Alternative Living in Violent Environment

On Monday this week, N and I went to the doctor about W's leg, and the doctor started talking about performing an operation on his leg and about the possibility of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. He said he might need to perform a minor operation, though possibly with general anesthesia, on Friday. N and I were frantic. The infection had been going on for nearly a month. We bought tickets for the family (myself excluded) to return to the US. As N was packing, we started going through medical receipts and noticed that the injury had happened on 22 April rather than a month ago. We realized he hadn't even been injured for three weeks yet (it had seemed much longer!). So we called the US Embassy doctor at 10pm and thankfully she picked up. We talked through things with her and decided that before having N and W and S return to the US, we would try going to Jakarta and working with a wound-care specialist there. Fortunately we were able to get a full refund on the tickets to the US we had bought that afternoon. There was no refund, though, for the tickets we had purchased to get from Solo to Jakarta. And that was fine, since that was where we were going. We left Solo for Jakarta on Tuesday, still anticipating that N and W and S might need to go back to the US early, but thinking it would be worth a try in Jakarta before we resorted to that. So it's Saturday in Jakarta as I'm writing this post, and we're hopeful things will work out here. 

In the airport in Solo, two pics with W and S taking turns looking dignified. I didn't even ask them to look dignified. They're just naturally that way.

During the time in the airports, S began using a pad of note paper as a phone to talk with one of her friends in the US. This friend is most famous in our family for having claimed in front of all the kids in her grade that she is capable of laying golden eggs. This pic taken at the hotel.

Since we had some time on Tuesday evening after getting into Jakarta and checking into the hotel, we caught a taxi to Pondok Indah Mall, one of the places I used to hang out at in Jakarta in the early 1990s.

After an hour and fifteen minutes in traffic, we made it! (I wouldn't have suggested undertaking the journey had I known we wouldn't get there until about 9pm.)

In the mall, we saw a place called "American Grill" and then we realized, in smaller print, that it was the restaurant known as Sizzler.

We went directly to the place I knew the route to, through the physical memory imprinted in my legs: the movie theater.  I looked at the wall and saw the place where I stood, in the early 1990s, contemplating the movie poster of The Silence of the Lambs. I didn't see it, but the poster caught my attention.

W and S saw a sports car on the bottom floor.

We stopped by the place where the "tape store" used to be. By the time I started buying tapes here, I had begun the long--years long--transition from Nirvana to the Beatles. (The transition from GNR to Nirvana took place at Blok M Plaza before Pondok Indah Mall opened.)

As we walked by one of the glamorous fashion stores, W looked up at a poster and commented, "She looks scary." In the poster, she seemed to be standing on a prairie.

N pointed out that it was funny that one of the places Starbucks was offering prize getaways to was Jakarta. And here I'll point out that it's funny that a multinational company from Seattle presumes to give "the beauty of Asia" to the capital city of Indonesia. And also that this Seattle company would think it has anything to teach the island of Java about the drinking of java. (Not that we ourselves are well versed in the consumption of java.)

The next morning, we made it to the wound care unit. While we were there, the lab results came in from Solo, saying that the culture they took from W's wound didn't indicate any bacteria/infection. The results came in as W was lying down having the doctor examine his wound. He sat up a little and cheered. Then he continued yelling in pain as the doctor examined the wound.

Although there was apparently no infection, the doctor wanted to take another culture to confirm. And she suggested a plan that will have us here until the end of next week. It seemed like worth a try. She inspired so much confidence as we talked with her, which we think is half the fact that she is competent and half the fact that she speaks English and we were glad to be able to discuss these difficult things in our native language.

The doctor put some medicine on the wound to take care of the dead skin and told us that on Friday we could come back and have a vacuum apparatus attached to the leg, to promote regrowth of flesh. But until then, she set us loose on the city.

So we went to Jalan Surabaya, the antique and suitcase market. N liked this beaded necklace.

For those of you who enjoy numismatics, I took a pic of a US quarter that was minted in 1865, apparently during the Civil War. It seemed like kind of a funny quarter, since it was the size of a silver dollar. And I hadn't known the US quarter design had remained unchanged since the 19th century (except for the issue of size). But the salesperson insisted it was real, and had come from people who kept it in Sulawesi. 

Once I turned the coin over, I could see why it seemed like such a funny quarter. It turned out, the US minted this quarter to be worth a dollar! What foresight, back in 1865. I tried explaining to the salesperson what a unique and unexpected coin this was, if it was indeed real, as he insisted. In the end, I bought the coin as an emblem of...I don't know what.

We realized there was another part of the antique market just across the canal from the main market on Jalan Surabaya.

So we crossed the bridge. Whew I wouldn't want to fall into that water!

A scene from over the river. Whatever genius came up with the face of the animal on which this person is riding, I salute them. I love this face and want to take a picture of it every time I see it. (Since posting this, my friend K has told me this is the traditional Balinese representation of Vishnu riding Garuda, with turbo-charged colors.)

A turtle in a tank of water so green it looked like it was food-colored.

Two kittens huddled at the base of the Garuda Pancasila, finding solace in the Old Javanese "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika," or "Unity in Diversity."

You may remember the ceremony we attended at the Buddhist temple on the Double, Double-Banana Day. At the ceremony, there was an extended period of time where one of the leaders hit a Chinese wooden slit bell. We found one at Jalan Surabaya. When bakso sellers (meatball sellers) walk through the streets, they also hit on wooden tockers that make a similar sound.

I was surprised--but should I have been--to find icons of anti-black race prejudice at this antique market in Southeast Asia. It's amazing to think about the way that this type of prejudice has dyed almost every fiber of the world's culture. I wouldn't have expected to find these icons of the US South sitting out on the roadside here.

N and I looked at this set of gongs for a few minutes, getting the salesperson's hopes up. It's still the question of how we would get stuff like this back?

One of the salespeople showed me how to properly wear some of the hats he was selling.

We found a wayang golek (you'll have seen these if you've visited Indonesia or if you've looked on the mantle in our house in Utah) made in the image of Barack Obama. W had been looking admiringly at it a second earlier but by the time I could take a picture, he was distracted.

At the end of our walk along the extent of the antique and suitcase market, we waited for one of the salespeople to get back to us on weather we could agree on a price for the Chinese wooden slit bell. During this time, a warmly dressed man with a walking stick (the stick was all affect, as far as I can tell) spent about ten minutes discoursing to N on political conditions between the US and Indonesia. I didn't listen to what was being said, since I was talking to someone else, but N reports that she didn't understand his English well enough to know whether he liked the US or didn't, but sometimes she got the impression that he might not.

From the market, we walked...

...to McDonalds. 

Throughout our stay in Indonesia, we've almost always avoided Western food and eaten only Indonesian food. But today, with our legs pulled out from under us and living as a hotel, McDonalds sounded good. And while I was eating it in my distress, I thought I would be content to eat it for a year.

We left McDonalds and got into one of the blue Bajajs, which are more spacious than the orange bajajs, and run on compressed natural gas. And they're much quieter too. And they have a much cleaner feel to them. All in all, they're the caffeine-free Diet Coke of Jakarta transportation.

The driver took us on a big detour through the kampung where his family lives. When we passed his home, his family was sitting outside, and he slowed down, stuck his head out, and said, "Bule!" (White people!). The family looked interested.

We got back to the hotel and looked around the Zen Garden. This is the waterfall (non-operational presently).

Then next morning we went to Dunia Fantasi, an amusement park that I used to go to fairly frequently when I was a teenager.  Our travel book said it would be about $6 a person.

But once we got into the crowd, we realized the travel book (the latest edition of Lonely Planet Indonesia) was fairly out of date, given that we would be paying about $27 a person to get in. We almost left to go to the zoo, but decided that since we were here...

...and since the line to get in was so short, and since rides were free once you got inside, we would try it out.

We finally got in and had the chance to walk among Greek columns on the walkway into the park.

As we walked in, there was a band playing. Which reminded me of the times when my friends and I would convince the bands at Dunia Fantasi to let us play the songs that we ourselves had made up in our band. 

They had an Ice Age display.

The rides were free, except for our time, once we got inside. This was the line for the Ferris Wheel.

"The line lasts 45 minutes from here."

We made it to the Ferris Wheel!

Our carriage mates were two friends. One was from Jakarta (the one whose game was fitness) and the other was from Vietnam.

I like this pic, which shows W's growing collection of Indonesian rings.

After the Ferris Wheel, we got in line for the Hysteria, since it seemed like it wasn't a very long line. But that was just how it seemed. It was a very long line.

People in line hiding from the sun.

S feeling the joy of lines at amusement parks.

Rather than $25 we might have paid $50 to become premium guests who got to stand in special short lines. One of the premium guests had bright red hair.

Still in line.

After the hysteria, we went to the roller coaster. Ever since I first went on this one, I've always thought it is the perfect rollercoaster.

One of the main entertainments while we waited in lines (besides telling W to stop climbing on the railings so he didn't hurt his leg any further) was looking at the many, many, many English-language t-shirts that our Indonesian associates wore. I remember that one of my friends, when I was fifteen, found a market that sold all kinds of great English-language t-shirts made for wearing in Indonesia. He would never tell anyone where he found these shirts, since they were so good. My favorite caption on a shirt that he wore: "I don't know much about Animal nature only what I pick up here and there to be my best friend." But a lot of the English-language t-shirts I saw sounded considerably more normal than that, to my American ear.

After going on the perfect roller coaster, S made the perfect face to illustrate her perfect feelings toward the experience.

We went on some swings. It's been over twenty years since I've been on these specific swings, but if felt so familiar that I half thought the ride would end and I would run off to the next ride with middle school or high school friends.

Dunia Fantasi is a mix between facsimiles of the US Midwest, Egypt, Rome, and traditional Indonesia. You could buy corndogs at this stand, which I zoomed in to photograph just before it was time to get onto the swings.

After the swings and in the line to a flying boat ride, I saw my favorite and most stunning English-language shirt of the day:
IF WE
Stand
TOGETHER
WE WILL BE
UNBROKEN
A.L.I.V.E
Indonesia
ALTERNATIVE LIVING IN VIOLENT ENVIRONMENT
17 August 1945

The phrase "alternative living in violent environment" seemed amazing to me at that moment. Indonesian life seems like "alternative living" in relation to the West, moreso since most people in the West have no idea that this alternative life exists. And then to the question of "violent environment": sure there are the massacres and coups and vigilante violence and state-sponsored violence that have happened here, but there's also the violence of the everyday, which I won't go into here, because my mind was distracted by... 

...a parade!

...with a tiger!

And then I looked up at the architecture and realized that if I were in Solo or in a small town I would take a picture of this type of architecture. But here I considered it ersatz, just before I remembered that the ersatz is also culture.

As we approached the flying boat, N called dibs on sitting in the crows' nest.

But we still weren't there yet. How could this be lasting so long!

I got onto the opposite side of the boat than the others, so I could take pictures. S doesn't show up in these pictures. I guess she was either ducking or had made her way to the crow's nest.

Later we went on this crazy ride (all of us except S). It was 2 minutes and 20 seconds, N later reported once she had looked it up on the internets. But it seemed much longer.

We split up when W saw a ride he wanted to go on. N didn't want to go on that ride and neither did I, but N volunteered to stand in line with W, while S and I waiting to go on a small roller coaster. All day long, S had been carrying around a big dead leaf (no doubt it died as a result of alternative living in violent environment). I decided I wanted to make sure we remembered the fidelity that S felt toward the leaf. So I took a few pics of the two of them together.

I saw a few kids walk by with red shirts that said CUBA on them. Then I turned around and saw this restaurant.

On the small rollercoaster 

The rollercoaster was finished and S and I sat around waiting for maybe 45 minutes for W to get finished waiting in line for his big ride. I took this pic of the Du(nia)Fan(tasi) mascot. And as I look across the quad I kept feeling genuinely confused that I was 37 and not 15. How did this happen?

The Ferris Wheel in the night started seeming more meaningful than maybe it ought to have, so I took several pictures of it, as it reminded me of the cover of The Great Gatsby.

I liked this view because the inner-most ring has the "Pop Mie" logo on it. Pop Mie is a brand of instant noodles here. And it seemed fitting that Pop Mie would be at the center of everything.

Here's W on his ride, being held upside down.

Here he is again.

We didn't go into the Istana Boneka (Doll Palace).

Instead we made our way to a Columbus restaurant and ate.

And we went on the swings two last times.

And I took still another batch of Ferris Wheel pics, only one of which I include here.

And the band played as we left, just a few minutes before closing time.

It was a lot of fun, but the next morning we were reminded that we weren't in Jakarta for fun. Rather, we were here so a vacuum pump could be attached to W's leg. He's got a big smile in this pic, but it hasn't been fun for him to wear yesterday and today. The batteries ran out last night and we spent some intense minutes trying to figure out how to recharge it. Finally N got the idea of plugging it into the UK power outlet in our room and it surprisingly worked. If it hadn't, we would have needed to go to the emergency room. Whew! But still, we're all on edge, since in spite of a rousing day at the amusement park, things are pretty unsettled. Last night, W screamed out in his sleep. He'll often talk in his sleep. A few days ago I heard him say, "Apple, apple, apple." But last night I heard say in frustration, "Oh COME ON!" I couldn't help but think he was thinking: "I just fell down playing soccer--and now all this?" Alternative living in violent environment.

And N did a good photo shoot of the hotel life that will be our life for almost two weeks.