Mangga

I love mangoes. In the states one of my favorite snacks or lunchtime additions was Philippine brand dried mangoes. Mmmmm.

Since I have been here in Indonesia, I am even more in love. I have fresh mango for dinner most every night and I can hardly even think about the rest of the food, I just want to eat all of the mango pieces. It is so good to me I'm saying "mmmm" to myself as I'm writing this. When the fruit at our dinner table does not include mango, I have to admit that I'm disappointed. But luckily this does not happen very much.
On Saturday, after visiting a factory where they roll cigarettes by hand, faster than humanly possible, we went out to eat. (And just in case you are wondering, no, I haven't taken up smoking but just though it would be interesting to see hundreds of workers rolling tobacco into paper and packaging it by hand. It was.) Anyway, we went to eat at an Italian restaurant. (Yes, they have some in Indonesia.) They had several kinds of gelatto (Italian ice cream) there and I, of course, tried the mango. It was very good.

I have wondered aloud a few times since I've been here if mango has some kind of addictive something-or-other in it. If it does have it, I wouldn't be surprised since I think I'm a mango addict. In Indonesian it's mangga, so maybe I'm a mangga addict. Can you eat too much fruit? It's too good to care. I'm just going to keep eating it.

All day

There are only a couple new and different things I can think of about this week, besides desperately needing a haircut all week long and not getting one.
One big one is that for a couple of days my supervisor was out of town. This means that I was the only officer in my section for those days and responsible for everything that goes on there and an increased workload. Not like I haven't had plenty to do already, but I had plenty to do! It is pretty fun, though, to always have something going on and to be hopping the whole day long. I would much rather have that than sitting all day long with little to do or just one thing all day long. That can get pretty boring; I know since I've had that at times before. Most days now I am going full tilt from about 7:15 am to 5:15 pm or later and I still have plenty left to do.
So at the end of the day it's nice to come home and have dinner and watch the kids run around and sit for a little while. But then at nights I'm so tired, and since the sun always goes down at around 5:30 pm, by 8:30 or so at night it seems so late and I have a hard time staying awake. Today is Sunday, and definitely not as demanding as other days, but as I sit here typing just before 9:00 pm I am feeling tired and my wife is yawning from across the room. I'm used to the sun going down late in the day when it's hot outside. But here it goes down what seems like early and it's still 85 degrees at 9:00 pm. I am getting used to it, but it still feels a little weird.

Anyway, on a different subject, yesterday we went swimming again and to the mall and watched our first movie at a movie theater here. The seats were very comfy and the movie was 3D and in English. I didn't love the movie, but had fun watching it. I also had this really interesting thing for lunch. It was a couple of pancakes with a piece of crispy fried chicken on top along with some spicy sauce and veggies. It was actually really good. And it was totally a work of art. The kids had pancakes with whipped cream and baked bananas with chocolate sauce and ice cream. Also very good. The restaurant says it's Australian, but, never having been to Australia, I wouldn't really know. I would definitely go back, though. And I will never think of pancakes in exactly the same way.

Variety is the spice of life

Monday was Labor Day. Since I work for the U.S. Government I get U.S. holidays off work. We took advantage of the day to go outside of town to a park "Taman Safari" where you can have a Jurassic Park-like experience driving through electrified enclosures with wild animals wandering all around. The one with the very dangerous animals like bears, lions, and tigers had double gates, electric wires we drove over, and signs letting us know we should not roll down our windows or get out of the car. I couldn't help but think about the movie and all of the problems that happened when they got out and the animals mixed that weren't supposed to and I wasn't arguing. It was a really fun experience. After that we even rode an elephant and a camel, watched white tigers eat chicken while we ate, got pictures with live animals, and saw a couple of shows including one where some owls swooped down to scoop up live mice and eat them.
Tuesday and Wednesday were work as usual, and usual has been very busy lately. I stayed extra late one day to try to get some things done and only took a little chunk out of it. On Tuesday night we had two of the full-time missionaries for our church over to have dinner with us. It's great to have them over.
On Thursday I got to fly to a nearby island to visit an american in jail to make sure all is well, make contact, etc. It was awesome to be able to do this. I expected to just go in and meet with him for a while and maybe talk a little with the police, but shortly after I got there I was sitting in the office of the head of the police with about 5 others from the force like the detective and investigator, the american and a friend of the american. Then they all just turned to me to start. I had to come up with something fast. They were very nice and accommodating. Part of the fun of it is the challenges along the way. We had a couple of power outages, the places to eat near the police station were closed because everyone else was fasting for Ramadan, there was a huge rainstorm that made it nearly impossible to hear the person sitting next to me and the storm also caused a delay for my flight home causing me to leave at about 9 pm instead of 5 pm.
On Friday and Saturday I got to relax with my family since I didn't have to work because it's one of the biggest Indonesian holidays of the year. I drove, yes I drove, our family to the mall. (The driving and steering wheel are on the opposite side from the U.S., traffic is heavy and they don't really look at lines.) Luckily, the only issue was whenever I went to turn on my blinker I flipped the left side which made the wipers go on. We went for a tiring, sweaty walk in the heat of the day to a restaurant that ended up being closed but made it good by picking up some ice cream at a little store near our home. We played a couple of games of Monopoly. We also went out to the school field near our home at night to play tag, a modified version of capture the flag, and have skipping races around the track. We had fun.

Sunday was also a little different since I was sustained to be the Young Men's President in our ward. Later I was set apart, which is the first time I have been set apart to anything all in Indonesian. And I went to the YM meeting. Luckily the outgoing president was willing to still teach the lesson he had prepared. I might be in trouble very soon since my Indonesian still leaves a lot to be desired. I am just relying on the blessing during the setting apart that my Indonesian would be smooth so I could do my calling.
I've always said I like variety and this week certainly had it.

Getting to know you . . .

Two weeks now in Surabaya.
There is way more to write about than I can actually write.

I have been getting used to a new job, of course. As with most new jobs this includes a new boss, new co-workers, new names to remember, new passwords and access codes, new time schedules, and new duties. There is a lot to remember. Plus work is extremely busy right now. Luckily, part of the time I had a chance to interact and observe the person I am replacing here. That was helpful. The first day of work I didn't go straight home as I was scheduled to help out at the Consul General's house with an "Iftaar" with some community leaders. During the Islamic month of Ramdan, Muslims fast from sun up to sun down the entire month and break their fast after sun down each day usually together with family. There have been a number of these events during the month, which ends at the end of this week. I also went to one later that week and took my family. This one was at a little school run by a non-profit organization that gives a high-quality education to children from lower-income families. The kids were really impressive and I think our kids were also impressed. We have been to a couple of things since then, too. It's like that when the consulate is small.
I usually ride in a van to work with a driver from the consulate until I find a driver of my own to take me. It takes less than 1/2 hour if I leave early, but if I leave just 15 minutes later it takes at least 45 minutes. Traffic is crazy with all of the motorcycles and crowding into the lanes. The normal thing for a couple of lanes of traffic is a couple of cars and several columns of motorcycles. It reminds me of the time example where you fill a jar with big rocks and then fill it in with gravel and then sand to fill it up. The jar is the street, big rocks are cars, gravel is the motorcycles and bikes and pedestrians are the sand. It's full.
On other matters, we have met so many new people, from other ex-pats to teachers to church members. It makes your head spin, but I'm glad I have a wife who is good at meeting new people, remembering their names, and becoming friends. We live near a group of teachers, so we sometimes see them around the area. We even went to a swimming pool with one family we met who has some children the same age as ours yesterday. That was fun. The expatriate community in Surabaya is also pretty small, especially compared to some other large cities in Southeast Asia.
We are trying our best to participate in church even though it's all in Indonesian. I can understand quite a bit, but certainly not all. My family doesn't understand much at all and is at the mercy of translators, so it is quite a challenge for them. But they are trying to be positive about it. I did understand enough to get the time to clean the church building yesterday. We went as a family and cleaned windows, vacuumed and cleaned benches, which are all wood. We got a new branch presidency today and I was called into the branch president's office during the last part of Sunday School and issued a calling. So I guess I'll have to use the Indonesian I know at church more than just trying to understand what's happening.

With so much to learn, remember and do, it's good that I am back to running in the mornings and that I am sleeping (mostly) normally. I say mostly because every once in a while the gecko that also lives in my bedroom, (I think of it as a pet of sorts), makes noise that wakes me up. I found out from a book my youngest checked out from the school library that geckos are the only lizard that make noises. The gecko in my room sounds like it has a little laugh and I'm starting to get attached. I would include a picture, but when I tried to take a picture of it up on my wall near the ceiling the little red light on the camera that goes when you focus made it run behind the curtain and I just got a shot of the wall. The only other thing is that on any given day I have at least a couple of mosquito bites that are itchy. I'm getting a bit used to that, too.
Surabaya, getting to know all about you.