Jakarta - Day 4

The more time you spend in Jakarta, the more you realize two things:

1) The mass of humanity is tremendous
2) The pollution is horrible.

Traffic today was much worse than it has been.



Probably just like holidays in America, the day after everyone tries to get to work early to catch up on work they didn't complete by taking a day off. Probably the best way to describe traffic is by comparing it to a closeup of blood flowing through a vein. If you've ever seen how the red blood cells flow through a vein - colliding with each other, moving in close proximity but all flowing the same direction, that is how traffic looks in Jakarta. Also, I'm sure you've all seen pictures of people hanging off crowded trains in India. In Jakarta, they hang of buses and taxis. We saw one vehicle, an Indonesian version of a mini-van, that had 14 people in it and on it - 6 of them were hanging out the open side doors.

The pollution is just terrible. The minute you walk outside you are assaulted with the stench of car exhaust. There are no real sidewalks in Jakarta, so you are basically walking on the street, and every time a car drives by you get a fresh whiff of exhaust. Today the pollution was even worse than normal. It felt like you could bite a piece of the air. I can't imagine how people live here with the pollution. You'll often notice people driving and walking with handkerchiefs over their nose.

Though I haven't seen a drop of rain, it must rain in torrents here when there is precipitation. The gutters on the side of the street are moats 2 feet wide by 4 feet deep. They are at the side of every paved road. Most are covered in a dark green algae.

With such a large mass of people, you can imagine the vast numbers of cultures present. One thing you learn quickly is that culture plays a larger role on wardrobe and behavior than does religion. You see Christian women in burqas and Muslim women in shorts and tank tops. Many of the men I work with our Muslim, and they hold no animosity towards the US or its citizens. In such a poor country, most of the people are just happy to be alive.