As if “Hello Mrs.! I love you!” weren’t enough, today I woke up to find out that a newspaper article had been written about me in the Gorontalo Post. My neighbor’s 8 year-old son and their cleaning lady, who have oddly but kindly taken to coming over to my house around 7:30 in the morning with a glass of hot tea for me, showed up today with the tea and a copy of the newspaper. I was horrified to see such a huge and unflattering picture of myself splashed across the page. My disbelief grew as I skimmed the article and determined that all of the information printed in it was gleaned from the “faculty meeting” I went to on Monday where they placed a microphone in my hand and asked me to talk about myself. Little did I know the paparazzi were there! (The title says "Julianne Reynolds to strengthen the Faculty of Literature and Culture")
Oh well, it’s just another typical moment in my life as a quasi-celebrity here. Today I went to the “pasar senggol” market with Ibu Helena, another English lecturer in the department. This is a labyrinthine outdoor market that’s set up two weeks before the Edul Fitri holiday. As such, it’s a once a year chance for people to stock up on things like underwear, belts, CDs,plastic chairs, clothes, shoes, placemats, and other essentials. As we made our way through the crowds, people not only continued to shout “Hello Mrs.! My Darling!” and other such things, but they also felt free to reach out and touch my arm! Men and women alike did this. It was really bizarre. Ibu Helena kept reassuring me that it just meant they loved me (oh my adoring fans!) and were excited to see me. One guy even asked to take my picture. We made off before he could snap his shot. Later, we ducked into a hardware store to get some batteries for the clock in my office and the saleswoman felt free to stroke my arm and comment in English, “Your skin is so white!”.
Apparently it’s really common for Indonesians to touch strangers. I saw Ibu Helena do this twice. Once she pinched a baby’s cheek in passing and another time in the supermarket she got the attention of one of the clerks by laying her hand on her arm and left it there for the entire conversation of where to find whatever it was that we were looking for. And another thing – she held my hand as we walked around! She says she likes to hold her colleagues’ hands. It felt a little strange to me to be walking around holding hands with a 25 year-old woman I’m not related to and barely know, but I went with the flow. (Plus it was nice to be guided through some of the crazy twists and turns of the market and to be ushered away from my “fans”!).
Yesterday I had my first mini-breakdown. It happened after I went to the supermarket in search of some take out lunch to bring back to the office with me and found that the food stand which had been open a few days ago for lunch was closed, as was the KFC in the same building. Not knowing where else to go that might be open for lunch during Ramadan, I ended up buying some cheeseburger flavored chips and a lemon-flavored Gatorade type drink called Vita Zone. That was my lunch. It was pretty sad. Then I got in a bentor and headed back to the office. By this point I had taken a few solo bentor rides and was feeling pretty proud of myself. But this time, I managed to draw an incredible amount of attention to myself. Cars honked their horns, men shouted, “Hello Mrs., I love you!” and there were all sorts of whistles and cat calls. Mortified, I realized this excessive amount of attention must be due to the fact that I was wearing a dress that came to just above my knees. And when sitting in a bentor, your legs are on display for all the world to see. I felt half naked all of the sudden and couldn’t wait for the ride to be over.
When I got back to my office, I hurriedly ate my chips and waited for Ibu Noni, my writing co-teacher, to arrive for our meeting. We were supposed to talk about the schedule and who’s going to teach which section of the class. I had met Ibu Noni the first night I arrived in Gorontalo but hadn’t seen her since. She asked me how I was doing and suddenly I burst into tears. I explained how I was starving and didn’t know where to find food and how I felt my clothes were completely inappropriate and how I had tried to go shopping several times and hadn’t found anything. And then she asked me to write down a list of everything that I am stressed about.My pen flew over the paper as I thought of everything else in addition to the food and clothes issues that had been quietly building up and stressing me out. Neither my stove nor my washing machine are connected, my sinks leaks, I need new bedding and towels, my house is dirty, there’s garbage all over the front, I don’t have enough electrical outlets in my bedroom, I don’t have Internet at home or at work yet, I need bookshelves for my office, the light is broken, the clock needs a new battery, I don’t know how to work the printer, and on and on. And something else that I see as critical to my well-being – I haven’t been to the beach yet. Gorontalo is supposed to have some amazing beaches. In this crazy, unfamiliar environment I think I nice swim in some salt water would do me a world of good. But no one has volunteered to show me where the beach is. I asked a couple people this past weekend, but the general consensus was that it’s not ok to go swimming during Ramadan because you are weak from not eating.
Anyway, it felt really good to be able to talk to someone about all of these things. Until I started writing the list, I hadn’t realized how much stress I had been under. Ibu Noni asked why I didn’t say anything earlier. She said there are so many people here to help me and that if I need anything I should be sure to say so. I guess I was worried about appearing to be an ugly American who needs this and needs that and needs it immediately. I had been told many times that things happen slowly in Indonesia. And maybe a washing machine isn’t the necessity I think it is. Maybe there are lots of families who wash their clothes by hand. I don’t know, but I want to be sensitive to this and not be too demanding. The same thing goes for the Internet. For me it’s a lifeline, my link to the outside world and I see it as essential. But I realize that having Internet at home is a luxury for many people here. So I’m still trying to be patient on that front.
After our chat, Ibu Noni really surprised me by taking me home to her beautiful house and letting me try on some of her clothes so I would have something to wear immediately. I found a few blouses and a skirt that fit. But the most amazing realization of all was that her HUSBAND’S pants fit me. We found a pair of beige Dockers type pants and a pair of jeans. I have to wear a belt with both, but it kinda works. In fact, I’m wearing the beige pants right now. So I learned that I need to shop in the men’s department… And then she and her husband took me shopping for fabric and then we went straight to a tailor’s to get me two blouses and a pair of pants custom made. They should be ready tonight! I hope they fit and I am SO grateful to Ibu Noni for calming me down and helping me get things done (and inviting me for dinner!). THANK YOU!!
I feel utterly and completely disoriented here. Gorontalo is a small country town but it is 100 times more confusing than New York. New York may be a big city, but its streets are laid out in a neat numbered grid, subway and bus stops are labeled, maps are plentiful and if all else fails, you can plug your start point and end point into www.hopstop.com and figure out how to get from A to Z. Here, streets have names like Jalan Walanda Maramis, which I can never remember, especially if I don’t see it written down. Plus, the streets change names every two years or so when the head of the department of transportation changes. I kid you not. But it doesn’t really matter because when you are out and about it is very hard to find a street sign anyway. People here get around by knowing landmarks. But the confusing thing, at least for me, is that all the streets look exactly alike! Row after row of small colorful houses, mosques, “warung” (street food stands), coconut trees, mango trees and beautiful flowers. Street after street of motorcycles, bentors, and pedestrians. It’s all a giant backwoods maze to me.
Another thing that makes it hard to get a feel for the place is the fact that nobody walks anywhere. I can’t just leave my house and go for a walk around town. First of all, the town is just too spread out for that. Second of all, it’s just too damn hot to actually walk anywhere. So, the thing to do, for those of us who don’t have cars and that’s most people, is to hop in a bentor, those ubiquitous covered benches attached to motorcycles. A bentor driver will take you wherever you want to go and they are 100 times easier to flag down than a New York taxi. The downside is you have to speak Indonesian with them and you have to know not only how to pronounce the name of the place where you are going but also be prepared to give the driver directions how to get there. And you have to know in advance about how much the ride should cost so you don’t get ripped off because, needless to say, these bentors do not have running meters. I’ve taken a handful of bentor rides so far, but fortunately always accompanied by an Indonesian who has done the talking. One of these days very, very soon, I will have to do this by myself as this is how I will be going to work every day. At least I know what to say to the driver in that situation. I just have to say “UNG” – short for Universitas Negeri Gorontalo.
But it’s the other situations that overwhelm me. For instance, I want to go buy some new pillows and a mattress cover for my bed. Santi, my counterpart’s wife, mentioned that there is a certain store where I can go buy these things. I am dependant on her to take me sometime when she has time. If I wanted to go by myself tomorrow, I would have no idea what the store was called, how to get there or what to say to the bentor driver. And I can’t just check the phone book or look it up in the online yellow pages for Gorontalo. These things don’t exist. In fact, they don’t even make maps of Gorontalo. And the tiny one in my Lonely Planet guide is useless. I only know how to get to the local supermarkets. All the specialty shops that line the many, many streets of Gorontalo remain inaccessible to me.
And speaking of shops and shopping, I deeply regret not bringing more clothes with me. I wanted to pack light, figuring I could buy some new things once I got here. How wrong I was! I went shopping for clothes one night with Santi and her friend Desi. Where did we go? To the supermarket. And supermarkets the world over are not known for their stylish fashions. After that, we went to a Muslim boutique. Neither supermarkets nor Muslim boutiques are where I usually go clothes shopping. But I tried to be flexible and opened-minded as I browsed the racks looking for something wearable. I am so flexible that by “wearable” I mean something in my size. And this is no easy feat. Women here are generally tiny. I literally tower several heads over people. As a result, clothes labeled XL are still too small for me. I finally found a pair of skinny jeans labeled 2XL that I fit into. I was so ecstatic about this accomplishment that I almost bought them, despite the hot pink zippers on the butt. Thankfully, the store didn’t accept credit cards so I was forced to put them back. Hot pink zippers?? Has it come to that? Really? What I wouldn’t give for an hour in a GAP right now…
