Wednesday, July 14, 2010

My steak knife does not make an obeng bagus (screwdriver good)


A new and interesting aspect of having staff is that they sometimes use the goods you brought from home in ways that they really weren't designed to be used. Case in point, no pun intended, is my set of Wusthof steak knives.

When we unpacked our goods, I was so happy to see my knife block holding my two nice chef knives. Nestled in that same knife block is a set of Wusthof steak knives. These are pretty nice knives, not tip top in the steak knife world, but better than what you might pick up at a Walgreens. Unfortunately, my staff does not quite have the same amount of affection for them

I frequently find my housekeeper using one of them for some task that includes prying. Now, a steak knife is handy, but it really isn't the best or safest tool to use for leverage. These same knives also seem to be the tool of choice to unscrew things. At the rate we're going the knives will have been transformed in a set of Wusthof screwdrivers within the next year.

I try to head this kind of usage off at the pass because I shutter to think what kind of damage Manisem will do to herself if she slips with it. I keep offering screwdrivers and other tools that we brought with us, but she returns to the ever handy steak knife as her tool of choice.

There is a man who peddles around the neighborhood who will sharpen your cutlery for you. My guess is that he gets a lot of repeat business as I am sure my experience is not isolated. I'm not Jim Bowie or anything, but I think once the point is finally shot, there is pretty much no coming back.

I have decided that at the end of our time here, these knives/screwdriver/pry bars will make a nice parting gift for her since they will not be of much use for me. It will be kind of a "Thank you for playing and here is what we have for you."

Another re-purposed item is a large cooling rack for cookies and cake pans. So far nothing sweet has come to rest there. It has now become a super-duper size grilling rack to fit over the small satay grill we bought for the staff. This is kind of troubling, but Manisem makes some pretty sassy satay so I can't complain too much.
Those cookies will just have to cool somewhere else.

My brain is roti panggang (toast)


Last week I began my official bahasa Indonesia lessons. Holy cow! I love how everyone tells me, "It is an easy language to learn." OK. Maybe if you are a language person and you are used to trying to make your mouth move in ways that you aren't accustom to. This mouth from the south just isn't used to rolling the letter r and trying to make nasal sounds. Also since I can't remember anything longer than a nanosecond, it makes it difficult to construct sentences when you can't recall any of the words you uttered five seconds earlier.

The other thing I love is when my guru (teacher) announces "The sentence structure is just like English." Is that so? Here is a sentence for you, "Mobil Pak Santo baik." The literal translation is "Car Mr. Santo good (or fine or nice)." The sentence structure in English would be, "Mr. Santo's car is good." OK. Is it me, or does the original sentence really not look like the way Mrs. Rogers taught us to compose a sentence in elementary school? Granted, there are times it is laid out the same. At this point, it is a struggle for me to remember when to make it one way of the other.

My friend Karen said while living in France, her language skills improved in direct proportion to the amount of wine she drank. Now Karen, here is my tiny problem. I am residing in an 88% Muslim populated country so it isn't always as easy to get wine. For that matter, with tariffs and such, a bottle of wine that you would pay $15 for in the US would probably be about $56 here. Single bottles of beer are sold in the stores. When I buy two Coronas for us to have with dinner, I pay $3.50 a piece for them or $21 for a six pack. This could explain why they are sold individually. It is constantly like buying beer in a bar, except you don't leave a tip. With that in mind, how in the world will I ever improve my bahasa Indonesia? In Brazil, I would have been fluent in Portuguese in under two weeks after drinking a few caipirinhas.

There is no verb to be. There is no gender. There are no plurals. There is no tense. Those omissions should make things easier. Unfortunately, it is hard to switch off wanting to use am, is and are and to indicate if something is happening now, will happen later, or happened already. I feel like I am saying "Me Tarzan, you Jane" a lot of the time. Poor Hamlet. How would he have ever made his sorrowful speech debating his continued existence in bahasa Indonesia? There would have been no "To be, or not to be." if he had been living in Jakarta. He would have just had to suck it up and get on with it.

The word "dia" covers the pronouns - he;she;him;her;his. See, a nice non-gender specific word. We are not going to expand on that. To make plurals, you say the word twice. The word "orang" is the word for person (FYI - Orangutan is an Indonesian word meaning person of the forest). If you have more than one person you would say orang - orang. So if you wanted to say "There are people in the bathroom." It would be, "Ada orang orang di kamar kecil."
*For the more fluent followers who have had more than two bahasa Indonesia lessons under their belts, please forgive any possible errors that I have made. It may come to light in 6 or 8 weeks that I have it all wrong and it is indeed a piece of cake to learn this language. This just happens to be my interpretation of the situation as I see it at this particular moment.

I also realize that literal translations from any language make for some pretty outlandish sounding sentences to us English speakers. When you are the one trying to string together words, in the correct order, that makes sense within the confines of your head and to the person you are speaking lots of trouble begins.

So sweetums and I text each other in really bad Indonesian and then laugh at ourselves. To add to the amusement is the fact that my hubby is renown for his "Dad" language skills. While in Texas, he would make up the most amazing Dad Spanish words we had ever heard. Then, when he took Portuguese lessons for three years, we had some pretty funny Dad Portuguese floating around the house. I am sure his teacher, Alice, would have laughed herself silly over some of the things he attempted to pass off as real Portuguese words. Now, we are blessed with his version of Indonesian. The up side is that he is currently able to make me laugh in three languages other than English.

Bules in Kemang. Who let 'em in?

Friday, July 2, 2010

"When You Look Like Your Passport it is Time to Go Home"

Today while I was exploring a few things on the Internet, I came across an excerpt about Indonesia by the late, great Erma Bombeck. As I read it,and laughed myself silly, I thought maybe you could use a good laugh too.

If you are close to my age, you know who Erma Bombeck was. For you youngsters out there, she was one funny lady and I am happy to say after reading this excerpt, she is backing me up 100% in many of my observations.

Once again, I am going to side-step the typing and let a real master fill you in on things. It was just way too good not to share. I don't know when she visited Indonesia or when this book was published, but not too much has changed as of this century.

Thanks Erma. I wish I had read this before I got here, but I probably would have thought that you were making some of it up.

Erma Bombeck on Indonesia:
Every country in the world worries about the threat of aggressive neighbors who seek to conquer them. Not to worry. The Russians will do themselves in by drinking too much vodka. The Japanese will smoke themselves to death, the Finns will phase themselves out from arteries clogged with all those dairy fats, and the entire population of Indonesia will eventually die from the traffic. It's just a matter of time.

For a change, both my husband and I were excited about going to Indonesia. Usually we were a house divided on where we were going to go and what we were going to do, but this country offered everything. It had white, sandy beaches; the Ujung Kulon Game Reserve; Krakatau, the volcano that erupted in 1883, creating the largest explosion ever recorded in the history of the world; plus one of the most unusual cultures in the world. Although the largest religion is Islam, there is a blend of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and animism throughout the country.

Once you see the drivers in Indonesia, you understand why religion plays such an important part in their lives. After a day as a passenger in a car, I would have worshipped the hotel draperies if I had thought they would protect me from bodily harm.

The first thing we noticed in Jakarta (Java) was the absence of dogs and cats. It didn't take me long to figure out they had probably once roamed this part of the world in great numbers, but one by one they were picked off by Mercedes and Volvos as they tried to cross the street. It brought about their extinction. People were next.

We picked up our guide in Yogyakarta at the hotel. Outside, he introduced us to our driver. This was very unusual, as one man often serves as the driver and the guide.

The driver was young, frail, and said little. He was emotionless, and from time to time he displayed a tic of sorts. His right eye would blink, his head would jerk, and he stretched his neck as if he had on a tight tie.

“We visit the Sultan's Palace,” said the guide, smiling. The car shot out of the driveway like the Batmobile in Gotham City.

I. d like to point out here that I am not a nervous passenger. I have survived three teenage drivers: one who used cruise control in downtown traffic at five p.m., one who put on full make-up while driving through a construction area, and another who got a ticket for driving forty-five miles per hour ... in reverse. But this was unbelievable.

Most of the highways in Indonesia are two lanes. Everyone passes. Everyone. How do they do this? you ask.

There are basically seven modes of transportation in the country. At the slowest and bottom of the spectrum is the horse and carriage, which is exactly what it sounds like. Next is the pedicab. This is a little buggy on two wheels hooked up to a man who pulls it through traffic. The becak or powered tricycle is next, followed by motor scooters, hired cars (and taxis), then trucks and finally buses.

This is how the pecking order works. Your car passes another car at a speed of fifty or sixty miles per hour. If you meet a motor scooter head-on in the passing lane at the same time, the motor scooter is below you on the scale of size. He has to disappear. Don't ask me where. He just knows that. On the other hand, if you are in the car and meet a truck or a bus, then you must give way.

It's the old game of chicken that has reached state-of-the-art.

All the while our lives are hanging in the balance as our guide is trying to indicate temples and points of interest. I can't take my eyes off the driver.

Every once in a while, the driver engages in a little ritual that is bizarre. As we stop for a light, he tilts his head all the way to his shoulder and then with both hands gives his head a jerk that would have broken a normal spinal column in half.

“Why does he do that?” I asked our guide.

“It relieves the tension,” he says. “Actually, he is a very good driver. You are here to relax. Just sit back and enjoy.”

It would have taken a lobotomy for me to relax.

I. d like to say that despite the frenzy and the insane passing, I never saw an accident. But that. s not true. It was like being in the middle of Demolition Derby. I saw women on bicycles balancing trays of fruit on their heads, only to be forced to hit the ditch and become fruit salad.

I saw an ambulance give way to 'you got it' a truck, and in the city it was not unusual to see people sitting on the curb holding bandaged heads while they hauled their vehicles away. But through it all, I never once saw anger, obscene gestures or exasperation. I never heard shouts or language of any kind ... only quiet, emotionless resignation.

Over dinner our first night there, our guide kept insisting, “You must relax, Miss. How would you like to see Indonesian dancers in Ballet of Ramayana at the theater?” He was right. I had worn a hole in the floor of the back seat of the car where all day I had jammed on imaginary brakes with my foot. “I'll go back to the hotel and change into something suitable,” I said.

I travel with a limited wardrobe, but I always carry one dress for special occasions. This one was all white with a gold belt and sandals. We should have been suspicious we weren't talking Bolshoi when our driver drove like a maniac down dark alleys and came to a stop on a dirt road several feet from the 'theater'. Actually, it was a tent with the glow of naked light bulbs shining through the canvas. We bought our tickets and stepped inside. Not only was I overdressed, but the performance was undersold. There must have been seven hundred folding chairs distributed around the riser. There were five other people there besides ourselves. I think they were German tourists.

At seven o. clock, the music started and the graceful dancers glided onto the stage. Our guide leaned over to interpret what was transpiring on stage. “A young man named Jaka Tarub, while hunting birds one day, sees a lovely nymph descending from heaven to bathe in the forest lake,” he whispered. “He hides but watches the nymph Nawangwulan and falls in love with her. Jaka Tarub steals her clothing. He returns to his hiding place and creates a disturbance to frighten Nawangwulan, but she is unable to find her clothing and so cannot return to Heaven. Feeling sad and lonely . . .”

I listened numbly. My eyes felt like balloons filled with water.

At eight-thirty, our guide was still talking nonstop. “When Dasamuka attacks him and forces him to flight, Kala Marica then transforms himself into a Golden Deer to lure Rama and Lesmana away from Sinta so that Dasamuka can kidnap Sinta. The Golden Deer then teases ...”

From time to time, my head would fall to my chest and I would jerk it up to hear his voice reciting in a monotone, “In return, Sinta gives her hairpin to Senggana to deliver to Rama ...”

I spit on my fingers and rubbed them across my eyeballs. My husband had his head between his legs. His elbows touched the floor. He was comatose. I looked for some kind of compassion from the five other people in the audience.

They were gone. My arm was bruised from where I had pinched myself in an effort to regain consciousness by inflicting pain. “Then the ape tells both ladies to leave and he begins to destroy the garden,” the guide droned on. “He breaks loose, sets Alengka on fire, then returns to Pancawait to ...”

It was after eleven when we fell into the car that took us to our hotel. I slept the entire time. Maybe that was the answer to surviving as a passenger in Indonesia.

As a break in our schedule, we planned a cruise through the Spice Islands. My husband wanted to climb the mountain of cinder sand and look down into the smoking remains of Krakatau. It was nice to get out of the fast lane and not worry about rites of passage.

When we docked five days later, the captain of the boat said he would be glad to drop several of us off at our hotel. I settled back into the cushions of his car as if I were safe in the hands of Allstate.

The next thing you know we were weaving in and out of the traffic like we were competing in time trials at the Indy 500. Suddenly there was a screech of brakes as we stopped for a red light. Then there was a crash from behind and I flew into the seat in front of me. I turned to look at the van behind us. One of the passengers had hit the windshield. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance. The man assured us he was all right.

I bowed my head and said a silent prayer to the patron saint of Indonesian passengers: Our Lady of Valium.

Excerpt from Erma Bombeck's book “When you Look Like Your Passport it is Time to Go Home”

We've Only Just Begun


Yesterday, I decided to make a dish for dinner that I have been preparing for a long time. It is called Beef and Bean Casserole. Well, actually I don't know if that is the official name of it or not. I cut this recipe out of a Good Housekeeping or Better Homes and Gardens magazine in the late 70's when cutie and I first got married and have since misplaced the original. That is a shame. The recipe has a great picture of a guy with a large afro style hairdo scooping out a big portion on to a plate with an equally large smile on his face. How could I resist adding this recipe to my list of cheap foods to make when you are just married and have no money?

You are probably wondering how all of this relates to life in Jakarta. As usual, I am going to tell you.

The ingredients are pretty easy to find even in this part of the world. You need ground beef, Kraft BBQ sauce, pork and beans, brown sugar, refrigerator biscuits, and some grated cheddar cheese. The ground beef, Kraft BBQ sauce, brown sugar, and the cheese were no problem. Pork and beans I didn't find, but I did find baked beans and they are pretty much the same thing. No one here sells cans of biscuits so I knew I was going to have to make those from scratch.

Before going to the grocery, I went on line and found a good looking buttermilk biscuit recipe. While shopping for ingredients I discover they don't sell buttermilk here. No problem. I can make my own or substitute plain yogurt instead. I bring the items home and begin making biscuits.

My biscuit recipe calls for self-rising flour. Hmmm. Don't have that, so I go on line to look up what I need to do to make plain flour into self-rising. Got it. I measure out the dry ingredients with the appropriate additions to pimp my flour. The recipe also calls for 10 tablespoons of butter. I pull out the butter I had bought and realize that there are no markings on the side of the stick. It just gives a weight of 100g.

Doggone it! Back to the computer to find out how many grams there are in one tablespoon of butter. Alex Trebek, please note that I can answer "What is 14.19grams," if I ever make it to Jeopardy. Thank goodness I managed to have enough sense to bring a nice kitchen scale that will do either metric or US standard measures. I weigh out 142 grams and cut it in to small pieces to mix with the flour.

As I mentioned before, I have a wet and a dry kitchen. What this means to me is that I can add lots of steps to my pedometer by walking back and forth way too many times to retrieve items to use for preparing my dish. I am sure yesterday I probably walked a mile between looking things up on the computer and walking between kitchens just for this meal. Good thing since I have just weighed out 142 grams of butter to make biscuits.

Also, since most expats are the wrong size to live in this part of the world, the counter tops are a different height than at home. I guess this is why you have a cook. Your back is killing you from leaning over either to work on the counter or to cook on the cook top or to wash dishes for that matter. It is their little insurance policy that you will come to realize it is cheaper to hire someone to do these things than to have back surgery and physical therapy.

I get the biscuits finished that will top my meat and bean mixture and move on. While cooking the meat it suddenly dawns on me that I don't have a casserole dish. Oh, bloody Hell! I finish putting all the meat and bean ingredients together and begin to search for an oven proof substitute. After several attempts, I decide my best bet is a 9 inch Pyrex pie plate.

In to the pie plate goes the mixture. I top it with my homemade biscuits which have been cut in half and placed cut-side down on the meat mixture. I distribute the grated cheese over that and put it in the oven to bake.

The differences between a casserole dish and a 9 inch pie plate make themselves known as the kitchen begins to get kind of smokey about half way through the cooking process. The gooey cheese and some of the meat mixture is dripping over the sides of the pie plate and on to the bottom of the oven. We open doors and windows and turn on a floor fan until my casserole, disguised as a pie, is finished cooking. We put a cookie sheet beneath the pie plate to keep any more mess off the bottom of the oven.

After the timer goes off and the smoke has cleared, we sit down to eat. Oh my. It tastes like home. A heavenly little slice of familiarity even if it was in the wrong size dish.
*No afros were harmed in the preparation of this meal.