Our Community

Although we have a lot to learn about the area in which we live, I do have a few bits of knowledge that will give you an idea of the uniqueness of the community we are in. Lippo Karawaci (LK), to me, is like a large UBC village. It is not a very large area, yet it holds a huge mall, banks, a school (SPH~ said "ess-pay-hah") and a university (UPH~"ooh-pay-hah"), as well as a hospital. In 1992 plans were made to build a bunch of not-very-profitable, difficult to irrigate rice fields in Lippo Village into a new 500 hectare town. Small villages were moved elsewhere and the rice fields were built into what is now known as LK Central. Other areas were added on later. What is amazing is that once the project began, the school (SPH) that we are now working at was completed within 6 months and was ready to go by 1993. The first residents moved into LK in 1994; this means that the professional structures of the village were established first and then the people came. The population is now around 45,000.



We live in what is called a "taman," or estate, and they're very different from "Copperfield Estates." Each taman has it's own personality...ours is one of the first and so there are numerous trees and vegetation. Danau Biru (ours) was built with the intention that all homes would follow a particular architectural design; other tamans have more individualistic homes on larger plots of land. We feel quite blessed to be housed in the taman that we're in because we're right next to the school. It is a 3 minute walk to the front gate. Each taman has a guarded entry gate complete with at least 2 guards on at the same time. When I get up the nerve I will ask them if I can take their photo and show you our friendly "sampak" (security guards). And no, we haven't seen any with guns.
This photo is of our neighbourhood. The roads in Danau Biru are quite narrow.


We have not yet had the opportunity to truly experience Indonesia like we saw it in videos, with the poverty and the incredibly frustrating all-day long rush hour traffic. We have experienced traffic like I've never seen it before, but that's another blog in itself. I have not yet met Mrs. Os "magazine seller" but when I do, I've promised that I will indeed buy a magazine from him. However, what we have experienced has been unique in itself for us, with having to build a house into a home from scratch (this will take a while...but we did buy ourselves a new 32" tv with a home theatre system inexpensively. Between that and being able to bake a wacky cake, it's beginning to feel like home). I think that once things get moving, school gets started and I join a few things, we'll see beyond the beautiful area that we're living in and experience the Indonesia that we expected to see.



If you'd like to check out real estate:) please go to

http://www.lippokarawaci.com/

Thanks for reading!