Friday, February 10, 2012

Two years and counting


My darlin' and I just passed our two year anniversary of expat life. When you pass these milestones, it is nice to recall where you started and how far, or not, you have come.

I recently attended a newcomers coffee at the American Women's Association. Seeing all of those faces really drove my anniversary memories home. Looking across the room, seeing faces full of anticipation, some showing a brave front but the apprehension in the eyes giving them away, some looking so excited about trying something totally different,and many looking kind of like deer caught in the headlights. Even though it has been two years, I still remember the huge range of emotions I felt upon my arrival. I am very happy to not be at that stage anymore.

Where should I begin. One of my sister-in-laws thought I should talk about laundry as it continues to be a source of pleasure and pain.

When we moved in to our rental house, the washer that was here was pretty decrepit and it only had a cold water inlet so everything had to be washed on cold. I try to be ecologically minded, but when it comes to washing towels and undergarments, hot water is my top choice.

However, the washer has become even more irksome over the course of the last six months or so. We were beginning to see odd rust stains on things, holes in others and a lovely sprinkling of gold glitter showing up on inappropriate pieces of clothing like sweetums dress slacks. We finally decided the washer was most definitely the culprit.

Before I expand, as you know I will, I know you can figure out the rust stains, old washer + harsh water = rust. The holes were still a bit open for debate as my little ironing machine of a housekeeper can beat every article of clothing, every sheet, every sock, every pair of underwear into complete submission with her strong arms, hot little iron and massive determination. Mr. Sweetie Pie has several sets of socks that she had ironed the entire heels out of and a pair or two of dress slacks that have been ironed so hard that they are shiny and look like they are made out of satin. We have bed sheets that we had to patch with iron on patches my brothers sent to me from home because she wants them completely pressed. Therefore, I know what she is capable of. However, in all fairness, I feel that some of the holes we have been discovering are not ironing related casualties. They have to have been made by the washer. These holes are not located in places that she would normally wear the ever lovin' pooh out of with the iron.

Ahhh. Now you ask, "What about the glitter?" Honey bun and I have been married a loooong time and I know for a fact he does not own anything with glitter on it. So we had to really work to solve this one.

Batik is the national fabric of Indonesia. It is an interesting process to make each piece. I will not go in to the process here, but some of the fabrics have gold throughout the design. It is called prana which is the Javanese word for gold. It used to be made with gold leaf or gold dust. I am sure what we have is neither of those things, but it looks pretty and we like it regardless. It is very lasting on the fabric and amazingly enough, my housekeeper cannot iron it off.

We have a table cloth on our breakfast room table that has prana on it and it gets washed on a very regular basis. With that in mind, I think that between aggressive ironing and a cranky washer little bits of it are flaking off. These little flakes seem to be especially fond of honey lamb's dark trousers. Unfortunately, after putting on his slacks or resting his hand on his leg he inadvertently picks up gold glitter on his fingers. One thing leads to another and pretty soon he is looking like Ru-Paul about to appear on some tell-all TV show. I must say that everyone at sweetum's office has been very polite about it. Not one single person has said, "Hey there partner. Nice glitter you got going on today." My hubby thanks them for their restraint.

As the evidence and dissatisfaction mounted a couple of weeks ago, we ventured to Lotte Mart to check out the machine cuci (washing machine). Lotte Mart (pronounced Low-tay Mart) is a store where they have this insidious jingle that they play repeatedly while you are shopping. Holy Cow. It will drive you insane. Sorry, got off topic for a second. We checked out washers and found a 7kg load capacity washer that has a heating element inside. This way, no hot water line is required and the washer heats the water as needed. That was the ticket.

We plunked down our money. Five million plus for a washer. (I still find it amazing that we buy things in the millions here) and set up a delivery date. Two young Indonesian men arrive to bring the washer in. Our laundry area is on the second floor so between the delivery guys and my gardener, they manhandled it up the steps. After it came to rest in the general area of the old washer, they kept handing me paperwork to sign - yes signing paperwork continues to be a popular activity here no matter what you do and I am sure you remember the laundry story where I discussed my initiation into this process. However, the washer was still in the box, unopened and they were making no attempt to take it out or set it up. One thing I have learned, is DO NOT sign that innocent looking piece of paper until everything is okie dokie. I live in the land of "No returns." If the washer had been damaged I would not have been able to do one thing about it.

So, in my very best broken Bahasa Indonesia I requested them to open the box and let me inspect the washer. None too happy, they opened it and everything looked fine. Next, I wanted them to connect it, but was told that a service technician would have to come do that. Really??? They gave me a number for customer service to set that up. I tipped them, was forced to sign the paperwork and they fled the scene. With my ironing queen behind me, we came back downstairs and I called the number they had given me. Hmmmmm. Not a working number. GRRRR. I looked up the store on-line, called a different number and promptly handed the phone over. I knew my language skills are just too limited to get in to that kind of discussion.

The next day they were set to come. Upon my return from the grocery, I wander upstairs and could hear a hopeful sound. I look around the corner and can see clothes merrily tossing around in my new front load washer. Now as far as the service technician went, he should have come with the original delivery crew because, I was not there to sign yet some other piece of paper and most importantly to him, I was not there to give him a tip.

I still watch the lives being lived around me with a lot of fascination and sometimes sorrow. Within a one week period, I witnessed the joy of a little girl riding on the back of a scooter behind her mom. The girl's arms are flung wide and she is dressed in a little pink jacket. The mother is laughing and even though I cannot hear them, I feel sure something equivalent to "Wheee!" is being cheerfully expressed as the two of them come speeding down the hill. Days later as my honey and I came home from the movies I saw a young girl, perhaps seven or eight with a big white bag slung over her back. She was poking in trash cans and ditches collecting plastic to recycle. In traffic ahead of us, was a boy about ten pulling a cart that was several times larger then he and it had cardboard in it. The two of them met on the side of the road and then cutting between cars and across the intersection they went along together. All this was happening as darkness was falling as fast as fat rain drops were beginning to tumble down. These are the things that haunt me in my dreams.

It is a country of massive wealth of the few and massive poverty of the many. Where people can be so gentle and helpful and yet so uncaring about things that surprise you.

Do I still get home sick? Yes, most definitely. The distance is still so great between us and our loved ones. I love that our son has been able to come here and see what this world is like. I still feel it is an amazing opportunity that we are able to do this and we can include him in even a little piece of it. However, you still have days where you would just like to be home.

There are many things that I have gotten to experience here that I have never done or thought of doing before. Having my cute little Scoopy is a delight. To be immersed in a culture and language that are not my own is an eye opener. Cream baths. Who knew? Seeing life lived so differently, so publicly. Signing my name to a million pieces of papers I am sure over the last two years. Probably appearing in 20,000+ Indonesian "my bule friends" photo albums on social media sights. Living in a land of volcanoes, earth quakes, and potential tsunamis. Being forced to figure out all of the bad, good, and the different each day.

I guess, all-in-all, two years finds us at a point where we have some idea of what we are doing in our expat lives. Some days it's not too pretty, but we keep at it. In this respect, we are the same no matter the location. However, I do keep learning new things, learning how to handle various situations that pop-up, and meeting new people who are going through the same process.

Would there be things I would do differently if I could do it again? Most definitely. I would have asked a lot more questions, demanded a lot more answers, brought a lot more pepto-bismol, and told myself to be a lot more patient with the process of living in a foreign place as opposed to vacationing in a foreign destination. The best news is, that honey pie and I don't feel quite like nubies anymore. We are used to being stared at, being taller than almost everyone, saying maaf a lot, cars coming at us from every direction doesn't seem quite so frightening, sitting in a swarm of motorcycles is normal. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is where we are and it is most definitely not at the beginning.