I ATE COW HEART!!! September 20, 2008

So I did it. I ate cow heart tonight.  Ok, I only had one piece, but still…I have been having some issues with food lately. Honestly, I have been getting really grossed out with certain things, such as chicken feet and unidentified pieces of meat/bone/cartilage/who knows what.  I even wrote an email to my country rep (Nathan) about it. Even considered lying and saying I was vegetarian so that the possibility of Ibu putting some random bit of food on my place were less likely. Nathan wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but I was feeling desperate.  I think just opening up about it helped. I am not going to eat the chicken feet, but I think I am feeling a little bit better about the idea that it may  be on the table.  So, tonight, after Ibu put about 5 little hard boiled bird eggs on my plate (which is also strange because I am picturing pigeon eggs or something) she then points to what looks like chunks of beef jerky and tells me it is cow heart.  I felt fairly couragious. I don’t know why, maybe because I accomplished alot of school work today, maybe it is my new workout routine, whatever it was prompted me to grab a chunk and dig in.  It even tasted like beef jerky. Well, sort of. Sort of a chalky texture, but jerky-esque nonetheless. I decided tomorrow I am going to participate in the ritual of cooking.  I haven’t yet, I never feel like it on my day off.  But I decided that it is an important part of this experience, especially the food experience.

Last night I went out to dinner with about 7 other friends from work.  The most fun one can have while not really understanding what is going on!  There was a live band playing in the middle of the restaurant so it was fairly difficult to understand what everyone was saying. Oh, and they were speaking indonesian, so that made it a little hard too.  It was really funny, the band played a Frank Sinatra song…damn! I can’t remember which it was, but let me just say that it sounded like Guns n Roses do Sinatra. It was great!! My friend Sumi was trying to make me sing, which was hysterical because it wasn’t karaoke, it was a live band in the middle of a restaurant. At least Kareem gives you the words. The food was incredible, ikan bakar (baked fish) that was just to die for! Other foods included green vegetables I can’t remember the Indonesian name for…papaya leaves with garlic and chilies, little steamed clams, again I don’t remember the name, some curried vegetables and es buah to drink, which is a drink of fruit in a milky liquid. I wanted to take pictures of the food but it didn’t’ work out.  Mmmmm.

Something so interesting about this experience. Well, first of all, you have to remember that the people I was with had not eaten since about 4am.  They were soooo hungry. And, they could not actually eat or drink anything until about 6:05pm.  But…the waiter brought the fruity drinks out at about 5:30pm.  I was even tempted and I had been drinking water all day, even had an apple at about 4pm.  There was even fish on the table, rice, sambal, they were so funny too, just making jokes about how hungry they were, the guys pretending to take a sip and to make everyone laugh. I just remember at Maggiano’s, god forbid the  fifth salmon refire took more than 10 minutes, customers want your job!  And then, once you can drink..”sudah”, everyone drinks water, then moves onto their fruity bev of choice. They don’t dig into the food…And then, they pray.  Everyone sort of disappears and preys (a few stayed back with me, I think so I wasn’t sitting there alone).  Once some came back, the others went to pray.  Which meant that this last crew of praying folk held up the eating, and no one minded at all. It was so sweet, how everyone just waited for each other.  It was really nice.

On the way home, I was riding on the back of my friend’s motorbike, and as I watched everything whiz by, I started feeling a little familiar.  I started recognizing some of the shops, the route we took was a little different than normal (anyone who knows me should know I never know where I am!) and as the warm breeze blew on my face, I felt a little more connected to this place called Jambi than I had yesterday. Which I need.

Ok, below are a couple pics of a couple of us before everyone arrived for dinner!

here in chiang mai July 20, 2008

So i arrived in chiang mai on july 15.  It really felt like an eternity getting here.  Once I boarded in NY it was another 4 or so hours before the plane actually took off. Luckily, I slept very little the night before the flight and was able to sleep most of this leg.  Once the plane landed, all of us taking the connecting flight to LA were running frantically to catch out next flight. We had barely 15 minutes. As we dramatically rushed to the gate, we realized the area was packed, clearly we were in no danger of missing our flight.  Luckily later I ran into Connie, a VIA Vietnam volunteer who was on the same flight. An hour or so later we boarded for what felt like a never ending feast of strange meat and rice, as well as delicous but strange looking sweets.  The man sitting next to me was quite strange. Very quiet, and would refuse to stand up and move out of my way to let me through to the aisle. He actually interupted me while I was watching a movie (we each had our own tv) to tell me to stop playing with my hair, that this was not a  hair salon.  Now thats funny. 17 hours later we arrived in Bangkok, only to get on yet another plane. The one hour flight felt like five minutes so that was good.

Once off the plane, we shared a taxi and arrived at the international center at Chiang Mai University.  Training has been fun, learning alot about Indonesia and Islam.  Had Korean BBQ the other night, that was fun, except there were so many people that I kept forgetting about my meat that was cooking. I get easily distracted. Because of this I ate mostly vegggies.  Last night I tried coagulated  (I think pig’s) blood.  Looked like red tofu, and had a similar consistancy.

So the plan is basically: stay here til about the 3rd of August.  Then to Jakarta for a few days, maybe 5.  Then to Yogyakarta to a language program for the rest of the month.  I really can’t wait to get there. I am freaking out a little about learning the language but once I am there everything I do will be practice.  AFter the language, I am off to Sumatra!!!!!!!