A cup of tea, a cup of friends.






















pak big boss























round and round we go























"character building"



















i wanted to drink this rainbow. the pic is taken from the top of my driveway. volcanoes dipped in gold and crowned with rainbows... rainy season has it's magical moments.

Hot Sauce

Sambal is a spicy Indonesian hot sauce. It’s nothing I would consider special, just basically tomatoes and hot peppers smooshed into a paste that can be bought cheaply (and, as a redeeming factor, can be smothered onto any and every dish imaginable).
What I discovered today is that running, here in the mountains, is like my growing love affair with Sambal. People use Sambal frequently because it burns your mouth, quickly and briefly. The effect, as my food-scientist brother has explained it, is to spur the production of endorphins – the happy chemical. You’ve got to endure the initial pain of your Sambal-smothered rice grains burning your mouth before you can enjoy the endorphin-after-effect. And you don't consciously know it's happening, like 'oh, my brain really likes the after-effect of a tongue on fire.'

Running in the volcano foothills has been exactly that for me. For the past 4 months I have creatively crafted a variety of semi-true excuses for not disciplining myself to run (e.g. ‘everyone stares at me because I’m white; my shoes have grown moldy because of rainy season; there are no street lamps; there are billions of tail-less cats lurking around fallen palm fronds just waiting to swat my ankles’ and on and on). However, now that I’m entered into a 5k race in Jakarta this Sunday, I need to at least remind my legs of what it feels like to run. But as I’m reminding them, I’m discovering that I actually like running in the mountains. The sweet easy downslope of a long hill and the cyclical burn of the incline subconsciously call to my muscles. Tonight, I actually seriously wanted to turn around and run up the hill again, just so I could run down it.

Like Sambal -- you start to crave the sting.

(incidentally, no tail-less cats bit my ankles during the entire duration of my run tonight)

I've hit the '4 month mark' as they coined it over supper tonight. The time when the 'existential crisis of every 20-25 year old who is simultaneously experiencing culture shock' deadens your energy and quietly eats away at your passion until you think 'Hey! Come back here! I was into that!' yeah. My symptoms: listlessness; various amounts of time spent rearranging furniture (that, incidentally, belong to the school); alternating moments of panic and apathy in regards to my accumulating pile of work; a fluctuation between desperately desiring to cling to this nation somehow (to make a connection, find a small thread, a wiry sinew that could join my flesh and spirit with these people who often seem so utterly not me) and at other times despising the differences so much that it seems worthwhile to tactically plan my day so that I won't have to face even one other solitary soul (which, in such an immensely populated nation is actually quite difficult).

I'm not homesick, I wouldn't call it that. But today I rewashed my clean dishes 3 times. I clipped a clump of knee-high crab grass about 2 feet by 4 feet, and then I just left the clippings laying there, in the sun, to sizzle and dry while the rest of my jungle-yard remains an untouched wilderness. I looked at and re-looked at my piles of essays without picking up a pen. I started singing a song, but didn't get past the fist line. I am restless.

Christmas will be spent in central Java, taking a crash-course in Bahasa (Indonesian). I won't be with my family (American or Indonesian), and I won't feel the crisp kiss of a winter breeze or the sharp tingle of November air rushing in nose and mouth during a late-fall jog in the park. Coffee isn't even good here.

Tomorrow morning, my emotions will be different, I am sure, as I look into the faces of 100 students, who are awaiting the precious past perfect continuous conjugation of the verb 'know.' It will be exciting then, remembering that there are humans around me, learning and growing. And that there are babies to hold in the orphanage a few miles away. And that the rainy season has come and sunsets are often dripping with golden rain, and I'll get to see it from my back door.

If you can write me a letter, and put it in the mail, this would be an opportune time for it. I'm craving some real-live, it's-been-in-your-hands-now-it's-in-mine connection. I adore even the mundane - you can't write a boring letter, because the fact that it crosses 12 time zones makes it precious to me.

Send to:
me
P.O. Box 490
Bogor 16104
Indonesia