First weekend at the Zoo...

22 Oct 2013

Average Dinner at the Homestay

So classes have started and I was able to do some sight seeing during my first weekend in Indonesia, as well attend church meetings.  The classes are very advanced, I am the only student, and the teachers are very good.  The school is about 2 blocks down from the Homestay, so I can walk to school everyday.  Thursday and Friday were pretty routine.  I had class from 10am to 3pm with a 1 hour lunch.  We read advanced level (bachelors/masters) articles, watch authentic videos, and there is much more writing practice than I had before at DLI.  This school should last about a month.

Yep, that glass is cracked...

Saturday, I decided to venture and go some place by myself, and I decided (for learning purposes and my overall interest in animals) to go to the zoo.  Ibu Nana dropped me off at the zoo and I was on my own from there.  The price of admission was 4,000 Rupiah, which is about $0.40.  I was thinking this place was going to be small, but boy was I wrong.  What amazed me was not the fact that there were a lot of people there, but the fact that people take advantage of the places to sell their items….from cut-out tarp material for sitting on and having a picnic to street vendor food.  I decided to try to walk the perimeter, so I wouldn’t miss anything.  The result was that I only saw half of the zoo, so I will have to go back.  Another thing I noticed is that the animals were very lively…as hot and humid as it was, the animals were way more active than the ones at American zoos.  Ibu Nana told me it was because they are so hungry and want to get food from visitors.  I thought the animals looked healthy, with exception to the orangutans.

This one male orangutan was surrounded by pieces of garbage (probably left over from a flood), and was trying to eat the food that the visitors were throwing at it, separating that from the garbage.  Then, a female orangutan came out of the cave with a (what looked like) granola bar wrapper in her mouth.  I then noticed that there is a completely separate exhibit for primates that is free of food, and more strict and a cleaner environment.  So, next time I go, I will have to check that out.

Saturday evening I accompanied Ibu Nana and her sister to the traditional market, which is as traditional as it gets.  We are talking about crowded, open-air markets that are littered with tables for selling fruit, fresh meat, all sorts of spices, vegetables, snacks, etc.  I just hope the tables that I saw with whole (de-feathered) chickens are not used for the fruit or vegetables.  It reminded me of Guatemala, just different fruits and vegetables.

Sunday morning I was able to attend Stake Conference at the church building in Jakarta.  This was a special meeting, so several wards were present, to include English speakers.   The first part of the meeting was conducted in Indonesian with a translator, so things were repeated in English.  I found myself sometimes completing a translation before it was repeated in English, which made me feel good about my language abilities, but I was not about to go up and volunteer to translate. 

The second half of the meeting was a broadcast pre-recorded from Salt Lake City which had Elder Holland, Elder Hales, Elder Evans (the Seventy Elder presiding over the region) and one of the Primary Presidency.  This was cool, because you got a church leadership perspective specific to Asia.  We watched the “I’ll Go Where You Want me to Go” video, (probably the Asian version) where a Chinese missionary and his family all have separate missionary experiences, and afterwards the leadership discussed certain insights.  They were very adamant about the advancement of missionary work in Asia.  It was a very enlightening experience, and I am so glad that I found a church home here in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Today was a brutal language day, and I truly got served a piece of “humble pie.”  These lessons are somewhat canned, but when they say advanced….they mean “advanced.”  This is good, because I am definitely getting the lesson material that I need to understand the culture and social issues that are currently confronting Indonesia…in particular, Jakarta.