42nd Anniversary - A Culture Share

Today was an interesting day at work. 16 April, 2009 marked the 42nd anniversary of our company in Indonesia. Every year, our company celebrates the anniversary in a unique way. First, at 6:30 AM, a large contingent of the corporate office - which must have a representative sample of every department - takes a bus from the corporate office to the cemetery where the company's founder is buried. Here, the crowd pays their respects and then boards a bus back to the office.


At lunch today we had guests of honor - past presidents and the daughter of the company's founder. Everyone gathered in the company lunchroom - which happens to be on my floor. A host introduced the administrative head of our organization who provided a brief history of the organization over the years. Then, the host introduced the daughter of the founder, who also spoke briefly about what the company has meant to her and her family - especially her father. Finally, we shared in a Muslim prayer to bless the food, the company, and the employees prior to consuming an Indonesian feast. Of course, I'm only picking up every 10th word or so as all of the speeches were in Indonesian. I also, apparently, have the "Bule" disease. I arrived at the event with my management team. I sat in the second row, they all sat behind me in the third row, which then meant two seats to the left and the right of me were the only vacant seats in the house the whole time. I have a stuffy nose, so maybe I just couldn't smell my own BO.


This weekend will be an interesting time for us. Friday, our complex is having a belated Easter celebration for the kids. It takes place at 3 PM, so I won't be able to attend, and includes an egg hunt and other events for the kids. On Saturday, we're making the 2 hour drive the closest clean beach to Jakarta. Sunday we'll finally head over to the American Club and see if we can have some bagels and sample their Mexican restaurants. This weekend I'll finally upload some more pictures.


Speaking of which, my wife accused me of not loading any pictures of her from Bali...so here they are.

Living La Vida Jakarta

So, I missed an item on my list of things we "miss": Bagels. My wife has been hounding me to find her a nice, warm, soft, chewy bagel with cream cheese. So, I found one. It's at the American club.

On Monday it poured again in the late afternoon, shortly before I was ready to leave work. I had no intention of spending 2.5 hours in traffic again, so I had my first opportunity to make use of a uniquely Jakartan innovation - the Car Jockey.

In its infinite wisdom, presumably in an attempt to prevent traffic jams and encourage car pooling, the Indonesian government created what they like to call a "Three Way" (for those of you with prurient interests, no, it isn't that). Much like the carpool lanes in the states, these lanes require three people in the car in order to use them. When I travel home, it's me and my driver. For most, much like the US, it is just themselves. So, these lanes travel faster than the average traffic lane.

Indonesians have never found a money making opportunity that they could not exploit for profit so, as you leave the business district and make your way towards a 3-way, you'll pass a line of people with their hands out trying to hitch a ride. Only, they aren't hitch hikers. They are a 3rd passenger who, for a nominal fee of 15,000 Rupiah ($1.25) will ride in your car as long as you need them to so you can use the fast lane. Talk about your externalities! The Indonesian government is missing out on a massive tax opportunity. If they just made the 3-ways a toll road and charged 15,000 Rupiah per entrance, they would eliminate this untaxed cottage industry.... of course, they would take food out of the mouths of those doing it, too.

I'm told the trick to finding a car jockey is to find one that doesn't smell. I wish they had told me that BEFORE I used one. From what I understand, if you choose a male, there is a 50/50 chance he has showered in the last week. If you choose a female, you have a 75% chance. On my coin flip, I called heads and it came up tails. The car still had the odor when I entered it in the morning. But, I sure got home fast!

Tonight we went in search of a Mexican restaurant. I have a map of Jakarta and saw that, near my house, there was a Chi-Chi's and a Salsa House. When we were in Bali, I noticed the Chi-Chi's I'm familiar with from the Midwest of the US, so I had high hopes. Our driver took us to the map location for both restaurants. In both cases, the restaurants had gone out of business and a new establishment stood in their place. Mexican food just does not translate well in Indonesia. Not enough rice...though I think Chipotle would do AWESOME here!

We ended up at an Italian restaurant called Toscanos. An appetizer, four meals, a bottle of wine, and four desserts later, our tab was still around $90 including tip. Not bad considering the bottle of wine was 1/3 the cost. The food was amazing, too. I had a slow roasted prime rib with black pepper and rosemary spice in a beef gravy with cheese covered cauliflower - $10. The banana split only had one slice of banana, which didn't quite make it a split, but as long as it has 3 scoops of ice cream I'm not going to complain.

I think this weekend - the last my mother-in-law will be here - we are going to make a trip to the beach closest to us and also spend a day at the American club. Should be interesting.

Things we miss and left to do

When you move to a new location and leave almost everything you own behind, it is interesting what you start to miss. Early on, we missed cable TV. The cable company finally arrived and rectified that issue late last week, though we still don't watch anything other than the news. Below is the list of items that we, collectively, seem to be missing most after two weeks:

1) Mexican Food. Yes, there is a 'Mexican' restaurant walking distance from our home. No, it does not taste like Mexican food. Their 'salsa' is just pico de gallo. Most of the 'spicy' food is also sweet. We also cannot find tortillas or the necessary spices at the grocery store to bring home and make our own. Cilantro would be a blessing.

2) Convenience. Nothing is easy, nothing is quick. A "quick trip to the mall" is a 6-hour event. If the location is not close enough to walk to - not that you necessarily would - then it will take at least 30-minutes unless you go when everyone else is working. Half of Jakarta - so likely 75% of Indonesia - is 20 years behind in financial transactions. We need cash in a lot more places than I had imagined. Some places take credit cards only if issued from a local bank. We can improve convenience, to some degree, by opening a local bank account - which we will likely do.

3) Being able to drive. When I was a child, I always imagined how cool it would be to have my own driver. Having a driver was, and to some extent still is, a major status symbol. It's also frustrating to have two perfectly good cars in the garage, the keys at hand, and not be able to drive them. More challenging is weighing the decision to ask someone to sit around waiting for you with the risk that you may never go anywhere versus giving them the day off and then needing to drive somewhere. It requires a greater degree of planning out our weekends. For their part, I think the drivers prefer to be on the clock getting overtime even if they only sit around and wait.

4) Electronics. Specifically, a wireless router, a stereo system that can play our MP3's, cell phones and a second TV. All of these, of course, we could obtain by visiting a local mall. But who wants to spend 6 hours buying four electronics? I have a work-issued cellphone, but we still need to buy one for my wife.

5) Familiarity. When things are easy to get to, lack of familiarity can be exciting. You get an opportunity to explore your surroundings. When everything takes forever to do, you have a strong desire to be efficient, which means you need to know where you are going and what you want to achieve when you get there. Hopefully my wife will find some opportunity to familiarize herself with the area while I - and the rest of the city - are busy at work instead of clogging the streets.

At the moment, we don't have much time to miss those items, however. There is still much to do:

1) Buy rugs for the house. Marble floors are definitely beautiful and elegant. They also cause a loud echo and are hard on the joints. We need to buy rugs for every room to help absorb the sound waves and lessen the impact when we walk.

2) Enroll our daughter in school. There is a great Montessori school abutting the compound. However, my wife and daughter will be living in Singapore for the months of September and October until our new baby is born. If the Montessori charged by the month, this would not pose a challenge. Instead, they charge an annual fee and they want it in full in advance. They are also closed in June and July. So, I part with $7,000 USD and then don't use a school for four months. Not something I am amenable to. Luckily there are several other options that we have yet to explore.

3) Buy more furniture. A dresser would be nice. We can custom make teaque, rattan and mahogany furniture here for about 1/10 the price it would cost to buy used in the US. For example, a colleague of mine custom designed a 12-drawer dresser and paid $80 for it. We plan to purchase several items of furniture that we bring back with us to the US. A dining room table, some armoires and book shelves are among the items on our list.

4) Learn more about the city. On Thursday we had hoped to do some shopping. However, everything was either closed all day or did not open until 11 AM. Of course, we didn't know this until we arrived - 90 minutes too early. This afforded us an opportunity to drive around the city. We discovered some museums, botanical gardens and other buildings that we want to return to and visit. We have much left to learn about Jakarta. The only real way to do it is grab a map, a local guide, and just get out in it.

First week of work in the books

I didn't realize it has been over a week since my last post. I am trying to post at least once a week - probably Saturdays - though I am going to try to post twice a week. Waiting so long I have a lot to catch up on, so this may be a long post.

Finishing out Bali. A few things I forgot to mention about Bali. First, my wife and I had both read that many Indonesians view children with blond hair as good-luck charms and that we should be prepared for them to want to touch them. This was EXTREMELY apparent in Bali. All of the beach merchants wanted to shake our daughter's hand, pat her head, whatever. People on the street would stop to take pictures of her. When we went to the Kecak ceremony, as the dancers were preparing, they wanted to shake her hand for good luck. Everyone is always calling at her, asking her name, etc. As we left the Kecak ceremony, and were returning our modesty skirts, the people at the counter also wanted to reach out and touch her. I think she had finally had enough because she said to me, exasperated: "I can't talk to EVERYONE."

Second, Kuta beach is a party beach. This is where people go when they want to enjoy the party scene. When we return to Bali - and it is "when', not "if" - we will probably go to a different beach.

Kemang Club Villas. We really like our neighborhood. I had forgotten how nice it is - two pools, 4 tennis courts, soccer field, playground, gym, spa (with 1 hour massage for $12) and a small cafe all on site. There is a grocery store with expat food that we walk to when we need groceries. I learned a new Indonesian phrase from shopping there - "terlalu mahal". It means "too expensive". We have 24 hour maintenance and security as well as a property management team that will help arrange for anything we need.

The house itself has a few peculiarities. First, we do not have central air. Instead, every room has a remote controlled air conditioner. Oddly enough, despite the heat and humidity, we've only turned them on in a few rooms - my office is not one of them - and it seems fine. We've met a few of our neighbors, but are not yet friendly with any of them. All our expats, most have children.

Time Off. I spent a few hours in the office on Thursday, April 2. This was so my official first day in the office - 06 April - was not spent going through email. I had nearly 400 to read on Thursday. Friday we took the opportunity to go to Safari Park. This was the place I had visited a year back when I took pictures with the tiger and orangutan. This time, we purchased carrots to feed the animals on the way in. We had some great animal encounters. From the car, we fed zebra, llama, camel, antelope, water buffalo and a monkey. One zebra became frustrated when I stopped feeding them and literally bit a piece off the car!

After the drive-through portion of the park, we spent some time at the petting zoo. I took my daughter for another attempt at pictures with the orangutan. He was very interested; she was absolutely not and SCREAMED whenever he would try to hold her hand. She did get to ride a pony again and several of the amusement park rides. They were also in the process of building a water park, so we will have to go back when they open it.

After Safari Park we went to Pencak, a mountain city near the park. We went to the Pencak Hotel which has amazing views of the plateaus and vistas in the mountains. Both the park and the hotel were at a much higher altitude than Jakarta and the temperature reflected it - about 10 degrees cooler.

Jakarta Shopping. Our rental package includes the basics - beds, desk, couches, large appliances and a water cooler. It did not include essentials - blender, toaster, iron, ironing board, floor lamps, bedside lamps, extension cords. These, along with place mats, pillows and a few other items we needed to buy. We went to a nearby mall called Pondok Indah.

These people saw us coming. We first went to a department store to buy pillows, dishes, small appliances, etc. We had a team of people following us around. In the department stores, everyone has commission as a portion of their pay. SOMEONE needs to get credit for every sale, so they are very eager to help you. With all the different departments we shopped in, five different people received credit for our purchases - which, by the way, amounted to more than the per capita income of Indonesia ("Terlalu Mahal!!!").

We couldn't find everything we needed - tools, lamps, etc - at the department store. When we asked where we could find it, everyone said "Ace Hardware". I was hesitant. I know Ace Hardware as a more expensive Home Depot with a lot less selection. In Jakarta, Ace Hardware is like WalMart. They had everything - tools, dishes, towels, lamps, aquariums, fish, plants - everything! Well, almost everything. We asked for nails so we could hang the paintings we bought in Bali. They only had screws.

We had two other shopping adventures. One was to Carrefour, a grocery store that the locals shop at. Here we found much better prices than at the Bule store near our home. The store is about 3 miles away. Took us 45 minutes to get there and, because it was a Friday evening on the way home, and Kemang is THE hot place for nightlife, the ride home took over 2 hours and involved several U-turns and redirections as traffic and police blocked our preferred routes. Carrefour was more like a Super WalMart - groceries and other items. It is here we finally bought lamps.

One of the greater challenges is finding alcohol. Beer is pretty available, but I don't drink beer. Wine is usually available and is 3-4x the cost - Sutter Home white zinfandel cost me $23. Liquor and spirits is impossible to find. I asked around and was directed to a place called "Duty Free". This was a nondescript store in Kemang with black, tinted windows. We walked through the door - plastered with signs indicating they took Visa, AMEX, MC, etc. - and discovered a huge store with nothing but bottles of wine and spirits. There were rows and rows of three shelves high of wine from all over the world - New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Spain, California, France. One wall was spirits, but a very limited selection. Midori, Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Cognac. No Vodka, no Gin, no Rum, no Seagram's. The Johnny Walker Green Label was $71. Ouch!

Jakarta Living. We are settling in to our living in Jakarta. I was already accustomed to having a driver before coming out thanks to all my prior trips. My wife, on the other hand, is still uncomfortable with the idea that we have someone who sits in our garage waiting for us to need them. She enjoys their help loading our purchases into the car, however, as well as not having to find parking. However, we have already replaced her first driver because he could not speak any English and she speaks no Indonesian.

The weather here has been very hot and very humid. Our first few days found temperatures 90+ with 80-90% humidity. Two steps out the door and a bead of sweat would fall from your forehead to the ground. We have had rain every day so far, and two days have been cloudy the whole day.

Monday was my first day in the office. I am trying to overlap my hours to some extent with our team in Phoenix, as well as avoid as much traffic as I can. This means that, for the first time in my life, I am waking up between 5 and 5:30 AM every day and leaving the house by 6 AM. Of course, my driver has to get up before me because he has to wake up, dress, and drive here by 6 AM. Luckily, he is devout Muslim and is up by 4:30 AM for his morning prayers, so I don't think he is experiencing any hardship. Each day, including Monday, my trip to the office has required a mere 15 minutes. I leave by 4:30, so I am usually home shortly after 5 PM. Monday was an exception.

On Monday, we had a very heavy rain for about 90 minutes from 2 - 3:30. This rain caused flooding. Flooding caused traffic jams. My commute home on Monday took 2.5 hours. In addition to spending 2.5 hours in the car, we also drove through a flooded area. Freeport has provided me with a Ford Everest. This is an SUV with very high carriage. We needed it on Monday.

We weren't sure we could drive on the flooded road. Most cars were turning around. Turning around probably would have made my 2.5 hours 4 hours. When we saw people pushing their motorcycles through, we decided to forge ahead. To get the picture of what we were dealing with, the people pushing their motor cycle were wading through water that reached to just below the seat of the bike. As we drove through, we created another 1-2 foot wake as the grill of the SUV pushed through the water. The waders were not happy. As we drove by we literally submerged their bikes, and sometimes them. Several of them rushed the car and banged on the windows to express their displeasure. It took about 3 minutes to navigate through the flood waters and I'm glad we saved me another 90 minutes.

Finally, I feel like I am easing into this role. I took two weeks off before I started (with a few half days of work and meeting with vendors along the way). This week I only had to work 3-days. Friday is a public holiday for Good Friday. The current President declared Thursday a national holiday because it was a national election. Can you imagine Barack Obama just picking a day in a month and requiring all companies to give their employees the day off? So, I'm enjoying a four-day weekend this week.

Final set of Bali pictures

The large water slide my daughter went down.

More pictures

Animal interaction is very high at Safari Park, Bali.

The active volcano.

The Nyepi ceremonial procession through Tampak Siring.

The monkey forest in Ubud. Here you see me feeding the monkey and then the monkey enjoying his prize.

Uluwatu was the place of the Fire Dance (Kecak) and also another Monkey Temple. The temple was on the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Below are pictures of the scenery, a monkey, and the ceremony.

The beach solicitors on Kuta beach attempt to sell anything and everything. My daughter got pretty good about saying "no thank you", and even rescuing grandma from the onslaught. One woman, however, was selling something she just couldn't resist.

Pictures - just a taste

Even borrowing my neighbor's wireless internet hasn't increased the speed for uploading images. I can't seem to obtain better than a 1 MB/sec upload speed. I'll spend sometime over the next few days determining which images to upload, and then resize them for faster posting. Below is a taste:

1 - One of the two main bedrooms



2 - Our private pool



3 - View of pool/yard from opposite side



4 - Our porch with stairs leading to the second floor


5 - Dad and daughter on the beach