A Wedding

Thursday and Friday we had a holiday at the school. On Thursday, the whole family went up to see a waterfall. It was a very touristy area, so there were tons of people. The waterfall was beautiful though. And the wind and spray rushing from it was strong—I was soaked after just posing for pictures! There were also a lot of monkeys here, and they liked to steal your food. Corn and peanuts were their choice foods. Who knew.

Friday I went shopping with Ocha and Vidia all day. I bought 13 American movies...for 80,000 Indonesian rupiahs. That converts to about $8.50. The pants I bought were about $6. Things are so cheap, I want to buy everything!!

Today, the family plus relatives loaded three SUVs and drove over three hours to attend another relative's wedding. It was sooo neat to see a traditional Indonesian wedding. Things were so different. We started off at the man's house, where family just met and talked. Then we all went to the woman's house, entering in a procession with tambourines and a decorative umbrella was held and spun over the man. Each person received a box and a glass cup as we went under the outdoor red, yellow, and white tent. Inside the box was an orange, a piece of green cake (a lot of breads and cakes are green here), peanuts, and three bird eggs. Everyone involved in the wedding wears elaborate clothing—bordered with gold and lace. The "bride" wears a lot of make-up...and the men do too. The bride and groom and both of their parents were up on a platform. No one said anything the entire time, nor did they smile. A man off to the side was reciting Javanese scripts for half an hour, and then the man and wife went inside to change the color of their clothes. A meal of rice and ice cream was served to all of the guests in their absence. They then returned to take pictures with various families. I got to join with my host family, and even got to stand next to the bride in her elaborate attire!



To continue our discussion of culture:

Indonesia has the highest population of Muslims in the world. And this has a profound effect on the cultural traditions. My host family is Muslim, so they pray five times each day. If we are driving and it is time to pray, we will stop at one of the many mosques. You can hear the call to prayer throughout the day, and at dusk it seems as if the city is moaning with the sounds from all of the various mosques. When I was wandering around the Jakarta airport, I sat down to rest. After a little while I noticed I was the only one wearing shoes, the only one not smoking, and the only woman. I promptly left. There were a couple different prayer rooms inside the airport...and I hope I hadn't just intruded on one!

With the Muslim culture comes a very high standard of modesty. I had tried to prepare myself for this, assuming (wrongly) that since I was not interning at a distinctly Muslim school, I would be okay with capris. Hey, it was better than the shorts I always wear. On the first day, however, the man in charge called me into his office and told me that I needed to dress more formally. My short-sleeve blouse was fine, but I had to wear long pants. I was ashamed that I had probably offended some people on my first day.