The Maid and the Chili

One of the downsides of being stuck in a city that is covered in smog is that you can't walk around, well you could, but in doing so you would lose even more life-years than you already have in your youthish stunts...so now I sit in my semi-windowless room (does a view of a concrete wall count as a window?) and count down the hours until my flight to Bali. Which is 18.24. I'm actually really really good at wasting time, as I have spent the afternoon watching youtube videos about Unicorn Samurais and preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse.

I've decided to stay locked in small windowless room because I am hiding from the housekeeper and because I stole the small fan from the communal bathroom and there is wifi here. There is a promising cafe nearby that is cute and air-conditioned and promises wifi, but it is a trap to lure in expats because i have been there twice and the wifi never works and none of the employees know how to fix it. So you end up with a stale croissant, coffee that is akin to sulfuric acid, short 15,000 rupiah and minus 0.6 life years from all of the diesel exhaust you inhaled on the walk to the cute cafe. and no internet. so i will stay in my prison/dorm room with my stolen fan thank you very much.

The maid does not like me. It has something to do with me giving her clothes to wash that were too "dirty,"according to my friend. Like a dumb foreigner, I didn't realize I was supposed to pre-wash my clothes before actually getting them laundered. My bad. But I've learned sarcasm doesn't translate well, so I didn't waste my time flipping through my dictionary to find a snarky retort to her complaints to my friend. My friend told her she could talk to me in Indonesian and that I might understand what she says, so she likes to babble on and on and on and on and on to me. It's really hard to get out of a conversation where you actually do understand the language, but it's even harder in one that you don't. A sample conversation:

Maid: "alsdkji   dkfja dka alsdjoiaeo adjh cng;ae adjoifoe ckajdj...EEEE adjjoa. adoae...."

Me: "Apa?" (what?)

Maid: "ALSDKJI  DKJFA DKA ALSDJOIAEO!! aldskfoe!!! ajdofjea kjdaout"

Me: "Tidak Mengerti. Maaf" (I don't understand, sorry.)

Maid: "A.L.S.D.K.J.I.  DKJFA aieojla oieaf!!!"

Me (looking at watch): "Look, I really have no idea what you're saying, I'm sorry, ok?" as I retreat into my room

All the while she glares at me like I am some sort of cyclops with a lisp singing the national anthem. But the funny thing is she has this half-smile on her face the whole time, yet I can see the judgement and hatred in her eyes. So as I slink into my room backwards (never turn your back on the enemy) she shakes her head in disgust while still smiling, her one gold-rimmed tooth catching the light somehow because it's super dim, not sure, must be some good gold they have here. I thought that speaking louder and slower when someone doesn't understand you was an inherently American thing. Apparently not-as the more I speak in English and shake my head the slower and louder she gets.

The worst was when I was really sick about two weeks ago. She chose the day I thought I was dying to berate me about leaving the air-conditioner in my room on. Again, like a dumb foreigner, I forgot to turn off my AC that basically is only a fan in between my trips to the bathroom. She scolded me in a long soliloquy and all I understood was "AC" and hand gestures and her half-disgust smile so I thought that probably was a bad thing. "Sorry..." I croaked as I clutched my stomach and ran to my room.

The next day I was fortunate enough to be leaving smog central to travel to Yogyakarta, the "cultural center" of Java (read: tourist destination and hotels with pools). Even if I was sick, I was getting the hell out of Jakarta and the hot windowless room and the maid who may or may not have poisoned me (or at the very least cast a curse on me). I couldn't figure out the cause of my sudden stomach ailment, of course you always go through the list of everything you ate...but I had eaten dinner at my friends house the night before, and none of them were sick...and no street food that day. My friend offered her opinion: "I bet it was the chili. You did eat a lot of chili." Considering I had a fever and explosive diarrhea, I don't think it was reflux due to the "chileee" as it is pronounced here. Indonesians love their chili-they have these little red and green ones that are super hot, and you can eat them whole or ground-up in a paste. I usually dab a little on whatever I eat, and that always earns a patronizing remark from whomever I am eating with: "OOoooo, are you sure you can handle the chili? It's really hot!" Indonesians are proud about a lot of things, but their food and it's spiciness is at the top of the list. "Yeah, I know. We do have spicy food in America, you know." "Yes, but Indonesian food is REALLY spicy. Be careful!" "Ok, thanks for the warning!" as I bite down cheerfully. This has backfired a few times as I have gotten an uber-spicy one that leaves me gasping for air and gulping water without ice :( but usually I can handle my own.

Two days after the dinner and the day after the abdominal misery set in, I had to go back by my friends house to print something. She was not there, but her husband was. He's kind of like the Indonesian version of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. He gave me a look of pity as I plopped on his couch. "How are you feeeeeeling?" (I wish I coudl do better with the accent, but only can do so much with a keyboard).

"I'm ok, thanks."

"What happened?"

"Just got sick, I really am feeling better though, thank you."

"You know, I bet it was the chileeee. You really shouldn't eat the chileeee if you can't handle it." He stared at me with his little bald head and pencil moustache and 1980s square-rimmed glasses.

He was totally mocking me!

"No, I don't think it was the chili, actually."

"No, I bet it was. You ate too much. You should be more careful from now on."

It wasn't the F*ing chili!!! I wanted to scream, more annoyed than I should have been which I am going to blame on the fact that my abdomen felt like someone had tried to stuff two basketballs into it combined with caffeine-withdrawal headaches from lack of coffee. I would have taken on that battle about whether or not I could handle my chileees but I needed his printer and wanted to save my energy for making it to my flight so I could get the hell out of here, so I just shrugged my shoulders.

Yogya recharged my batteries, though, and I did avoid the chilis for awhile. When I got back to the city today I considered asking him out to lunch so I could prove my chileee-worthiness, but instead I just settled for eating alone in a warung down the street. Sometimes you have to face your demons head on-so I picked the items with the most red and seedy sauce I could find with minimal rice to damper down the taste and sat down to eat. Halfway through the meal I stopped to wipe off my forehead, but I finished all of it! I wondered if taking Zantac would be considered cheating, but decided no that was just smart, so I popped two and headed back out into the frantic Jakarta streets.

Someone once said that "true integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking." I think this same point can be said for proving something to yourself without anyone there to watch.

Especially if it's handling your chileeees.

Are we really all interested in "traveling"?

I saw more white people on my first day in Jogjakarta then I have during my entire 6 weeks in Indonesia. It hit me as I was shoving my way through the crowd on Jalan Malioboro that I was back among the land of tourists; no longer was I the only bule who garnered the "Hello Mister!" attention from shop owners, the requests for photo opps with school kids, and the attempts at broken English that I have grown to love. No, here I was just another tourist. Sigh.

Today it was hot and sunny, and then it rained. I wonder if my fishermen at the lake are feeling sick. Many of the men I interviewed for my thesis attributed their illnesses to changes in weather, especially a rapid change in hot to cold weather. So when I got back to my hotel and immediately jumped in the pool; I was oh so grateful for the clean cool water as I sliced through it...as a Pisces, water is my second home. I didn't even think the muddy rivers I had left behind in Kalimantan as I savored a moment of quiet and bliss that is rare in Java; one of the most crowded islands on earth.

Later as I ate at a renowned backpacker restaurant two doors down from my very nice (but still cheap!) hotel I looked around at all of the other bule as we drank our icy Bintangs and ate organic rice and sauces without MSG--most are definitely European, this place seems to be popular with the French, Danish, and Germans. A few travelers from Argentina and one brave lady from Mexico have also crossed my path, along with a few Aussies and Kiwis. Yet still no Americanos, but I'm sure that won't last long. This restaurant was opened by some Belgian dudes who wanted to create organic sustainable restaurants that benefit the local community...but I couldn't help but wonder how exactly this uber-trendy and doubly expensive restaurant helps benefit the local economy more than what I could buy directly from the local street vendor a few blocks away?

My mind started wandering as it often does, and I wondered...why do most people like to travel? Does everyone like to travel, or it has become something to occupy the spare time of the affluent? Maybe...but then there are the budget travelers, the young hip students who want to show off how cultured and awesome we are. It has become a bragging right, in certain circles; how about this for a mad lib: "Dude, how many (girls have you banged/countries have you traveled to this year)?" "Aw man, its been kind of a dry spell lately. Only two this year, and could only spend about a week in each one. But next year, gonna take a whole month off, hit up Europe, the Mediterranean, maybe Central Asia? It's gonna be epic." 

To travel, according to my favorite online dictionary, means to take a trip, go from one destination to the next, usually abroad. Benign enough. Exciting even. 

Yet, the etymology of the word travel is the Middle English word travail; meaning a work especially of a painful or laborious nature, a physical or mental exertion or piece of work, excessive labor, suffering. If you go even deeper, it is rooted from the Latin word, tripalium, which is a 3-staked instrument of torture. Go ahead, google away. So how did we go from this--->

         to this?

I wonder if the Incas were jumping for joy after they finished hauling

 all those rocks up that freaking mountain

Hmmm. Still like traveling? Yeah, me neither. 

But I wonder-what does traveling mean for most people? Seeing beautiful monuments, meeting new people, going on exciting adventures in exotic places, experiencing new cultures? Yes, all true...but I also feel that a love of "traveling" has become the Y generation's version of "keeping up with the Joneses" as we all try to outdo one another with our stories and experiences. 

A few sample conversations inspired by true events: 

"Oh, when did you last go to Chile? Aren't the people there wonderful? Yeah, I was a nanny there for a year before backpacking across Patagonia and becoming the youngest person to summit Aconcagua..."

"Yeah, I've had malaria SIX times...."

"Well lets see, I speak French, English, German, Italian, and am teaching Spanish this summer to some refugee kids from Sudan.."

"Oh wow, you've been to 10 countries? Gosh, I've lost track of all mine...I think I've been to at least 30...Oooops-I forgot Africa! So it must be closer to 40. Still a long ways to go!"

And as a member of the Global Health crowd, I can say we are perhaps the worst at this...although we like to legitimize our travel by calling it "work" (tongue-in-cheek; we actually do work really hard at helping people around the world; I just think we are very guilty of all that I have named above!)

And how much local culture do we experience? Or is it more bringing our culture with us, to these beautiful spots where we want to see these once-in-a-lifetime things (but with a/c and wifi please). As for Indonesia, Jogja is nice, Bali is even nicer, but Jakarta and Kalimantan can be hot and miserable places at times, and life is not easy for many people who live there. I don't think most of us travelers would want to stay much longer than a few days here if we had to live like the average Indonesian...

When I think of a true travailler, I think of my friend Janelle, who lived for 2 years in the Moroccan desert while in Peace Corps. Yikes. Or two of my professional mentors, who were medical missionaries for 20 years in Bangladesh (well, maybe that is more of "huge life change" than traveling. scratch that example.) 

Would we all be so excited about traveling if we had to go about it as our forefathers did? Spending weeks or months at sea getting scurvy, days on foot, carrying heavy packs, not talking to our family for months, and even then only a measly letter? I can honestly say that 16 hours by motor vehicle on bumpy dirt roads, explosive diarrhea, and sleeping on mattresses that may or may not be infested with fleas is not my idea of fun. So is it worth it when I get to see my first orangutan in the wild or get a sweet pic of that temple at sunrise? Yeah after the fact (just make sure to ask after the flea bites have worn off). Or like childbearing, you forget the pain after awhile and only remember the good parts.

Modern technology has made our lives so much easier, that now many people can afford to travel to all the cool places that God gave us on this globe, and that is not a bad thing. But traveling, in my opinion, has now taken on the opposite meaning of travail. Those of us well-off enough to afford that round-trip ticket to Bangkok can live like kings on a few USD a day, but this option is still limited to those of us with both money and power. Not necessarily personal power; but country-level power. Those of us lucky enough to reside in Western countries have a pretty sweet bargain as we are able to gain access to most countries without much hassle or expense. Yet, how easy is it for a Bolivian or Libyan to get a visa to visit the U.S.?  Not very. When I was conducting my interviews in Kalimantan, so many people would tell me how they wanted to visit the U.S. someday, and ask me how much it cost to get there. I didn't have the heart to tell them it would be like me trying to save up enough money to buy a Gulfstream G4. 

The Malay and Dayak of West Kalimantan are some of the most hard-working people I have ever seen in my life; sun up to sun down they toil away in the heat; fishing, weaving, laundry, crops, cooking, cleaning...they live pretty well, by Indonesian standards, although still perhaps monetarily poor they always have enough food, nice houses, some have TVs. Experiencing their life for just a few weeks was really rough for me; more than once I was extremely homesick and longed for the cold wind in my face as I ride my bike down the Embarcadero. They are the ones who travail, and I was the one who traveled; yet they were the ones who were content, and I was the one in agony (well, only sometimes-there were of course high points). How did these two words, rooted in one another, come to mean such opposite things? Somewhere in the midst of Lonely Planet, online forums, cheapflights.com, and digital photography, traveling became a passion, a desire, a fad...someday I want to go somewhere without a guidebook, without a plan or camera, without knowing the language or even anything about the place, and see how I handle things. I sort of tried to do that here, but bought a language book the second I found a bookstore and even though I am sans Lonely Planet, the Thorn Tree forum has provided many recommendations last-minute.

As I sit here typing away on my MacBook enjoying my coffee and the sound of the waterfall splashing into the pool; I look around to see if there is anything even remotely Indonesian around me, and the only thing I spot is the disgusting kerupuk sitting untouched by the bule guests in a glass jar on the extravagant buffet table. 

Do I still like traveling? Sure, kind of. But what I enjoy more is learning, seeing, doing. And how many things have I left undone in my home state of Georgia, or in the U.S. in general? Plenty. At last count I have only visited 18 out of 50 states! Do I like traveling at the expense of missing out on important events, like my best friends graduating from medical school or Bay to Breakers?

Today I was going to go see some more temples outside of Jogja. But I decided I needed a break from traveling. So I will sit, and rest, and work on my presentation I have to give in two days that has been sadly neglected, because of, well, traveling. I have loved my time in Indonesia, but I will be more than happy to unpack my suitcase, grab a cold pint in the Mission, and gossip with my friends about our love lives. So to all of you travelers out there-I propose a challenge; next time you visit Fiji or Tanzania, take a few days away from the fun stuff and try to see the place for what it really is--visit a local hospital or go work in the rice paddies for a day in the full sun and humidity...And try to do it without complaining, without sadness or pity, just as a normal person that lives like this, day after day, and is content with it, happy even.

I think, if you do this, you will fail, like I did. You will be hot and whiny...you will feel slight pity for the barefoot children playing in the dirt, happy as they are, because you know they will probably never go to college or be able to see the things you have been lucky enough to see. But later, when you are removed from the situation, safe in the comfort of familiarity and native speakers, you might realize how vast and complex our world is and how little you actually know after so many years of graduate school. You might also appreciate the difficulties faced, if not at the time, for how they forced you to adapt, how they exposed your true colors and motives that normally you can hide. You might learn a thing or two about how to combat loneliness, when you don't have facebook or text messages as a fallback. And you hope that these lessons aren't akin to your biochemistry course, which you immediately erased from your memory as soon as the course was over. And maybe, like me, you will gain a new appreciation for what it means to call a place "home".

And you might realize that you do love traveling...just not for the reasons you originally thought.

I'm baaaaccckkkkkk!!!!

I'm not really sure the impetus for reinvigorating my blog...perhaps being trapped in a windowless steamy room in the most polluted city on earth while nursing a fever and nausea does weird things to your mind. What do I know, I'm only 3/4 doctor.

Being nauseated sucks. so does itching. And of course Indonesia doesn't sell Phenergan, the best anti-nausea so you can sleep 15 hours straight medicine EVER. So I will rely on these weird stick on heating pads, tylenol, and some sort of cramping medicine to relieve my agony. Doctors are huge babies by the way-because we think of all the possible things that could be wrong with us every time we get sick (My differential includes: SBO, gastritis, ruptured ovarian cyst, the worst PMS ever, shigella, salmonella, rotavirus, and too many others to list...ignorance really is bliss.)

Maybe I'm just lonely....it is way too early to call my amigos, although I was really tempted. Who wouldn't want a wake-up call at 3 am on a weekday from your best friend who wants to whine about her tummy hurting? But for some reason, think this might be one of those put your big girl panties on times.

The one good thing about being sick? Other people taking care of you. I'm totally a sucker for service. I love breakfast in bed, and as a shrewd kindergartner I quickly learned that I could train my mother to serve me Lucky Charms on my favorite My Little Ponies tray in front of the TV as an enticement to actually get out of bed for school. 22 years later, this like, doesn't happen anymore. (Unless I happen to be home on my birthday or christmas. Chocolate Eclair and Coffee? Yes please!)

BUT...one time I can still get my pampering is when I'm sick. One time in med school I was so sick that I literally passed out on my bathroom floor and could not get up the next day because I was so dehydrated. My dear father figure friend Patrick brought me blue gatorade and revived me back to life. Or at least back to bed. That's the first thing you learn as a med student. Gatorade for hangovers, and avoid Mexican food at all costs. So what if I was sick from vodka and not a virus? Same same.

Unfortunately this little bug ain't from alcohol. However, I did still get some care today from a friend I have known about 1 month. My friend Agnes checked on me all day between her work and meetings, took me to the Apotik (pharmacy), brought me warm rice, offered to massage my back, and gave lots of motherly looks of pity. Almost felt like home. And then I looked out the window of our car and realized I was still stuck in the Jakarta smog. I have a love-hate relationship with Indonesia, but I will say that these are among the most generous, welcome people I have ever encountered. Even though most people here won't hesitate to burp in public and shove you out of the way when waiting in line, they will be the first to invite you into their home, feed you 5-course meals, and do anything in their power to anticipate any possible need of their beloved "guest."

Being from the South, we are known for our hospitality. Yet this is an area I am totally lacking in....traveling alone here and barely speaking the language has made me realize the power in kindness to strangers, especially those who are clearly fish out of water, as I have been here for the last month. 

But I think I've come to the conclusion that I would be a lot more hospitable if my house was ever clean (it is, like 15.7% of the time). Do maids count as pampering?