New Digs

After 3 days of searching we finally settled on De Hill Villas, Apt #5. Every place we've seen had its cons, but this place and one other had some pros. The biggest con on De Hill Villa I suppose is its location to ITB where Ronnie will work. Not that it's terribly far, but definitely too far to walk. Ronnie will have to call a cab to take him to ITB, as we do for anywhere else we need to go. Other than the transportation issue and not having a pool or exercise facility, it's by far the second best thing we found. The best apartment we saw had AC (none of the others did) but it was located on a VERY noisy street. We've second guessed ourselves almost daily, but the deal is done and we will settle in here. But not until after the middle of September.

Kitchen/Dining/Living

Because of Ramadan and the biggest Muslim holiday of the year (Idul Fitri) pretty much everything in the city has been booked solid for some time. Additionally, our apartment was already booked for Sept. 14-15. So we will have to move in and move out 3 times!! We won't really feel settled until we are able to completely unpack out suitcases. Fortunately, the owner has a room she will let us stay in so we won't be on the street or anything. It's just that all this packing and unpacking and lugging heavy suitcases up and down flights of stairs is a pain in the patoot!

Master Bedroom

The pros for this place are that it is roomy and (relatively) clean. We feel pretty safe here, and the landlady and her daughter both speak English (they are Chinese) and are very nice and helpful! One big adjustment is having no hot water in the kitchen and only being able to use the water for laundry and bathing. And even that is questionable (the laundry part). But that would be the case, no matter where we are in the city. We are thankful to have found something that met as much of our criteria as it did. Last but not least, it has a decent mattress which my back appreciates ever so much!!

Notice height of frig vs counter top!

Note: Houses here often come with a live-in housekeeper/cook, gardener, driver and sometimes a guard. Though we would have paid about the same (or less) for a house, neither of us felt that comfortable living with people we don't know, preferring privacy to all the extra help.

Evi (landlady), Ronnie & Pak Dwi

Around Bandung

view out back window of car

As I mentioned earlier, the traffic here is not to be believed. Despite the incredible number of drivers on street (bus, truck, pedicab, car, motorcycle, bicycle) there are very few if any traffic lights. Everyone just negotiates their way through the intersections. Each time the cars stop, the motorcycles continue to roll, filling up any empty spaces between, in front of or behind them. It reminds me of water flowing downhill, working its way around any stationary object. There is always honking and everything is chaotic, yet no one ever seems to lose their cool.

busy street outside electronics store

Ronnie's associate Pak Dwi is an example of this. He is amazingly patient and in control of his emotions. We spent 2 hours this afternoon just looking for one house. We had learned that ITB owned a home for visiting professors, and our hopes were high that this might be the place for us. It turns out we were given the wrong address. Dwi must have stopped at least 10 times to ask for directions. Never mind that he had not had anything to eat or drink all day. Yet he never acted miffed. Even the cab driver who got a ticket with us in the car didn't show any emotion. Sheesh!

At one point in our search, the road was so narrow that when we met a car, we had to stop and let pedestrians help both drivers navigate past each other so as not to scrape each others cars. Of course the mirrors had to be taken in to accomplish this.

passing with at least a half inch to spare!

housekeeper/cook in kitchen at ITB house
 

As to the home owned by ITB, we finally found it after the second day of searching. It turned out to be dormitory style situation, where each individual or couple had their own room with shared bath, a common living area and common kitchen. As is common here, many of the houses "come with" a live in helper, groundskeeper, cook/cleaning lady, etc. We met her and she seemed like a very sweet lady, but we had to rule it out.

Oh, btw, we were told that the ITB house was "new construction". It was 40 years old if it was a day! We also looked at a "brand new" town house which had clearly been lived in. We ruled it out because it was 4 stories of winding, very narrow steps with a kitchen (sink only, no appliances) at the lowest level. Two homes we looked at (supposedly 4 and 10 years old) were at least 25 years old if a day. We learned quickly that one can't always take literally everything that is said. It was also different in that our real estate agent drives a motorcycle so we had to hire a cab to take us to see his properties.

After several days of looking at apartments, town homes and houses, we finally settled on De Hill Villa. I can't say it has all the comforts of home, but it is light years ahead of most of the places we saw.

dormitory style living at ITB house

Christians in Bandung

One thing we knew before coming to live in Indonesia for 10 months was that we would definitely not be in the Bible belt anymore! Though Indonesia is a religious nation, a huge 90% of them are of the Muslim faith. Yet there are still some Christian churches here, at least two of which offer services in English.

This morning we took a Blue Bird cab to Gereja Baptis Pertama (First Baptist) church for their service in English. Missing home, family and friends, it was wonderful to be able to walk into a church on the complete opposite side of the globe and feel that same special bond that we feel with believers at home. Even with having to wait 25 minutes for a cab, we made it to the service in time and were greeted warmly upon our arrival. The service was good and we especially enjoyed the music. They use screens (vs hymnals) and sang songs (all 4 verses!) that I hadn't heard since I was a kid! When a group of girls from the local seminary got up and sang "Here I am to Worship" (accompanied by a single guitar) we and others in the congregation couldn't help but join in. Very moving.

Gereja Baptis Pertama

The service (their second of the morning) was rather small, probably 50-60 people total with only one  Caucasian family besides us. The church is currently between pastors, so the message was given by Dr. Harry Sudarma, president of Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Baptis (Bandung Baptist Theological Seminary) here in Bandung. (http://bdg.seminaribaptis.com/)

Since we have relatives who have lived in Jakarta and Bandung and were former members of this church, several persons came up to greet us, having heard that we were related to Ben and Marlene Broome.While Ronnie was chatting with Dr. Sudarma, he asked him to speak at the seminary some time and even invited him to teach and preach! ha We're thinking this just may be one of those "cultural things" and I guess we'll know how serious he was if he continues to ask (see my post on Indonesian etiquette). Ronnie is not a preacher but he is a good teacher, so perhaps it is not that far fetched, though obviously the setting would have be in English (or interpreted). Another "small world" thing was that Dr. Sudarma received his degrees from Houston Baptist University. He and his wife lived in the Houston area for 10 years and still have children and grandchildren there.

It goes without saying that we were glad we went and it did our hearts good. We're hoping to visit the International Church next Sunday which may or may not have more expats in its membership. Besides worshiping with other Christians, I am definitely interested in connecting with other expats and developing some friendships in this "home away from home."

Bleach is my new best friend.

wash, rinse, rinse

I hate bleach. I'm allergic to it and I have always avoided it at all costs. I even go out of my way to avoid the pool supply section in the grocery store. Bleach gives me a terrible headache if I even get near it. But I'm being forced to re-consider my position on bleach. Dingy, foul smelling clothes need bleach. Water that is not potable needs it as well. Come to think of it, just about everything around here needs bleach.


Washing dishes, clothes and even our hands has become something we can't just do without thought anymore. For example, the other night Ronnie wanted to eat a carrot. We had bought a veggie cleaning solution at the store, but he scraped the carrot without remembering to use it. Then he had to figure out how to wash the carrot off since we can’t just use sink water. So we finally decided to put water from our 5 gallon container (which is what we will drink and cook with) in a bowl and wash the carrot off in that. Things we never give a thought to at home now have to be executed in steps.

and this is the large size frig!

We're finally getting this thing figured out. Boiled water with soap for the first wash of the dishes. Bottled water with bleach for the rinsing bath. Then a third container of plain bottled water to rinse the water with bleach off. I do miss my dishwasher and clean water at the kitchen sink. And while I'm whining, I miss my garbage disposal and oven too.

My attitude has somewhat improved since my sister told me to think of it like camping but with the amenities of electricity and flush toilet. Sometimes we just need to tweak our perspective a bit...

But who would have ever thought that bleach would be my new best friend??

Coincidence?

So yesterday we were shopping in Setiabudhi and we overhead a man and young boy talking on the next aisle over. When I looked up, I saw that they were Caucasian. We have seen only a few Caucasians and it especially tickled me when I heard him say "Look Noah, we haven't seen a Snickers bar in 2 years!" When he caught up to us, I asked him if he could help us find something that was akin to a saltine cracker (we hadn't done so well on our first attempt). We began to chat and introduced ourselves, then learned that he and his family are missionaries/translators in Papua province (western  New Guinea with World Team).

Trevor Johnson and his wife Teresa are both nurses and are currently living in Bandung for the delivery of their 3^rd child. Imagine COMING here to have a baby! But obviously the city offers more than the rural area they currently serve. He was so kind to offer to help in any way he could to aid in our adjustment to Indonesia. He and his wife Teresa have lived in Bandung before and are fluent in Bahasa. He followed up later in the day with a very informative e-mail. He even knows an "older lady" named Ibu Edi who is looking for work as household help, so will put us in touch with her shortly. Turns out, Ibu Edi is my age! :(

Setiabudhi supermarket

Ronnie and I are both looking forward to meeting them and their children on Saturday at CarreFour for shopping and lunch. (CarreFour is sort of the equivalent of Walmart in the states). He says Teresa can tell me some places to buy towels and other household items cheaply. His e-mail contained a link to his blog site so we've been able to see what their lives are like working in a tribal situation. Isn’t it just like God to arrange such a meeting?

Krogers it Ain't!

Today we made our second trip to Setiabudhi, the local supermarket. It's about a mile and a half from our apartment, so we decided to walk to the store and take a cab back with our groceries. Our walk was like any other in this city - hopping up onto and back down off of the curb, traveling over stretches of broken sidewalk and tightly hugging the curb to prevent getting ourselves run over!

seaweed flavor chips?

Shopping itself is equally challenging. Brands we recognize are few and far between. We must have been in the store at least 2 hours to buy $65 worth of groceries. It seems that everything we do takes a lot more time here. It's not like I can just run down the aisles, throwing things in my basket like I usually do. Unfamiliarity with brands, inability  to read ingredient lists and not even knowing what some things are make food shopping somewhat of a guessing game. And even brands that we are familiar with don't taste the same.

fresh fish

We were advised to shop at this particular store because they carry more Western products. While we did find a *few* items we recognized, they were about 4x's what we're used to paying in the states. Makes sense. They had to travel half way around the world to get here, just like we did. My thinking is you have to want them pretty bad. So needless to say, we'll be challenging ourselves to try more local brands each time we shop. And who knows? Perhaps we'll even miss some of them when we go home?

durians

Fruits and veggies are a whole 'nuther subject. There are many of both that we don't recognize. The durians kind of smell up the whole produce section and even the packaged flesh looks unappetizing. I'll put them in the "grow on you" category. Ronnie's colleague told us that Indonesians actually like the way they smell. Hmm. Cleaning the fruits and veggies is going to be a time consuming chore, I'm afraid, as our tap water is not potable. I've heard horror stories about what is sometimes used as fertilizer, so that is enough to keep me on the straight and narrow! ha Step 1 requires a vegetable wash using bottled water, Step 2 requires rinsing in a bottled water/bleach solution and Step 3 is a clear bottled water wash. I fear that there will not be enough veggies in our diet between now and June 2012.

Yogurts and milk are plentiful but cheeses are very expensive. We really wanted some Parmesan cheese for our pasta, but not at $10 a bag. The young lady working in the dairy section had never heard of cottage cheese.

anyone for late night snacking?

The only bread in the store is made in the store bakery and there were several choices there that were really good. However, it is very different from the entire aisle of bread choices that we are used to. 

Something really neat happened while we were on the hunt for saltine crackers in Setiabudhi today. I will relate that in tomorrow's post.

To Laundry or Not to Laundry?

Ronnie looking perplexed

That truly is the question! I try not to take my blessings for granted. Really I do. But it took less than 24 hours for me to realize that I do take my washer and dryer for granted. I take it for granted that I can put dirty clothes into a machine, have hot (or warm or cold) water come in, agitate them in soap and fabric softener, rinse them, spin them and then spit them out all clean and fresh smelling. I also take it for granted that I can just throw them in a dryer and go about my business while they are tumbling into a dry, clean, fresh pile of laundry. Lord, please forgive me for having taken this for granted.

As soon as we moved into the apartment, my "cleaning service" (who turned out to be a young boy - Wawon) showed me how to use the washing machine. Since he doesn't speak any English and I don't speak Bahasa, this took some doing. Eventually I figured out that I had to put my clothes into the left side of the machine. To get water into the machine, I needed to turn on the hose on the outside of the machine. Good thing I only wash in cold since any other temp is not an option. Next step - add soap and turn a different knob to agitate the clothes. After watching them agitate awhile, I must turn the hose on the outside of the machine off, then turn another knob to allow the water to drain from the tub. Check. Then turn the knob on the hose back on and allow water to fill up the tub again. Turn knob to agitate clothes. Then turn knob on hose off again and turn the other knob to allow the water to drain out. Clothes still soapy? Of course they are. So I need to repeat steps above, however many times it takes or until I give up, whichever comes first. Once I have given up on removing all soap from clothes, I turn the knob on hose again and allow water to drain from tub). Next I remove clothes and put them into the right side of the washing machine and turn knob to let them spin. Repeat this procedure another time or two or three. Then hang them on the porch to dry. After they dry, give them the "sniff test". They stink! I finally decide to call up a laundry service and have them pick up the laundry. Four days later they are returned in good shape - for 25,000 rupiah - approx $3US including pick up and delivery?!  Uh, buh bye, washer!

they bring a scale and weight the clothes

dirty laundry leaving on motorcycle