Rainbow Dump Trucks and Dogfood

Hi, it's me. I promised Mom I would write a somewhat coherent blog post 'cause she's been so exhausted (plus she had to sit in the middle seat for our 3-hour drive up here to Malang (from Surabaya)).

My friend Heather suggested I bring a journal to write down my thoughts, and I realized she was probably right; but since I don't have the patience to sit down and actually write a whole entry (unlike her, I'm not a writer), I just took a few notes here and there all day. Here they are; see what you think.

(and yes, I numbered them. I like numbers; it's the way I think)

1. Glad to have about 3 English TV channels; granted, they're Disney, Nickelodeon, and Animal Planet, but hey--it's better than nothing.

2. The ratio of motorcycles to cars must be at least 2:1. Yes, I counted. Also, the white lines on the road (when present) are not meant to be taken seriously.

3. I think drivers must be immortal I've never seen ours eat, drink, or sleep. He drives us somewhere and then sits outside on a bench to wait until we come back out--everyday from 9am-9pm. Sometimes I wonder if we're paying him to have no life.

4. Summary of our driving experience from the eyes of a 2-yr.-old:

"I saw a guy, and I said 'Please don't hit that guy.'"

5. Everyday, I'm realize more that America's missing. Today, it was rainbow dump trucks. Pink, green, blue, yellow.... Oh, and there goes a purple one. Apparently, we Americans have no sense of dump truck style.


6. Yesterday, I met some fruit that had swag.

Rock those clothes, mistah! (*livin' the life as a well-dressed fruit*)

7. In Virginia, we count cows. In Surabaya, we count mosques. Right now we're at 27 mph--27 mosques per hour, that is. (we eventually got up to over 100 in 3 hours)


8. Perhaps I have a preconceived bias against food that stares through my soul....

(I see you.)

...but actually, this was some of the best fish I've ever eaten.


9. The Rules on When It's Appropriate to Honk:


You may honk before, during, and after passing someone, at cars and motorcycles and random people in the middle of the road or when there's nothing at all to honk at, as many times as you feel is necessary, or whenever you feel bored. When in doubt, honk.


10. Instead of waving in costumes of Lady Liberty, we have random ladies dressed up in red and wearing clown masks while dancing in the middle of the street. Be scared.


11. If it smells like dogfood and looks like dogfood, chances are it probably tastes like dogfood as well. Use caution.


12. When all you've heard for the past three hours is an Indonesian lady singing a high-pitched spiritual-chant-type-thing and then you walk into the hotel cafeteria to hear an American pop song, you instantly fall in love with it--even though it might possibly hypothetically maybe be a Justin Bieber song.


13.

Thanks, hotel staff, for letting me know. That's good to get off my chest.


Gotta go... It's almost 10pm over here, and the hotel staff is giving me strange looks. Maybe they think I'm a journalist, with my notebook and pen and laptop!!! Oh, wait... I'm in my pajamas--never mind.


Ah, well. Bye for now; I'll be back later!


I remain your humble and obedient servant,
Marina Grace Cecilia Joan Scholastica


(...not really the humble and obedient part, but I wanted a romantic way to sign out. This works, right?)

A Recap of Day 1

Brayden started his day bright and early yesterday (Wednesday) at 3:30 a.m.  Since he's sharing a room with August and me, that also means I was up early too.  Fortunately, he was content to play quietly by himself for a long while so I could sleep a bit longer.  Don't be too impressed.  After blowing through a few books, he very sweetly requested to play games on my iPhone. I was glad to hand it over to him.

We all slept well and felt really good in the morning.  Breakfast was a wonderful variety of traditional Indonesian breakfast foods (spicy fried rice with sweet sausage and cucumbers) and some more familiar western foods as well (bread, jam, cheese, and various sweet breads which I couldn't really identify but happily ate anyway!).  Although this pic isn't the sharpest, you can see her sitting to Oma's left.  (Oma is in the middle.)

After breakfast, and figuring out the showers (Praise God we're staying in a home with actually showers in the bathrooms!), we headed to a surprise birthday party for a very precious friend of Oma's. We call her Tante Lien.  (More about the very confusing system of names later!) Although the pic below isn't the sharpest, you can see her sitting to Oma's left.  (Oma is in the middle.)  Tante Lien is technically Oma's aunt but is only 3 years older.  She was like a very dear big sister to Oma in their growing up years.

There were about 40 people there along with quite a spread of Indonesian foods, some familiar but many not so familiar to us.

The same can be said of those 40 people!

Although I recognized some of the faces from our visit 18 years ago, I was completely lost on their names.  I felt badly about that until I figured out that any westerner doesn't stand a chance at figuring out the names over here.  The challenge is that each person has an indonesian name and a generational title that precedes their name.  They also have names to identify positions in the family that the english language does not identify, i.e.   And if they also have an english name, that confusion is only compounded!  Here's an example.  Oma's indonesian name is Goat (pronounced Gwot) and her english name is Marina.  Most stick with their indonesian names so I'll do the same for this example.  If you are of the same generation as her, you might call her just Goat or you might call her "Cik Goat" (pronounced cheek Gwot) meaning smaller or younger "sister".  If you're in a generation younger than her, you might call her tante or your might call her oma.  So the proper names for August and me to use when addressing these folks are not the same names our children are to use when addressing them.  You can see why my eyes spin back in my head whenever I try to figure this out. Below are some "cheat sheets" August's dad made years and years ago (maybe even on our last visit here).  Unbelievably, August still had them in his file at home and brought them along. Even with it mapped out, when I get face to face with these folks I'm lost.  I just smile and hope I don't have to address them by name!  :)

Well, it's 7:00 in the morning here.  I've been up since 5:30 working on this post (the internet is slow here) and I've only gotten through half of day one!  But we're headed out of Surabaya to some smaller outlying town for the next couple of days.  It's not likely I'll be able to blog during that time.  So you'll have to wait until our return to hear about our supermarket experience (my friend Kelly will love this) and our restaurant outing for dinner last night.  So sorry!

Please pray for us as we travel over the next couple of days.  We'll be traveling by mini-van with a hired driver and the traffic laws here seem to be more "guidelines than actual rules", as Captain Barbossa ("Pirates of the Caribbean") would say!

From There to Here......

We flew from Reagan National Airport at 6 a.m. Monday morning.  Yes, that means we had to be AT the airport around 4 a.m.  So all eight of us were sluggish and wilty even before the marathon flight around the globe began.

From DC, we flew to New York's JFK Airport for a layover of several hours.  Based on a tip from David, August's brother, we arranged ahead of time to have a wheelchair (for Oma) waiting for us.  Walking the very long distance from one terminal to another would have been a real hardship for her.  And, let's just say, speed is not her strength.  :)  But, let me tell you, traveling with a family member in a wheelchair really had its perks for us yesterday.  It got us to the front of the security and boarding lines; some of which were VERY long.  That wheelchair was happiness for all of us.

I'm also very glad to report that none of us were patted down and six of us were able to avoid full-body scans when going through airport security.  August and Oma weren't so lucky.  Maybe they looked suspicious?  :)

Our flight left NYC at 10 a.m. Monday morning and was in the air a little over fifteen hours.  Brayden spent his time sleeping, in the "lavatory", or tampering with any and all of the electronic gadgetry available at his seat.  Truly, it was toddler boy heaven.

We had lunch, dinner, and multiple snacks, all of which were quite tasty, on this flight. And who knew Cathay Pacific served complimentary wine with dinner?  :)  Thanks to my friend, Laura, we were prepared for the cabin to get a bit chilly so we all bundled up and alternated between sleep and movie watching for most of the flight.  Before leaving home, I had loaded up my Kindle in anticipation of some lengthy reading time on the plane but my eyes were just too tired.  Honestly, it was kind of nice to do nothing.

We arrived in Hong Kong at 4 a.m. Tuesday morning Virginia time but it was actually 4 p.m. there.  We were tired, hungry, and cranky - well, actually, not August or Oma.  After a four hour flight to Surabaya and lots of warm, enthusiastic welcomes from family we all collapsed into bed.  It was so good to be horizontal!

The Story Behind Our Trip

In 1969,  a young couple packed up their most valued earthly belongings as well as their two most precious treasures (seven-year-old and eight-year-sold sons) and left their homeland of Surabaya, Indonesia for the United States.  Drs. Dan and Marina Sanusi, and their sons, eight-year-old Han (now known as David) and seven-year-old Tjioe (now know as August) left all that was familiar - flourishing medical practices, life-long friends, and generations and generations of family to begin a new life. They settled in Shreveport, Louisiana where they knew no one and spoke very little English.  (From here on, I'll refer to Han and Tjioe as David and August.  We'll call their parents Oma and Opa.)  

Fast forward about 4 decades......

This current journey to Indonesia actually began back in 2007.  In that year, Opa hatched a plan for a big family "reunion" (as he liked to call it) in Indonesia to happen following summer of 2008.  The purpose of the trip was for Opa and Oma, being in their mid-seventies, to visit Surabaya and their many loved ones one last time.  Tragically, the 2008 trip never happened due to a fall Opa experienced in March of that year.  He died, two weeks later, of a traumatic brain injury as a result of that fall.  It wasn't until last year that we and Oma were ready to again begin considering taking such a big trip.

So 10,186 miles, 12 time zones, and countless trips to the airport lavatory with toddler boy later.......we're here.

The Countdown Begins.....here we come Indonesia!

We're shaking the dust off this poor neglected blog to chronicle our upcoming trip to Indonesia - August's birthplace!  Marina, Olivia, and I (and maybe some other Sanusis, too!) plan to document our adventures here in this space.  (That's assuming our internet connection in Indonesia will be sufficient.) We'd love it if you'd come along with us!

Blast off is in 13 days!!!

Update:  I've been informed by two other contributors to this blog who shall remain unnamed, that the blog header which I spent TWO DAYS creating, is not fun enough and does not fit.  While I'll admit it doesn't fit and may leave you wondering "to the glory of what?",  I remain firm about it's fun-ness. That said, it seems as it this blog's facelift is not finished.  :)

Happy Birthday Eliza!

Lovely Eliza, this picture says it all:  sweet, funny, friendly, silly.  What would we do without you!  You are such a special gift!  love, Mom and Dad

Lent and Preparing for the Prize

I'm running a race on Saturday.  It's really not that long - 8K - but the significance of it is HUGE for me.  It is the first race I've run in over 2 years.  My first race since my pregnancy with Brayden, since bedrest and a c-section.  The fact that I'm even up for running it feels like a tremendous victory to me. For the past 8 weeks, I've been focused on preparing for the day - March 12th.   It has been on my calendar for months and all my training was with this race in mind.  The rigor of the training has been so satisfying.  The date on the calendar has been so helpful for my staying focused.  But, truth be told, I'm terribly afraid to face the day after the race.  Will I continue to willingly push myself so hard?  Is my own health and fitness enough of a goal?  If I'm completely honest, I have to admit, sometimes it just isn't.

Until not too many years ago, I thought Lent was about giving up chocolate or sweets.  And maybe for some, it is.  But really, it has the potential to be so, so much more than that.  Lent is, for my heart, what the past 8 weeks have been for my body - a season of focused preparation with my eye on the goal.  This morning, I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief as we all arose to the beginning of this Holy season.   Finally, finally, this sacred season that begins so late this year is here.  This season that, through it's discipline and structure, helps us see more clearly that which we truly long for.  This season that helps us scrape away all the unnecessaries and distractions........those things that "aren't helpful to us", as Fr. Buda said in this morning's Mass.....so that we can see that which we're really made for.  Because, ultimately, heaven is our goal isn't it?  Ash Wednesday, Lent, Easter are all just markers along the path.  Sacred markers, but still not the true prize.  The weightiness of deprivation that Lent can bring serves not only to make the joy of the Resurrection all the sweeter but also to remind me to stay focused on the True Prize the rest of the year as well.

How grateful I am for the gentle cadence of the liturgical year to provide steady rhythm and focus for this wandering heart.  God knows I need it!