Merdeka!!

For those of you who speak French, no that is not profanity, but in fact it means "Independence!" and that's what Indos say to each other (with much enthusiasm, of course) on August 17th, which happens to be their Independence Day.

A quick history note: Indonesia once belonged to the Dutch (for a really, really long time), and then during WWII the Japanese came in and put all the Dutch people in internment camps and took over the country. On August 17, 1945 Indonesia was able to declare their independence officially from the Dutch, but really it was from the Japanese. So this year Indonesia celebrated their 62nd year as a free country, and I got to take part in the celebration.

I was really excited to finally get to see Indonesian Independence Day, but actually I was quite disappointed. Indos are really into ceremonies, and boy do they do it up wrong for August 17th (Tujuhbelas Agustus, as they say in Bahasa). Each school (public and private) and government institution has a huge ceremony that lasts about 2-3 hours, where everyone stands out in the hot hot sun (saluting the flag for much of the ceremony) and watches the students march around like military officers, raising the flag and just generally engaging in much pomp and circumstance. I took part in my school's ceremony, which I thought was an honor. Not so much. I was hot, sweaty, bored, and my shoulder hurt from saluting.

But anyway, after the ceremony, the students played really weird games together that involved them painting their faces like cats and running around with plastic bottles tied to their hips. I didn't try to understand. And then the teachers went to the teachers room and just ate a lot of really spicy food. I've really grown to like spicy food, but I definitely paid for it later!

Another strange custom around the time of Independence Day is the "Jalan Sehat" (literally translated it means "Healthy Walk"). Tell me this isn't weird - each neighborhood has its own Jalan Sehat where everyone wears red and white (colors of the Indo flag), and walks around together at 6am in the morning on the Sunday after the 17th. Then after that there is an array of activities, and depending on your neighborhood such activities might include a fashion show with many small children, a drawing contest, an jazzercize (how do you spell that?) session, and really bad singing by an awful dangdut singer. Dangdut is this awful fusion of Indian (as in, from India) music and Indonesian music. It's horrendous. And the dancing is so scandalous that you can only watch dangdut on TV after 10pm. So strange...So you know I took part in my neighborhood's Jalan Sehat. It was weird, but fun in a very wrong way...

So that was Independence Day. The only other truly exciting thing that has happened to me was that yesterday was my birthday!! Woohoo!! I'm 22 now...getting so old...Haha but I had an excellent day, relaxing with Amellia (who decided to take off work just to hang out with me!) and Octa. We went and played pool with some of Octa's friends, went bowling, went shopping a bit, and ate some Nasi Pecel (amazing traditional food, probably the most easily found food in Indonesia...it consists of rice and veggies and these little friend peanut crispy cracker-like things that are simply scrumptious...and mucho cheapo!!). Then in the late afternoon, some of my former students surprised me at my house with cake and presents. They were so cute!! THEN I went to sleep for a couple of hours, and in that time my host family totally set up a surprise party for me and when I woke up and came out of my room, a lot of my friends and all my host family was there and it was really cute. Of course, I looked like a zombie, but hey - it's my party and I'll look like a zombie if I want to! I had an excellent birthday...it was perfect!!

So nothing really exciting is happening other than that. On Saturday I leave for Jakarta to go to Orientation for my academic program. My uni starts in the 2nd week of September if I'm not mistaken, so I'm really getting pumped up for that!!

Okay then. I will update later. I miss you all lots and lots and I love you more than life itself!!