Home Sweet Home

"Welcome to Bogor"

Kota Hujan, pronounced “uujan”, where Kota = city, hujan = rain. Yes, that translates to “city of rain”. Bogor, Indonesia, home sweet home. It actually isn’t bad at all. Sure, it rains, pretty much every day in the rainy season, which is now. But it’s that tropical rain…warm, torrential, lasts an hour or two, then the sun comes back out. Interestingly, it doesn’t seem like there is any way to predict the weather here. In Canada, we’re all weather experts thanks to Environment Canada’s 7-day forecast, which seems to have the advantage of relatively predictable weather systems. Here, the “weather channel” is about as good as looking at your tea leaves in the morning. “Oh, so in 3 days, there will be an 80% chance of rain in the afternoon, versus today, which is 90%.” Thanks for the info J

I stopped looking at the “forecast” about 2 and a half weeks ago (I’ve been here for 3). Basically, if you leave the house, regardless of the current situation, you need to assume it will rain some time while you are out. Therefore, bring an umbrella, or a waterproof backpack, find a Starbucks, or just be prepared to walk in the rain (my usual scenario).

So I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my “living situation”, i.e., where are you living? In a house? Apartment? Is it nice? What’s the deal? Can you drink the water? Are there geckos?

The short answer is, yes, lots of geckos, and no, you can’t drink the water (drinking water comes in those water cooler things). I live (and Amy will too when she gets here) in a 3-bedroom house in, what I think “they” are calling a “middle-class” neighbourhood called Villa Duta. It’s a nice quiet place (other than the call to prayer, which deserves its own blog…coming), and home to a lot of nice Indonesian families. I am, or at least it seems, the only bulai (white person – I have been misspelling that word) in sight, which is cool.

I believe one would call this a “gated” community. There’s a main entrance with a command post and a gate (that is interestingly always up though), and there are security posts all over the place, with one about 4 houses down from mine. So ya, this is a gated and guarded community. While that could sound a bit weird to the folks back home, I am really loving it. This place is SECURE. Zero issues on the theft, or otherwise, front. I love that. And the security guys are the friendliest dudes on earth. I have no doubt that they are looking out for the new bulai on the block.

I actually just met my neighbour, who said his name is Jerry (however, the guy was born and raised in the jungles of Papua, as in the Indonesian half of the Island of New Guinea, so the chance of his real name being Jerry is pretty much zero, but hey, OK, Jerry it is), and is a sweetheart of a guy. I was madly trying to get my motorbike up and running yesterday morning. I bought a motorbike – everyone has a motorbike here – that I haven’t even thought of putting on the road yet (I use my bike to get to work). So I was trying to get it started, without success (it’s been sitting for 4 months), when he popped his head over the gate and started chatting. Being a motorcycle dude himself (he’s 65, rides a mean scooter), he helped me get the thing running.

my current ride

After about an hour, drenched in sweat, we had it purring. “Let’s go for a ride” he says. “You need to charge up your battery, I will show you around Villa Duta”. Yikes! I was terrified. For one, neither of us had helmets. Two, I’m completely illegal, i.e., no license, no insurance, no nuthin’. Three, and most of all, I don’t have a clue how to ride a motorbike! Especially not in Indonesia! Well, OK, truth be told, I was a motorbike 15-yr-old, with a Yamaha 80, back in the suburbs of Ottawa. But that was off-road, kids stuff. This is on-road Asia! Thankfully Jerry is 65, and not a maniac. We stuck to the back roads, took it nice and slow, and he showed me where the local gas guy is (i.e., the guy selling gas out of discarded 2-litre water bottles), and the local air-compressor guy who will pump up your tires for 20 cents. To top it all off, he took me to his favourite breakfast warung (warung = street food vendor) and we had rice, chicken, eggs, and jackfruit. Nice! Thanks Jerry!

my future ride!

So then there is our staff. Yep, we have staff (AKA a “maid”, but that just has too much baggage). Here in Indo, if you can afford a pembantu (helper), you have one. To be completely honest, there was never a discussion, i.e., “so Rob, do you want a maid?”, for example. That conversation never took place. I was just informed that she comes every day, Monday to Friday, from about 9 to 4. She’ll do whatever we want her to do including dishes, cleaning, laundry, groceries, food prep, whatever. OK, this is weird. Still getting used to that one. Although, I have to admit, it is very nice coming home to a house that is clean, laundry done, dishes washed, clothes folded and put away, and everything in its place…every day. Hmmm, these people are onto something here J

The way it has been explained to me, is that if you can afford to pay people to do things for you, it’s everyone’s way of supporting the local economy. While I could probably refuse to employ Kesi (her name, pronounced K-C), it would be frowned upon. Who am I to upset the apple cart? Oh, and the gardener. We have a gardener who comes once a week too (again, no discussion necessary). And I just paid the security guys for the month. So ya, makes sense. Just keeping the ball rolling here at Villa Duta. Home sweet home.