Bondowoso / Daily Life / Indonesia / Peace Corps / People / Teaching
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Bondowoso / Culture / Daily Life / Food / Indonesia / Peace Corps
The Best Indonesian Dessert Ever
Ramadan ended with the Idul Fitri holiday, which required me to accompany my host family to Jember and visit more than ten different houses of close family and friends. (Ten doesn’t sound like a lot, but trust me, it is.) In each of these houses I met more than 25 people, sometimes we went to … Continue reading
Bondowoso / Culture / Daily Life / Food / Indonesia / Peace Corps / Travel
How to Make Indonesian Fried Rice or Nasi Goreng
Nasi is the staple of the Indonesian diet. Plain white rice is eaten at every meal—breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you didn’t eat rice, Indonesians believe that you didn’t really eat. Beras, or uncooked rice, is the basis of many other dishes too. Lontong, is rice cooked in a special way, so that it makes … Continue reading
Bondowoso / Daily Life / Indonesia / Peace Corps / People
Ballin’ Birthday in Bondowoso
As far as I can tell, birthdays are pretty low key in Indonesia. I also didn’t make it a point to announce it to my community, so on the actual day, only my host mother knew. The day went by. I went to a lengthy closing ceremony for a junior high school I casually taught … Continue reading
Bondowoso / Daily Life / Indonesia / Peace Corps / People / Travel
(Awkward) Conversations With An Indonesian Ibu
Warning: This topic of conversation may make male readers uncomfortable. I sat at my kitchen table, helping my host mother prepare dinner. I was focusing hard on peeling a cucumber, because since coming to Indonesia I’ve learned that my way of peeling things is unacceptable—but that’s another story. In this occasion, I sat innocently peeling … Continue reading
Culture / Daily Life / Indonesia / Peace Corps Training / People / Photography / Travel
Indonesian Wedding & Preparations
Back in training, I had the opportunity to attend many, many weddings. Based on this, my language instructor constantly joked about how much I like parties—which is true. Yet, an Indonesia wedding isn’t the type of event one imagines in the West. First of all, the actual wedding ceremony takes place at another time and … Continue reading
Bondowoso / Culture / Daily Life / Indonesia / Peace Corps / People / Religion / Teaching
On the Twelve Months of Islam
Though I’ve been a fasting wimp during Ramadhan—unlike many of my fellow PCVs—that does not exempt me from learning about Islam during this important month in my community. Last Sunday, August 5th, was the 17th day of the month of Ramadhan, which is the day known as Nozulul Qur’an. This is the day the Islamic … Continue reading
The Power of A Disney Song
After my last post, I got a surprising amount of texts, comments and emails from friends either relating to the sentiment or trying to soothe it somehow. It was already comforting enough to know that other people thought about this too, but a friend’s email contained a quote that has helped avert my so-called crisis: … Continue reading
Daily Life / Indonesia / Peace Corps / People
A Crescent Life Crisis (or Confessions of A Peace Corps Drama Queen)
I was telling my friend about my upcoming birthday woes and he decided that “quarter-life crisis” was an insufficiently classy phrase, so he suggested the term “crescent life crisis.” At the time, I thought it quite lame (sorry, Fer!), but now it has deeply grown on me. crescent |ˈkresənt| -noun 1. the curved sickle shape … Continue reading
Daily Life / Indonesia / Music / Travel
A Soundtrack for Indonesia
(If you’re interested in what Indonesia naturally sounds like, you can read this.) These are a few songs that have characterized Indonesia for me. The songs that have salvaged my sanity by helping drown out the incessant Katy Perry and Bruno Mars* played by my host siblings. The highlight tracks to a lot of writing, … Continue reading
in the land of dragons 