Selamat Pagi

Good morning!

The Alliance Guesthouse where we are staying in Jakarta.

Selamat pagi! That means "good morning." See? I'm already picking up Indonesian! That's about all I can say...but we're getting somewhere.

We're still in Jakarta, trying to get over jet lag and activating our visas. We've been out of the guest house only a little bit - to the mall and out to eat mostly. We were grateful that Nathan and Becky Fagerlie were in Jakarta to help us around some. They just finished language study and they happened to be coming through Jakarta on their way to Papua. It was fun to get to know them and also encouraging to see how well they've learned the language...they tell us it is possible! (Thanks again for all the help, guys!)

So what are my impressions of Jakarta and Indonesia so far? Well, I'm glad you asked....

• It's warm here, but not unbearably hot. I'm not miserable - that surprised me! It is very humid, so we're sticky most of the time!
• I keep catching myself feeling very comfortable here. Then I realize that this isn't Quito and I freak out a little bit again!
  
• There are many similarities to Ecuador here, which is why I sometimes forget that we're on the other side of the world.
  
• There are also many things that are NOT familiar here. People driving on the wrong side of the road, calls to prayer, women wearing scarves over their heads, and, duh, the language!
• I love the feeling of being in a tropical climate again - the smells, the hot, humid air, the plant life, the geckos on the wall....it's homey to me.
• It is pretty smoggy here. I don't really notice it so much in the air but there seems to be a soot of some sort on everything outside. The girls come in from playing outside and they are black with soot.
• We've had some really good fruit since being here. Love that!
• The calls to prayer that we hear throughout the day are very interesting. It reminds me instantly why we're here and spurns me to prayer but it also is strangely beautiful. The first call is at around 4:30 a.m. and yesterday the girls were singing along with it! Maddie was singing "Hallelujah" right along with the guy singing in Arabic over the loudspeaker! I thought that was pretty appropriate, actually.
• Jet lag. Ugh. It's taking us a while to get over it, but we're getting there. A little better each day. I'm hoping Brooklyn will be all back to normal by the time she starts school next Wednesday! I think we'll all be pretty much back to normal by then...though we've heard it's supposed to take a day for every hour of difference to recover. That's 13 days for us!
• Money. It's taking me a while to think in Indonesian Rupiahs. When I bought a few groceries yesterday I about had a heart attack when the lady told me I owed her 280,000...until I realized that it was really only about $30 USD. Whew!
• Speaking of shopping...there is a mall here that would blow your mind! It's HUGE and more beautiful than any mall I've ever seen before. It's pretty much the only place we know how to get to on our own in a taxi, so you can bet we'll be hanging out there quite a bit! Hopefully next time we visit Jakarta, we'll have a little more language skills so we can see more of Jakarta. (But, honestly, this mall is more than enough for us for now!)
  

We're hoping to catch a plane to head to Salatiga (where we'll live for language study) before the weekend is over. Til then, we'll just enjoy the metropolitan city of Jakarta while we can!