My last post focused on the first part of wedding celebrations for my host sister. It featured photos from the Ijab which is the actual wedding ceremony. It is custom here for there to be two wedding receptions or pesta pernikahan. One is hosted by the groom’s parent’s and one is hosted by the bride’s parents. Sometimes these parties immediately follow the ceremony or are combined. In the case of my host sister and her now-husband, they chose to have the wedding receptions two months after the ceremony. So the festivities officially concluded this weekend. This post includes photos from the day of reception my host parents (the parents of the bride) held. Instead of holding the reception at our home, they choose to hold it at a local hall, likely because of the sheer number of guests they invited. The above photo of my host father is probably one of my favorite. He just looks like a boss donning his suit, which Indonesians rarely wear in the village. He also is kind of the man around town, well respected and a local RW (sub-division village leader.) So it’s kind of a big deal that he is giving away his second and youngest daughter to be married.

The party was a hit, albeit hot and way more crowded, at times, than the picture above shows. My host brother-in-law (not the newlywed one) later commented that they should have had a bigger place for the 1,200 plus guests that ended up showing up. The crazy thing was even after the party was over and we returned home, more people showed up at our house to give their congratulations. This once again sent everyone around in a frenzy to cater to the guests offering them food and entertaining them. (I’m not sure if you can beat Indonesian hospitality, or at least that of my host family’s.) After it all, the rambunctious place that my home had become was silent again. Everyone had passed out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them as tired as I did between the events of this weekend and the event back in March.

All in all it was a great weekend. I was happy that I got to be part of the wedding celebrations, including the wedding party with my matching seragam (uniform).

Photo of the whole wedding party taken by a member of the wedding photography crew. I’m second from the end on the right.

All the stops were pulled out to make it a memorable event. It started with the wedding ceremony back in March, known as Ijab, which this post focuses on. My next post will include the photos from the wedding reception held this weekend.  I’ve written a little bit about the ceremony in between photos, and as usual you can also mouse over the photos for captions. To learn more about Muslim wedding practices you can look here. Though, from my experience, the many Islamic practices carried out here seems to always be masterfully blended with the long-running traditional Javanese/Madurese/Indonesian culture to form a completely unique to Java practice.

Our front yard was transformed overnight into a wedding hall with tents, tarps, carpets and draped cloth. A band comprising of mostly percussion instruments is ready to get it started. The crew, composed of neighbors who’ve been working around the clock, takes a quick break before guests arrive.

When guests do arrive, as is custom the men and women occupy different areas. The men sit outside under the tent. The women sit inside lining the walls of the room. Celebratory flowers, cakes and gifts sprawl across the floor.

The bride and groom take their positions beside each other with the bride’s veil draped over both of them. Both the bride and groom are adorned in jasmine which smells incredible. They wear a splendid mash-up of Javanese, Muslim and modern formal attire.

After the vows and signing the documents, the groom gives the bride a ring and gifts. From what I understand of how my family practices there was no dowry or bride price. Yet the gifts to the bride may have been a modern interpretation or custom along those lines. The gifts included practical items like nice toiletries, new undergarments (Oh la la!) as well as jewelry and they were given from the groom and his family to the bride. Afterwards the newlywed couple goes around and individually greets everyone of their respective sex.

Following that everyone prays for the success, health and happiness of the new couple.

No Indonesian occasion would be complete without eating together.

And per custom, once everyone eats, they grab their snack boxes and head out.

Once most of the guests have left the photo shoot begins. Shortly thereafter everyone changes back into their house clothes and gets right back to work taking down decorations and cleaning up.

I just got back from a short trip I had been fantasizing about for a while. It was essentially the Disneyland Jungle Boat Cruise— but the real life version of it. My friends Elle, John and I spent a few days voyaging down the Kumai and Sekonyer Rivers in Kalimantan, better known to most as Borneo. This is part of  the Tanjung Puting National Park, a conservation for the jungle and it’s inhabitants which includes orangutans. Through talking to a local guide we got wind that unfortunately bits of this area are still being sold off little by little to make room for more palm plantations. This is especially maddening?  saddening news after having the opportunity to visit a place like this.

Despite that if you’re into ecotourism it’s a worthwhile little adventure.  Here’s a few snippets:

(Mouse over for captions.)

]]> http://thepersonette.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/snapshots-from-tanjung-puting-national-park-orangutan-ecotourism/feed/ 2 nicoleethier An Australian photographer was nice enough to let me borrow her lens after instilling some serious envy. This was the result. The adventure begins! My travel companions: Elle and John Aren't they cute? There's a rustling in the trees overhead. Beautiful forest fun vines An orangutan family doing what they do. colorful boats A mother orangutan and her baby decide it's time to peace out. http://thepersonette.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/snapshots-from-iglow-indonesian-girls-leading-our-world/ http://thepersonette.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/snapshots-from-iglow-indonesian-girls-leading-our-world/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:50:04 +0000 Nicole http://thepersonette.wordpress.com/?p=3841 ]]>

iGLOW. I believe I’ve mentioned this in a post or two. It’s by far been the most exciting, stressful and encouraging thing I have worked on here, and last weekend it happened. I’ll give you more details in another post. But, for now I wanted to give you a little taste with my favorite pictures from that extended weekend camp. Enjoy (and mouse over for captions!)

That doesn’t mean it was a dull one or went without celebration. The night before a dream of mine was realized…

.

…to have Mexican food and margaritas!

And after returning, since my birthday is exactly 20 years and three days before this little one…

…my host family being as adorable and awesome as they are, decided to have a birthday party for us.

So attending my birthday party was a gaggle of pre-schoolers and neighbors that endearingly call me “Tanta Nicole” or “Aunty Nicole.”

My birthday was splendid on all accounts.

I still have roughly 10 weeks before I am officially done. I know it’s going to be difficult to leave this experience behind because of the amazing people here both in my Indonesian community and among the PCV community. However, I’m truly excited for the possibilities as I prepare for the next chapter in my life. Essentially as I enter twenty-five I feel fortunate and enthused.

I just wanted to give a quick update being that this has been my longest absence without a post (nearly two months) since I started this blog. The reason for that is simply there’s a lot going on.

In addition to preparations to leave here and plans following that, a few other things that have been occupying my time and mental energy were/are:

My host sister’s wedding

The sustainability conference and the closing of service conference. (It’s an essential piece to ensuring my work is continued once I’m gone. Also one of the last opportunities to be with the complete group of volunteers I arrived with.)

and iGLOW, iGLOW, iGLOW!

iGLOW stands for Indonesian Girls Leading Our World, and it’s a leadership camp for young women. We’ve been preparing for it for months now, and just yesterday we had our training of trainers workshop. It was a success, and I’m delighted to see all of this hard work come to fruition in just a few days.

So you can expect more updates soon thereafter with more on that. Thanks for staying tuned!

In the beginning there was so much I wanted to share, but not enough time to be writing blogs all day. I had to experience it!

Likewise, I found it hard to keep up with all the places my overstimulated mind was racing. So I tried for a post once a week.  Then things slowed and starting sinking in a little deeper. The things I wanted to share were more complex, difficult to summarize. Blog posts didn’t seem as appropriate of a format.  So despite a few exceptions I tried to keep you entertained with more pretty photos and short bits and pieces here and there. So now where are we in the life of this blog? I’m trying to keep it alive because if nothing else it forces me to continue documenting this experience. It forces me to continue writing and taking photos. It forces me to continue evaluating what’s interesting and worth sharing here, and what’s going on in my world.

So what’s going on in my world?

Well weather-wise we’re in the midst of rainy season, where nearly everyday we are blessed with a shower that varies both in duration and strength. Being from Arizona, where rain is infrequent, I absolutely love it. It reminds me of the monsoon season but pretty much every day. This also means I feel a bit more “PC” in my day to day life as power outages are much more frequent. This causes me to always be on guard for the next blackout with my headlamp in position and ready-to-go, much to my host family’s amusement.

And because Oscar Wilde once said “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” I’m not going to linger there…

Work-wise

The second semester of school started last Monday after an official two-week break. (Which was basically an unofficial month-long break.) And I have to say, the seven days following it have probably been my most productive in terms of work. Every day I’ve come home with a true sense of accomplishment and also fairly tired. This sort of productivity was not fathomable to me last year. To give you an idea of what an “accomplishment” is at this point:

• It’s my counterparts taking turns to write down our weekly lesson plans that are being saved, printed and stored in a binder to be used again or adapted next year. (Yes, it took a year and a half for this to happen. Previous documentation of what happened every day in class was spotty.)
• It’s a counterpart showing up to school with a worksheet she created herself and not some shoddy thing found online.
• It’s my counterparts writing the daily agenda on the board so students know what they can expect to do that day in class, and there is no confusion over whether or not there was homework.
• It’s my counterparts more frequently stepping up and out of their comfort zones with methods and activities that both they and the students desire, but that was previously left up to me to implement.

Overall it’s me letting go of the reins and consequentially not feeling as needed. It’s a sort of bittersweet moment in sustainability. It’s not over, but it’s currently leading me to feeling much more fulfilled.  It’s also motivating me to really follow through with this and finish what I’ve started. I’m now a little more freed up to focus more attention to other projects. One of which that I’m extremely excited about, is a girl’s leadership camp to be held in March. It’s dubbed iGlow (Indonesian Girls Leading Our World), and it’s an expansion of what a few volunteers started last year. More on that later.

Teeth!

I think some were slightly concerned after I posted this little bit about some dental issues. After several sporadic, cancelled and re-scheduled appointments it has all been resolved. The grand total of my cavities came to four. It was a hell of a lot better than nearly all of my teeth having cavities. Even better news was that they were relatively small. So small in fact, that the dentist didn’t use any anesthetics. (To tell you the truth I didn’t even know people needed that for fillings. I also didn’t know they actually drilled into your teeth, and I’m glad I didn’t know that beforehand.)

Facebook?

I mentioned earlier last month that I was contemplating going off Facebook. Whether this is unthinkable for you, or you could really care less, I did it. I’m off Facebook, minimally for a month. I figured it’d be a fresh way to start off the new year. I’ve also gone back and forth about the pros and cons of social media for quite some time. (See links below) It really is a love-hate relationship. That’s why for the time being I am OK with our separation, but I know we’ll inevitably be together again.

Bonus:

• The IRL Fetish by Nathan Jurgenson of The New Inquiry
• An  interview with the author of a new book on how we expect more from technology and less from each other

Vacations and travel

Due to those dentist appointments, iGlow meetings and other semi-official business I’ve spent a lot of time in Surabaya recently. It sufficed as a home base as I bounced all around East Java between trips, and it was a destination in and of itself for Christmas.

All that bouncing around led me to some familiar places and slightly beyond to some new ones.

For the second year in a row I accompanied teachers and the twelfth grade class on a study tour to Jogja. I spent 35 hours on a bus within a 65 hour period. If that doesn’t deserve some sort of badge or ribbon I don’t know what does. This especially considering five of those hours were spent stationary, on the side of the rode, in the wee hours of the morning, holding my bladder and dozing in and out of uncomfortable sleep while a small group of teachers backtracked to retrieve a student who had accidentally been left behind.

Other trips went more smoothly.

I did a rafting trip in Probolinggo, spent Christmas at the Sheraton in Surabaya (a vacation in and of itself), made my way to the isolated Meru Betiri National Park in Banyuwangi to see sea turtles, then ventured on over to Lombok and the infamous Gili islands for New Years.

I had equal parts adventure and luxury. I walked barefoot in the pouring rain for five kilometers through the jungle. (Yes, I now have one of those stories to tell my grandchildren.) We were drenched, my sandals had broken (hence the bare feet), my cell phone died due to the downpour, and we even got snarled at by a wild boar.

The luxury end of that spectrum was just days prior when I indulged to an uncomfortable level at an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet on Christmas Eve at the Sheraton. It was a splurge at $14 U.S. It may have been steep enough to deter others from the group I was staying with not to ikut,  but I couldn’t pass up toast with butter (real butter) and marmalade;  cornflakes with honey and topped with toasted almonds; blueberry yogurt with granola; french toast; mini-waffles with all those golden nooks and crevices; a cheese platter with feta, cheese, cheese, cheesecheesecheese!freshfruitplattersaladbarham and… shall I go on?  That morning I had awoken in the comfiest bed I’ve laid in in nearly two years, complete with a down comforter. The night before I had taken a hot shower. It was preceded by a hot bath. Because I COULD. Luxury indeed.

I realized two things during these travels: 1.) I am now more enthused and baffled by what once was normal (See the paragraph above) than anything that once was exotic when I arrived. 2.) I sometimes forget how lucky I am.

This first point I realized during that buffet and also when I arrived in the Gilis where it was confirmed that variations in cuisine do exist.  One day a burger and fries, the next day Indian food, the next day Italian… I was a very, very happy girl.

I have yet, though, to get some good Mexican food in me.

The second part I realized on my last day as I was riding a boat back to Lombok from the Gilis with several Australians, other Americans and mostly Indonesians. I sometimes forget how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful country with endless travel opportunities and adventure if you’ve got the time and money. Which fortunately I have one of those things. (Guess which one it is based off my comments on the $14 U.S. buffet)

Beyond PC

Ah yes. The question everyone wants to know. “What are you doing after this?” I’ve had this conversation with probably almost every person I’ve been in touch with in the last month. The answer… to be determined. I have several more solid ideas now than I did a few months back. It’s become evident to me that I’m ready for a new challenge, yet what that entails is not entirely clear yet.

Other/Photos

I’ve slacked off in the photo department more recently. I’ve been relying much more frequently on my point-and-shoot and photos from friends, which you can enjoy below. (They’re in no particular order and you can roll over for captions.)

In conclusion of this hodge-podge post…

… as time is running out, things are simultaneously speeding up and winding down. I’ve got about five months left, a lot of work to keep me busy, but also a determination to enjoy it.

This video was made earlier last year to welcome the new group of volunteers to Peace Corps Indonesia. It’s a nice little peek into what our lives are like here, and I can’t help but get warm fuzzies every time I watch it.

The video is a compilation of short snippets shot by PCVs around East Java and masterfully combined by a Miss Elle Chang.

Bonus:
This is a video I for some reason still haven’t gotten around to posting yet either. It shows a day in the life of an Indonesian village. It was created by a group of volunteers and edited by Mr. Timothy Curtin during our group’s pre-service training nearly two years ago!

Maaf! for the delay but hopefully that gives you some idea of what this experience has been like. Additionally, I will post an actual update here real, real soon. So sit tight folks!

We’re a little behind on our holidays. In part because many of my students and English club kids were busy the actual week of Halloween with other extracurriculars and preparing for—

I can’t even remember what it was now.

We did do in-class activities, but I was hoping to make jack-o-lanterns. Then I was away for a variety of reasons: dentist visits, a vacation to the Philippines, Thanksgiving celebrations with other volunteers…

Earlier this week students brought up the jack-o-lanterns again. They asked if we could still make them. Thrilled by the fact that the students were asking me to do this rather than me pushing it, we agreed to meet Sunday. The turnout was low… only four students showed. I was actually anticipating none because I assumed they would forget. Plans such as these always seem a little iffy to me. But lo and behold this morning the students showed up at my house. We went to school, made jack-o-lanterns and it made for a lovely Sunday morning. It was nice having only four students participate, I felt much more relaxed than if there had been more. It also made for much more personal interactions than class time or even English club allow. So here’s a few pics from this morning:

Sometimes I consider going off Facebook. But I worry about feeling disconnected. (Notice I said “feeling” disconnected.) I also wonder what I will do with the free time, and consequentially how I will kill time when I’m looking to kill time and there’s an internet connection.

I’m usually the one behind the camera, but a teacher wanted to play photographer and take a picture of me. This is me at school, in uniform and killing time between classes.