Farewell Sunday Drinks
|
Farewell Sunday Drinks |
|
|
A farewell letter the Sunday drinks group received from two of its members, Des and SueTo: sundaydrinks@yahoogroups.com Sue and I enjoyed your company on many Sundays in Bandung and I felt remiss in not saying a proper goodbye to you or to our venerable institution. We really feel lucky to have met many of you and hope that our paths will cross again. And we'll certainly be thinking of you on Sundays in Hawaii. Below is an e-mail I sent out last week from Bandung. Some of you may find it interesting. Sampai jumpa lagi and take good care of yourselves. - Des and Sue Dear Friends and Family: Well we've finally come full circle in our Southeast Asian adventure. Sixteen months ago we left the U.S. for Jakarta on our way to Bandung, and now we're retracing our steps in a journey that will eventually take us on our next series of adventures in Hawaii. All of this puts me in a reflective mood, despite the distraction of Sue doing gleeful cartwheels behind me as I sit writing at the desk downstairs in our wonderful Bandung house. Even our notoriously mischievous kitties sense that their days of lolling in the tropical sun and swatting the occasional careless gecko will soon be ending. For them, it's been 16 blissful months. For Sue and I, the story's a bit more complex. Hmm, where to begin? Let's start by filling in the positive side of the ledger. I simply love wearing freshly pressed underwear and socks, especially if they've been starched. The occasional, unexpected static spark in my drawers serves to liven up my morning. God bless our faithful houseboy Atim, who never misses a scrubbing or ironing opportunity. Many times have I removed my shoes prior to entering our house and reemerged only moments later to go for a walk, only to find my shoes hanging on the clothes line outside after having been washed and scrubbed by Atim. He knows that freshly scrubbed shoes please me almost as much as starched underwear. Atim is well paid for his services at a rate of 350,000 rupiah per month, which at yesterday's exchange rate is the equivalent of just under $30. [Sue and I have really enjoyed living in a completely politically incorrect environment, especially after suffering through the oppressive PCness in Washington. Jealousy, prejudice, and religious intolerance are all openly aired here in a, shall we say, sometimes lively (or deadly, even) fashion. I certainly don't condone extremism, but it is refreshing to tell you stories of my houseboy, for example, without feeling forced to create more "uplifting" or "empowering" terminology. If you ask Atim what he is, he'll tell you "I'm a pembantu (helper/houseboy)," not "I'm an Executive Domestic Assistant."] Which brings me to my next point of how wonderful the rupiah is. This is the well-intentioned but hopelessly bumbling redheaded stepchild of the world's currencies. When Sue and I arrived here in early 2000, the rupe, as it's affectionately known, was trading at 7000 per dollar. As a testament to my lack of investing acumen, I insisted that we begin to hoard rupes as it "temporarily" slid to 8000 against to dollar. I felt castigated by Sue's smirks as she took delight in reminding me of our 10 million rupe stockpile in the safe, even as it drifted inexorably downward, passing through 10,000/$ in January and currently languishing at 11,900/$. To put things into perspective, when we first got here a round of golf was $11.43 and the cold beer at the 19th hole was $1.14. We now shell out only $6.67 for the golf and a quite reasonable $.65 for the brew. I know exactly what many of you are thinking. As my good friend Steve asked near the end of his visit, "Okay let's go over this one more time. Why on earth are you leaving?" Well, it's at least partially due to the acronyms. Let me explain. Bahasa Indonesia has a lot of long words and when you combine these words into specific terminology the result can be a heck of a tongue twister. Of course every military in the world is committed to reducing language to monosyllabic grunts and catchy acronyms. Here, I'll show you. I'm currently working on a US Army correspondence course and one of the textbooks is within arm's reach. I've arbitrarily opened the Operational and Strategic Logistics textbook to page 22 and I'm immediately confronted with USMILSTAMP. Take a guess. Something to do with the postal system perhaps? No, it means United States Military Standard Transportation and Movement Procedures. But I digress from the case at hand, which is the CAL (crimes against language) committed by the Indonesian government and military. At SESKOAD (sekolah staf dan komando angkatan darat, or more simply the Staff College), I've had to learn all about SISHANKAMRATA (sistem pertahanan keamanan rakyat semesta, or, rather more succinctly, defense doctrine). Some days, I get so sick of it, I slink off to the PUSKESPRA (pusat kesehatan prajurit, or health clinic) and beg the doctor for a SURIZISTRUM (surat izin beristirahat rumah, or sick slip), so I can go home, lie down and tell my wife SUBRIBE (Sue Bring Beer) which earns me a smack upside the head. It is definitely time to go. We also have to go because of the 2-pack a day cough I've developed from inhaling prodigious amounts of second hand kretek (clove cig) smoke and the black soot and filth that belches out of every bus, car and motorcycle on the streets of Bandung. The ambassador recently asked me my views on lifting military sanctions against Indonesia. I said, "Sir, with a handful of flamethrowers I could go to the central bus depot and solve all our problems." I consider myself an environmentalist, but I really would like to tie up a few of the Seattle/Quebec protesters and handcuff them to the grill of our Jeep and subject them to the reality of unregulated motorized smoke bombs. For the final course, we could savor the pungent aroma of smoldering refuse and open sewage that is ubiquitous in any Indonesian city. Maybe with that new perspective they'd begin holding support rallies in the US and Canada for the existing regulatory framework that allows blatantly polluting vehicles to be impounded and that goes far in ensuring clean water supplies for citizens. And there's one other thing I don't like about those phony activists. They trashed a Starbucks, which, from the perspective of someone who hasn't had a decent cup of Java in months (last one was at the Starbucks in Singapore in March), has to be considered a very serious transgression. Maybe I'd untie them from our jeep long enough to force down a few cups of the local swill, which I'd swear is brewed from the black soot scraped from the inside of bus tailpipes. Ohhhh, That was therapeutic. I now feel prepared to consider the positive side of the ledger. Honestly, we both feel that this has been one of the richest experiences of our lives. Indonesia is probably the least understood major country in the world. The people we've met have been warm and eager to make us comfortable. Despite the horrific headlines, Sue and I have never felt in danger and in fact feel safer in our neighborhood here than in most urban areas in the States. This is a place of enormous beauty and culture. There is little I can do to adequately convey the verdant beauty of the Javanese landscape with its brilliant green terraced rice paddies, lush tea plantations, and dramatic volcanoes. It really is something to behold and we consider ourselves lucky to have been given the chance to explore it for these past months. Besides domestic travel, which most recently brought us to Bali for 5 days around Easter, we have been fortunate to see a fair amount of Southeast Asia too. We took advantage of opportunities to visit Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. We have also developed what I hope will be enduring friendships with some of the wonderful cast of characters that make up the expatriate community. This fascinating group of people contains everyone from missionaries to mercenaries hailing from all over the globe. If you find yourself at another boring cocktail party wondering where all the interesting people are, I can tell you that Bandung has more than its fair share. Later today Sue and I will be farewelled at that greatest of Bandung institutions, Sunday Drinks. On a rotating basis, one member of the community hosts everyone else on Sunday afternoons from 5-7PM. Details to be found in the church bulletin. Light food served, BYOB. No other rules. What a simple concept to encourage fellowship and the exchange of helpful tidbits of information within the community. There is really no sufficient reason why every place shouldn't have its own version of Sunday Drinks. We've vowed to begin a new chapter in Honolulu. You all should consider it too... -Des |
|
