Jogya (And Gumpas) on My Mind
In typical Indonesian fashion, at five PM last night, Pak David, my contact at the school where I work, notified me that I am on holiday for the next ten days. I was speaking with students, asking them what they wanted to discuss next week, when they told me that there will be no school because the fasting month of Ramadan is set to begin on Sunday. I have no complaints whatsoever. As the adage goes, better late than never. I would, however, have been angry if I arrived at school next week to find no one there. As the case may be, I have nearly two weeks to continue exploring this wonderfully disorganized country.
I arrived in Jogyakarta last night around midnight. A dozen or so of the Fulbrighters are meeting up here for the weekend for a mini-reunion of sorts. The city is home to the ancient capital of Srivajaya and Borobodur, acclaimed as one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. I’ll post photos and thoughts once I visit.
The city was also close to the epicenter of the May 24 earthquake (gumpa, in Bahasa Indonesia) of this year. Hands On International, the retooled version of the group Hands On USA that I worked with in Mississippi, is working here rebuilding houses. This fact slipped my mind until I arrived, when my taxi driver Suparman (real name) told me that there is a group of bule from America volunteering here. Within minutes, I was on the phone with Scuba, one of the main coordinators from Biloxi, Mississippi who is running the Hands On show here, on the other side of the globe. On the way to my hotel, Suparman picked-up from the train station a girl named Jacqueline, who is working here for Hands On, and whom I also met while in Mississippi. Yet more evidence that, as Thomas Friedman put it, our world is flattening and shrinking every day.
I’m staying in a hotel with my buddy John, who is posted in South Sumatra in the only locale more rural (and much more removed) than mine. There is no internet in his village, and hordes of people linger outside his apartment, waiting to practice their English and to whisk him around town on motor bikes. He seems a bit crazed already, suffering from rock-star-bule syndrome and the lack of any substantive conversation over the past month. His hard drive on his computer also recently crashed, so he has no music to console his lonesome, bored, and intelligible English-deprived soul. The next week should be good for him!
After spending a few hours talking with Willow, a girl stationed here in Jogya, John and I retired to our room. Within ten minutes of lying down, the room started shaking. I’m proud to say that I survived my first earthquake unscathed! Nothing fell from the walls, but for half a minute, the window panes rattled and the building swayed, sending John and me out into the hallway away from the threat of falling ceilings and swan-shaped ceiling lights.
If the past twelve hours are any indication of the way my current holiday will go, it should certainly be an exciting and good one.
I arrived in Jogyakarta last night around midnight. A dozen or so of the Fulbrighters are meeting up here for the weekend for a mini-reunion of sorts. The city is home to the ancient capital of Srivajaya and Borobodur, acclaimed as one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. I’ll post photos and thoughts once I visit.
The city was also close to the epicenter of the May 24 earthquake (gumpa, in Bahasa Indonesia) of this year. Hands On International, the retooled version of the group Hands On USA that I worked with in Mississippi, is working here rebuilding houses. This fact slipped my mind until I arrived, when my taxi driver Suparman (real name) told me that there is a group of bule from America volunteering here. Within minutes, I was on the phone with Scuba, one of the main coordinators from Biloxi, Mississippi who is running the Hands On show here, on the other side of the globe. On the way to my hotel, Suparman picked-up from the train station a girl named Jacqueline, who is working here for Hands On, and whom I also met while in Mississippi. Yet more evidence that, as Thomas Friedman put it, our world is flattening and shrinking every day.
I’m staying in a hotel with my buddy John, who is posted in South Sumatra in the only locale more rural (and much more removed) than mine. There is no internet in his village, and hordes of people linger outside his apartment, waiting to practice their English and to whisk him around town on motor bikes. He seems a bit crazed already, suffering from rock-star-bule syndrome and the lack of any substantive conversation over the past month. His hard drive on his computer also recently crashed, so he has no music to console his lonesome, bored, and intelligible English-deprived soul. The next week should be good for him!
After spending a few hours talking with Willow, a girl stationed here in Jogya, John and I retired to our room. Within ten minutes of lying down, the room started shaking. I’m proud to say that I survived my first earthquake unscathed! Nothing fell from the walls, but for half a minute, the window panes rattled and the building swayed, sending John and me out into the hallway away from the threat of falling ceilings and swan-shaped ceiling lights.
If the past twelve hours are any indication of the way my current holiday will go, it should certainly be an exciting and good one.
posted by Nick Taranto | 2:52 AM
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