Josh Feola

Settling into Malang. This past weekend involved some group- and host family-bonding field trips.



On Saturday we went to Taman Safari, a half-cool, half-depressing drive-through zoo. Saw animals from all over the world, which was kind of gimmicky, but we also cruised by some locals, including a pit of lethargic Komodo dragons and a jungle gym of equally lazy orangutans. We spent a good deal of the time trying to remember everyone's name from the Jungle Book. I wanted to jump out of the car and get my Mougley on but the spitting alpacas (and pissed panthers) slowed my roll.

Highlight: Sitting spitting distance from my zodiac animal (but not spiritual co-essence, this is a Jaguar, one of which I got equally close to in Guatemala, but without the safety of steel and glass, but more on this another time)(see above)

Low point: Wandering around the zoo afterwards, which featured parrots with clipped wings and chained elephants. These reminded me of Sanchahe Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna, another depressing elephant gawking park I visited in China, where I got much more out of human than animal camaraderie. I skipped the baby lion petting zoo at Taman.




On Sunday we visited the much more enjoyable Coban Rondo, a waterfall near a town outside of Malang called Batu Kota ("Rock City"). Coban Rondo means "widow waterfall", and it's said if you visit it you and your significant other are soon to part. Luckily I arrived in this country with the single-minded objective of 86'ing significant others from my mental, and at the risk of sounding like too much of a hippie I got a lot out of the water, got into the water that is to say, waltzed as close to the fall as I could without getting crushed and dipped my brain into the brook a ways downstream.



After the fall I hung out with this fire dude for a while while my crew caught a quick bite at the park entrance. I myself sampled the local street fare, a topic on which I'll write (MUCH) more later.



On Sunday night I met my host family, a wealthy Chinese couple with a twelve-year-old son. They were tired after two weeks traveling around Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, but over the course of this week we've broken the ice and started serious bonding. As I'd hoped, Chinese is the only language I have in common with Mei Fen, my host mother (my Bahasa and her English are like negatives of each other), and her constant appeal of "Ta shuo shenme?" at every utterance of my Western housemates has contributed significantly to our budding dynamic. On Tuesday she took us to a Chinese Universist temple called Eng An Kiong. It was the temple's 183rd birthday so there was a huge feast (above) and dragon performance, but unfortunately my camera died halfway through so I couldn't capture the impressive acrobatics (shoot out to my two favorite dragons, though). I received a Mandarin tour of the temple from an old Chinese man, and of the slightly more than 50% of this that I understood I was pretty psyched on the fo jiao, dao jiao, and kong jiao.



On Monday I also started teaching my high school class. I was apprehensive about this at first as I've never taught, but so far it's been incredibly fun and rewarding. This week we talked mostly about music and movies, but they're also interested in politics and I'm definitely looking forward to getting some help from my man here to illustrate my country's bright prospects for the future.

Tomorrow I take off for Yogyakarta, Java's cultural center and the town from which I will visit BOROBUDUR, an ancient Buddhist monument that I'm eager to see both because of it's historical significance and because in more recent times its timeless art has served as a great inspiration to my idol.



So more SOON. In conclusion, a few words about Tigers:


Because Tigers are urgent people and always in a hurry to get things done right, they usually choose to operate alone. Tigers like to work, they are hard-working and dynamic. If you assign a task to a Tiger, the job will be undertaken and accomplished with enthusiasm and efficiency.

Tigers are sensitive, emotional. They are capable of great love, but they become too intense about it. They are also territorial and possessive, if you are a friend of a Tiger, he wants you to take his side against the bad guys and because the Tiger is so adorable, you often do. As lovers, Tigers are passionate and romantic, but the real challenge for the Tiger is to grasp the true meaning of moderation.



-Josh

Loading mentions Retweet

Been a whirlwind week. Had a great going away last Friday: hung with Greg Williams in Inman for a minute, picked up Barthes for the flight, oscillated like a wild mug at a public dance party in front of Cambridge City Hall (seriously the second time I’ve danced in my life, shout out to Rosa for the free lessons), and bounced from bar to bar to bid farewell to various Central Square-crawling colleagues. Around this time last Saturday I was waiting to board a Newark-bound plane, clutching a caringly prepared Magnolia sandwich (shout out to Rosa for the free grub) and preparing carefully to perform in the clutch in a very unknown future.

I spent over 24 hours in transit, leaving Boston at 5:30 PM on June 28 and flying to Newark, to Stockholm, to Kuala Lumpur, finally arriving in Surabaya at 10 AM on June 30 (shout out to Jamie for turning 20). I was greeted at the airport by the welcoming Dunkin glow, which is all over Indonesia, who knew? Cooler than a Starbucks anyway.



I caught a cab to my hostel only to find that my group had just taken off to visit a university in a neighboring city. I was jetlagged and unwashed but ready to rage this new place so I jumped on Dian Natalia’s motorbike and cruised around the city. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia, which is the 4th most populous country in the world. I don’t know what I expected but it was not this bursting metropolis. Luckily I had a down guide, and I learned much about the city and Surabayan youth culture from my new friend. This is the first time I’ve been oriented to a new country outside of the context of an official program, and I have to say zooming through crowded city streets perilously perched on the back of a motorcycle with a cute 20-something comes highly recommended.



The next day I met up with my volunteer group, 12 American and British college students including myself. At my request we visited some Lonely Planet highlights. First was Kong Co Kong Tik Cun Ong, a Chinese temple with mixed elements of Buddhism and Daoism. This temple was active, with older Chinese genuflecting and rolling oracle bones. It was quite beautiful, but it made me miss China and wonder what is uniquely Indonesian. I got a clearer idea of this when we walked up the street to Mesjid Ampel, the most sacred mosque in Surabaya. We were forbidden from entering as none of us are Muslim, but just trawling through the crowded marketplace and snapping some flicks of surrounding architecture provided a satisfying first experience of Indonesian Islam, a unique cultural formation I look forward to exploring in greater depth.



After only one full day in Sura I had to move on again, grudgingly, but filled with anticipation for the next destination. This was Malang, the city where I will be living and teaching for the next four weeks. I moved into my host house on Papaya Street, but will not meet my family until later in the week as they are currently touring China (I’m banking on a month of heavy Chinese practice). A few days ago we visited schools. I’ll be teaching at a private high school five minutes away from my house. Additionally, I am the only volunteer who will be teaching night classes. These will be at a vocational school for adults who can’t afford university, so I am extremely excited about this. I’m suspicious of the overall premise of international volunteerism (a subject for another post), but I feel that by teaching this night class I’ll be directly contributing to a truly underprivileged group of individuals for whom speaking English is an invaluable skill set. Plus, they already like me because I am in a punk band.



There’s a lot more I could bore you with but I’ll just leave you with abstractions for now. East Java is just south of the equator, the light is direct and pure, the day is from 6 to 6, the night is lit by a horizontal crescent moon that looks like the winking eye of black sky. And the light permeates everything and turns color into an almost palpable dimension of the environment, a mist through which I’m wandering and which permeates my reflections, blots out the minutiae that have been clouding my mind in recent weeks and allows me to be transcendently here, physically grounded and metaphysically ground into the fabric of what’s around me. For the first time in a long while I feel free, I feel now. And it’s winter here with nightly lows in the 70s and I can deal.

Next time: Jagger meets a Tiger, water saves me again

-Josh

Loading mentions Retweet