new links to pics!

easter weekend in yogya

Upon return to Yoyga, decided I also needed to try the local version of Chinese Cupping (practiced to invigorate stagnate qi and blood and promote their circulation through the channels and muscle tissue) so I let a nice Javanese man attach bull horns to my back and legs. The horns were attached via the suction created by a flame’s consumption of oxygen between my skin and the horn. Felt like a dinosaur, named…. WAHOOASAURUS Or BANANARAMASAURUS or…ideas?

On our still a little weary legs (some of us, perhaps unwisely, went out dancing all night both before and after the hike) we went to Milas Restaurant, our favorite (homemade cheese, brown bread, organic garden!) for an incredible easter brunch feast with friends…and family! Dan’s mom was in town and being the awesome mom that she is she brought us easter chocolates! So it was the best indo easter ever.

FMI: http://www.integrative-healthcare.org/mt/archives/2008/10/cupping_for_mas.html
http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/nep035

hiking gunung merapi or luminous moon bellies

The next day the seder crew rode the trains to Yogya, my favorite city in java, (one tagged in creative graffiti artistry) From Yogya, six of us set off on a MUCH anticipated volcano hiking adventure up Mt. Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia with a full moon watching. We ascended through the night, the trail glowing moonlight, stopping every now and then for offerings of ginger chocolate to our bellies and offerings of our bare bellies to the smitten breeze. After perhaps 5 or more hours we reached the summit in time to cuddle together in our sarongs and watch the utterly surreal skyscape of luminous sun nector splashing, soaking, drizzling, and drenching.

A night hike’s second act (after the sunrise) is the emergence of the surrounding flora during the daylight descent. [Note to self: must do more night hikes to sunrise summits] was delighted to find myself to be hiking in decadently verdant surroundings. Was such a relief, just what I needed.

celebrating my first ever seder

wonderful communal cooking with friends old and new (made some bomb charoset myself), heartfelt Hebrew from the haggadah, drinking “old person” wine, a beautiful tradition. After the fourth glass of wine was considering marrying a nice jewish boy so that my kids could grow up with the joy of celebrating traditions (other than those coopted by consumerism). Or a nice pagan boy? Or will have to create own secular family traditions revolving around homebrewed spirits, sparkles, bouncy balls, snow sculptures, dark chocolate, bright body paints, so many musical instruments but def those that can blow bubbles and kazoos (bubble-blowing azoos?), peanut butter and honey, hoola-hoops? goat cheese, and of course heaps of homemade or barter-procured presents.

Jan 16-18, Mid-Year Conference in Jakarta, or seasoned with rainbow sprinkles

Hurray for reunions in fancy hotels!

So much good musical jam time, all the time! (lacking my friends’ mad guitar harmonica or melodica skills I rocked out on the rainbow sprinkles)

oh so mysterious, highly anticipated, and surprisingly sensual TIM TAM SLAM rituals MmmMMMmmm!

making our GREAT ESCAPE from lavish hotel lifestyle to- the traffic circle out front??? Er, yes for a quick bout of mikaela vs 12 young boys street soccer and then guitar strumming and song singing in the grass watching the sunset over skyscrapers horizon.

Disney songs at the top of our lungs.

creative attempts to thwart or at least subdue boredom at official conference proceedings.
late night strangely sticky fence hopping shortcut to a dance club.

Far too much time spent walking lost down sidestreets and hopelessly stuck in taxi traffic and putt-putting along in tiny bajaj (motorized 3 wheel rickshaws that make you feel like you’re in an unruly amusement park ride that’s jumped the tracks!) just to find a cold beer.

Dinosaur alphabet love!

Mouthwatering, curative brunch spreads.

Poetry readings of the silly and stirring sorts.

precarious group stage dancing at a club that stays open from Thursday until Monday morning.

and thanks to the collaborative efforts of a missed boy back home and a generous friend here I was reunited with an iPod lost over a year ago in a kitchen drawer of the Co-op! my life is once more sauced with the music I find tasty.



ABC osaurs
Lyrics by Dennis Westphall

A B C Abc osaurs Alphabet you can spell it
You can bet it's easy with dino ABC's
A is Apatosaurus uh PAT uh SAWR us
B is a Brachiosaurus BRACK ee uh SAWR us
C is Coelophysis SEE low FIE sis
D is Diplodocus Di PLOD uh kus
E is an Eoraptor EE oh RAP tor
F is Fabrosaurus FAB roh SAWR us
G is a Gryposaurus GRIP oh SAWR us
H is a Hadrosaurus HAD roh SAWR us
I is Iguanodon ig WAHN oh don
J is a Jainosaurus JAYN noh SAWR us
K is the Kentrosaurus KEN troh SAWR us
L Leptoceratops LEP to SER a tops
A B C Abcosaurs Alphabet you can spell it
You can bet it's easy with dino ABC's
M is a Megaraptor MEGA rap tor
N Notoceratops note oh SER a tops
O is an Oviraptor OH vi RAP tor
P Protoceratops PRO to SER uh tops
Q is a Quantosaurus KWAN tuh SAWR us
R is a Rhabdodon RAB doe don
S is a Stegosaurus STEG aSAWR us
T for Triceratops tri SER atops
U is an Ultrasaurus Ultra SAWR us
V for Velociraptor va LOSS ah RAP tor
W Wannanosaurus wah NAN oh SAWR us
X is a Xiaosaurus sheow SAWR us
Y is Yunnanosaurus YOU NAN oh SAWR us
Z Zuniceratops ZOO nee SAIR a tops
Now I've learned my ABC osaurs Alphabet for dinosaurs
A B C ABC osaurs Alphabet you can spell it
You can bet it's easy with dino ABC's

rooftop reading, or pagan fire babies

A common lament of mine about living in Gresik is that there is just nowhere to read outside of my room. Quiet public spaces do not exist; there are no patches of grass reminiscent of the Mounds, no coffee shops that would invite a reader, there are no places at all that i have happened upon where there are not food vendors, motorcycles or talkative Indonesians.

To be outside my house is to constantly inspire conversation, a solitary act like reading is simply not possible. Even at my school, at my own desk in the teachers office I am not permitted to read more than a few pages of a magazine before fellow teachers or students peer over my shoulder and begin talking, and i would have really be quite rude before they would stop trying to talk and let me read because in my experience they just do not do that. in fact I have never seen anyone, ever, in Gresik reading a book. (I am not trying to judge- this is just what i have experienced in my social circles here. there are probably many exceptions)

Also, to be outside my house for long is to be hot and sweaty- and oppressed because the sweat slides down underneath all the “modest” clothes i have to wear as a (obviously frighteningly powerful) woman.

So... after having read in bed (the depressing but brilliant Forty Stories by Anton Chekhov sprinkled with some Timequake by Vonnegut to brighten the mood) for hours today, like so many days, I jumped up (a slight exaggeration) and put one of my long baggy short-sleeved mumu - the kind all the old ibus around here wear when at the traditional market or bending under both babies and balanced baskets- and lugged a big plastic chair up onto the rooftop where we hang out laundry to dry, sat down, legs resting on neighbors rooftop, and started to read. After about 5 minutes i went downstairs, took a cold shower in my mumu and returned, dripping but happy. Like hoola-hooping, a new ritual in my life.



In the view from my chair there are many mosques and two towering smokestacks with fires violently burning atop. at least one of them is part of the cement factory and the last time i was hanging up some laundry with my host sister she told me that it has exploded at least 3 different times in her memory, killing factory workers.

as i read, i looked up and instead saw before me huge marble pillars with eternal fires ablaze in honor of the pagan earth mother, this was emphasized by the unearthly (and deafening!) song of worship flowing towards me from all directions at once.

Happy Valentine’s Day! or mind-melting mouthgasms

I am celebrating my first valentine’s day in a Muslim country!....by eating dark chocolate with cashews in bed, tossing a tissue in the air for my kitten to pounce, about to watch william shakespeare’s romeo and juliet. i was briefly swept away by the idea of reading by candle and moonlight on my rooftop then opened my door to see the sky and was distracted by the ghost-like plastic bags being slowly swept away by the dark flood waters outside- raining again. cuddling in bed with a kitten is not so bad.

As an earlier part of my valentine’s celebration i also showed my 3 host brothers and host sister how to do Tim Tam SLAMS!!! This was very fun, lots of laughs, and chocolate all over our faces. I am forever grateful to Eric Keen for introducing Tim Tam SLAMS into my life. I shall try to explain but it is a phenomenon that can only truly be experienced in practice.

Step 1. Gather friends. Take smallish bites off of two diagonally opposite corners of one non-melty Tim Tam. This should make your Tim Tam into a straw. You can test this by sucking hard on one end, air should flow through.

Step 2. Submerge one end of the Tim Tam straw into ridiculously delicious hot (not scalding) chocolate , start sucking!

Step 3. AS SOON AS you feel the hot chocolately liquid reach your tongue, toss (slam?) the entire Tim Tam into your mouth

Step 4. Experience the mind-melting mouthgasm that is a Tim Tam Slam. Gather more friends. Repeat.

supposedly refrigerating the Tim Tams prior to Slamming them helps to improve structural integrity, as does using the chewy caramel or double coated variety.

I have started a poetry unit with my students and on Thursday we wrote love poems in honor of valentine’s day. I am really such a hopeless romantic- i actually harbored hopes that at least a few of the love poems written by my students in class would eventually end up nervously and hastily slipped into a secret crushes’ desk or would be left in the sun on a motorcycle in a mad dash of bravery. I even taught them the phrase “secret admirer.” They started off by writing a simple and short rhyming Roses are Red Violets are Blue poem. Here are some of my favorites:

To: My First Love- Roses are red, violets are blue, although your face is bad, but i still love you

Roses are red, violets are blue, the alphabet begins of ABC, and the love begins are me and you

Roses are red, violets are blue, when i sit down in my bed, i scream I LOVE YOU!!!

To my special someone- Roses are red, violets are blue, seeing your bare toe, want to buy you a shoe

Mmmm YUM just found 3 insect larvae- probably mosquito, floating in my ginger tea.