Slowly learning

I speak like a fool
and my words dribble
from my sloppy tongue
and my sloppy brain
but they wait as I struggle
patient with pauses
words, words, words
kata, kata, kata
like a fool or a fishmonger
but better, better, better
we share our lives and thoughts
through a dribble
instead of a gush

An average Indo day

I wake around 6:15, pull the earplugs out of my ears, and hear the rooster screeching outside my window. I run downstairs to the mandi, and wake up by pouring very cold buckets of water over myself, then run back upstairs to dress. Around 7 I collect my bags and go downstairs for breakfast, which I usually eat alone or with my Ibu peering over my shoulder to make sure I eat enough rice. 

I leave for school around 7:15 through the backdoor. I pull a pair of shoes from the shelf by the door and slip them on. In Indonesian culture, it's impolite to wear everyday shoes inside the house, so they store them by the back door. I greet Stan the Sate Man serving sate from his cart. Stan's real name is Mas Ipar. During Ramadan, I only see him at night. Further down the road, I pass the security gate into Kampus UM. It's guarded by security guards, all male, who love to talk to me and have often asked me to stop for food, coffee, a ride, or even (once) a shower. I just smile and wave and walk as quickly as I can.

I arrive at Building D8 around 7:20. It's usually already busy, with teachers milling about, students skyping family, and workers setting up our catering or raking the grass. 

I go to the second floor, sit on the ground, and open my computer to finish homework or chat. Before we know it, it's 8 am: time for class! Our teachers call us in and we groan, shut our computers, and drag our books to the classroom. We spend five hours in that room everyday (with a few bathroom and snack breaks). There, we're only permitted to speak Indonesian. At 12:50 we're released for lunch, which is catered traditional Indonesian food every day. I've learned to appreciate its. During lunch we chat, feed the feral kitten that lives in our building, and peel off to our computers once again to chat with our families or work on homework. 

Morning computer time

In class

Lunch! The feral cat in the photos lives in the building off the food it steals during lunch.

Post-lunch nap

After lunch, we go to either our elective classes or tutor time. I'm taking classes in Gamelan, traditional Indonesian music of mainly metal percussion instruments, and Menari, traditional dance. From class I'll often go to the gym, where only two treadmills work, so we workout in an empty room upstairs to workout videos. 

Nearly every day, I find an excuse to go to Baker's King, the donut shop in the mall. It has wifi and oreo donuts that blow my mind, so I've become a regular there. They laugh about how many donuts I eat, but seriously, good Indonesian desserts are difficult to find. Most taste fake sweet or are swimming in weird jello. Really, you think I'm kidding but I'm not: Even the cake has weird jello on top and in the middle. 

Also nearly every day, after an awkward dinner with my host family (a friend here called it 'prison dinner'), I'll go back to D8 to use the internet and do homework. Often, a group of tutors we call "The Long Haired Band" sits at the front desk, smoking, eating, and singing loudly to videos they play on the computer or their guitars. They always sing loudly and with spirit, and I often wonder whether they shouldn't be doing something else...

Finally, around 8:30 most nights, I go home, passing Stan the Sate Man again. I go in the gate and up to my room, get ready for bed, finish up my homework, put my earplugs in my ears, set my alarm, and go to sleep. The whole process begins again. 

This is what I do on an average weekday in Indonesia.

Buka Puasa (Breaking the fast)

We careened through traffic with the other motorbikes as Indonesian faces blurred past, the faces of street vendors, taxi drivers, shopping strangers. A fair share stared as we passed, an Indonesian Muslim woman driving the bike and a blonde American clinging on behind. Somehow, in this city of millions of people, people who look like me are still an anomaly, a proverbial sore thumb. We pass a stadium, a Zoya proudly displaying hijabs in the window, and McDonalds before the street becomes so packed we're forced to pull to the side and park. We've arrived at a pasar takjil, where hundreds of Muslims buy food to break their fast during Ramadhan. 

Muslims in Malang break the fast around 5:30, when the sun sets, so the market is open between 4 and 6. Because of a rainstorm, we're late, so we hop off our motor, find our friends, and hurry into the jammed street in search of food. Vendors line the streets, peddling fried foods of every kind and other merchandise, from clothes to pets. We stop to take pictures with a snowy owl as we buy juice, fried rice, and whole fried catfish. We walk to a temple to eat, sitting among the formidable black statues, as dusk settles over the city. The vendors light the street with neon, and we break our fast with scalding hot catfish and fried noodles. Nearby, children set off fireworks as the call to prayer peals from the nearby mosque, silencing our conversation. We joke in broken Indonesian and English about our plans for the next day and how Sarahann has broken three pairs of her shoes on Indonesian sidewalks. The streets slowly empty.

These moments can't be captured on camera. No art can express how Danny's eyes shined, how Sarahann laughed, how beautiful my tutor looked, how the palm trees waved and the night enveloped us. I could never reproduce how the catfish melted in our mouths and burnt our fingers as we greedily tore them apart in the dark. I lay at the foot of a giant, my head reclining slightly off its pedestal, and saw clouds, dim the the dark, roll over the temple, over the whole city, and into the night. A million hungry people celebrated with me. We spend most of our days in Malang studying, as we ought, but nights like this help me love this city and these people.

Today I'll try to fast with them.