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March 6, 2008 I realize we’re getting fully into March and we haven’t posted anything yet. We haven’t had many new adventures lately, and work is in full swing with projects in high gear, consultants to keep busy, contractors to keep in line and money to keep an eye on. Needless to say, it’s been hectic here even if it is just work. We did try one Indonesian food this week. It’s called dodol. It is a type of caramel, made with sugar, coconut oil and/or palm oil. It’s all stirred together in a hot wok until it turns into a dark brown goo, just like caramel. But after each of us tried one bite, the decision was unanimous: it does NOT taste like caramel. I didn’t happen to have my camera ready to document the moment of truth: when Eric and my boss both ran to the nearest trash can in mid-chew. None of the Indonesians on my floor will eat it either, so I’m stuck with a pile of dodol on my desk. I haven’t thrown it away yet because I want to find that one person who really likes it so that I can ask them, “Are you out of your mind?” and then proceed to debate with them about how their taste buds are ill and should be donated to science.
March 8, 2008
Looking out the back door this morning...or possibly lost in geologic time.
March 16, 2008
If the going gets tough...ask for a push.
March 21, 2008
True Story: I am Made of Cammo. And to start a story in “Cris”-fashion: “So there I was…” in a club in
March 22, 2008 Fun with PhotoShop...went through some of our pictures and tried to improve them a bit with the help of software.
March 23, 2008
Happy Easter everyone. I imagine you all are busily finding eggs that the Easter bunny hid for you. The Easter bunny didn’t make it to our apartment, but I think that’s because we’re way up on the third floor – far too much work for a bunny to climb those stairs AND hide eggs. Waking up this morning was quite surreal. After the usual Muslim Call to Prayer sounded off, we were thinking of going back to sleep, but were further awakened by a sound we couldn’t place at first, but as it got louder, it became clear what was going on. The Christian Indonesians decided to have a pre-sunrise Easter singing parade, complete with loudspeakers on strapped to their cars. As they marched past our house, all I could think was: 1) SOMEDAY I’m going to get to sleep past 5:00am; 2) noise ordinances are a good thing; and 3) apparently no one warmed up before belting out those hymns this morning. You know, I bet they scared away the Easter bunny just as he was getting to our house. Darn.
March 28, 2008 I started several little posts this week, and never finished any of them. It was a pretty intense week of work, so I didn’t have any stories of substance. Nevertheless, it was a pretty normal week here:
It rained every day this week. Every. Single. Day. The water was shut off to the office building for half a day and I had to “hold it” for more than three hours that day. The grocery store has been out of eggs from last Sunday until today. The power was out for approximately four hours yesterday evening. The tap water has been murky since Wednesday.
The sun came out from behind the clouds yesterday afternoon for almost 20 minutes, and that’s the first time I’ve seen it in at least four weeks. Instantly my mood went from average to great. When the sun came out, none of the "normalness" of living here (see above) mattered and it was fabulous day! And now I have a deeper understanding of cats and their sunray addictions.
March 29, 2008
We took a quick trip "to town", just like we used to do in Montana. It's pretty similar to our old trips "to town" when we would go to Billings except: 1. There are four security checkpoints with armed guards. 2. There are no deer to dodge on the road, however dodging people makes things just as exciting. 3. The speed limit is 70 kilometers per hour, not 70 miles per hour (big difference there) 4. There is no McDonalds, however there are at least 20 "fast food" places that serve fish and fried rice. And the fast part of the fast food restaurants here is the rate that the ice melts in your Coke.
5. You can't go shopping for clothes (because an Indonesian XL will fit an average 9-year old American kid), but you can go shopping for Papuan artwork.
6. The smell of rotting trash and raw sewage is in the air instead of the smell of oil refineries. 7. In order to get all the way "to town", we have to take a taxi with "bling" to get there, because we aren't allowed to drive company rigs on Indonesian public roads.
8. In Montana the road signs are usually spelled correctly.
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