The ladies shown above have come to mean a great deal to me. They are a few of those who attend a weekly Bible study at Ingrid's home. Ingrid (left) is Chinese, born as a second (unwanted) daughter into a large family and treated like a slave throughout her growing up years. Next to her is Hela, an Indonesian (married to a German) who speaks 5 languages. A former Muslim, she is now a follower of Jesus Christ and has a heart for helping others, especially children. She has a long, sad history. In the middle is Kim, an art teacher from Korea. Next to her is Marcia, our leader. She and her husband, missionaries affiliated with Christian and Missionary Alliance, have lived in Bandung since 1989 and raised their family here. To her right is Kim's mom who was visiting this week before leaving for Kim's daughters college graduation in Australia. Far right is Jenny Wu (Taiwanese) who is the only Christian in a family of Buddhists. As you can see, it is a very international group with most of the other members (not shown) being from Indonesia and Korea. The women vary in age from early 30's to mid-70's.
We stopped and chatted with the owner of this bird shop after we left the barber shop. Indonesians are really big on birds, especially those of the singing variety. Ronnie asked him about a particular bird song that we often hear outside our apartment. When Ronnie mimicked its beautiful song, the guy was able to name it (sirit cunguing) but we quickly learned that they do not like to hear it because they consider it the "bird of death." They believe that if/when you hear it, it means someone is dying. Indonesians are extremely superstitious.
This was a quick roadside stop to pick up a movie. New releases are usually poor quality but our driver explained that if you wait a month or two, they will be high quality. They sell for approximately 50 cents US. Contraband movies are big business here in Indonesia, minus their periodic shut downs.
We spotted this little boy as we were moving in traffic and I was able to grab this shot through the rear window of the car. Boys will be boys!!
This is an extremely common sight and I know I've posted photos like this before. More often than not, the parents will be wearing helmets but the children will not. Although it is supposedly illegal to ride more than 2 persons per scooter at a time, it is common to see 4 and 5 and occasionally even 6. Obviously, the "add ons" have to be pretty small!
Any time you go to the market place, you see tons of partial mannequins in various stages of dress. I happened to be walking past this man and asked if I could take a photo. He willingly obliged. The sign behind him is prohibiting something; your guess is as good as mine.
Ketupat nasi is made from white rice and is wrapped in a square shape with hand braided coconut palm leaves. As the rice cooks, the grains expand to fill the pouch. I guess you could say they are "individual serving size."
This little girl was with her father on busy Jl Cihampelas today, commonly called Jeans Street by locals. On weekends, hoards of people from Jakarta travel to Bandung to shop its many outlets. This weekend was even worse than usual, being a holiday (or "red day" as they call it). This holiday was for Hindus. Interestingly, all Indonesians take off for each others holidays, be it the big Muslim ones, Hindu or even Christian. I personally think they just welcome any excuse to take a holiday!
I thought it was interesting that the angkot in front of us yesterday was sporting a USA flag painted on the back. Never mind that it only had 30 stars and 11 stripes. I still haven't quite been able to figure out why the US flag (I have also seen one with the British flag) but at least it sets it apart from the hundreds of other angkots that are on the streets at any given time.
No comments:
Post a Comment