Mar 17

Sunday, as my usual, was a do-nothing day. Yesterday I slept in, ate a late lunch, exercised, and watched many of the DVD's I bought. I made one quick trip back to the mall because I need a book for my journey home since I finished all four I came here with. Finding an English book in an Indonesian store was not easy. I had less variety to choose from than you would find in a grocery store. I finally settled on a biographic fiction novel about the Zodiac killer in San Francisco. I also bought a Winnie the Pooh book for my daughter.

Today was back to work. We have one milestone left before I can say I accomplished everything on my trip to-do list - create a detailed design document that defines all the changes we are making to the software. I received a draft of that document in the early afternoon and, with the exception of restructuring the flow of the document and adding a few additional elements from other documents, it's complete. We have a design review with the architecture committee on Wednesday morning and that should be the end of it.

I also received the good news that I am returning home two days early. When we booked the trip, we were unaware of the four day holiday weekend this week (well, we in the US were unaware). My original plans called for me to leave on Saturday. Once I learned of the holidays, I put my name on a waiting list with the airline to move me to a Thursday departure. Today, I received word I am off the waiting list and have confirmed tickets...so I'm home on Thursday night, now (but don't call, I'll be exhausted).

On this trip, I've done what I can to pick up bits and pieces of the language - Bahasa. In Papua, we picked up many words like Ibu and Pak - (mrs. and mr.) - and I continued this trend in Jakarta. One of my favorite terms - mostly because the locals like hearing me use it - is "bule" (Boo lay). I am a bule (no, sis, it doesn't mean that).

Those of you who know me well understand my affinity for languages. Through the years, I've dabbled in Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Yiddish and, now, Bhasan. Almost every language has a term for "bule". In Japan, its "Gaijin". The Jews use the term "Goy" or "Goyem". Mexicans use the term "Gringo". Basically, it means "foreigner", "outsider", "not one of us". Americans use "illegal immigrant"...but I digress.

In most cultures, this has no negative connotation - in fact, in many it's a positive. In Indonesia, being a bule has many benefits:

1) You don't wait in lines at restaurants
2) You get preferred seating
3) The government gives you preferential treatment on obtaining business licenses
4) The local police give you a "get out of jail free" card (at least that's what everyone calls the paper they gave me on my second day signed by the local police directorate - I haven't had to test it...nor do I want to)
5) You're automatically given deferential treatment

Of course, there is also "local price" and "bule price"... guess which is more. Nonetheless, everyone loves when I use self-depreciating humor while referring to myself as bule. Like "sorry, that was a bule mistake". Or, "I can't eat that, I'm a bule!" Or "Hati hati bule cawa" (Be careful of foreign men). Or, my favorite "Bule capade" (foreigner tired of waiting).

I think if I spent 3 months here I could converse in (broken) bahasa. But since "je parle francais comme un vache espangol" (I speak French like a Spanish cow) - believe me, the French die laughing when I say that - broken bahasa is prett good!

I've enjoyed every minute I've spent here - even the odd turns at the restaurants - but I am eager to return home and am glad we were able to change my flight. Two more days of Indonesian hospitality and I take to the skies to return to the competitive lifestyle of American capitalism.

Quick fact: Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of domestic labor.

(Big article in the Jakarta post today about thousands of the roughly 20,000 Indonesian domestic workers in Qatar wanting to leave because of abuse by their employers).

P.S. - Can the international media report on anything OTHER than the bad US economy, Eliot Spitzer, or Barrack Obama's preacher?? Geesh! The international edition of the WSJ had 22 articles on Bear Stearns today. Literally.