The Compound

These are a few pictures of our house exterior (front), the playground and some beautiful tropical flowers. All houses in the compound look like ours. There's almost no backyard except space for compressers for air conditioners and gas canisters for cooking. But it's well landscaped. Every two houses share a car port and a gate. The compound is relatively quiet but we can hear some traffic at night, and people praying at 4:30am from a nearby mosque.

I just discovered today that the huge tree in our tiny backyard is mango tree!!! It's about 30 meters tall, towering above our house. I claimed there were 2 mangos up there. My parents looked at it and said that my eyes must have some problem. They found tons of mangos hanging above. I'll upload some pictures tomorrow to show that they are right!

Our House

We're currently in our temporary house. Since it's 'temporary', no make-ready was done. However, we found it much more livable than the permanent house we first got in India, or at least, the house was clean. Despite that there was no rain for a whole month, the floor is always clean. Believe me, if it's dirty, everyone's feet would tell you that since all houses in Indonesia are shoe-less houses.

The pictures above pretty much show what it looks like on the first floor. there's also a half bath near the foyer, and a maid's quarters and another full bath for live-in maid on the first floor. On the second floor, there're 4 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. We don't have a live-in maid so there's extra space for storage.

Since we don't know when our permanent house will be ready, we might choose to stay here for the next 3 years. The location of our current house is perfect - close to the school, shopping areas, and work. The only down side is that there're no kids of Elizabeth's age so it'll be a little tough for her. Eddy's got a few 5-year-old boys to play with in this compound so we barely see him during the day.

Got the call

I received the call on Wednesday to join the State Department Junior Officer training class in September. Previously, I was planning to enter the program on a later date because I need several months to help the kids settle in completely, finish the move to our permanent house (sometime in October/November), and help USAID mission in Jakarta with a couple of projects. With the new development, everything needs to be changed. I've started to tell the kids about my travel plans and it doesn't seem to bother them that I'll be away for months.

I've decided to accept the offer, because not only this timing would be my best bet to get posted back here with Ted next summer, but also a dream finally came true. Soon after I was naturalized, I started to prepare myself for the test. After several failures of written test and one oral assessment, I finally passed both tests this year. It would be pretty insane to let go the opportunity. However, the timing of the class isn't ideal so I didn't fall off the chair like many other candidates when I received the invitation. One thing I can think positively is that we have a really nice pembantu, Ibu Tinah. I feel that I can totally trust her to take care of the kids and manage the house while I'm away.

So, if all goes according to the plan, I'll see many of you back in DC in September!!!

Taman Mini Indonesia Indah

On our 5th day in Jakarta, we went to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (Beautiful Mini Indonesia Park) that was open to the public in 1975 with $26 million of investment. The park is about 15 km from Jakarta, and it took us a little over 40 minutes. The Lonely Planet book says that Ibu Tien Soeharto conceived the idea of building the miniature park with a full-size house from each province. But I was told that a few students of architecture major came up with this idea first. Since I'm not a historian, I'll leave this for history buffs to debate.

Our friends Cathy and John generously offered their car and driver to us while they were on vacation, so I thought it's a good idea to see the miniature Indonesia before I make travel plans for the next 3 years. The park is huge - 100 hectares. I was trying to walk through the park, but Pak Datong, the driver, persuaded me to give up the idea. Well, if it were just Ted and I, we could have walked through the park. But with my parents and the kids, Pak Datong's suggestion made more sense. What surprised me most was the Chinese archway that is still under construction (see the last photo above). Once upon a time, ethic Chinese were not allowed to learn Chinese language and keep their Chinese names. And now, a symbol of the Chinese culture is under construction in this park. I also saw quite a few billboards of Chinese language schools in south Jakarta.

In the park, there is also a monument (first picture) commemorating the Non-Aligned Movement as the late Indonesian President Sukarno was one of the founding leaders of the movement, together with Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia (from Wikipedia).

I'll try to make as many day trips as possible before school starts on August 7. Tomorrow, Elizabeth will take a placement test at the International School. We'll see how it goes. Eddy's test is scheduled for next week.

Learning Bahasa Indonesia

On our second day in Jakarta, I got a few names of Indonesian tutors from HR and started to call them. I was very lucky to get a really good tutor from REALIA, Pak Iskander. I was planning in the beginning to take 12 hours of language class with him, but soon found out that it was too ambitious. So, I cut it back to 6 hours a week. Pak Iskander comes to my house to teach me 4 times a week.

As everyone told me, Bahasa Indonesia is not very difficult. But when it comes to usage of formal and informal words, it does get complicated. I'm supposed to use proper words depending on who I'm speaking with. But I guess since Indonesians can tell immediately that Saya bukan Orang Indonesia (I'm not an Indonesian), they'll forgive me if I don't use the proper format. Several pembantus in the compound were very surprised last week when I started to speak to them in Bahasa Indonesia, and claimed that Bahasa Indonesia saya bagus (My Indonesian is good).

Pak Iskander planned to take me to a nearby mosque tomorrow to interview 5 people. I successfully negotiated it down to tiga orang (3 people). Bargaining is essential here, even with my tutor.

Terima kasih & Sampai jumpa!

Arrived in Jakarta

After spending 3 wonderful days in Hong Kong - eating, shopping, sightseeing, and seeing a typhoon come and go, we arrived in Jakarta on June 26. Our sponsor, Kristie, picked us up from the airport. Our temporary house is a 2-level townhouse with 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 2 living rooms and a sizable dining room and a kitchen. There's also a maid's quarter but we don't have a live-in maid.

The first thing I did after dropping off luggage was grocery shopping. There are a couple of Giant-type supermarkets as well as upscale shopping malls within walking distance from our residence. During the past 2 weeks, my parents, who never walked to a store by themselves in the U.S., have founded several short-cuts from our house to Grandlucky, a large supermarket where we can find just about everything we need. They also found a traditional local market in a neighborhood close to us. One day, they went out, exchanged $20 near Grandlucky (I couldn't figure out how they communicated with people), and came home with sweet potatoes and such. Truly adventureous - more so than they were in the States.

It seems that local people spend more money as a proportion of their salary on grocery than us. Our pembantu (maid), Ibu Tinah, spends about 500,000 Rupiah monthly on food and her daughter's schooling. Public school is free here so I guess she meant anything other than tuition. That is a third of her salary. But rent is relatively cheap. She spends 350,000 rupiah on rent for the first floor of a house, including a living room, a small kitchen and a small bath, and a large bedroom. The owner of the house lives on the second floor. Unfortunately, Ibu Tinah's place was flooded twice in the past 5 years and many of her limited belongings were washed away.

We get spoiled quickly -- Ibu Tinah cooks, cleans, washes and irons and sometimes shops for us at local markets. She is a very sweet and quiet lady and we all like her.

Our air shipment has been here for more than 2 weeks but we can't get it. There is a lengthy process here to clear our shipment. However, I am (trying to be) optimistic that we can get it delivered in the next 3 weeks. So now, we've living on bare minimum. We'll have friends in town next week but we can't have them stay with us - there aren't any beddings and bed for them. What a shame!

But all in all, we really like living in Jakarta. Eddy and Elizabeth love the pool. They dive tirelessly each time we're at the club. There're a lot of good restaurants we can walk to. Most restaurants in shopping malls are Chinese and Japanese, but the most crowded ones are Wendys and McDonalds. Go figure.