Bird watching
I met a guy named Jim from California that’s really into bird watching. He’s working on a database of the birds in Bandung with another guy here. I got up early on Friday morning, and met at his house at 7:30 am to go watch birds. We went to a park in Bandung and saw some birds that are pretty rare here. There were huge Night Herons that are black and white, and nest high in the trees. We also saw Javan Mynas. They apparently used to be common here like a lot of other birds, but over the years people have caught them to sell as pets… This has happened with a lot of the wild birds here, so their populations tend to be quite low. It’s really disappointing sometimes just how few birds I see here. On Friday we saw some little parrots called Copperhead Barbets, and some little grayish birds called Sooty-Headed Bulbuls. There were also some little yellow birds about the size of Goldfinches. They’re called Oriental White Eyes, and they have a really high-pitched peep that sounds like lasers. I had my camera with me, but didn’t take any pictures, as I didn’t get very close to any of the birds. With so many birds being caught here, the birds remaining in the wild are very scared of people. It’s still nice to admire them from a distance though. 
So far from home…
I’ve been living in Indonesia for over 4 months now, and I’m experiencing some homesickness… but it’s more of a peoplesickness. I do miss things in Seattle, but mostly I miss my friends and family. My brother’s band is playing shows now, and I’ve never seen them perform. A couple of our friends have gotten married, and a couple more are getting married next week.
I got a few emails tonight from my former co-workers and friends at at&t. One of our co-workers, who I’d worked with for over 6 years, past away last month. Somehow his family forgot to mention it to his employer. I don’t know what happened, but it makes me sad. He was always a very friendly, positive person. This makes 4 people that I’ve known from at&t that are no longer with us. Whenever this happens it really makes you stop and reevaluate things. I don’t regret my decision to move to Indonesia, but I just wish I could also be there to hug my friends at at&t, and be there for my other friends and family for everyday things.
I hope everyone’s doing all right back home… and for anyone from at&t that’s reading, imagine yourselves hugged.
Filed under Living in Bandung | Comments (7)Pests… Ewwww….
Well, things are quite different here than they were in Seattle… Cockroaches are normal, even in the cleanest of houses, and the open airiness of buildings allow all kinds of creatures access to the buildings.
At work there are rats that have been in the ceiling of the teachers’ room for a while. One of them likes to sit in the ceiling right above my desk and jump and scratch at things. I bang on the ceiling pretty often with a ruler to try to chase it away. More recently they’ve become a bit more adventurous, and had taken to exploring the teachers’ room, and climbing up our bookshelves. They’ve chewed into packets of instant coffee, cookies, and anything else they could get their teeth on. When I removed all the food from around my desk, they pooped on my bookshelf. Eww…
In the past couple weeks they’ve become more daring… Hanging out in the teachers’ room when there are people in there. I complained to the center director, and he said he’d do something. Then, on Wednesday I’d forgotten that I had a chocolate pastry in my backpack which I’d left next to my desk. A rat chewed through my backpack, and got the pastry, but left the plastic bag behind that the pastry came in. I was told that today they would get rid of the rats… I guess we’ll see on Monday when I go to work.
Also, my friend Dela at work had some chocolate in her locker (we’ve started locking up any food items to keep them away from the rats), and she opened the foil and saw a piece of chocolate fall on the floor… Then the “chocolate” ran away, and she realized with horror that it was a cockroach that was on her chocolate bar.
Ahh, the joys of living in Indonesia.
Thankfully we don’t see many cockroaches at our house, and I’ve never seen evidence of rats at home. We usually just get ants, and some small jumping spiders… and of course all the suicidal geckos. I think I’ve mentioned before though about the cats in our neighborhood that will sometimes climb up to our balcony to use it as a litterbox, or climb down our back stairs from the roof to poop in our kitchen (it’s kind of separate from the rest of the house). Well, two times now a cat has run into our house.
Once when Billy and I were brushing our teeth in the kitchen one night (the only sink in our house is in the kitchen), a cat ran down the stairs and into the dining room. I saw it as a gray blur out of the corner of my eye, and I walked up the few stairs to our dining room and saw it crouched under a chair close to the front door. I went to get my keys and open the front door. It waited patiently, and as I backed away from the door it ran out.
Then, last weekend I was sitting upstairs reading on the couch, and I had the door to our balcony open so I could get a nice breeze. A cat just trotted right into the house, and as it caught my eye it ran past me to the stairs and headed down them. I ran after it, then decided it wouldn’t be good to corner a scared cat, and I slowed down and started talking to it… “just a second, let me find my keys, so I can let you out the front door again.” It gave me the understanding look that cats sometimes get, and it sauntered over to the front door and sat down looking at it, waiting for me to open the door. When I found my keys, and opened it, the cat took it’s time walking out the door, and looked back at me. It’s actually a pretty cute cat, but I don’t like the idea of it just running through my house whenever it feels like it.
Filed under Living in Bandung | Comments (4)Being sick isn’t fun…
Billy and I’ve both come down with something… Billy thought at first that it was food poisoning, but I came down with the illness a day after him. Billy started feeling sick on Thursday, and was running a fever on Thursday night. He tossed and turned most of the night. I woke up Friday morning feeling a bit queasy, and had diarrhea throughout the day. Not fun when you’re at work, and there’s only one bathroom for the teachers.
I dragged myself home from work yesterday and planned to go straight to bed. I went upstairs and put down my things, then had to race down to the bathroom to throw up. 
It’s been years since I’ve been so sick I’ve thrown up (aside from the occasional alcohol-induced illness). I ate a few Ritz crackers to get something back in my tummy, and drank some water. Billy brought home some bananas and snake fruit (good for tummy ailments), and I ate a little before going to bed at around 9:00. I didn’t really sleep most of the night… It was more of a restless thinking about work. I kept thinking about English worksheets, and trying to go over the answers with a class. The answers on the worksheets kept changing, and didn’t make any sense, and the students all looked at me questioningly. This was interspersed with having to jump up to run to the bathroom, and I threw up a few more times during the night. Then, whenever I closed my eyes, the English worksheets and confusion were back. Luckily today’s Saturday, so I didn’t have to work. I slept until about 9:00, then got up and read a book for a few hours, and decided to take a nap around noon. Just didn’t have any energy. It ended up being a 3 1/2 hour nap, and I woke up feeling a lot better. Still not as energetic as usual, but at least I’m not throwing up, and my tummy isn’t cramping up anymore. Whew! My appetite’s even returned a bit, and I used our cooker for the first time tonight, and ate a bunch of Kraft mac & cheese for dinner. Not all that healthy, but there’s no way I felt up to going out somewhere to get food.
I’m glad I’m starting to feel better, and really grateful that we have this awesome balcony to relax on… even when I don’t leave the house, I don’t get so stir-crazy when I can sit outside in peace.
Filed under Living in Bandung | Comments (3)Suicidal Geckos
Billy and I are convinced that the geckos living in our house are suicidal. We’ve already had two die in toasters, and we’ve seen another one disappear into the cracks on our toaster oven. Billy also had one drown in a can of root beer he’d left out overnight, and I had one jump from the ceiling and land on my chest when I was sitting or our balcony reading a book on Saturday. What are the crazy geckos going to think of next? Electrocution perhaps?
Filed under Living in Bandung | Comments (2)We’re Okay!
Billy’s parents called tonight as we were sitting in our local pub having dinner. Apparently there was a major earthquake in Sumatra, and we didn’t even know about it. I did feel a little strange at one point today when I was sitting at my desk at work… I thought to myself ” did I just feel something, or am I imagining things?” and I looked around the teachers’ room. I didn’t see anything that seemed out of sorts, so I figured I was just being weird… Basically, we didn’t feel anything of the earthquake in Bandung, and we’re at a high elevation here, so a tsunami wouldn’t affect us either. I hope no one was worried about us, as we’re just fine.
Consistency…
One of the things about living in Indonesia is you have to get used to inconsistency. For example, I order strawberry orange juice from the little cafe at my work almost everyday… Some days it’s fabulous with just fresh strawberry and orange juice. Other days the cook adds water to make it stretch further. Some days he adds milk and water. It’s strange. It’s always the same price, but the ingredients vary from day to day.
Then there’s Starbucks… Always consistent. I don’t go to Starbucks very often here, but I know that when I do I’ll get exactly what I want, how I want it. It even looks like a Starbuck’s back home, with the funky glass lights and comfy chairs, and with cool music playing. So, here I am this morning before I go to work. I’m drinking my iced caramel macchiato and just finished a banana chocolate chip muffin. Life is good… and the barista even complimented me on my bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language). The employees at Starbucks all speak great English, but I still try to practice my bahasa with them.
Here’s a pic I just took at Starbuck’s with the Photo Booth program on my Mac. 
On a different note… We had another gecko casualty in our toaster, so we got a toaster oven. Now I can actually bake! Our pembantu (maid) gave us a bunch of bananas from one of her trees. She gave us 14 huge bananas, and they were excellent. They were getting really ripe, so with the last 3 bananas I made banana bread yesterday morning. I went online a couple of days ago to find a basic recipe for banana bread, and I made a shopping list. On my way to work on Tuesday I stopped to get the makings for the bread… of course, I hadn’t thought about the fact that most of the labels on food are written in bahasa Indonesia, and I didn’t think to look up the words for flour, baking soda, or vanilla… Hmm.. So, no luck getting what I needed. I mentioned it to the local teachers when I got to work, and they helped me translate my shopping list. I was able to get everything I needed… although the ingredients weren’t quite like I’d use back home, the banana bread still turned out really good. Yay! Not bad, considering I also didn’t have any measuring cups or spoons. I think my Grandma will be proud of me for being able to eyeball it, and have it turn out well.
Ok… it’s almost noon, so I’m off to work. I’ve got three classes today, starting at 2:30. Planning lessons is becoming a lot easier. When we first started here I’d be in the office around 9 am for 3 classes starting at 2:30… now I’m feeling more and more comfortable with grammar points, and activities, so I can usually plan a lesson in 30-45 minutes. Woohoo!
Hope everyone’s doing well. Thanks for reading my blog.
Filed under Living in Bandung | Comment (1)