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!
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