Trash...I mean Scuba Diving!!

17 Nov 13

Some of the crew, plus family and guests

            So, I have been spoiled over the last month, and it looks like I get another month of the same treatment.   I have failed to introduce the crew though.  Adi, Tono, Engkos, and Henri are the young men who do most of the cleaning and maintenance.  Every morning I usually work out, chat with Gretchen and family and then go eat breakfast.  Sometimes I take 30 min to eat breakfast and sometimes 10-15 min.  However, it never fails that those guys seem to have the bed made, bathroom cleaned, and floors swept, before I get back upstairs…they could make it big in the NASCAR pit crew world.  Sometimes I come home from class and my laptop screen is clean, all the cords to my mouse, headphones, etc. are wound up, my dirty clothes are taken, TV controllers are back in their original place, I mean you name it, and it is done.

            In the kitchen are Narti, her daughter Dia and then another girl named Nia.  They do such a great job and they make sure that I never leave the table hungry.  In fact, if I don’t finish my breakfast, they are kind enough to “brown-bag” it so I can have it for lunch.  Last week I mentioned the BBQ that we had and they were able to take a break.  Whenever there is not a lot of work to do around the house, Mel and Nana usually take them places for shopping and hanging out.  It is a very platonic boss-servant relationship.

            The traffic in Indonesia is so bad…(how bad is it???)….It is so bad, that additional help is needed to assist cars doing U-Turns, turning on busy streets, and of course parking.  I remember seeing the Amazing Race episode where they are in Yogyakarta (another large city in Indonesia) and have to choose between parking motorcycles or street dancing.  Parking cars is a very lucrative process and all you have to do is flag cars into a parking area and then guide them into a crammed parking spot.  Now, they don’t get tipped a whole lot, but over a day it adds up.  Of course, if you ding someone else’s car, you just pay the “tukang parker” (parking assistant) so he does not report you…aww corruption at its finest!  To completely avoid this (in particular the larger malls), you just get a valet to park and retrieve your car.

            Friday was my last day of class for the learning portion of my immersion.  They were very happy with my progress and said that I have improved in all areas.  I really don’t think there has been much improvement, but it may be something that will be more evident in the future.  I will have to say that I am a much better at Indonesian than I was last November J.

            Saturday I had the opportunity of heading out to the Thousand Islands (not the salad dressing) or Kepulauan Seribu for my scuba diving trip.  We got to the pier at around 7:15am, but our high-speed motorboat did not depart Jakarta until closer to 9am.  I was thinking that the boat ride was going to be like a city bus…crowded, but surprisingly it was not too bad.  There were quite a few people going out to the islands (I imagine) to get away from the city, and relax.  The boat trip was about 90 min, and as we passed the various islands near Jakarta, you could see the trash floating and in the background was the smoggy skyline…what, were you expecting blue skies and crystal blue water?  There was one spot where the boat had to adjust its course so some debris/trash would not get stuck in the propeller.

            Arriving at our destination, we saw the blue water, but one thing that we did not get away from was the trash.  It is funny, because there will be signs like “No Fishing,” but in that same body of water there are plastic bottles, cans, cartons, etc. just floating along.  Once we met our dive master, he got us out on a smaller wooden fishing boat, and we went out to our first spot.  This spot was about 2 km (1 mile for you Westerners) north of Pramuka Island, which was nice because the water was really blue and as far as I could see, there was no trash.We got under the water and one of the first things we came across was a sea turtle.  I have never seen a sea turtle in the wild, so that was really cool.  I must say, once we got under the water, the trip was all the better and well worth the $160.  All in all it was two dives and I saw a total of 4 Sea Turtles, a lot of beautiful fish, collected a couple of shells, and only saw maybe three pieces of garbage.  The best thing about scuba diving is that it can be raining but it doesn’t matter because you are already wet and under the water.