Itching the night away....

Despite my nightly ritual of applying a pretty liberal amount of bug repellent all over my body, the Indonesian mosquitoes continue to haunt me in my sleep. In addition to the allergy-related bumps on my right leg (and now the back of my left thigh), I have two bites on each hand, one on my back, three on my left ankle, and one on my right cheek. Today I wore leggings with my skirt, to not only hide the battle scars on my leg but to keep the bugs out. I'm convinced the mosquitoes here are of a mutant strain capable of biting people through their clothing. There is no way my repellent isn't working! Next step: leave no cubic inch of skin uncovered with insect repellent, even under my clothes.

Also, Iwan (the Jakarta Post's Webmaster) told me this morning that my article about Miss Indonesia was the most read story on the Web site. What? Really?

Having been here for a week, I've come to appreciate and detest several aspects of Jakarta:

- Food is cheap and pretty tasty. For lunch today, I had a local dish called soto, which consisted of a coconut milk-based soup flavored with spices and lime juice. Served with rice and a free iced tea, lunch cost me about $15,000 RP, or less than $2 US. In general, a square meal at a modest food vendor (whether it be on the street or in a mall) will cost between $1 and $5 US. That's pretty amazing.

- The traffic here is epically terrible. The white dotted lines separating each lane are taken more as a suggestion than an actual guide by drivers. A car ride from my office to home, which should normally take about 15 minutes, once took an hour and a half. Cars and motorcycles weave in and out of lanes, sometimes only inches from one another. Pedestrians also have a hell of a time crossing roads with no crosswalks. It almost makes me long for the simplicity of Seattle traffic.

- There are a lot of malls in Jakarta, varying in size and quality. This is good and bad, I guess; I've noticed a lack of green public space in Jakarta, like parks or other areas not occupied by buildings. At the same time, malls and I have become good friends. Being by myself a lot of the time, malls are a pretty safe bet for a hangout where I know I won't be accosted by strangers and where at least a small percentage of the population can speak English. As much as I've wanted to be more adventurous during my stay in Jakarta, realistically it's not such a great idea since I don't speak the language.

- Watching American shows on Indonesian television is a great learning tool for grasping the language. The first season of Project Runway was playing on one channel, followed by Ghost Whisperer (yes, a strange choice in shows, duly noted). Since it is a large Muslim country, a lot of the "sexier" parts of American shows are cut out. Example: Jennifer Love Hewitt's character on Ghost Whisperer is about kiss her hubby; we see their lips about to meet and a split second later their faces are parting. A slight moment of editing cut out the actual lips-touching-with-maybe-some-tongue action from being realized on screen. I went to see Die Hard last night and the film was prefaced with a notice of censorship before proceeding. Not sure what was cut out of the film exactly, which was still pretty entertaining to my surprise (not because of the censorship but because it's the first Die Hard movie in eight years).

- A lot of simple Indonesian words are plays on English and European words. "Bottle," for example, is "botol" in Indonesian; "bank" is also "bank" but pronounced more like "bang"; "beer" is "bir"; "taxi" is "taksi." My theory is that most words that are more English sounding or are close to English are words (or things) introduced into the Indonesian lexicon after the language was settled and finalized; this has happened in other Asian languages. Cheese in Mandarin, for example, sounds like "chee-suh" when spoken, which is more or less a phonetic pronunciation of "cheese."

- The begging culture is pretty shameless here, as it also is in parts of China that I've been to. Probably spurred by the fact that my uncle also drives a nice car, when stopped at an intersection people will come by with trinkets (Spiderman blow-up dolls, world atlases, small toys, drinks, newspapers) and attempt to sell them to you, or people with feather dusters will dust your car like a wood end table in the hopes of getting a tip. Some people employ their children in the process, sometimes just walking from car to car jingling a plastic bottle full of change. It's heartbreaking but also familiar; some parts of Beijing are very similar in begging culture and actually more manipulative than what I've seen in Jakarta.

- The gap between rich and poor is cavernous in Jakarta, but the space they share is very, very close. Frequently I'll see a block of shanty houses with tin roofs barely holding themselves up, and literally right next to these houses is a brand new building, usually an apartment complex, advertising for tenants. The fancy malls I've frequented have no trouble employing people, but the pay is abysmal. My uncle estimates they get a paid about $100-200 US a month--for working probably every day. My co-workers at the Jakarta Post get along quite well, I think. They say the big Indonesian paper, Kompas, pays the best though. Iwan recently told me he was thinking of buying a car, which would set him back $5,000-$10,000 for an inexpensive brand. This indicates to me that he isn't hurting for money necessarily.

- There are two chain establishments I didn't expect to find in Jakarta: Dunkin' Donuts and A&W. The former is actually kind of logical; Indonesians like sweets and fried food, as I've come to understand from a lot of the local cuisine I've tried. But the A&W fascination puzzles me. Other highly popular chains: Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonald's, Sizzlers (!), and Popeye's. Pollo Campero is a novelty here: a Guatemalan chain looking for success in Jakarta. I promised Manuel I would eat there at least once while I'm here. I have to find it first...

- Carre 4 is the most amazing store in Jakarta. Nearly anything you need to buy you can find here. I also visited a wholesale Costco-like store called Marko (Dutch-owned), which has seen a drop in business since Carre 4 (French-owned) opened. At Carre 4 you can buy smaller portions of things, and apparently Marko is not kid-friendly at all. In fact, you can't bring your children inside the store. Carre 4, on the other hand, has a kiddie corner for kids to muck around in. Marko did astound me with its uncanny resemblance to Costco, though.

That's the extent of my musings so far, I'm sure I'll think of some more enthralling observations later.