Yeah, if you can guess the reference in the title of this blog - you are awesome!
So what have I been up to in the past 4 days, quite a bit actually! I started classes on Tuesday with Indonesian history and boy was that a mission to find the classroom! Turns out, my lecture was on the other side of campus meaning I was late by about 10minutes. Class had already begun and I could not understand a word of the lecturer despite being in the first row. We were given an assignment on what I could only understand as pre-historic Indonesian history and were promptly dismissed, 30minutes into the class. No one moved from there seats so the lecturer then decided we should introduce ourselves by passing the microphone around. Naturally, when the microphone was passed to me, the 100 people in the room went silent. Talk about instant celebrity status! I'm afraid I have since moved to another history class since that one was simply too hard, I hope my classmates aren't offended :P
I'm also enrolled in Karawitan a.k.a Gamelan! Our first class was merely introducing all the instruments in the orchestra, followed by Mas Bimo explaining that his grading structure ranges from A-C, as well as mainly practical over theory :). Looking forward to learning in his class since he seems pretty cool and chilled! I had my first class kosong in Bahasa Java so I'm hoping that happens next week and my translating English to Indonesian class will hopefully be helpful too! Last but certainly not least, my Journalistic Photography class! Gosh, did that class send me round the bend since I was happily waiting in what I thought was the class room but turns out, I was the wrong building. I thought I had then gone to the correct building but soon found out I was meant to be on the other side of campus! By this time, I was already over an hour late and must have missed my class. Twas a little annoyed with myself but I blame it more of my state of puasa (fasting), so was more than happy to meet up with Yasmin to "buka puasa" on Jalan Olah Raga. Here we ate some banana sticky rice cake and a delicious lumpiang with fresh chilli. We were also treated to the singing and jangling bells of some bencong-becong aka cross-dressers. Highly entertaining and hilarious to be honest! They were very friendly too but as soon as we gave them 1000 rupiah ( about 10c), they were off to another crowd.
Yasmin and I then headed off to forage for dinner and we stumbled across the heavenly smell of bakar ( grilling/burning is the best translation). We sat on lesehan (mats on the ground where you take your shoes off) and feasted on some grilled chicken, rice, this yummy lemon/mint and this beautiful mushroom and veg soup. Whilst we ate, we also entertained by some passing buskers but who too left as soon as you threw some change. Shame too, since they were more than welcome to stay.
The best entertainment of the night was Teater Boneka - Puppet theatre! My friend Anthony from uni had introduced me to a friend of his he had made whilst he was in Jogya - Mas Bintang. He had invited me to watch a puppet show, although it was aimed at children, I was delighted to come along! The show was called Monyet Loe! It has been so long since I have seen a puppet show and I can't say I was disappointed! It was rather poignant as the story line was about these two orang utans whose jungle had been taken over by a mean man who set up a bar. He then proceeded to kidnap the younger sibling and he subjected to learn how to dance for the bar. Luckily, the local street kid who sought refuge in the jungle every day, befriended the older sibling orang utan and it became their mission to save the jungle and teach the mean man a lesson! Which they did - Hooray! It was such a great medium for the kids because they became so involved with the story which was great as there aren't many theatre productions aimed at kids. If my synopsis doesn't quite make the grade, you can follow it up here: www.theatrelakon.wordpress.com
After the performance, Mas Bintang and his friend Bu Bridget told me about the volunteering opportunities at a school down in the South of Jogyakarta. This sounds like a really good opportunity as the school is quite like a Steiner school and is keen to have Yasmin and I are board to help out. It would only really need a day or two of us to come help out in say teaching english, organising games, helping out in the organic markets or in my case, teaching some music. I believe this is a post Lebaran operation to work out since it is about 20mins by car from where I live - Oh how I miss you Pinty!
Tomorrow's plan is to visit Klaten Village to see how this village makes and sells Batik! It's a free tour organised by an NGO called IOM which I am really looking forward to seeing. I'm hoping that to make up for the free-ness, I might be able to come home with some cool handicrafts, as well as help a village get back on it's feet after the devastating eruption of Gunung Merapi! Sunday's plans so far is to head to the beach with a Climate Change NGO. I'm trying to see and interact with as many NGO's whilst I am in Jogya to see if there are any means by which I can help out! Far too long since I've been involved in humanitarian initiatives!
Of course, true to my nature, I've also been trying so many different restaurants and types of food that I haven't even had a chance to miss cheese and other foods of home! So much delicious food in Jogya but sadly, a lot is fried or very sweet so Monday's agenda is to check out some more martial arts, dance lessons and the gym. Another thing I've been doing lately walking everywhere around Jogya - I give thanks to the wonderful flat terrain!
Also could see Merapi faintly in the horizon today which was a nice touch to a grouchy afternoon :)
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