Black Sugar

So basically my worst-case scenario has come true. No not the Noah style flooding of my house that many of you noticed me ranting about on Facebook. Surprisingly that is not my worst-case scenario.  However the fact that the teachers are starting to bring food for me at school, is.  Apparently they all think I’m too skinny/ living on the brink of starvation .So now they are bringing food for me to eat. At school. Why is this a problem you may ask? Everyone loves free food! No. Everyone loves free food when you have a choice to eat it or not.  In Indonesia it is rude to turn down any food you are given…it is even ruder not to finish ALL of said food. So when someone plops down a paper bag filled with bright pink rice and a soggy fried egg on my desk, I am forced to eat it as they sit across from me, watching every bite.

Don’t get me wrong; I definitely appreciate the kindness of the gesture. But as many people in my life know, I don’t hide my facial expressions really well.  It’s really my gift and my curse. So when I bite into a green rice jelly treat and find chunks of meat like substance inside…I have a difficult time hiding my gag reflex while fifteen people are staring me down, waiting for my smile of delight. Let me add that I am NOT a picky eater. I was not one of those children who grew up in a home where I got to declare at age three that I would not eat anything orange.  This, of course, has bred a particularly adventurous palette. I mean, I really like Coto (the cow intestine soup that everyone brings all the time), but I really do have to put my foot down at the jellies. And the inappropriate use of mayonnaise as salad dressing. Yes, mayonnaise.

In other news I’m basically running a hostel for the ETA’s of South Sulawesi. While this would usually cramp my hermit-ish style, it’s been nice to have people to trade horror stories with and indulge in really American things like McDonald’s.  It also helps when my cab driver decides to go on a rant about how “black is beautiful” and the fact that I look like “black sugar”. While this would have been decidedly off putting and probably the opening scene to a Kidnapped Abroad episode, having two other buleh cracking up in the back seat really decreased the creepy quotient.

Also I, and many of my fellow ETA’s in South Sulawesi, have been asked to be a part of someone’s royal Bugis wedding in December. Apparently this requires me to wear three different traditional Bugis costumes. So look forward to updates and most likely hysterical pictures in the near future.

First World Third World....Saturdays!

Hello all,

 Sorry I'm a bit behind this week ( it's Saturday in Indonesia), but I've been quite busy planning the most epic Halloween lesson ever.

This First World/ Third World  problem this week is brought to you by my dear friend Julie Appel. She's  currently toughing it out in the jungle that is the NYC restaurant business.

First World Problem: the new ipod nano is nice because it's small, but it only fits 3 songs on the touch screen at a time, so scrolling through playlists is such a bother! i really have to start keeping it as my secondary ipod, and use my 32 gb touch as my primary one."

Third World Problem: my one source of music making, my small bongo drum, was taken by the rebels during last week's raid.  


Happy Saturdays!

First World Third World Fridays

First World Problem: All the cottages at Martha's Vineyard have been booked for the summer, so it looks like no beach for us. Palm Springs anyone?


Third World Problem: My village is next to a gorgeous beach but I can't go because there are salt-water crocodiles.

Special thanks to Rachel  for sharing her Kalimantan experience

The Hedonist Center of Indonesia

I Recently I went on a little jaunt around Indonesia with my friend Judith.  Both of our schools were in mid-semester exams and according to our contracts we’re not qualified enough to administer those, which is true, so we were free to travel for the week.  Many lessons were learned on this jaunt. First, if I am breathing Makassar air, I can, in no way, avoid the fried mystery treats and mugs of tea I am forced to eat on a daily basis. Judith arrived on Sunday and we were to set off on our adventure Monday morning. I however needed to pop by my school and pick up some mail, which was basically walking into the lion’s den of fattening treats. Just so you know I asked my teaching counterpart/gal pal Tini blatantly one day if she was trying to fatten me up, and she replied with serious and deadly calm…yes.

But I digress.

So about an hour and a half later Judith and I finally emerge from my school and headed to the Makassar airport. Apparently it flooded the last time I was there, but I was lucky enough to catch a taxi to my new home before Moses was needed to part the seas. One thing this week has taught me is to trust no one when it comes to air travel. Once you pass the laughable security check, there is no information to be found. Rather you have to continuously trick people into giving you the right information, such as your gate and departure time, by asking incessantly. Sometimes it helps to don a minor disguise such as scarf or wide brimmed hat. However, it seemed as if only us Americans were concerned about such trifling matters, as the Indonesians traveling around us casually lounged about, munching fried treats.

After two planes, a taxi and a horse drawn cart we finally made it to our hotel in Lombok, where I got to sleep in a tree house bungalow. Needless to say I felt very one with nature as I gazed up at the stars while squatting over our non-western toilet in the open-air bathroom. The next morning we were off to find a public boat to ferry us to the Gili islands, which Lonely Plant deems the “ hedonist center of Indonesia”. Well, it’s no Ibiza, but the beaches were beautiful, the Europeans Speedo clad and I go to eat homemade pasta while sipping cocktails, so no complaints.

All to quickly it was over and back to my little home in Makassar. Come to find out another species of insect has taken up residence in my home along with the militant ants, mosquitoes, roaches, caterpillar type things and of course the geckos (which are obviously not insects but creaturey non the less). It’s sort of like a large ant with wings. However, the small ants have been attacking, killing, and dragging them up my walls. Which of course makes me rethink my position on mass killing the small ants, even after the bed invasion.

In other news, this loquacious blog is inspired by my evening viewing of “Julia &Julia”.  I’m now tempted to blog about cooking my way through “ 160 Nasi Goreng Recipes”, but I feel like that would really benefit no one.

*Nasi Goreng is fried rice, slightly crunchier and spicier than your local Chinese brand. It’s unfathomable that there are 160 ways to make it.