Taking You to Church--Again. Mundri-style.

Bishop swearing in the new lay-readers.
Esther is second from left.

Superbowl Sunday is a thing, I’m pretty sure. Because one time while I was in college, Joanna and I went to the store on Sunday after church and it was way crowded with people buying stuff and talking about football. Anyway, I’m also sort of sure that Superbowl Sunday happened on the same day that I spent 5 hours in church in Mundri. For real. I left my house at 9:30am and didn’t get back home until after 4:00pm, having eaten nothing but Holy Communion all day.  But thank YOU all for posting all about your favorite Superbowl party snacks all over the internet. Even though, no, I was not looking at Facebook on my phone for most of the service. I did occasionally sneak a peak to check the time. I was really curious.  At least I got to Communion before they ran out of bread—but don’t worry: the loaves multiplied. Vaida has one of those extra-large grandma purses. You know, the kind that is usually filled with peppermints and other hard candy that no one actually wants to eat unless you are in church? But they don’t have peppermints here, and probably they would never make it to the bottom recesses of the Grandma purse here, because kids don’t get much candy here and they will eat any of it as soon as it gets in their little hands. Anyway, Vaida had a package of “glucose biscuits” in her purse for her son or grandson or whoever. When she noticed the bread running low, she grabbed it and handed it up to be the Body of Christ, broken for our sins. And I think it was just as good as Coke and pound cake that I had for the Lord’s Supper as a kid one time in Indonesia (Best church day ever).

If you are doing math on the times I included in that first paragraph, my first question to you is “Why do you really care that much?” But my second question to you is not a question, it’s just the answer to your question about how I got 5 hours out of 9:30-4:00. The answer is that I spent 5 hours of that 6.5 hour time period in church. The other 1.5 hours were spent walking to/from church and a quick trip to the market to pick up some food. I went home and called the khawajas to tell them that I couldn’t make it to khawaja church because 5 hours was all the organized church time that I had in me for the day. They understood.

The gang walking home from church

But truthfully, I really like church in Mundri. Yes, I prefer the “short” 2-3 hour services at my church because I just really like our music and the enthusiasm of our congregation for participation in worship. I love that that we have to wait for the dust to settle before we can see the preacher standing a few meters in front of us on our “stage” because the dancing kicked up our dirt floor into a cloud (asthmatics coming to visit our church, please bring an extra inhaler or two and a face mask). Also, our children’s choir is top notch. They have moves, Guys. For real.  They dance in to the front of the church. Then one lucky star kid yells to the congregation that they will be singing one song in Arabic and please listen nicely. Then they sing and dance the song, and then they dance their way out again.  

I also like Sunday Testimonies, an open invitation to the audience to share with everyone something important from their week, though when I've given testimonies, they are usually just intra-Church greetings. Other people’s testimonies are more exciting. One time a guy called out one of the pastors for drinking too much, while the khawaja-raised-in-Asia writhed in an agony of embarrassing public confrontation, but the pastor just calmly stood up and asked for prayer to help out with that. Another time a lady shared how she had been bathing when a snake (very poisonous one) slithered across her foot and she prayed that it would go away without killing her, and it did! Often, though, it’s people coming up and sharing their dreams and what they think God was telling them through that. The other night I had a dream that I was walking with Marian and she had one of the twins attached to her and was walking right into on-coming traffic, and I said, “Hey-why don’t you just wait for that bus to go BEFORE you cross the street?” But she was in a hurry to get to her new house (or wherever we were going) and also she was trying to lose me on the way because she didn’t want me to go with her. And then I said, “Fine. I don’t  care about your new house anyway. But you really should be more careful crossing streets.” Or something like that because when I woke up wondering why I was mad at Marian for some reason, the edges of the dream got fuzzy and then I just made up the rest of that, but I definitely remember her stepping in front of that bus. Seriously, Marian—look both way before crossing the street. But that isn’t really the kind of testimony that people share on Sundays, it’s just that it popped in my mind when we were talking about dreams and I thought I should make sure that Marian is not endangering her life and the life of one of her children (the others were probably home safe with Josh, but you never know what Josh was doing—maybe walking into on-coming traffic is just a Frizzell thing). Because you never know when a shiny red double-decker is coming down the street right at you, and those guys won't stop for pedestrians.

Being a foreigner in church is usually interesting. I’m not the only foreigner in my church anymore. There is a nice man from Uganda who also attends, though he doesn’t seem to stand out as much as me for some reason. He is working on the Amadi road, but he drives in for services. His name is Innocent, and I really like him. Sometimes they have English translations for him. Sometimes they just make sure he sits next to someone who can tell him what is going on. Before he started coming, they would always ask at the beginning of the service, “Is there anyone here who does not understand Arabic?” The first few times I attended, several people would turn around and look pointedly at me, and then the others around them who remembered my first attendance and self-introduction in Arabic, would wave them off saying, “No, no, she’s fine.” But even though people know me there now, and my pastor sees me as an official member of the church, who can be called upon to participate in church fund-raising games and answer questions about hand pump applications, there are always a few newbies who stare. I try not to take photos in church (though I’ve taken a few videos of the children’s choir, which I will try to post*), so here is a picture of me showing you the face of a young boy sitting in the row in front of me in church last week. Even though I didn’t get his photo, this is an exact replication of his expression. Trust me, I am a professional.

So I tried to be reassuring and I gave him this face:

He responded to me with this face:

And then I turned the other way to look out the window at the kids climbing trees and thought about how fun it would be to be out there too. But at least church was shady and I had my little batik fan—thanks, Mom. The fan keeps me from missing you too much because it makes me feel like I am you and then how can I miss you if you are right there sitting in my chair, fanning yourself and waving at all the small children?

Finally, I’m including a self-portrait of myself after the 5 hour church service. Just so you know—taking a selfie in church is rarely acceptable behavior, and butt selfies are never appropriate no matter how good you think you look in yoga pants. So that’s why I drew a picture of me and my post-sitting-on-a-log-bench-for-5-hours body. The skirt fabric stuck to my rear because—artistic license is a thing that trumps reality, and basically that is the shape that my butt took for the rest of the day.  Once again—you can totally tell that my dad is a professionally trained artist who studied under the masters in Florence, Italy.

Yes, I wrote this on the back of my notes
from a mostly-useless OCHA meeting because
I was running out of paper and it is important to conserve trees.
This portrait is Saving the Earth.
And somehow this drawing turned out Jules Feiffer-esque, all chinless and pointy-nosed,
so it looks like those multiple readings of the Phantom Tollbooth paid off after all.

*I tried. I failed. Maybe I can get them to go on Facebook somehow.

Home Sweet Home South Sudan

I’ve been back in South Sudan for a week and a half now. About 1/3 of that time has been spent in Juba and 1/3 in Mundri and 5/3 has been spent traveling between and around Mundri and Juba.

These thirds of my life have included the following events:

·      One (1) motorcycle wipe-out with Repent into the sand (plus several more close calls—riding in sand is hard).

·      Sustained one (1) small side of the knee scrape due to aforementioned wipe-out.

·      Had one (1) moment of thanks for lack of paved roads in South Sudan, which I later recanted on one (1) or more (++++) of the to/from Juba journeys.

·      One (1) giant black spider crawled up my leg while I was showering, carefully persevering water since our pump is broken. My eyes were closed and I thought gravity had started working backwards and sending water droplets up my leg instead of down. I looked to see if that was the case, and screamed and swore (I’m sorry, Mom, but I’m honest) and shook my leg and jumped around (dangerous in a slippery bathroom with buckets all over catching extra water).

·      Killed one (1) giant spider and washed it down the drain.

·      Attended one (1) funeral prayer time, which included more than 1 (++++) sermon and/or stand-up comedy routine.  It was not a typical funeral.

·      Rode to church on a four (4)-wheeler. How did YOU get to church last Sunday?

·      One (1) mouse ran across my face one (1) night. He had four (4) feet. I felt them on my cheek.

·      The drilling team killed one (1) mouse in my house, leaving one (1) more.  His days are numbered.

·      Got a new yellow fever card. I have only lost two (2) yellow fever cards in the last year. Current card is now officially stapled into the back of my passport. Try and steal it one more time, KENYA AIRPORT OFFICIALS!

·      Updated my visa.

·      Decided to learn how to cook with cassava/tapioca flour because Paleo recipes exist, whether or not anyone wants them to, and cassava flour is way cheaper here.

Juba Bus Station (aka Parking)

Other important things to note, Jackson loves to go get visas with me. I know, he told me. He said, “It’s so great that you can talk to people in Juba Arabic and Moru. They will always remember you now and they will want to help you.” It’s true. Languages open doors and also can get things done even when government officials put in a full two-hour (2) working day and then go home to recover from it, in spite of telling people to come back after lunch to finish paperwork. Jackson also loves that I can schmooze visa officials. It is a skill I have honed over the decades. I think my parents started us off on it, because I definitely remember being forced into stupid dresses to go to the immigration office in Indonesia for endless fingerprints and name-signing documents. That’s why my signature looks like a squiggle. Comfort and convenience over fear of my identity being stolen any time.

Visa stuff is not bad, but trips between Mundri and Juba always have the potential to be the worst ever.  I mean, you know this, all five (5) of you that read this blog: trips to Mundri/Juba are almost always noteworthy. If I have to suffer, I will make you read about it.

Stop thinking about passing me
and think about the children instead.
But maybe less thinking about the children
and more thinking about basic mechanics
would have made this a better van.

I have lucked out and been able to find people driving to and from that I can hitch rides with, but this time there wasn’t anyone left bring me back to Mundri. I tried to convince Jackson (a Moru) that he really wanted to drive me back to Mundri and say ‘hi’ to all the cool people, but he is not a government official and believes in the importance of actually working at his job. So I had to Mundri Express it. Repent T called the company on my behalf to reserve a front window seat in the Land Cruiser that was scheduled to head back to Mundri.

Once at the bus station in Juba, I sat and waited a bit until Mahmood (the head of the Mundri Express office), asked me to please PLEASE go in the van that was sitting in front of the office, as his land cruiser wouldn’t be ready to go for a while. I said, “That short-tired vehicle? I don’t think that can make it to Mundri.”

“No, no—it is a strong vehicle. It will make it! And it’s leaving now now.  If you don’t go, you will wait much later.”

Our broken van in the middle of what is a rushing
river during rainy season. Tipped over truck behind.

I thought—might as well go now as sit here in the Mundri Express shack and wait for the other bus. But that was not a smart thought.  We did leave the bus station a bit before 10am, but we went and sat at another station for another hour. When we finally got on the road, we broke down 15 minutes outside of Juba, but the guy fixed it really quickly, so I was only slightly worried. Also, I got to take a moment to go pee in the grass, so it wasn’t so bad. Then 15 minutes later we broke down one the Luri River. If it had been rainy season, we would have been swept away in the current. Also, I noted that the driver said, “Oh look at that tipped over truck!” And I was VERY WORRIED at that point because that tipped over truck has been there for a long time.  One (1) who travels that road a lot should definitely know that. At this point, I called Mahmood and said, “I told you so. Now send that other Land Cruiser to pick me up.” He promised to do so, but meanwhile, our car was up and putting along. I checked the speedometer and we didn’t break 20kmh ever. We stopped more than once. Mahmood called and said to the guy, “Just put that khawaja on any other land cruiser that comes by and I’ll pay for it.” I told him, “There are 10 other people in this van!” But he didn’t care about them because I don’t think they actually paid through Mundri Express, but direct to the driver. I don’t like being a diva khawaja, but I also didn’t want to spend the night on the road, and I’m pretty sure that is what happened to everyone who stayed in the van. As it turns out, I didn’t have to play the diva khawaja card. As we were standing out by the side of the road waiting for the car to be fixed again, a car saw my shining, burning white skin and swerved over.

We filled up with Pity Oil before we left. Should have been my first clue.

“Hey, you are from Mundri! You just drilled a well in our village! Get in the car—we’ll take you!” But I still looked like a diva khawaja getting into a better car, even though another guy in the van who also knew the driver also came along for the ride.

Driving the car!

And that’s how I ended up making it back to Mundri yesterday. I even helped out—I drove the car the last 40 miles. It was a right-hand side driver seat for a right-side of the road driving system, but really—I kept the steering wheel in the middle of the road plenty because the point of driving on roads here is not staying in your lane, but finding the least bumpy part of the road. I slid off the road once because of the sand, but was able to drive back onto the road to the great amusement of everyone else in the car. They also found it hilarious that I refused to drive over a crater that needed precariously accurate steering. You know about my hand-eye coordination. I helped drill a well for the guy, but that is not enough to smooth over wrecking his car. It was also really weird to drive a automatic car here. I kept smashing at the floorboards with my left foot, looking for the clutch. I also noticed that in spite of my best efforts, it was REALLY hard to get up over 20kmh. I maxed out at 50kmh on a particularly smoothish stretch, but then the car started fishtailing a bit in the sand, so I slowed down.

And that’s it! I’m back and I made an extensive schedule for next week, of which I hope to accomplish at least 50%. Someone who might be able to fix our pump will come on Monday. Diet Pepsi might still be available in the market here. My computer is almost fully charged. I ran six miles through sand pits this morning with a glorious sunrise in the background.   The market place “music” lovers played Justin Bieber last night and I contemplated committing felony destruction of property, but fortunately my ear plugs and white noise app and surround fan blocked out the11pm-4am music, allowing me to sleep mostly. And no (0) mice ran over my face last night.

Friends Plant Peanuts Together

Siti and me after planting peanuts

When I came to South Sudan, I noticed that, while I got more enthusiastic comments about my foreign-ness than I did in Asia, I got less invitations to be people’s best friends and come to their homes and go to their weddings and spend every free moment hanging out with them. It’s a trade off, I guess. I mean, it can be funny that the same kids get the same amount of excited-out-of-their-minds every morning when I go running by their homes, even though they see me almost every day. Still, I was hoping for a few friends that I could hang out with and share life with and socialize with on days when I realize that I am dangerously close to becoming a hermit, which is my subconscious life goal that my conscious knows should not be achieved for my own good.  It’s taken some time, but I’ve fought my way into the lives of several ladies here. I accost them at their work and show up unannounced at their homes whenever I want to hold their babies or practice speaking Moru. In return, I buy candy for their kids and entertain them with my ignorance of their everyday chores and my inability to carry things on my head (I’m working on it, but I have a really lumpy skull).

Siti's son Simon, though he prefers
"SimonPeter The Rock,"
watching the burning grass we cleared off

One day when I’d just gotten back to Mundri from Khartoum (where I’d been invited to several weddings and several homes by generous Arab-Africans in true Middle East/North Africa style), I went for a run. It was Saturday so I was going later in the day since I sleep in until 7(!) on Saturdays in Mundri, and I had decided to eat a mango before I went (it’s not a great pre-workout food, if you were wondering). Naturally, the combination of hotter weather plus mango made running more difficult than usual.  Half-way through my route, I realized—this is not fun. So I decided just to walk back home and enjoy the sunny day without wanting (but not being able to) barf. While walking home I met a nice lady working in her garden. She said, “Why are you running for exercise? Just come help me in my garden and you’ll get lots of exercise that way.” I said, “Sure. I’ll come next week.” And I genuinely planned to do that, but she never gave me a time, and so I worked in my garden that morning and thought I would go help her in the afternoon. But when I was about to go, Lexon said, “You should probably call her first.” He lives near her and she is one of his wife’s relatives. I did, but I found out that the Bishop of the Catholic Church (she’s a Catholic) was going to be there the next day, and she was helping clean the church. So I didn’t go. She said she would call me later. She never did. I forgot about it and went on hanging out with my other new friends that I have been forcing to love me.

Then, on Pentecost Sunday, my church had a big deal Fun Day. It makes sense—we are the Pentecostals, so naturally we should do something awesome for Pentecost. We also invited everybody, and Siti came as a representative of the Catholic church or maybe she just came for the food, I don’t know, but she was there. I said, “You never called me!” She said, “I did, but I had the wrong number. Come next Saturday and help me plant peanuts.” I said, “What time?” She said, “9am.”

The sign says "don't pass on the shoulder" but that
does not stop my dad.

So at 9:02am, I left my house to walk the 1.5 miles to her house. The 1.5 mile distance is an estimate made by me based on my running time, but it’s probably an over-estimation because I like to think that I’m going faster than I actually am, and I’m not as accurate as my dad at gauging running distances. Seriously, he’s impressive. I’ve measured runs we’ve gone on together on the Internet (source of all accurate information), and he’s been right to the decimal point. “Well, this run took us XX:XX and so that must mean that we went about X.Y miles.” I checked the Internet and lo and behold—X.Y00 miles. It’s his super-power…one of them--the other one might be the ability to memorize completely useless names of various players of various sports or the ability to cook multi-colored food (“Hmm…this stir fry  needs more color—add the yellow peppers and green beans! Do we have any red peppers? Let’s add some beige—bean sprouts!”) or his deep devotion to following Indonesian traffic rules and regulations. So many possibilities… But I made it to Siti’s house before 9:30, which makes my punctuality in Africa—culturally impressive, let’s go with ‘culturally impressive.’

And this is what my feet look like after
working hard all day.

We jumped right in hacking away at the ground with a hoe and a pitchfork. We dug out rocks and chopped up tree roots. Her husband popped over for a quick visit to bring us water and suggest that I become his second wife. I was kind of resentful of that conversation because I really don’t think that’s the best way to cement a new friendship with someone—having her husband hit on you in front of her. Fortunately, I’m excellent at stamping out those kinds of conversations with my natural charm and belligerence.  It didn’t seem to bother her too much (maybe since her husband actually helped for about ten minutes while regaling me with the benefits of polygamy) because nearly 4 hours later when we finished, she still invited me to lunch. After lunch, I ran home for a bit to charge my computer on my new inverter, which the nice khawaja guy who used to live here helped me set up. I clip these things that look like jumper cables on to the bolts on our solar battery, which is mostly not working (there are sparks, it’s cool), and then I can charge my computer on sunny days, during daylight, while it’s off. It has revolutionized my life. I love it so much. I also realize that there are benefits of hanging out with foreigners that include the fact that they do things like kayak down the Mori River—something that people here would never think to do. It was super fun. I have no photos because—I was in a kayak.

After charging the computer for an hour while working a bit in my own garden, I walked back to Siti’s to plant the peanuts, which we didn’t want to do until the sun wasn’t so hot (it’s a gardening thing, you wouldn’t understand). The last time I planted peanuts was in Aceh, post-tsunami, with a group of Indonesian volunteers who were training people who had newly inherited land and needed to learn how to cultivate it. At the time, I remember getting competitive (yeah, that’s what I do) with one of the guys who was this shy macho farmer from Medan.  He would finish his row and then do the end of mine before starting on his next row.  So once I booked it down my row and then finished his for him—it was a hilarious joke, I thought. Well, it made him laugh, and then we became friends so he told me about his girlfriend back home that he was knitting a purse for—he was adorable.  Anyway, apparently planting peanuts is like riding a bike because I am pretty good at it still. It’s a two-man job here—one person hacks the row for dumping in peanuts, the other person drops the peanuts in the ditch. As the next row is hacked, it covers the peanuts in the last row, burying them under a small layer of dirt.  Obviously, the hard part of this is being the one chopping a ditch with the hoe. Siti said, “I’m so tired. I think we should finish this later.” But I was in an American ‘git ‘er done’ mode. And I said, “No. Give me the hoe and we will finish this today before we get soaked in the coming rainstorm.”  And I hacked furiously and we finished planting the entire pot of peanuts. Yes, we did. And then Siti nicely said, “I would never have been able to get all this work finished without you.” Being useful—I kind of like it. And I think it’s a good way to cement a friendship.

Then I walked home as fast as I could because there was a for-real storm brewing. I made it back before it started in earnest. But I did get soaked on my way back to my house from the shower—it was kind of ok, though, because rain keeps you clean. And that’s why I use a sarong as a towel—it dries fast.

To recapitulate: my Dad is a super-hero. Happy Late Father’s Day. This would have been on time if I lived in civilization, but then it would have had to be a completely different story of me planting, say, turnips in Taiwan or something. If we can’t be American-punctual, lets be culturally impressive. Although, I think that you are both actually.

More on my dad--this is the newspaper I used to wrap up
a coffee mug I brought him from India. He spread out
the newspaper so that he could read the stories
from India. Then we had several interesting discussions about
the articles in it. Yup-that's my dad--likes the paper more than the mug.

This face. It's a good one.

This Week (Part 1)

All this week I’ve been thinking, “I should save this story for the blog” or “I need to remember to tell this to my family/friends/Neverthirst people.” I never found time to write about the event before I was hit with another, so I thought I might as well write about the whole week. Besides, this will give interested parties (my mother) a small look into my daily life, which clearly doesn’t stay the same from day to day, but when you finish reading this you will think that you know what it is that I do, even if you will only be half right. For me, every time I think I have figured it out, it changes, so I stopped worrying about it. Still, people will ask, so here you go…

SUNDAY:

There is a village here where we drilled a well for a community that hadn’t finished collecting their Repair Fund. This was due to a small miscommunication between Neverthirst, the drilling team, and our local partners (part of what I’m here to do is minimize those miscommunications—sometimes I do this well, other times…). Currently we have a well in place, but we’ve locked it until the community meets the requirement, otherwise, they won’t have much motivation to meet the requirement. This is important for many reasons, but not important to the flow of the story, so we’ll get back to the point, which is that I wanted to go and talk to the community about the fund again. Our local partner is a pastor who spends several Sundays each month visiting churches in his parish that do not have an ordained pastor to give them communion (the Episcopal church is the dominant one here). Osho is one of those communities, and hearing he was going, I thought I’d tag along and get a chance to speak to everyone in their main meeting place: the church. Lexon anxiously informed me that we’d have to go on foot, as he has no other means of transportation. I assured him that I could keep up. He told me to meet him at his house at 8:30am so that I could have half an hour to rest before we walked another hour to church, which starts between 10:00 and 11:00. I said ok, and planned to arrive at 9:00, not feeling the need to have half an hour’s rest to recover from walking 2ish miles. Turns out, some friends saw me and insisted on taking me to Lexon’s house when I was about half-way there anyway, so I was still early.

So we set out. We walked through the jungle for an hour or so, fording streams and squelching through mud in patches, but not as much as we would have done if there had been more rain this season. We made it in time for church, which was uneventful except for the presence of the foreigner. After church we had our little meeting, which didn’t seem to make much of an impression, and then we headed on to give communion to sick people who couldn’t make it to church. That took even longer, as we walked around various jungle places to get to their homes, but it was definitely a blessing to everyone involved, including me. There were a few hysterical children, terrified of the foreign devil in their midst who ran off screaming to hide. But that’s not unusual for me.

Walking through the jungle, talking on the phone

Holy Communion

MONDAY:

Repent's finger and me on the path

I hopped on the back of the motorcycle and went to visit another delinquent village that hasn’t raised all their funds and another village where the platform was being fitted. I got my legs and feet slashed up driving through grassy fields on what might have been a road once a long time ago. We made it in, said our piece, made it out, but not without leaving plenty of my flesh behind on sticky jungle plants. I made a mental note to buy boots in the market again, but I have ignored that note so many times since then, always to my regret when I’m back in the jungle the next day.

This is where they are getting their drinking water. That's why they need the bore well!

TUESDAY:

The second anniversary of the country of South Sudan!  A joyous day! I happen to live right across from the football field, which is where all the festivities are held. This is great for me because it was impossible for me to miss any moment, and I really didn’t want to miss any moment. In fact, I left early with a young boy who works here but wants to be a general in the SPLA when he grows up (Sudan People’s Liberation Army—their name from the war which is what they still call their army) so we could watch the soldiers parade in. They paraded so well. I do have some militarian experience, thanks to my bro-in-law Capitan Frizzell, and I’m not sure, but I want to say that while American soldiers are likely better armed, I doubt they are better singers.  Of course, I have never heard them sing while marching in a parade on Independence Day. They might do that in some places, and those guys might be good singers. But would they be cheered by a crowd of ululating women? The soldiers were followed by parades of children from all the local schools who arrived at various times and from various places, at variance to the schedule which they were given (so I was told later). Eventually, everyone made it to the field to start the celebrations: a series of speeches from every important person in the near vicinity, each of whom began their speech with “I don’t have a lot to say” and proceeded to speak for hours and hours, ending with “Well, like I said, I don’t have a lot to say, so thanks and HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!” To uproarious cheers from people who were dozing off minutes earlier.  Every time I thought I’d just pop on home for a bit and wait for something exciting to happen, something exciting did happen: one of the schools would preform or a group of Somalis would come up and spontaneously dance around waving the South Sudanese flag and the Somali one (ok, I admit, that nearly made me cry. It was so special to see the people here cheer them on and wish them well and welcome them to their celebrations, knowing that they really do not have much to celebrate in Somalia right now). 

Somalis celebrate with South Sudan

After the celebration, I was courteously invited to the Commissioner’s grand party for VIPs only. We had food and listened to a billion more speeches, while I thought about Indonesia and the beautiful way that they celebrate Independence Day—playing games outside, eating crazy snacks, and taking turns trying to climb to the top of a greasy bamboo pole to get the prizes at the top.  Seriously, why are they the only people who know how to celebrate nation-hood? After the “celebration,” I went back and joined in the real fun—communal dancing. Various groups of people danced near the drummers who were playing the beats they liked the best or who came from their particular tribe, and danced the appropriate dance. I had fun until too many drunk guys started noticing the one remaining foreigner, and then I slipped away home to rest and recover from the fun.

Singing soldiers

WEDNESDAY

Most people were still resting and recovering from the fun, so I used the day to catch up on email and charge my computer up the hill at the fancy foreigners’ compound where they have electricity and internet. When I came back I practiced driving the motorcycle around the yard, and discovered that it is way heavier than I thought it would be. It also took me a while to find the catch between the clutch and the break, which reminded me of my driving lessons as a teenager in Indonesia. My dad had the brilliant idea to drop me off at a driving school in Indonesia where the instructor always told me to “main koepling” (the Dutch/Indonesian word for ‘clutch’), and I amused myself by watching other “experienced” drivers stop dead in the middle of the road to stare in the window of the latihan car (student car) at the foreign kid. After I drove around a while, I realized that my hands were cramping. Squeezing the brake felt like using one of those grip-strengthening things that my cousin used for golf or baseball or croquet or something and always left lying around my grandparents’ house. The reason for this might be that when I asked Repent about changing gears, he solemnly informed me that you always squeeze the brake when switching gears. I said, “You mean the clutch” and pointed to it. He said, “No, the brake” and pointed to it. This may also explain our slightly jerky rides. It also impressed on me the importance of becoming jungle-motorcycle-riding-ready for our future safety.

Rainbow!

The chicken that laid eggs in our kitchen