Chinatown, Yard Sale, and Relaxation

It's a beautiful day today, one that is most likely going to be a "good day sandwich" with the way the weather works here.  In fact, I can hear rumbling in the distance.  At our old house in BC that usually meant that dump trucks loaded with earth or rocks were passing by, but here it means that thunder and lightening and lots of rain could be just minutes away.  As long as we're out of the rain when it hits, it's kind of an exciting place to live in that regard.  Yesterday was rainy, and so were parts of last week. However, on the days that counted most, the rain stayed away just long enough for me to enjoy the events I'd planned.

possibly a soup-turtle

 Last Tuesday 11 of us from our Bread & Butter Cooking Club (BBCC) headed into Jakarta, to Chinatown.  We went armed with shoes that we didn't mind getting muddy if it rained, plastic spoons, cups and plates for sampling local food stall wares, cameras, and of course a spirit of adventure.  Our goal as a cooking club:  to see what kinds of unique foods we were missing at home.  Our first stop:  what I call 'reptile alley'. This is a long, narrow corridor where men sit atop wooden crates, readying frogs for the soup pot by peeling off their skin, chopping turtles into smaller bits, and selling live eels for later consumption.

these frogs are all tied together, waiting for their turn to "undress"

turtle soup

Sorry for the descriptives, but there's no nicer way to put it.  Further into our journey, we sampled iced grass jelly drinks (very nice, very refreshing), something that looked like burnt Barbie doll hair and tasted like cotton candy, sweet potato chunks mixed with glutinous rice and floating in coconut milk (yum!), an indonesian salad with spicy peanut sauce, and some were daring enough to try turtle soup (not me this time).  We ended our day at a 2nds ceramics shop where we found lots of great plates, bowls and serving dishes to buy.  Nice way to end the day.  

We're really proud of the fact that we're an international mix of girls, and it was pretty neat to realize that of the ladies who joined, only 2 were of the same nationality.  There were 2 Chinese Indonesians, 1 Canadian (me), 1 American, 1 South African, 1 Pole, 1 German, 1 Singaporean, 1 Icelander, 1 Brit, and 1 Japanese.

On Friday the Karawaci Ladies held a Yard Sale, very much like the one we held last year.  This time, although we had the same goal of blessing the local maids, drivers, security and neighbourhood maintenance people, we were a lot more relaxed about the whole affair.  We reduced our hours to one day from last year's 2, and after spending HOURS sorting, pricing and displaying clothing last year, this year we decided to price it all at the same basic price and just dump it all onto tarps on the ground.That's what ended up happening to the clothes in the first 30 seconds last year anyways, so it was just a matter of saving time and energy beforehand.  Like last year, people were excited to shop and to go home with some really nice items.  This year, with much less work and less hours of sale, we made almost $100 more than last.  So, some local employees were happy with the deals they found, and the Karawaci Ladies were able to donate another rupiah 8 juta (8 million, or almost Cdn $900) to our Children's Medical Fund for poor kids needing medical attention.  

Today, Sunday, seems like a dream day.  I love "culturally significant" days, and today was one.  Actually, the significance started yesterday when a fairly new Indonesian friend picked me up at 5:45 am to go to a local "pasar pagi", or morning market.  We went to a place that sells pork (very hard to find fresh here for a non-local who knows nothing of these things), which was hanging by strips and bones from large hooks.  I got so excited because Tris and I have been discussing eating ribs, and lately I've found out that even with Celiac, I'm able to eat a few brands of BBQ sauce.  This first outing led to today's, where at 6 am Tris and I headed back to the same place and bought a kilo of back ribs for about $8.  We got to choose our cut of meat, and had them cut it how we like it.  Right now they're in the oven, and delicious tangy sweet smells are wafting throughout the house.  Can't wait!  

After a quick meander through the grocery market (set up with set prices inside a cement building) where we bought some strawberries that taste very much like ours did in our back garden, we checked out the outdoor market.  There were found lots of wonderful fresh veggies and some things we didn't have a clue what to do with.  At one point I stopped at a chicken area, where there was a centrifuge-looking thing (or what looked very much like the inside of a clothes washing machine).  A man was killing chickens, throwing them inside, where they spun until the majority of their feathers came off.  He'd then throw them into scalding hot water, return their rubbery bodies to the spinner, and after a few seconds pull them out completely featherless.  It was quite intriguing, except for the part where the dead chicken pulled his head up and looked at me before he was thrown into the water for the first time.

We returned home with our purchases, headed to the pool and enjoyed a time of golfing (Tris) and swimming and reading (me).  All during this time our kids were at home:  Abby was doing homework and preparing for a talk she gave later to a group of teens at our church, and Matt was sleeping.  

This was a wonderful week and it has ended with some wonderful surprises:  pork ribs, blue skies and a nice, refreshing breeze.  Gotta go, the pork is on!!

Thanks for reading.

Eating our way through the adventure...

Sometimes there are times in your life when you just have to. There's not really any reason not to, and it's fun to say you have. Like tonight. There's a great new couple here at our school, Brock and Lisa, and they're into truly experiencing the local culture. Since he's arrived, he's wanted to eat at a snake restaurant. Originally I thought the guy was pretty nuts--"unique" is a good word--and then I started to think about it. Why not? People eat weird stuff all of the time, and seriously, what a great thing to be able to tell my grandkids! In fact, I have an uncle, Uncle Ken, who traveled to Indonesia in the '80s, and during his trip to Sumatera, ate snake. I remember him telling me that it tastes just 'like chicken.' I thought he was really cool. Tonight, we learned that snake really DOES taste like chicken, at least cobra does, and it specifically tastes like chicken breast. Alligator does as well, although I found it a bit sour. Monitor lizard has the texture and slight flavour of fish, monkey is a sweeter meat, and python is a bit 'chewy,' like crab. Brock was the only one who tried bat (flying rats, who eats those???). He also topped off his personal adventure with a cup of cobra blood mixed with the cobra's bile and a little chinese wine. He said it tasted a little bitter. I'll take his word for it.

In the photo of Tris and I, he is trying monitor lizard and I am trying cobra (fried). Of all the items, the cobra won the award at our table for the item we'd most likely order again. It's

rather morbid, really, because it's the cobra that we met personally before he became our dinner. It was a bit like the proverbial bunny that the farmer's daughter names and spends time with, and then one day realizes Fluffy is in her soup (or chicken cacciatore, remember Mom??).

We started our dining adventure out by picking up Brock, Lisa and their little 1 1/2 year old, Bethany, and headed for Jakarta. On the way, we got a little lost in "Old Town" (old Dutch part of Jakarta) and were able to see a little of the older landscape outside of the car when Bethany decided that throwing up on her mom was the best way to get rid of the ache in her little tummy. Once Lisa was as clean as 3 baby-wipes, a bottle of ice-cold water and a purse pack of tissues could get her, we continued on until we reached "Istana Raja Cobra (King Cobra Palace) Restaurant." It literally is a hole in the wall with about 8 small plastic tables, a kitchen smaller than most suburbian clothes closets, and a 'snake room' at the back. I have to admit, though, it was a lot brighter and cleaner than I had imagined. The restaurant, I mean, not the snake room.

Meet 'Fluffy,' our dinner-to-be. After we placed our order (bat & alligator satay, fried cobra, fried monkey, fried monitor lizard, and bbq'd python), we headed to the back to pick our cobra. All of the other items on the menu were "pre-dead" and in the freezer, but unfortunately for

this dish, he was as fresh as they come. The most interesting thing that Tris and I noticed weren't the cages along the wall holding other diners' meal choices (green snake, 'earth' snake, a variety of other snakes), but rather the moving canvas bags on the floor. In these bags, which were hissing and rising up towards our voices, were King Cobras, and even through the bags I'm sure they could smell my fear. While we were watching the bags at our feet, our attendant was prepping the snake. It all happened quite quickly as the fellow showed us our snake choice, lopped off his head, hooked the body to the wall and slid the skin off the reptile. During the skinning, the head continued to move and the tongue to hiss. Very freaky. So very 'not me.'

Once we received our meat dishes, we shared them around and took photos, commented on the taste and texture, and finally realized that during our meal, little Bethany had drawn a lovely crayon masterpiece on the nearby table's plastic yellow chair. Rather squiggley lines, like snakes. How appropriate.

I'm not sure that a return visit to this restaurant will ever happen, unless our kids want to go (they were too busy swimming and watching movies to come along this time) or we have visitors who want the same 'unique' experience, but I admit, I am glad to be able to say I DID.

Thanks for reading.

...this is a little different from the new Bread & Butter Cooking Club that was born last week...new post to come full of delicious details!

Mangga Dua

This visit has been one long shopping trip. One day after another, as long as we're not resting at home (or in a friend's pool) we're shopping. At least that is how it seems. I'm not complaining in the least; in fact I've enjoyed it tremendously, and Rebecca has found some great deals to take home. One of my main objectives with her coming over is that I'd find her a 'to die for' bead store, and we did just that in a large multi-storied marketplace. Absolutely gorgeous beads and stones and pearls, and every possible chain, wire or link you could imagine. We probably spent at least 2 hours in that one particular store. It was kind of like being in a fabric store, where you just walk around touching stuff and dreaming.

I don't have much to blog at this point but I do have two photos that make me laugh. Last week at Mangga Dua we tried on wigs. I kind of like straight, long hair but I don't think I'd like it longer than a few minutes. They were so incredibly hot!!! Rebecca looks so cute she could be the main hostess of a kiddie program. Needless to say, these ones went back onto the reject pile.

Today we went back into Jakarta with two other friends, and went to One Pacific Place, a very decadent shopping mall (just to say we did), and then to a great outlet store. After a run around there we headed to a place that sells a variety of Indonesian gifts, fabrics and clothes. It was a very well-rounded shopping day. It's good to be able to say that Rebes has seen a lot of what Jakarta has to offer, and some of Lippo, too.

Tomorrow is Rebecca's birthday, and we're heading to bible study in the morning, so maybe we'll do a little celebrating there. She's been allowed to open one gift a day, starting Sunday night, until tomorrow.

If you want more details about what's been going on around here, check out Rebecca's blog to the right (Twisted Heirloom).

Thanks for reading.

My drive into Jakarta with my Camera and my Driver

When Candace was here in August, she and I headed out to what is considered a slum area of North Jakarta. This is the same place mom and dad visited and that I have mentioned a few times in the blog. While we were there last time the ladies showed me a quilt that they had made, with the intention of selling it at a later pasar. It was the first quilt that they had ever made and I was very impressed with it. I asked if they would like to learn a new technique on how to finish a quilt edge, and they were very interested. In the time between now and then I made a 10x10 inch sampler square quilt, and I brought this in on Friday. With the extra material and stuffing, the ladies copied my sample and made their own samples. This is a time when I wish I had access to a proper quilting cutting board and an Olfa rotary cutter for each of these women! These ladies are incredible, and they soak up anything you teach them so quickly; I wouldn't be surprised to find that they take what I showed them and improved on it by the next time that I visit.

On the way in to North Jakarta you have to drive over a really skanky river and on that river there are various types of homes. In the foreground is a recycling community, where people live amongst the garbage that they collect, sort and hopefully later, sell. If you look the background, there are some really nice looking, cookie-cutter cement homes, and further behind that are the fancier malls. I've been casually observing the growth of the recycle spot along the river over the last year, and I've noticed that it has grown quite a bit.

In order to see the ladies from the slums my driver has to take a road that is sandwiched by another filthy river and some mass-inhabited home fronts. There's not a whole lot of room for our vehicle, small as it is, and we have to share the road with motorcycles, pedestrians, very small, half-naked children, and sometimes another oncoming car. When I go into the home area, Haris our driver sits by the river and smokes, watching our car. We've been told not to leave it unattended. I feel a little guilty, kind of like I slink in, do my thing, and then climb into my new car with a driver and cold a/c, and drive off to my safe home where mosquitoes are relatively controlled, there are satpams protecting me and my family, and I have a refrigerator full of food. I guess I could allow my guilt to overcome me and avoid such situations, or keep looking for opportunities to experience the lives of others, regardless of their situation, while I learn from them. I've got so much to learn.

This is a rather long blog but there were so many photo opportunities and I want to share some of them with you. As Haris and I headed home, my hands cleansed by my ever-handy hand sanitizer, my belly full of bottled water, imported pretzels and a peanut butter sandwich, we came upon a street light where many street beggars take advantage of cars having to stop and sit for a few minutes. Again, it's hard not to react to a situation where you have an onslaught of people banging on your window, either wanting to sell you a bobble head, a blow-up life child-sized life jacket (hmm? Who chooses the items to sell? Is it marketing or the result of a box that happened to 'fall of the truck' when merchandise was being unloaded in a warehouse somewhere?), or just to wanting you to hand them some coins. Just before we started moving, this little guy came around. When you watch him over time, you can see he has the knack; he's got the look figured out. My response was to leave the windows rolled up, but it inspires me to continue to seek out ways to help within my own community.

The latest email from Karawaci Ladies (I have been using their old name in my postings) informs me that we're collecting money to supply items to 'cardboard kid' schools. These schools have been set up by local individuals (nationals, I think) to provide an education for the kids who, like this little guy in the photo, work the streets during the day. They cannot afford an education. There are local national teachers who volunteer their time and energy (beyond their regular work) each week to come and teach these children, and they have asked that Karawaci Ladies supply them with a plastic bin full of learning supplies (paper, pencils, books, etc). I can't help this little guy (there's probably a big guy who takes most of his money from him and his mom anyways) from my vehicle but thankfully, Karawaci Ladies is a great way to help him, practically, from my home.

One more thing the ladies' charity group is doing is raising money for goodies to be distributed to these children at Christmas time. Each student will receive a plastic cup with a toothbrush, toothpaste, face cloth, a bottle of water, a comb and some other sundries.

Thanks for reading.