Friday, April 17, 2009

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get out of Jakarta

If Jakarta’s tangled traffic and early morning prayers made the strongest first impressions, the deathly heat hasn’t been far behind. The mercury has climbed above 90 degrees Fahrenheit every day here, and the temperature stays above 75 even in the dead of night.

When you add in the acrid clouds of exhaust from the millions of motor scooters clogging up the city streets, even a ten-minute walk to the bus station feels like a swim through stiff, stale air. We’re drenched in sweat from the moment we step out the door in the morning and would wilt without stops into air-conditioned oases during the daytime, which can be hard to come by in most neighborhoods. Fortunately, Danielle has mercifully arranged for us to spend our first week in Indonesia in an apartment with both air conditioning and a pool, distant dreams for the vast majority of Jakartans.

Tomorrow, we’ll try to beat the heat with a trip south of the city to Bogor, home to Java’s most renowned botanical gardens. Indonesia's President Yudoyono makes Bogor his “Camp David” retreat—perhaps we’ll see him there and can ask him about problems we’ve been hearing about regarding the millions of Indonesians left off voting rolls in parliamentary elections earlier this month.

On Thursday morning, John ended up inadvertently joining a few hundred Indonesian grade school students on a field trip to the National Museum. The collections of statues, ceramics and other artifacts pay homage to the country’s diverse cultural history, including animist, Hindu and Buddhist influences from the pre-Islamic period that remain today. So it was only fitting to arrive at the museum and see a group of Islamic girls in school uniforms and head scarves gathering around an elephant statue donated by one of Thailand’s 19th-century Buddhist kings.

Boys from another school, on the other hand, seemed more excited about the opportunity to run full speed through the halls and scream at the top of their lungs. A group of them found the large genitalia on a prehistoric Sumatran teak ancestor statute a source of endless hilarity. Apparently, girls and boys’ comparative maturity levels remain constant across cultures.

Another trip took John and Danielle to Kota, center of the 17th-century Dutch settlement of Batavia that became modern-day Jakarta. Some of the grandly conceived Colonial architecture remains, including the former State House which now holds a Jakarta City Museum. It’s not much of a Jakarta museum per se, as it mostly includes uninspiring furniture and knick-knacks left over from the Dutch governor-generals’ collections. This imperialist attempt to create a little bit of Leyden in the tropics feels out of place in postcolonial Indonesia.

The highlight of trip to Kota was when five high school students approached Danielle at the Jakarta City Museum and even videotaping her responses. Perhaps Danielle’s call for U.S.-Indonesian engagement will reach a wider audience and inspire a generation. to interview her for their English class. It was all very earnest, with the students asking Danielle about her reasons for coming to Indonesia and even videotaping her responses. Perhaps Danielle’s call for U.S.-Indonesian engagement will reach a wider audience and inspire a generation.

1 comment:

  1. If you can't beat the heat...never mind.

    Sounds like you are immersing yourself in the cultural.

    ReplyDelete