A Typical Day

It's about 6:15 a.m. here on Tuesday morning.  I love this time of day, so quiet and still, just me, my coffee, and the cars and motorcycles whizzing by outside.  The maids are already up - setting the table, mopping, preparing breakfast.  The kids are all still asleep except for Brayden who's lying next to me not feeling so well this morning.

Normally we all begin to stir between 6 and 7 each morning and slowly make our way down to breakfast.  Breakfast has been a variety of traditional indonesian foods - gado gado (a sort of "salad" of vegetables, potatoes, boiled eggs with a peanut sauce), rawon (spicy beef soup served over rice), krupuk (shrimp chips), as well as some more american foods - toast with Nutella or jam, fruit, yogurt.  There are also some really delicious juices here. I've been pleasantly surprised to watch the girls often choose the indonesian foods over the american ones.

After breakfast, I usually gather our laundry for the maids.  (I could really get used to this.)

We've arranged a driver to be here each day at 9 a.m.  It's typical for many chinese indonesian families to employ a driver on a daily basis.  Traffic here really is crazy so it's a great relief to have someone who is experienced in the traffic madness to maneuver us around.  "Metro" has been a huge blessing. It's has also been fun (at least mostly fun) to have so much time together as a family while Metro drives us around.  He must think we're crazy, attempting to pronounce words we see or snapping pics constantly.  I often hear him chuckle at us.  We have him until 9 p.m. each day so he has lots of opportunity to be amused at us!  :)

In the mornings we often have plans with various family members.  Yesterday, August's cousin Eri and wife, Lenny, took us to see a huge bridge that has been constructed to connect the islands of Java and Madura.  This bridge is a really big deal because until it was completed, they had to use a ferry to cross the Java Sea from island to island.  They treated us to a really fun lunch at a Pizza Hut which was in a huge mall.

Our afternoons usually include some time for rest and are a nice break from the heat.  (It's HOT here, and muggy too, but not as muggy as back home, believe it or not.)

Our evenings have been filled with dinner invitations or parties.  Last night, we were treated to dinner by another of August's cousins.  They decided maybe we needed a break from asian food and took us to a really wonderful italian restaurant.  You could have plunked this place right down in the middle of Charlottesville and never have known you were in Indonesia.  The food was that authentic.

We have had so much incredible food - indonesian, chinese, fast, and italian.  Ironically, one of the many delicious meals we've had was here at this little...well,  let's just call it a "road side cafe".  :)

(And see those red bottles line up?  Those are bottles of kecap manis or indonesian sweet soy sauce.  But what's so unique about this kecap manis is that it was made and distributed by August's cousin, Kohdeh, using the same recipe used by August's great grandfather when they started the business back in 1901 in the town of Blitar! So cool!!!)



We're usually pretty tired at the end of the day and are in bed early.  It's a nice change since we're typically night-owls back at home.

August's aunt and uncle have been INCREDIBLE hosts.  We've been given the entire upper floor (3 bedrooms and 2 baths!) of their home.  I can't imagine what it must be like for them to have a family of seven move in with them for two weeks!  Yet they are so kind and hospitable.  The maids are always smiling as well.  Let me tell you, if I were a maid here and seven visitors (and all their laundry) came to stay for two weeks, I would not be smiling.  Yet, they are constantly friendly and hospitable. It's very unusual to see a family with more than three children here and most have even less.  So I'm sure we are entertaining for them.

We head to Bali today for four days.  It's sort of like a mini-vacation in the midst of a vacation.  It's just an hour flight from one island to the next.  The view from the plane should be beautiful.  More later!

PS - Marina, my grammar queen, isn't up yet to proof read this post.  So be forgiving as you read!  And my apologies for any misspelled indonesian names!!

...and our adventure continues...

Hi,

Olivia here. Sorry I haven't been around lately. My life has been busy. But I'm here now to tell you why. :D

Since your last real update, we've been to a zoo, attended 2 parties, and gotten pulled over by the indonesian 'polisi'. All very pleasant experiences, as you can imagine. :D

Yesterday we went to an Indonesian mass. It was...interesting. By the end I had learn like 4 Indonesian words!! I was so proud. Unfortunately the other 42,754 (just a random guess) words that were spoken I didn't get at all. No matter. I got the gist.

We all nearly cried in delight today when we realized we were going to Pizza Hut for lunch. Real, actual, American pizza. It was amazing. Don't think I've ever enjoyed Pizza Hut as much as today...:)

One of the things I miss the most from home is my music. I mean, I have the music on my iPod but no dock, no Pandora, no dancing around the kitchen. When I get home I'm gonna blast everyone's ears out  and scream and dance through the whole house. Until then, you're welcome to do it for me...(tell me how it goes. I'd love to know how much your family members enjoy it)

By the way, did I mention our driver's name is Metro? Go figure. He also seems to find us amusing often, which is funny because he understands like1% of what we say. If he understood all 100%, I'm not sure he'd have agreed to drive us places 12 hours a day...

Apparently, we look like celebrities. I know, I know...you already knew that one. :P But in their movies here, apparently most of the actors are half-Asian--like us. So like we really do look like celebrities. For once in my life I can feel famous. :D

The mosquitos would like you to know how incredibly tasty I am. They seem to like me the most of all 7 of us, which is a shame since I don't really appreciate the compliment for once. At once point, I had like 8 bites on my face which made me look sorta polka-dotted. Not that flattering. Thanks for everything, mosquitos, but please stay away from now on...

Our trip to Bali starts tomorrow!!! We're all pretty psyched...pray it'll go well!

(Sorry for the lack of pictures. I didn't feel like uploading anything. Look forward to another Marina post comin' soon...:D)

Love y'all!
~Olivia~

When Your Food Stares Back at You

To say the past 3 days has been a whirlwind would be an understatement.  There is really soooooo much I could tell.  I've known August has lots and lots and LOTS of relatives here but it didn't occur to me that they would all want to schedule time with us!  Our wonderful hostess (August's Tante Inga) has had to manage our social calendar this week!  :)

Since last posting, we've been on a lovely trip to the more mountainous region of Java (the island on which Surabaya is located).  The beauty and magnificence of the landscape is overwhelming at times with mountains (some volcanic, some not) and terraced rice fields as far as you can see.  I think Marina and Olivia may be planning to write more about our trip so I'll leave that for them.

I did want to wrap up our first day though by describing our dinner out that night.  We were taken by our hosts (Om Sioe Thoen and Tante Ing) as well as their daughter-in-law and grandson to a popular fish restaurant.  I was very hesitant because we really don't eat much fish back home.  So when they placed three or four of these guys on our table, I became very, very afraid.  (Yes, that's Marina's "friend" from the previous post.) I just knew the kids and I would go home starving.  I'm so pleased to share that I was WRONG!  

This was truly some of the best fish I've ever eaten - crunchy crispness on the outside and flaky white on the inside with a very mild flavor.  It was served with sweet Indonesian soy sauce.  Once I got past the appearance (and avoided eye contact!) I think I probably ate more than my share.  Some at the table went so far as to break off fins for munching.  I drew the line there!

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.