Our Road

This is the road that passes in front of our house. It is mostly used by motorcycles and people walking, but occasionally there is a car that will come through here. Along the road are many "warungs". Warungs are stores that sell snacks and some convience items. We are not sure how they stay in business, because there are so many of them, but they are a great place for us to practice some of our Indonesian.

Typical Indonesian Traffic

Driving in Indonesia is a process of weaving, passing, and racing which is very different than anything we have seen in the states. The streets are filled with cars, vans, and Angkots (public transportation), with motorcycles filling in all the spaces between the other vehicles. Actually, motorcycles typically drive in between the cars passing on the lines which define the lanes and the lanes are thinner to begin with.

Getting adjusted

Here we are in Indonesia! Wow! We have been here for one week. It is starting to feel like home. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like we are really on the other side of the world. Other times, we are very sure that we are in a different country.

For example, we were without water for most of Saturday because we didn’t understand how the water system worked. The city water only runs from about 7am until 4pm. So, everyone has a tank to store water for the night. The main valve to our house was off most of the day. We found that valve as we were leaving for the evening, about an hour before the city water shut off for the day. That meant that our tanks didn’t get filled up all the way! So, until the city water came back on Sunday morning, we had just enough water to flush the toilet a few times and wash our faces. We check all the valves every time we leave the house, now!

The view from our train ride to Bandung from Jakarta!

Almost time!

Just a quick note:

We are swamped with last minute things and packing. It's nice to be almost done, but still alittle stressful at this point. It's hard to believe that this time next week we will be getting ready for our first Indonesian language class in Bandung. Wow! How quickly things change. It will be a totally different life over there. We are looking forward to it, but sad to leave the people and places we love here.