Liburan

We are now at the end of our 10 day holiday (liburan) for Idul Fitri – yes, I know, I’m basically on holiday for the whole of these three months in Indonesia, but it meant that for these 10 days we had no lessons or meals provided, and many of us took the opportunity to leave our art centres and go to explore other parts of Indonesia.

Reunion with our friends from art centres in Solo and Bali.

Last week passed in a blur of travel, language, learning, and the kinds of discoveries that come with being in an unfamiliar place with very few fixed plans. Most of us on the program decided to visit Yogyacarta and Solo – two cities in central Java well known for being the joint cultural capitals of the island. It helps that 12 people from the IACS group are studying in each city, so we could make the most of their accommodation and knowledge of the area. Being in this part of Indonesia meant immersing ourselves in central Javanese culture; gamelan, wayang, and the temples of Borobodour and Prambanan all featured in our holiday, but what I really want to write about in this post is my personal experience of the local people, and the kindness and openness of the strangers we met along the way.

In Indonesia, being light skinned, Caucasian, or just obviously foreign, generally gets you a lot of attention, and it’s almost impossible to walk down any street without receiving calls of ‘Hello Mister!’ (used for both men and women). Once somebody finds out I can speak a little Bahasa Indonesia I feel that they completely open up to me – I’m no longer just a tourist, an object of mild interest, but a potential friend. I’m sure the fact that we generate so much interest is the reason there always seemed to be someone around to offer us help or advice if we were lost or were having trouble with communication, but in general, I have found Indonesian people to be some of the kindest, politest and most helpful people in any country I’ve been to. Our holiday highlighted this, as there were several times we managed to get completely lost or stuck and we became entirely reliant on the kindness of strangers to get back on track.

One day in particular is a good example. My friend and I wanted to visit Mount Merapi – a still active volcano in fairly close proximity to both Yogyacarta and Solo. During Idul Fitri most places of interest in the cities are closed, so it seemed like a good opportunity to take a bus out of the city and explore the vicinity of the volcano. We set off for the bus station fairly early in the morning with only a vague plan – we had to get to a to a small village called Selo which we had heard was a good starting point for climbing Merapi.

Unfortunately the bus station in Solo is immensely big, and the little information we could find about which busses went where was confusing and often seemed contradictory. Many people asked us where we wanted to go, we replied ‘ke Selo’, and they would nod wisely and gesture to another area of the bus station, where we would then be sent back to the first place by another informative local. After about half an hour of this we seemed to strike lucky, as we were suddenly ushered onto a bus which we were told was leaving sekarang (now). We were assured we would get to Selo if we took this bus, although this was definitely not apparent from any information we could see written down.

The reason for this is because the bus did not, in fact, go to Selo. After about an hour we stopped in a town that wasn't where we wanted to be, and we were told to get out. Thoroughly confused, but somewhat encouraged by the nods and smiles of the bus driver and a few other people also getting of the bus, we disembarked and found ourselves in an unknown town, somewhere in between Solo and Mount Merapi. This was the first place we could have been completely stuck, but fortunately a girl of about 16 who had been on the bus with us told us that she was also going to Selo and we should follow her. A stilted conversation in Bahasa Indonesia lead us to understand that this town was called Boyolali, and we should wait here for another bus which would take us to Selo.

The next bus was tiny and crowded and definitely not built for Western people – we tend to be a lot taller than Indonesians so standing up on the bus (absolutely no chance of getting a seat) was only just possible for me – my tall friend from Austria was bent almost double as the bus climbed its way up into the mountains. After a few stops our helpful friend from the previous bus departed, telling us that Selo was lagi (in this context meaning ‘further’).

When we finally reached Selo we found a road which lead directly up the side of the mountain rather than twisting and turning as most mountain roads would. We think this was an evacuation route, but it seemed to be the most direct way to the top. We didn't plan on reaching the top of the volcano as it can be dangerous without a guide and appropriate hiking equipment, but we wanted to see how far we could get in the time we had available. The road continued to lead straight up the side of the volcano (needless to say it was incredibly steep), but after a while turned into a dirt track, and then a rocky path which seemed little more than a dried up stream bed.

The village of Selo can only just be seen here through the cloud.

The lush and fertile mountainside hides the destructive nature of the volcano.

Due to the steepness of the path we managed to gain a lot of altitude in about two hours, although the weather was misty and cloudy so the view wasn't as good as it could have been. About half way up we reached the border of the national park, where it was advised not to venture into without a guide. It seemed a logical place to turn back, so we slipped and scrambled our way back down the rocky slope of the volcano.

We weren't entirely sure how to get back to Solo, but a friendly shopkeeper assured us that if we waited at the bus stop then a bus would come by eventually and take us to Boyolali. After roughly an hour of waiting, we saw the same shop keeper heading down the road towards us – he was apologising profusely and telling us that there were no more busses to Boyolali as busses finished early for Idul Fitri. He did however, have a friend with a truck who might be able to take us there. Touched by his kindness, we gratefully accepted his offer; he then proceeded to make a phone call and then disappeared.

Our view of the volcano from the bus stop in Selo. 

After another hour the sun was beginning to set and it was getting cold (we were half way up a mountain) and we had no idea where our friendly shop keeper had gone. We were feeling like our only option was to try to stop a passing car and hope that they might give us a lift to Boyolali. After standing by the side of the road for a while, looking lost and cold, a family approached us and asked where we were going. We explained that we were trying to get to Boyolali and they said they were going there too, and maybe we could squeeze into their car with them.

Again, incredibly grateful for their generous offer, we accepted, hoping that we were not somehow letting down the vanished shop-keeper by leaving now. The family was a group of 9 people, so my friend and I brought this number up to 11. Somehow though, we managed to all fit into the car and we began the long, cramped journey . They were a lovely family, talking and laughing loudly all the way; one of the girls spoke fairly good English and explained that they had been visiting family in Selo for Idul Fitri, and were now going back to Solo and could take us all the way there if we wanted them to.

So we arrived back in Solo safely that evening due to the kindness of strangers who had taken it upon themselves to help a couple of confused bule (pronounced ‘boolay’ – the Indonesian word for foreigners, especially light-skinned people). And actually our whole adventure that day was made possible by friendly locals – without their help we would have never have left the bus station!

It would be nice if English people also went to the same lengths to help foreigners in need – we are very happy to give directions or advice if asked, but the open and willing warmth and friendliness of Indonesian people is something I haven’t really come across before, and it’s definitely inspiring and heart-warming. 

Tarawangsa - a revelation!

A few weeks ago we went to see a concert by a band called ‘Trah Project’, whose distinguishing feature is their combination of both traditional and modern Indonesian music. We were treated to gamelan instruments played alongside rock and heavy metal style music, mixtures of traditional drumming on kendang backed up by drum kits, and the haunting sound of live Sundanese singing against a slightly electronica style backing track. Overall I didn’t find these combinations overwhelmingly appealing, but right at the beginning, for about one minute, a stringed instrument was being played with a bow, accompanied by someone plucking the strings on a small, zither- like box. This was before I had begun to form a true appreciation for Sundanese music, and I assumed the bowed instrument was a rebab as I couldn’t see it very clearly and the sound was similar. One of my friends however, was transfixed by the sound of this instrument, and a week or so ago we started to research it.

The instrument is a tarawangsa, which is similar to a rebab (in that it’s played upright with a loose bow and it has two strings), but the sound of it is more somehow more subtle and pure than the rebab, which in comparison sounds nasal and harsh. It has such a beautiful sound that we were both surprised at the fact we had never really come across this instrument before, and that it doesn’t seem to be very popular. It’s unique to Sunda, (the area of West Java we’re currently living in) and if you search for tarawangsa on youtube you will find a few videos with varying degrees of quality in the recordings, but that seems to be the extent of its popularity.

This youtube video demonstrates the sound of the tarawangsa very well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk2DHf9t6ZA

After spending quite a long time on youtube listening to this music I started to really fall in love with the sound of the tarawangsa, and being a musician and a string player, just listening to it wasn’t enough – I wanted to play one of these! The trouble was finding someone who plays it (very rare these days), getting in touch with them and convincing them to teach a couple of ignorant westerners one of the most traditional Indonesian instruments there is. Luckily, we have an amazing supervisor of the program here in Bandung, and when we told him about our interest he managed to take advantage of his contacts, pull some strings, and got in touch with a tarawangsa player who was actually willing to come to Saung Angklung Udjo to give us a demonstration!

So yesterday we met a student called Tegu, the tarawangsa player, who came here along with his friend Wisnu who plays the zither-type instrument which accompanies the tarawangsa. Tegu is the only person at his university who plays this instrument; even his teachers and lecturers in traditional music (his area of study) don’t know how to play it so he has to travel a long way for infrequent lessons. He explained a little more about the instrument, which started to give us an indication of why it seems to be dying out.

The tarawangsa is an extremely sacred instrument. It’s possibly the most sacred of Indonesian traditional instruments, and not only is it sacred, but very very old – it originates from pre-Islamic times in Indonesia. Before Islam the people of this country were animists, believing that everything had a living soul and worshiping the gods of the things that were most important to their daily lives. The tarawangsa is the embodiment of the goddess of rice; the staple food of the Indonesian people and therefore extremely important to the animists. Because of its sacredness, there are rules concerning the instrument which people have been unwilling to break. Firstly, the tarawangsa is always accompanied by the jentreng – the zither-like instrument demonstrated at the Trah Project concert. Secondly, the tarawangsa is never played with any other instruments. It’s not inconceivable… it’s just not done! Tarawangsa and jentreng is the traditional way of doing it. Thirdly, the tarawangsa is almost always only played at very important ceremonies, and rarely played for performance. These rules limit the ways and situations in which the tarawangsa can be played, and in a world which is evolving fast and in which musical cultures have to evolve to survive, the tarawangsa seems to struggle to keep up. As a result people who play the instrument are becoming rarer, and many Indonesians, even the Sundanese people, no longer even know what the tarawangsa is.

This sad reality made us more determined to learn how to play the tarawangsa, and I’m even considering the possibility of buying one and bringing it back to the UK. However there are other limitations of the instrument, for example although it has two strings, only one of these is used to play a melody. Any wide intervals in pitch are extremely difficult to play as the hand has to be moved up and down the string very quickly, although the tarawangsa suits the meandering, pentatonic melodies of Sundanese music perfectly. But my friend and I are resolute (for now at least) and after an amazing evening of sharing music and traditional tunes from around the world with Tegu and Wisnu, with our Thai friend playing the Saw Duang and myself on violin, we arranged another lesson for Sunday (at a negotiable price).

Here are some more pictures of the instruments Tegu left for us to practice with:

The top of the tarawangsa and its two pegs

The sound box (the sound hole is actually at the back!) is made entirely out of wood with no stretched skin or membrane

The bow is loose and the correct tension needs to be applied using the little finger; another reason this instrument is difficult to play!

The tarawangsa with its accompanying instrument, the jentreng

During the lesson, Tegu revealed that he only knew of one other non-Indonesian who has learned to 

play the tarawangsa, and also that I am probably the first woman to ever learn this instrument! I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity, and I will try to keep people updated with our progress!

Language Update

We have now been living at Saung Angklung Udjo for one month and have established a comfortable and easy way of life here, although some of the initial excitement and motivation of the group as a whole has worn off a little, which is maybe why I haven’t written a blog for a while. Part of the reason for this is that our final performance still seems so far away, and yet we’re practicing for it every day. It would be nice if we had some smaller and closer goals or performances to work towards – this would encourage us to practice in our own time and turn up to lessons on time (which has been a bit of a problem recently, for some people!).

After a month my Bahasa Indonesia is getting better, although I still feel that if this is one third of how good it’s going to be by the time I leave here, I need to start improving at a faster rate! Before I came here I was told that Bahasa Indonesia is an easy language to learn. And at the beginning it was! Words are fairly easy to pronounce and remember so I learnt a lot of words very fast, and the basic phrases for ‘how are you’, ‘my name is’, ‘thank you’ etc came naturally after the first week. But as we learnt more we started to encounter the various complexities and idiosyncrasies of the language, and these are slightly more difficult to get my head around. I am at the stage where I need to learn these complexities to progress, but it’s getting slower and harder with every new aspect I come across.

Sometimes there appears to be a distinct lack of rules. At the end of many words there is a silent ‘k’, but there doesn’t seem to be a system explaining when the k is silent and when it’s pronounced – you just have to learn it. Cintak (love) and bapak (or just pak, used to address older men) both have a silent k, while in the word duduk (sit) the k is prounounced. The one word tidak (with a silent k, obviously) means no, not, don’t, and many other variations implying a negative, but then sometimes, and I can’t quite work out exactly when, I am told by my teacher that I can’t use the word tidak in this case but have to use bukan instead. There is a lack of gender words – dia means both him and her, as well as he and she, while adding the suffix ‘nya’ to a noun means the object is both his or hers. So if you’re not familiar with Indonesian names, it’s sometimes difficult to work out if someone is talking about a woman or a man.

At other times there are complicated rules which would be embarrassing to get wrong, such as ways of addressing people respectfully which is very important here. To address an older man, maybe aged 50 or over, you would use the word bapak, usually shortened to just pak, which means ‘father’. But you wouldn’t use this word while addressing your actual father; in this case you would use ayah. To address a man closer to your own age but with a position of authority, you use the word kang, and the polite way of addressing any man your own age is mas. There are also formal and informal ways to say almost everything, and you need to use the appropriate way of speaking depending on who you are speaking to and the situation you’re in.

The grammatical system is called ‘imbuhan’ which is a system of suffixes and prefixes which change root words to their correct form. In some cases this seems simple and logical. Makan is ‘to eat’ and adding ‘an’ to the end turns the verb into noun making makanan meaning ‘food’.  There are certain suffixes which turn a word into its past tense, but sometimes you don’t need to use these. Suda makan? means ‘already eaten?’ although there is no change to the root word for ‘eat’. I feel like once I have mastered imbuhan I will be able to construct sentences properly, but for now I’m stuck with using what our silat teacher calls ‘bahasa tarzan’ which consists of a lot of gesturing and shouting out random words in the hope that I will make myself understood.

Despite the difficulties, I am really enjoying learning a new language! I feel like every new word I learn gives me greater power to communicate and understand, although I really have to work to not forget the words! Listening to conversations between my Indonesian friends, I am managing to pick out more and more words and sometimes can get the general meaning of what they’re talking about. It’s still hard trying to talk to local people or get information when I really need it though, for example asking for directions when I’m out in Bandung. The amount I still have to learn just to have a basic conversation is overwhelming.

[As an edit: kang (used to address a man closer to your own age) is actually Sundanese, not Bahasa Indonesia! Here both languages are used, so when talking to people here and addressing our teachers and friends it's easy to get mixed up between the two!]

First Week of Workshops

The past week has been mentally and physically exhausting. Every day we have learned something new, starting with our Bahasa Indonesia lessons on Monday and Tuesday. I have been asked to explain why I say ‘Bahasa Indonesia’ instead of ‘Indonesian’; it’s basically because there is no such language as Indonesian – every region of Indonesia has a local language, and ‘Bahasa Indonesia’ is the language all Indonesians learn in school and use to communicate with people from other parts of the country. I’m picking up the language quite fast – I’m learning new words every day, but putting them together in sentences is still difficult for me. Here in Bandung people also speak the local language of Sundanese. It’s tempting to try and learn words from this language too but I think I’d get too confused, it’s probably better to stick to one new language for now!

Our second lesson on Monday was our first Pencak Silat class. Silat is the martial art practiced in Indonesia and Malaysia, but it’s especially popular here in Bandung and the surrounding areas. I really enjoyed the lesson, although it was exhausting and there was a lot to remember!

Then on Tuesday, after our second language lesson, we had our first session on learning to play the Angklung orchestra, which is called Arumba. Arumba consists of lots of instruments made of bamboo, but mainly various sizes of Angklung put together to make different instruments, for example the Angklung Accord plays chords, then we have a bass Angklung as well as melody and rhythm Angklung sets. These are put together with marimba-like instruments, as well as the Kendang, the traditional Indonesian drum which is also used in Gamelan. Angklung can also be played individually, with each bamboo instrument sounding one note.

On Wednesday we had our first traditional Indonesian dance class. We were learning a local Sundanese dance called Jaipong, although our first lesson was just getting to know the basic moves and steps, rather than the actual dance.

Sundanese dance seems to be more rhythmic and energetic compared to the dances our friends in central Java will be learning – the music and dance in Solo and central Java seems to be altogether more reserved; very slow and controlled. Every region has its own traditions and styles which are still very much practiced, all children seem to learn traditional dance or Pencak Silat.

Each week we will have two classes on a specific aspect of traditional culture, and this week’s class was on learning how to make the decorations used for various ceremonies and celebrations. A janur is an elaborate decoration made out of palm leaves, used for wedding ceremonies. I forget the name of the other thing we learned to make, but it’s a small woven basket that people fill with rice in order to cook it. In the coming week we will have a day of making batik which is the art of decorating cloth or clothes with intricate patterns.

On Friday we had our second Angklung and Pencak Silat classes. We have four hours of classes per day, and although that doesn’t seem like a lot, they’re moving at a very fast pace so we always have homework or practicing to do to make sure what we learnt has actually gone in. I am really enjoying the challenge so far!

First days in Bandung

Our schedule here over the last few days has been very relaxed; we've had a lecture about Bandung and  the things it has to offer, we've been watching the numerous performances at the arts centre, and the people of Saung Angklung Udjo have taken us out for some day trips, but we've had a lot of free time and we've all been adjusting to the slow-paced, relaxed way of life, as well as bonding as a group and getting to know the arts centre and the city. The real work starts tomorrow with a Bahasa Indonesia lesson in the morning and a Pencack Silat lesson in the afternoon, and from then on we will have two lessons per day on various things. 

Yesterday we were taken to the zoo by the organisers here at SAU... the zoo on the whole was disappointing and the animals were kept in pretty bad conditions, but I had expected it to be that way so I wasn't shocked. When adapting to a new country and a new way of life, there are some things you just have to accept. The main thing that I took away from the trip to the zoo was a kind of empathy with the animals, as there had been times during the day that I had felt like one of the exhibits!  Our group attracted a lot of stares as we were the only non-Indonesian tourists at the zoo, and several times we were asked if we would pose for photos. Except sometimes they didn't even ask, we were just grabbed and pulled in front of a camera with a local family or group of friends. I didn't feel entirely comfortable with the attention, although some members of our group were loving it... this picture sums this up perfectly:

So that was my first strange experience of the day... the second occurred in the evening when I was invited to go and see 'some music' and found myself in the middle of a three-year-old boy's circumcision party. The family had gone all out, closing off the street and putting up shelters from the rain so that the guests could stay dry while watching singing, dancing and comedy. One of the organisers from SAU was friends with the boy's aunt, so the invitation was extended to us as well. We went to congratulate the boy and were immediately offered seats in the front row, and then invited up on stage to dance! Again I was feeling slightly uncomfortable - this party was to celebrate the boy, but we had arrived and now we were getting all the attention. After subtley and politely edging to the back to watch the dancing from afar, our friend from SAU told us that actually it would have been a big honour for them if we had joined in the celebrations; Indonesians love to see non-Indonesians appreciating their culture and taking part. 

So I'm learning about what's expected and what's acceptable, what is polite and what is disrespectful. I'm also learning more about the city of Bandung and its idiosyncrasies, for example their angkot system. An angkot is a cross between a taxi and a bus; it's the size of a small minibus and can be flagged down anywhere; you then squeeze in amongst everybody else who is going in the same direction. Although they follow certain routes in certain directions, and can apparently be differentiated by their colours, there appears to be no logical system as to which colours of angkot go where - you just have to know your route and know your colours. Today, while trying to navigate Bandung with one of my friends, we found it easiest just to flag down an angkot and tell the driver where we wanted to go, he would then nod and we'd get in, or he'd point to another angkot on the street which we would then have to chase down (fairly easy because of the traffic jams) and see if we'd struck lucky. It's hard as we still have extremely basic language skills, so communication with the local people generally involves a lot of gesturing and looking things up in my newly purchased Indoneisan-English dictionary. However angkot is by far the cheapest way to get around the city, with a half hour journey costing around 20p per person.

The last few days have been spent like this - immersing ourselves in the language and the culture and trying to fit in. I hope that my next blog post will contain more details about some of the actual lessons we're going to have, on learning Angklung, Pencack Silat, and Sundanese dancing! For now though, I'd like to dedicate this blog post to my amazing dad as it's father's day in the UK - I know he would absolutely love to be here - I get my passion for travelling and learning about new cultures from him and he encouraged me to apply for this scholarship in the first place! Happy father's day!

Saung Anklung Udjo

Well, I have so much to write about! The 70 people I have been living with for the last week have all been split up and sent to separate cities and art centres to study various aspects of Indonesian art and culture. I am now living in Bandung with 11 other people from India, Austria, Thailand, Naru, Samoa, Figi, Turkey, Germany and Kiribati, and this will be our home for the next three months!

The place we're staying at is called Saung Anklung Udjo, and it is a haven of peace and community in the centre of Bandung (which is nearly as crowded as Jakarta). It's a centre set up to educate people about the art form of Angklung, a traditional Indonesian musical instrument made of bamboo which is extremely versatile and sounds incredible when played well. They also teach Silat, a tradtional Indonesian martial art, which we will also be learning during our stay here. The centre has 500 visitors a day, with two daily performances and lots of workshops. The volunteers and staff live in and around the centre, and the IACS participants are staying in a beautiful little house all together. Here are some pictures!

Our shared living area with my new housemate from Figi

My lovely bedroom!!

Saung Anklung Udjo is exactly the kind of place I was hoping to be sent to in Indonesia! It's a centre which teaches music and harmony through community, as well as teaching Indonesian people about their local culture. There's always activity and music happening here - I woke up this morning at 7am to people rehearsing for this morning's performance. There is a huge performance area with a stage with lots of instruments we're free to use in our spare time when the performance area isn't being used:

The performance space and the morning show (just for locals in Bahasa Indonesia, the evening show is always packed and is for the visitors, in English)

A scary looking ram who lives here with us

A huge bat with massive teeth!

Making the Angklung - it's all made by hand and we will learn to make our own while we are here.

I have been playing violin a lot over the last week, it's been great because I haven't played much at all this past year. Before we all left to go to our separate art centres, each group had to come up with a 10 minute performance to show to the rest of the groups at our big farewell party. We discovered that each person in our group had a talent, whether it was music, dance, or martial arts, and we incorporated all of these into our performance with myself and the guy from India providing the soundtrack on violin and drums. Afterwards we won the prize for the best group performance, and I'm so glad we were able to do this as I missed my end of year performance at university but this kind of makes up for it.

The girl from Thailand in my group plays the saw duang, a Thai stringed instrument, which she has tuned so that we can play together. We've been teaching each other simple tunes and learning each other's instrument, which is great, I hope by the end of the three months to be able to be able to play it! I am going to learn so much here; as well as learning how to play Anklung and learning Silat, the Indonesian martial art found in this area, I will be learning Bahasa Indonesia, possibly some traditional dance, maybe some Indonesian cookery and the art of Batik, and lots of phrases in Thai and German because my friends have promised to teach me more of their languages. 

Oh and I get to visit volcanoes!

Opening Ceremony!

Today we had the opening ceremony of the Indonesian Arts and Cultures Scholarship. It was a very grand occasion, and we had all been asked previously to wear our traditional national dress for the ceremony. Here are a few of the outfits which were worn by my friends:

 Indonesia, Greece, Serbia, Germany, Russia, Suriname, Kazakhstan.

 Thailand, Indonesia, Thailand

Austria, Suriname

I had been wondering for a while about what I should wear for this ceremony, and I came to the conclusion a while ago that the UK has no national dress! I’m not especially patrotic, but when it comes to an occasion like this where I am representing the UK among so many other countries, it’s kind of embarrassing that we aren’t more proud of our traditions and culture. I settled for a formal black dress in the end, with a red rose to symbolise England:

(I'm standing next to a portrait of the first president of Indonesia)

I felt very boring compared to the rest of the group!

Later on, talking about food in our different countries, it struck me again that we don’t really have a traditional dish… unless you count a roast dinner or fish and chips. Maybe it’s because I come from the UK, but I’ve been comparing our culture to many different countries and cultures over the last couple of days and I can’t help thinking that we’re actually fairly boring. Conversations with my new friends usually contain ‘In Denmark we do this…’ or ‘In Indonesia we eat this…’ but it seems as though Britain prefers to adopt food and traditions from other parts of the world rather than be proud of their own. 

The same goes for language. I am truly embarrassed that I am the only person on this scholarship (apart from maybe the two people from the USA) who only speaks one language. Luckily for me, the entire program is conducted in English. Everybody here speaks their own language, English, and in most cases one or two other languages as well. I don’t know why we find this acceptable in the UK. I have seen over the last few days how knowing more than one language can open up a whole new world of communication and opportunities, and I don’t think that people in the UK should just not bother to learn another language, just because ours is the one spoken widely throughout the world. I am learning Bahasa Indonesia – the language spoken throughout Indonesia, and I hope that by the end of the three months here I will be good enough to communicate with local people.

Anyway… a quick update on my bizzare food for the day – grass jelly! 

This is basically jelly flavoured with grass (this was the translation I understood from the guy who convinced me to try it), floating in lumpy milk flavoured with ginger. Another weird and wonderful desert I tried today was fried banana with grated cheese on top. Indonesians often eat sweet and savoury foods together. They’re giving us so much food here and I want to try everything!
In a few days’ time we will find out which city we have been allocated to for the next three months. Then we will be divided into groups of 12, and sent off to study different aspects of local Indonesian music and culture!

Food!

Here are some observations I have made about Indonesian food:

They eat a lot of rice. They have rice for every meal, including breakfast. Every meal, every day. I actually quite like rice for breakfast, but they have it with chicken curry and steamed vegetables too. At 7 in the morning. Indonesians don't actually seem to differentiate between the three meals of the day, it's generally rice, curry and steamed vegetables for every meal!

They like to hide chilies in things. A few times, over the last couple of days, I've bitten into some unknown item of food to find a concealed chili, a tiny whole one which burns so much that chewing is impossible, it's best to just spit or swallow as soon as you can. I'm not the only one this has happened to - I've seen a lot of people suddenly jump up from the dinner (or lunch or breakfast) table with streaming eyes, and run towards the water dispenser.

They have these:

It tastes a little like rice pudding, but with the consistency of jelly. Very strange. I've been making a point of trying everything new, even if it looks pretty questionable. I think this is the strangest so far!

They are quite fond of having chicken, fish and tofu on the same plate, even in the same curry! Back home I eat meat maybe once a week... here they have it for every meal! There are a couple of vegetarians on this program and I'm not sure how they're coping! This is just the food in the hotel we're staying at though - in a few days we're moving to various art centres across Indonesia and the food might be different.

I have done so much in the last two days but I have very little time to write! I'll try and give a proper update of my activities soon!

Arrival!!

This was my first view of Java's volcanic peaks as the plane began to descend over Indonesia...






I finally arrived in Jakarta at about 10am Indonesian time, although it felt like four in the morning to me! Jakarta is every bit the chaotic, stiflingly humid, traffic-laden city I’d expected. Although my experience of the city so far is only what I saw during the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, it reminds me a lot of the bigger cities in India, complete with rickshaws (here called becak), and ramshackle stalls crowding the pavements, selling bottles of fizzy drink and street food, not to mention the multiple echoes of the call to prayer ringing out over the city every few hours.
I can't wait to experience some of Indonesia's stunningly beautiful tropical countryside, or the tiny, remote islands I saw from the plane (you need to look closely to see these!):

So for those of you who are still a little unsure about what I'm doing here... I've been awarded a three and a half month scholarship to study Indonesian music, language and culture! I've been a big fan of Indonesia and its music for a couple of years now, and the chance to study here for three months, with everything paid for and with a whole bunch of other people from around the world, seemed like an opportunity too good to be true! It's all put on by the Indonesian government in an attempt to promote Indonesian culture and Indonesia as a country, as well as establishing good relations with other countries. There are 60 people taking part, chosen from 44 countries around the world.

It's been a bit hectic over the last few weeks, as we were notified that we had actually got the scholarship very late, and the committee in Jakarta who have been putting this programme together seemed to be terrible at letting us have any information at all! But I'm here now, and I can't wait to get started!