Now what?

I was in a bit of a funk last week.  Jack's school opening has been deferred until this yesterday, when all the insurance people involved in insuring his campus are back from their vacays.  Over here is the equivalent of Christmas in the west, only the whole office can apparently shut down for weeks.  They call it Hari Raya, which I'm sure is not the full title, and it celebrates the Prophet Muhammad began receiving revelations of the Quran. So it's a BIG DEAL and closing your office for a couple of weeks is apparently the norm.  Schools are all out anywhere from two to four weeks.

So the kids and I were sitting around our little hotel, having just enjoyed the many spenders of Singapore, and we were all kind of like "now what?".  I swear I can't remember any differences between last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  We slept in, walked to the mall, swam, ordered food or ate out with Mike in the evenings.  On Saturday I couldn't believe it was Saturday, and asked Jack about it several times.  I had some major misgivings about my being able to function here without becoming a full-blown alcoholic or drug addict if all the days run together four measly weeks in.

Thankfully this week looks more promising.  I think we may actually get into a house in two weeks.  Not our permanent house, but one in a beautiful setting.  It's a beachfront community called Nongsa.  There is a fishing pier, large pools, and all the houses are built on stilts on the side of a hill.  Here are some views from some of the houses.  It's a beautiful place.

We got a couple of care packages from home, which was really lovely.  Mike got lots of snuff from a sympathetic buddy in Houston.  The downside is that he still dips, the upside is that he doesn't have to move down the hall as I'm not sure we could accommodate his winning personality while he quits tobacco and runs this job.  My parents sent a big box full of treats like magazines, paperbacks, ranch packets, jerky, maseca (to make corn tortillas) and JIFFY!  Cassie took to carrying around a packet of taco seasoning.  She would walk around talking incessantly about tacos or just sit and smell that packet like it was a Strawberry Shortcake.  I couldn't decide if it was unbearably cute or just unbearable.

Also in the care package was our photo disk with some beach pictures we had done a couple of weeks before we left.  Would you just look at these cuties!

On one of our mall wanderings I bought this small dollhouse for Cassie that seriously cost about $1.87. It came with a couple of family members and some little plastic pieces of ambiguous furniture (is it a chair or a toilet?  a closet or a cabinet?)  The reason I couldn't resist is because the mom is wearing a
head scarf!

Awesome, right?  I'm sure we've already misplaced the little mom somewhere in the couch, but I was reminded again what a great blessing it is to give my kids this experience.  You don't see many Muslim moms wearing head scarves in our part of Texas, and my kids are beyond over the novelty of seeing women cover everything but their faces.  The dad figure is wearing a hat as well, but it's just not as impressive as the little mom.

Over dinner last week a coworker of Mike's asked if anyone had stopped us to take pics of the kids.  No they hadn't, I replied, why?  She then blushed and stammered about how some people stopped the kids she was with to take pictures of their light hair and eyes.  I let her off the hook easy.  I told her they stare at us all, trying to figure out what kind of Asian my kids are.  Inside I was thinking Really lady?  You are on your first glass of wine!  Locals do, coincidentally, notice I don't quite match my kids, and my kids don't quite match the island.  Not that I care.  My family is perfect as far as I'm aware.

I can't find any "church" shirts for Jack in the shipment boxes, and I'm not willing to unpack any more stuff in our temporary and tiny home so after services Sunday we went to a store and bought Jack some collared shirts.  Just for reference, Jack is 5 feet tall and weighs about 85 pounds.  He is a men's small here!!!!  Our new Church is in a mall, so it's super-handy for dinner, shopping and haircuts after!  I know its different to think of a church in a mall, but most of the stand-alone structures are subpar.  The many malls are really the nicest buildings around.

Last night right before bed my mom face-timed us from my aunt's house and showed us our dog!  Oh how we miss our 3-legged Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  She sheds a lot, she's actually quite dumb, and she's scared of everything but I have to tell you I cried seeing her.  No one, and I say this as a mom of a an almost-teen, but no one is as cheerful to see me than her.  She is perfectly happy at my Aunt Em's.  I could tell she loved it there when we took her.  But oh I miss that awkward creature.

It's easier to write about missing my dog than my parents, family and friends.  I absolutely felt it last week, the four-week mark.  With Jack starting school and us moving into a house soon, I can no longer pretend this is just a long strange vacation.  I thank God for technology, but it's not the same as that house on Charles St. in Centerville.

Food and Singapore

calimari

On Wednesdays for dinner we typically go to this place known as The Food Court with other Bechtel people staying in the hotel.  It's a large open-air square lined with counter-service eating places.  Tables are in the middle and many have lazy susans so everyone sitting at the table can share the dishes.   Last week we ordered the "wrong" calimari and ended up with tiny squid fried whole, or as I called them, "ewwwwwwwww".  Jack tried them, as he's a fan of the calamari that looks like pieces of fried chicken.  

The kids and I are doing okay with Asian food.  It is a lot of fish and rice, and the noodles are even made from rice, and most things are at least a little spicy.  I've had tummy and headache issues for years, and laying off the bread and wheat is doing wonders for how I feel.   One of the kids' junk food treats is a weekly trip to KFC and they are both now used to eating the chicken "spicy" as our local KFC almost never has any "original recipe" available.  




We also checked out this place Mike loves, right on the beach.  Mike, who is one of those people who can do most things easily, has adjusted to Indonesian cuisine and life seamlessly, except for tobacco, but more on this later.  This place doesn't even have a sign, I think it's name is the location of the beach.  Anyway its' s large and usually busy.  What is unique is that you pick out your fish and crabs from tanks where they are just swimming or snapping around.  Here's our Mr. Grouper before and then sweet-and-soured. 
 I complained about the heads always served on the fish but was informed that many Asians pick at the head meat and eyes.  Suffice it to say I'm not there yet. 

Singapore

Jack at Jurong

Orchids!  So beautiful!

Hey gorgeous! 

I didn't love this bridge.  It was pretty high.

This past weekend marked the end of Ramadan, which is the biggest holiday of the year for the Muslim calendar.  Mike had a long weekend so we spent it in Singapore, a pretty impressive city!  We stayed at an amazing hotel, please stay at The Mandarin Oriental if you ever get the chance!  They are all over Asia, but also Europe and the States.  We took a city tour and it is true that everything is available in Singapore.  We were most excited to find Quaker Granola Bars and Goldfish!  We visited the zoo, which had an amazing rain forest setting.  Also most of the primates were loose, something you would never find in the lawsuit-y states.  The zoo had this great Night Safari where you could see shows and take a ride through the nocturnal animals.  Very crowded, but very very cool!  Finally got to see the large cats up and about!  The most impressive place, however, was the Jurong Bird Park.  You know that opening scene in the movie Rio when all those exotic birds are everywhere?  The whole place was a lot like that.  The trees and other fauna were incredible, and there were so many opportunities to interact with the birds, not just see them in cages.

Singapore is a very clean, very beautiful city that is also its own country.  They are very interested in unity, and have four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, with English being the main language.  It's REALLY easy to be a westerner there.  It's a crowded place so most people live in flats, and it is a very expensive city.  A four-room (not bedroom, room) flat is $250,000.  Sorry to the gents for the following image, it's even MORE expensive to "be a woman" in Singapore than the states!

Here are some reasons it's such a clean and well-mannered place...Littering is illegal, gum is illegal, not flushing a public toilet is illegal. You cannot call a woman a bad word, you cannot say the word "bomb", even jokingly, you cannot say disparaging things about any religion, and you cannot hug someone without permission.  These offenses are punishable by fines, caning and sometimes jail.  As for Mike's snuff, needless to say they did NOT sell it in Singapore (that pesky spitting thing).  It is also unavailable in Indonesia so...he bought some cigars and hoped for care packages from Texas.  

I love love love this beautiful waterfall!  I also loved how the park described it, "come see the largest man-made waterfall inside a rainforest aviary park in the world!"   I mean they were DETERMINED to have it come off as impressive.  There was no need to bother.
I could have stayed for hours.   

Money and Housing

Mike works a LOT.  He goes in six days every week, and will until this project is finished.  He's very high on the ladder here, and feels his responsibility for the project heavily.  More than any other change, I was completely unprepared for how much of this country I need to navigate alone.  I'm not brave AT ALL.  I'm quite shy and definitely not the smartest person I know.  So to Batam I say "sorry I'm unleashed on you, yo".  It helps to have lots of prayers and good wishes from home.

Fried chicken is BIG here.  As in popular.  I'd seen a show before on KFC being the #1 fast food chain in China.  We're not in China, but we are close (map here, again with me and the maps sheesh). So every mall has a KFC and often a BFC (Best Fried Chicken) and they are usually busy.  The grocery stores here have many varieties of nuggets, unfortunately all we've tried are pretty gross.  I don't have an oven in our hotel, just an induction hot plate so I usually fry them.  You know that nugget is nasty when it tastes bad fried.  There's also lots of pizza, but beef pepperoni is not so awesome so we all have cheese.  The answer to the food conundrum is to learn to eat Indonesian dishes.  Mike is there, he has a stone gut and an adventurous palate so it's no big deal for him.  I'm getting there.  I still go for lots of recognizable Asian dishes, but I'm branching out.  The kids try something new maybe every other day. It's toughest for them.

We've been to a couple of social events and have met some other expat families.  Everybody seems very friendly and willing to help us acclimate.  We're the only family left in the hotel now though, I'd love to move into the neighborhood so the kids could play with someone other than me.  I have tried to keep an upbeat attitude during all of the planning, moving, and living here with all our things stacked in the corner.

One topic of discussion at the expat dinner with some wives was hiring and training the domestic staff we will all have.  I cannot begin to tell you how much this topic makes me squirm.  I didn't even have a cleaning lady back in the states!  I think here the locals consider working for westerners a desirable job and it's part of us helping out the growing Indonesian economy.  Or so I tell myself.  Actually the poverty here is crippling.  I gave a doorman the equivalent of a $5 tip for moving all our boxes to our room and I really thought he was going to hit the floor when he bowed.  It's embarrassing and uncomfortable to suddenly be considered so wealthy.  I'll have to try to get some shots of some of the poorer housing.  It's like nothing I've seen in the US.

The kids and I go to arcades each week.  They are ALL OVER THE PLACE!  The mall by our hotel has three arcades.  Here's Cassie in a ball pit.  I couldn't help but think "oh good, let's expose her to some more exotic germs".  But there was no stopping her.

Jack found what he called the Ultimate Asian Leatherman.  We didn't buy it.

And new iPhone's autocorrect was in Indonesian so I made no sense for a while.  Here's a snippet of some texts I was trying to send Mike when Cassie and I were out shopping then heading home.

Here's a picture of part of the mall that sits beside our hotel.  It's pretty typical of the many Batam malls.  There's a large grocery store, several places to eat, and tons of little shops selling shoes that won't fit me, clothes that won't fit me, and knock off Prada, Coach, and LV bags.  I need to gird my loins and go negotiate some Hello Kitty stuff for Cassie.  That's right, you bargain for everything, even in the mall  There is TONS of Hello Kitty here as well.  I have to assume I can get it cheaper here than at that store in the Galleria.  Also our mall has a movie theater.  You never know what's going to play, we have to walk over to check and it changes all the time.  Most movies are in English, but there's also often Asian stuff playing.  The kids and I hoped to go to a movie yesterday and all the movies were in English, but I didn't think Cassie would sit through The Expendables 2, Step Up Revolution, Chernobyl, or The Dark Knight.



We are nearing the end of Ramadan and soon Mike will have a short vacation.  I think we will spend it in Singapore.  I'm a little stir-crazy from being in this hotel so long am I'm looking forward to a change of pace!

Just a few changes...

So here are a few differences between Beaumont, TX and Batam, Indonesia(map here).

Language
Here the language is Bahasa Indonesia.  You say both words because "bahasa" translates to "language".  Bahasa Indonesia sounds a little like Spanish to my untrained ear.  There doesn't seem to be as much inflection as other Asian languages.  I know I'm a "goo lag (outsider)" and we "macaw (eat)", and when I knock into these people I murmur "permisi".  Mike is rocking the language, me not so much.  I may need to take a page from Cyndi Whitnell and have hire someone to come give me lessons.

Islam
Indonesia is a Muslim country.  On some islands, such as Jakarta, they can be quite strict about the dress and behavior expected of women.  Here there are lots of expats so I can get away with my capris and no head scarf.  We get some looks at the swimming pool when it's busy because I don't swim in a catsuit  and my kids don't wear one piece suites that look like long underwear.  During the week we don't stick out as much.
There are call-to-prayers five times a day and I think they sound beautiful.  This is where loud speakers mounted at the top of mosques broadcast prayers sung in Arabic.  Muslims are expected to stop, kneel on a prayer blanket and pray five times every day.  I like this idea of everyone stopping to pray, meditate, just find some peace each day.  Jack does not share my high opinion.  The first day he asked "why do they keep yelling at us?".  I explained and can hope for sensitivity but let's face it: 11 years old is 11 years old.
There are water sprayers with all the toilets.  Apparently bodily cleanliness in the Muslim world is a big deal.  Here's an article I found in Salon about why.
We are currently in the holy month of Ramadan.  Until August 18th Muslims refrain from eating or drinking dusk to dawn.  I'm not sure if that's why, but nothing opens here until 10am or later--even coffee shops, much to Mike's chagrin.  There are also extra prayers called each day, as Jack has noticed.    All the shops and restaurants stay open later than we are used to as well, so maybe it's just us being westerners.
Although we are not the only Christians in Batam!  There are several expats who attend a church that starts at the incredibly human hour of 4pm on Sundays.  Plus here's a picture of a baptism that took place in our hotel swimming pool on Sunday!

We Might Be Giants
My family are all tall with huge feet here.  At 5' tall and 90 lbs, Jack is the size of most of the women, and I'm as tall as many of the men at 5'6".

$$
Here the currency is Rupiah.  The exchange rate is like one dollar to almost 1000 rupiah.   I'm happy to have Jack with me for cash transactions, he's slick at fast math, and the different bills don't trip him up as much.  Basically that whole "I'm 11 and master of the universe" thing.

No driving
Here's a one minute video from youtube that shows a typical road.  This is what a lot of the roads look like:

We have a driver named Rody (pronounced Roadie).  There's no way I could drive here.  They drive on the wrong side of the road, at intersections people just GO and there are more scooters than cars.  It is not uncommon to see a whole family on a scooter.  Parts of the island are beyond beautiful--lush and tropical, but there is a lot of very recent industrial development, so most buildings are newer, crapier and ugly.

The Suite Life
We are currently living in a hotel and to be honest, it's a little isolating.  I'm anxious to move out to our neighborhood.  Our house is currently under construction until November but we hope to move into a rental in a couple of weeks.  The hotel is fine, we have a large suite and breakfast downstairs in the restaurant each morning.  The breakfast food can be interesting.  No pork at breakfast (Muslim island) so you can expect chicken porridge, chicken sausage, sometimes curry, noodles, and such.  I try to try the local stuff, lots of it is good!  And some is a disaster!
Our hotel is next to a mall, but I bet you've never been to a mall like this.  There is a grocery store usually, but no flagships you would recognize.  Also it's knock-off city, wall-to-wall fake Prada, LV, electronics, and pirated videos.  We could buy the new Spiderman movie for a dollar, right out in the open.  There are always arcades, too.  But I really miss how clean and nice Colorado Canyon is--these places require lots of Purell.  Jack does well at the games, so usually there are little boys following him around.