Squirrel!

In reviewing the checklist for assessing ADHD (as it's still called here) in my role as school counselor I've discovered that I have ADHD. In fact I have about three times as many symptoms as the child that was sent to me:

Often daydreaming/ in a world of their own - check
Prone to non sequitur outbursts - check
Starts things but drifts off before they are finished - whoa that's my entire life in one sentence. In fact I'm kind of surprised I'm still writing this)
Often makes careless mistakes - check
Suspected of having hearing problems- check
Loses things, procrastinates, messy room - check, check, check
Finds it hard to wait, always in a rush, easily frustrated, poor sense of time - uh huh, uh huh, uh huh

I could go on but this is taking too long. Where's my ritalin again...

McYang Clan

When Ms. Yeni originally invites me to accompany her to a wedding, she tells me it will be a traditional Javanese wedding so I rearrange my plans to have Sunday free. On Saturday Yeni informs me that this is the mother of one of her students and she is marrying her second bule husband, the first one having died of a heart attack. I cringe. I have an idea what this is going to look like and it's not entirely pretty.

"You're certain this will be a Javanese wedding?"

"Oh yes," she says, "very traditional."
 
When we arrive at the hotel and walk through the doors to the reception hall we are serenaded by what I believe may very well be the world's only Asian bagpipe band. Yeni looks afraid as we walk past the squawking instruments.

"What is this?" she asks.

"Bagpipes." I look at the names scrawled across the banner on the back wall. "My guess is Alistair is Scottish."

As the hall begins to fill with retired bules and Indonesian girls dressed like prostitutes my stomach churns with disgust. There are women dressed in tartan mini skirts, poured into satin gowns with above mid thigh hems, teased hair and clownish makeup.

"Is this traditional bule man wedding dress?" Yeni asks earnestly.

"No, those are kilts and only Scotsmen, from Scotland, wear them."

Aside from a two minute appearance by some Javanese dancers and the fact that I'm the only white female in the room there is nothing to distinguish this from a Western wedding. I am starting my second glass of wine when Yeni says, "Please, Ms. I want a picture with one of these men in dress."

"Which one?"

She picks the tallest, baldest, ugliest man in the room. Turns out, I discover later in the evening, he's the groom. So I go and ask him if he might pose for a picture and he kindly obliges. Yeni is over the moon."Oh, thank you miss, thank you so much for making it."

We are about to leave when three reasonably young looking bule show up. None of them have girls on their arms and I decide, with the help of my third glass of wine, this might be my only shot at lining Yeni up with bule boyfriend. So we stick it out and follow the wedding procession, including the kilted Asian bag piping band, down the street to the expat bar. I manage to get one phone number for Yeni and two for me though, between the noisy bar and the additional cocktail, I can't recall if my numbers were social exchanges or business.

I am hungover for my first day back at school while Yeni is on cloud nine for having a real live bule's phone number. She wants to relive every moment of her "most wonderful experience in my life" with me.

But, during the course of our discussion she tells me, "I was so terrified, I could not breathe. I've never been before. I thought maybe only this happen in movies, but now I see bule lifestyle maybe I don't want bule boyfriend, yes?"

I do tell her that no bule can drink like the Celts but she seems unconvinced. I say nothing more to try and dissuade her. At thirty years old she is far sweeter and more innocent than I was at fourteen and I really don't ever want to see my friend cheaply tarted up for some white man's thrill. So I say, "Find a man who makes you happy and quit worrying about his skin."

She just sighs.

Nongsa

On Thursday I tell Ms. Yeni I need to get some work done on Friday. She says she understands. Instead of getting work done I spend Friday being driven back and forth in the rain to Immigration for more visa business. Ms. Yeni comes along in the morning and comments on how tired I look. I not only look tired, I am exhausted. I need some time alone to recoup and am looking forward to an afternoon of reading and writing. But at 11:30 Ms. Shanty tells me the man I need to see is leaving for Jumu^ah prayer so we will have to come back at 1:30.

Late afternoon, when I finally arrive home, I make lemon tea with Sumatran honey and settle down to write. I haven't yet finished my tea when Ms. Yheni is at my door.

"Ms. you get your things together. We go to Ms. Kahlo's tonight. She is cooking Javanese rice. We will spend the night there with her daughter and then go to Nongsa in the morning."

I am completely appalled by this presumptuous plan. I try to explain that I have a Sunday deadline for a story if I want a chance to get paid for it and I don't have time tonight.

"Okay, so we don't go to Nongsa."

I have been trying to go to Nongsa to kayak since holidays began but either the weather is no good or Adik can't make it and asks me too wait. I smile and say, "No, I will go to Nongsa tomorrow. That's why I don't have time to go to stay at Ms. Kahlo's tonight."

Indonesians are incredibly social and I can see that what I'm saying is utterly incomprehensible to Yeni. Ms. Kahlo, upon hearing that I won't be able to make it, insists on delivering dinner. It's delicious with a liberal peppering of guilt.

At 7 o'clock in the morning Ms. Kahlo and her family return to pick us up and we all go to Nongsa. We stop at the village first, which consists of dilapidated huts, some traditional Indo architecture and a very dirty beach so we don't stay. From there we drive to Nongsa Resort which is owned by the parents of one of the students in our school. I am taken around and shown all of the facilities -the "campground", the apartments, the conference room, the chalet. I am served a fresh squeezed papaya slushy and repeatedly asked if I like everything. I smile and nod, "It's very nice." but I am bored and restless. And they don't have kayaks, so we drive to Turi beach.

Yeni and Vanni want to try kayaking. I am happy to teach them but I want to paddle to the river and I know they won't be able to make it that far. As someone who has spent so many years alone, one of my biggest challenges is letting go of my own wants in these situations. I've never done well in groups.

Yeni is terrified the moment she touches the water and it only takes twenty minutes for the girls to decide that they're not leaving the shore. I show them basic swimming strokes to practice, I explain how to safely navigate waves so they can practice paddling too, then I hop into a kayak and paddle out to sea.

The sea rocks with a different kind of current and motion than a lake. I try not to think about sharks. It takes half an hour before I reach the river and when I do two ferries bear down on me. I am forced up against the riverbank to ride out their wake. Looking two stories up at the crowd gathering on deck to watch me I feel unspeakably small but, once I've past the terminal and under the bridge it's easy paddling through the mangroves listening to the jungle birds serenade while lizards jog along the shore.

On the way home Vanni falls asleep on Yeni's shoulder and Yeni says, "We are very lucky."

I'm not sure why she says this but I know she's right.

Bahasa Word of the Day: ke sini/ ke sana = come here/go there

Bird on a Wire

"How old are you Ms.?"

I am lying on a cot in the school clinic with a burning wax tube shoved in my ear. Ms. Oolyn, our rubenesque, olive skinned receptionist is waiting for her turn under the flame and her almond eyes widen when I tell her my age.

"Are you sure?" she thinks maybe I have misunderstood her question. When I assure her that I am and have earned every year of this she shakes her head again. "But Ms., in Indonesia you should have husband already. People will think there is something wrong with you if you don't."

I explain that I have already had husband, and I have already gotten rid of him. "In Canada too, people think there is something wrong with me. Sometimes I think maybe they are right but mostly I think that's their problem."

"Ok. So, you get Indonesian boyfriend!"

I laugh. "No, thank you. I don't go looking for trouble and men just cause me trouble and break my heart." Ms. Yeni, who is administering the ear candling and with whom I've already had similar conversations, is laughing now.

"Oh no," says Ms. Oolyn earnestly, "Indonesian men are very nice. Very respectful. Let you be woman."

I am about to ask why I see so many women with black eyes then, but I bite my mallet (tongue). I don't want to sound accusatory and I know the only difference between here and home is that, back home, when men beat women, we as a society have decided it's unacceptable to leave the evidence where the rest of us will have to bear witness.

"But," she qualifies, "Indonesian women only want bule  men."

"I've noticed that. But if Indonesian men are so nice, why? Bule men are jerks."

"All men are jerks," Ms. Oolyn and Ms. Yeni reply in unison. I can't argue with that so I just wait for Ms. Yeni to remove the candle and blow out the flame.

"Look," she says, showing me a pinky finger's worth of waxy green stuff, "all that is from your ear!"

I pretend to be duly disturbed. She wants to start doing this as a side business and I don't have the heart to tell her "all that" is simply candle wax. Besides, my hearing does seem clearer, possibly from all the massaging, so what's the harm? Still, I am somewhat relieved she wasn't able to find her tools to perform hijama on us like she wanted.

When Ms. Oolyn is finished, I arrange with her to have my school lunches catered after the holiday before Adik (little sister, my Indo nickname for Ms. Yeni) and I set off to buy groceries. On the way home we stop again at the laughing Buddha temple for lunch but the restaurant is closed. We are told it will open in half an hour so we wait. Half an hour later we are told it will open in another half an hour. An hour and three mini travel scrabble games after that it finally opens.

Any fears I have that the food will not be worth the wait are quashed with the first bite sweet potato and long beans. Food is served buffet style and I have taken far more than I can comfortably eat but I manage to finish everything, curried eggplant, fried beans, chili spinach with the exception of the rice. The entire heaping plate cost only $1 and I am beside myself with gratitude.

When I get back home I realize that I have forgotten to buy water so I run out to the convenience store only, instead of going to the smaller one run by the tiny Chinese lady, I walk farther to the larger one on the corner. For some reason I usually avoid this store though Ms Yeni insists he carries the best oranges. He, is the broad shouldered, Asian man behind the counter, who, unlike all the other men on this island who stare when I walk by, ignores me. I have never seen him with a shirt or without a cigarette. If life were a Hollywood movie that store would be a cock fighting ring and he would be taking bets on the match instead of making change for dish soap. 

When I pay him for the water he watches me fumble with the money. There are too many zeroes- I'm a millionaire here- and I inevitably get confused so he counts out loud as I produce bills, which might have been helpful if I knew mandarin, and laughs at me. It isn't an entirely unkind laugh but it catches me off guard and makes me feel vulnerable. When the money's all laid out on the counter he scoops it up and waves. I point to the 500 IDR I still owe him but he looks up at me from his cash drawer and shakes his head. In the moment our eyes meet I understand what I've been avoiding.

Trouble.

I Double Heart Singapore

Inside the Thian Hock Keng Temple I meet Yue Gong Niang Niang. She is a matronly woman with long braids who promises to fulfill my requests. I have only been in Singapore an hour and already it's competing with Berlin for top spot on my list of all time favourite cities. It has more than compensated for the fiasco the school sponsored errand (read: visa run) I've been sent here on is proving to be.

In order to meet Madam Ying before 10 am (Sing time) I am up before Rusty (the rooster) with my alarm set for 4:30 am. The driver is supposed to pick me up me in an hour. I shower and dress. I pack my bag. I check and recheck my packing. I will buy breakfast in Sing so, with five minutes to spare I open the front door and sit down on the couch to wait. I watch the charcoal sky shade to purple, then violet to orange. Still no driver. My ferry leaves in twenty minutes so I text Ms. Shanty. Correction. I try to message Ms. Shanty but the message fails. I try Yheni but that message fails too.

Ten minutes until the ferry leaves. I use the house phone and call Ms. Shanty. Ok, she says, she will call the driver, and promptly hangs up. I walk across the street to Ms. Yeni's to see if she might know what's wrong with my phone but she's not awake yet. The next ferry isn't until 8:30 so I begin to scrounge some breakfast. The driver pulls up, rolls open the van door and shouts in bahasa. I grab my bag, curse and swear at the door as I try to lock it with the ill fitting key, then race towards the van. The driver practically pushes me inside. It feels like a poorly executed get-away.

It's 6:30 am. Nothing in the ferry terminal is open and I have another two hours before the next ferry leaves. I walk laps, in circles around the terminal like a caged animal. I use my limited knowledge of cell phones to try and coax mine to send a message. This involves resetting it by removing and reinserting the battery. Repeated attempts produce no result. An hour later the mobile shop opens and I swoop in like a hawk. I show the girl my problem. She takes my phone, punches something into it, and she shows me my problem. My pulsa have expired.

In Canada you buy minutes, in Indonesia you buy pulsa. In Canada you use your minutes until they're gone. They don't, as far as I know, expire. In Indonesia if you haven't used your pulsa in a month you lose your pulsa. I buy a ridiculous amount of pulsa as I suspect I'm not going to have a good day and may need them.

After boarding the ferry I message Madam Yang as I've been instructed to do, before settling into a seat on the observation deck for the crossing. I am notably not hungover. The ferry cuts through the seemingly endless patches of garbage helplessly adrift at sea and I feel remorse for all the plastic bottles of water I've already bought in my short stay and the incalculable more I will in the year ahead. The only other distraction from the approach of the futuristic Singapore skyline are the tenacious tugboats, dwarfed by the cargo ships looming large above us but somehow admirable and more impressive for it.

By the time I make it through customs it is after 11 am Sing time. I practically run into the adjoining mall, glancing about wildly for the agreed upon meeting place, when I hear a voice ring out clearly, "Hallo, Ms. Eris!" I turn and see the sweet smiling face of a young Chinese girl and her mother. Madam Ying I presume.

"Hallo!" I smile in greeting. "I am so sorry I am late." I reach into my bag and proffer the file of papers.  "I think these are what you need?"

When I look up the woman looks mortified. She doesn't take her wide eyes off me while she and her daughter discuss something (call me narcissistic but I suspect it's me) in Mandarin. My name is mentioned twice before I realize this is not Madam Ying but some darling student from school with her mother.

I excuse myself again. I try to explain I am meeting someone, I don't know who, I am late, and in the rush I mistook them for... they are both staring at me in horror. I stop. I smile and try again.

"What are you doing in Singapore?" I ask the student, my mind racing, wondering where I need to be and how to get there. She grins and tells me their vacation plans. In less than a minute I have them both beaming happily so I excuse myself before I create any more confusion.

When I get to the meeting place no one is there. I try to call Madam Ying but my phone isn't working. I try Ms. Shanty back in Indonesia but my phone won't call home either. I wait. Five minutes later my phone rings. It's Ms. Shanty. She tells me she will call Madam Yang.

When Madam Ying arrives I like her instantly, despite or possibly because of the fact, that I can hear her berating me even before I can see her. When the crowd parts, like the red Sea for Moses, to let her through she is a tiny woman, far too old to be wearing a business suit that tight and still looking that good in it.  She interrupts my apologetic explanation.

"Why you no phone? At least you phone, tell me where you are, but no, Missy no phone!"

When she is done scolding me she takes the file from me and begins to sort  through the papers talking a mile minute. I don't really understand most of what she says, but I understand that there's no need for me to understand because she is Madam Ying. the Universe does Madam Ying's bidding, willingly or not. She takes the glasses that hang on a silver chain around her neck and slips them onto the edge of her nose. I feel like I'm auditioning to be trafficked as she compares my photo to my face.

"Must be same, yes. They no like, they no take," She says as she reaches up to turn my face a bit more to the left. Finally she nods. "Okay." Then the file is snapped shut, the papers which only moments before were in remarkable disarray considering we have no table, having instantly righted themselves at her command, and Madam Ying tells me to meet her at 5:00.

I reach for my wallet to pay her but she waves it away.

"Money is not important. You late. Now everything mess. I see what I can do but maybe no visa for you today." I start to apologize again but she interrupts, "You no apologize. Your driver no good. I would fire heem." I have no doubt she would and I have no doubt that she will have my visa by the end of the day.

 It's almost noon when I set out to find the subway to take me to my first stop, the Taoist temple, where I meet Yue Gong Niang Niang, the Goddess of the Moon Palace. She is a matchmaker and young women pray to her for a good husband and married women pray to her for happy marriages, beauty and youthfulness. Figuring it can't hurt I buy and light an incense stick and tell her I want to fall in love again and ask her to help make it happen.

I take the subway to Little India for lunch. I haven't had Indian food, real Indian food, since I left Winnipeg half a year ago and I am giddy with anticipation. The waiter is amused when I order butter chicken and aloo gobi without rice or bread. He comes back numerous times throughout my meal to see if I've changed my mind. I smile every time and assure him no, I'm fine with the potatoes and mango lassi to wash it down. But it's better than fine, my taste buds are dancing a shimmy shake, and if it wasn't outrageously expensive ("Sing prices" as everyone in Batam says) I would have ordered more for take-out.

After lunch I stop by the exquisitely appointed Hindu temple and watch the puja candles being lit. Taking the long way back to the subway I realize, Singapore's India is exactly like India if India were clean. I begin plotting and calculating how many trips back I can afford to make over the course of this next year.

With only an hour to spare, I head to the Ritz Carlton which boasts one of the finest modern art collections in the world. Exiting the metro station though, I get turned about. I finally stop to ask for directions and notice a young business man walking towards me and the local who tells me "That's it right there."

Turning to walk back to the corner, I hear the business man say to the local, "Roight, I'll just follow 'er then." and in two strides he's sidled up beside me.

"I think I've crossed this intersection five times now," he says by way of introduction.

"Oh good," I answer, "you've practiced. I'll feel better about crossing with you then. You can give me the inside scoop on any tricky bits."

"But this is the one side I haven't really had a go at yet you see, which is why I thought I'd better follow that girl there 'oo looks like she knows what she's doin'. 'ow did you land up 'ere anyway?"

So I tell him about the visa run and he tells me he just interviewed for a job on the 38th floor of the building across the street.

"How'd that go?" I ask, worried I'm going to have to give a pep talk.

"Fantastic! They're sending me the contract as we speak!"

"Congratulations! How lucky are you! You get to live in Singapore!"

"I know!" he says and we continue to exclaim excitedly back and forth while we try to find the entrance to the Ritz. I don't recall ever sharing that amazing I-just-got-my-dream-job moment with a stranger before this and I feel kind of special knowing that I'm the first person on the planet to know that Paul, the British engineer, is flying home in two hours to give notice.

We seem to have an instant rapport. "Paul," I begin after the concierge hands us our iPods for the free guided tour. "You're a bit squeamish about putting that in your ear aren't you?" He says without waiting for me to finish. "I'll put one in one ear then and I'll give you the gist, yes? Okay roight now, they're saying, blah blah blah, oh sod it that's not interesting at all." And so we roam the hotel soaking up the air conditioning and enjoying the company.

"This one's untitled."

"That won't do. What would you call it, Paul, if it was yours?"

"Splitchy, wait, no Splotchy."

"Right, Splitchy Splotchy it is."

In the last five minutes we make a final dash around the lobby trying to locate the David Hockney's which was what drew me here in the first place. When we find them he picks up the pencil lying on a table beneath them and scribbles something on hotel stationary. Please let that be your e-mail address I think. But instead it's David Hockney's ("Or 'Ockney old boy, as we like to call him back home in England") "autograph". I promise I'll try to sell it on e-bay.

Then he walks me back to the metro station where we slowly have a hurried awkward goodbye, each of us hesitating but he doesn't ask me for my email address. I imagine he either found me dull, smelly (though frankly in this heat we all are by late afternoon), or he's married so I smile and wish him all the best with his new job. Either Yue Gong Niang Niang has something mind meltingly incredible in store for me in the future, or lighting incense sticks in front of statues doesn't work any better than internet dating.

I am exactly four minutes late and brace for another tongue lashing but Madam Ying is not there. In fact it's nearly 6 o'clock when a man approaches me apologetically and hands me my visa. I have missed the 5:30 ferry home so, after paying him, I wander through the mall and buy shoes, chocolate and wine.

When the 8:30 ferry pulls away from the harbour the gondolas to the amusement park are lit like gigantic fireflies in the night sky. I don't want to leave. At home I pop some wine into the fridge while I shower before crawling into bed with two pieces of chocolate, a glass of chardonnay and movie. I fall asleep before the plot thickens but my guess is, in the movie at least, the boy gets the girl.

I Feel Full

It's so easy to forget how limited our own life experience is. Which is why I love the internet, specifically blogs and social networking. Yes, most of what's on this interweb machine is twitterpation, mundane drivvel that probably doesn't need to be archived in the cloud of human history. But then so much of the beauty of life lies in the mundane. The extraordinary cyber art project "We Feel Fine" filters, molds and encapsulates the internet into the ultimate expression of humanity. I spent too much time today reading everything from a 19 year old anorexic who feels happy about her recovery to a 43 year old divorced male who still feels confused about his marriage. And, at the end of the day, instead of feeling like the internet robbed me of hours of my life with its flashy lights and irresistible links, I feel more connected to the human race than I have in months. 

Sheep sate and lontong rice for dinner helped too.

"Who are these neighbours?" asks Ms. Yeni as we sip our mango juice. "I never heard them. No music. No rooster."

I don't know but if I have to listen to Meatloaf one more time I'm going to punch someone in the face.

Bahasa Phrase of the Day: Aku mau ke mana ...= I am going to ...

Classic Rock Is Never a Good Idea

There are plenty of habits in Indonesian culture I find difficult to adjust to - their idea of what is personal, the nose picking and spitting- but above all they are early-ghastly o'clock in the morning early-risers and they are spontaneous singers. They love music here, largely 80's rock ballads circa Bryan Adams and Celine Dion, and they are not shy about randomly bursting into song, even in the middle of a conversation. This is awkward for me as I'm still not sure: Am I supposed to join in or just wait until they've finished? Am I expected to applaud at the end? Do I need to start carrying a lighter for a more authentic experience?

My neighbours are very Indonesian and, on top of inhaling the smoke from their garbage burning pile which gives me a persistently scratchy throat and watery eyes, I am woken every morning, if I manage to sleep through their rooster, from the squealing vibrations of Roxette's "Listen to Your Heart". It seems they've invested the money they save on garbage pick up in an ultra pumped extreme stereo system and the bass line pulsates through my reinforced, earthquake proof room shaking me awake at 6 am.

The house is a duplex and they live just on the other side of my wall. I would bang on the wall but it's made of cement and I don't own anything heavy enough to get my point across. Thankfully the music usually stops around 9 am when the hammering begins. The hammering on the other side of my bed. If I yell, in either English or Bahasa, the hammering just gets louder. The good news is it does stop...

At 10 am when the stereo gets turned on again so we can all enjoy a little Trooper at 25 million decibels.

Bahasa Word of the Day: diam = be quiet