonesian children do. I think he was curious about the bule that wasn't his mother. Although the pizza isn't like home, the company was good and we hope to get together relatively soon again before everyone scatters for Christmas.
The biggest bule gathering was the fabulous Thanksgiving feast in Surabaya. Surabaya is the second biggest city in this country, of course Jakarta being the first. The U.S. Consul's house hosted the gathering. She wasn't there but others from the U.S. expat community were. This meant I had a real Thanksgiving with all the smells and flavors of home. There was roasted turkey (although I didn't eat any), mashed potatoes, STUFFING, cranberry sauce, STUFFING, pie… and of course STUFFING. About 7 of us ELFs were able to make it and then a large handful of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETA) were there enjoying the wine and festivities with us. It was good times.
To make this event even more special, I shared a nice hotel room with my ELF friends, we shared stories, had the hotel lights go out on us at a climactic point of a horror film and I had a couple of nice HOT showers. Oh bliss! Not all sites here are as sparse as mine but living in Indonesia really teaches you to live without… and, well, I'm still learning not having mastered this exercise. So I indulged… came back and experienced a days worth of culture shock once again. It was weird because I really thought I was over that. All the things that I had broken down and learned to accept over the past months came reeling back, the things I was happy to forget while in a more modern environment. What was even more surprising was how quickly acclimated back to my life in Banjarmasin. What helps the most is staying busy, teaching. What doesn't help is frequent cancellations of my culture and language class with the faculty on Fridays and my attempt to do collaborative workshops here with the teachers never seems to be able to launch for one reason or another. Banjar time, Banjar time, Banjar time: My mantra to help me try to understand. I really want to stay busy and really work with the teachers here but you know the famed Rolling Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want."
Another bule adventure I had last week was when I met up with my local ETAs, Dan and Emmy. They live about an hour from here and teach at pesantrens, the Islamic boarding schools. They definitely are more remote than me so coming into Banjarmasin is coming into the big city. We went to the floating market with my office mates. I kind of wondered what the hype was, especially since getting up at 4:30 was pretty tough. But I can now say that I did one of Banjarmasin's famous attractions. It is a real commerce event, not really a tourist attraction. They trade fruits and veggies out on the water and it is said you can get the best price here… but that also means you have to hire your Klotok (a wobbly motorized boat that takes you out to find these great deals) so maybe it balances out in the end. We bypassed the monkey island and from the stories I've heard of it, a good thing. I didn't want to slap any vile monkeys who are pretty aggressive while looking for food handouts from the visiting humans, another sign of man's disruption of nature's balance. My Australian friend, Mick, said one of them bit him on the back of the leg for denying it food.
Dan, Emmy, Puji and I also went to Snow World that same afternoon. It is essentially a big freezer on the way to the airport full of ice sculptures, a big snow slide and no photos allowed. Puji is great at showing us Indonesian style… pretend you didn't read the signs until the security guard says something. We got quite a few photos. It was fun to play on the ice slide and amazing to be in this cold environment that I didn't think I'd see until next winter. I also enjoyed witnessing Puji's intrigue with watching her breath exhale in small clouds. My first comment walking in there, remarking on the energy it must take to keep so much ice cool in Indonesia, was "Ahh, so THIS is why we've been having so many rolling blackouts!"
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