Bamboo trails and friends for tea

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

We miss celebrating birthdays with friends on the West Coast. Happy Birthday, Rich! Hope to see you soon.

Today the helpers scrub floor to ceiling of the office and the prayer room. They come home for lunch - we've ordered chicken and I make rice. You may think cooking rice is no big deal, but here? Moms teach their children to rinse and cook it from childhood. 

My mom showed me how to pour rice from a bag into a pot with 2X water - and we were done. It tasted fine to us.

Here, I rinse and rinse, then put the de-starched rice in a rice cooker. I've learned to pour drinking water to the depth of my first knuckle above the raw rice. Close the lid, hit the switch, and voila ... rice, Indonesian style. 

"Your rice is good," says IbuA. WHAAAT? Woohoo! That accomplishment means as much to me in learning culture as did my 2012 TESOL certificate. Hehe.

It's a day for writing newsletters. In the last week of the month, we gather news for partners and IES Bandung attendees. It matters less how many readers engage than that there's a rhythm and routine of updates = "I could read this if I want." The content and relevance for the reader changes month to month.

New Zealander Lisa comes for tea, pumpkin pie, and salty cheese bugles. Her company is a pleasure. And the snacks are addictive.

W's teaching his last of three weeks to students from around the world.

Thursday

The dogs and I hit the trail for our sabbath rest, especially if you consider walking amid good company restful. The hiking group gets along well; they patiently wait for me going uphill (harder since COVID) and others who have more trouble going downhill (bad knees or balance issues). We are slow enough that no one is sore after hiking 5-8 km (3-5 miles).

The trail starts upward to a tunnel cut into the rock.The cutout is called "Mossy Tunnel" (Lorong Lumut). The bamboo path is rotting underfoot so slats have been placed across them in irregular spacing. Look carefully where you step. The trail is dusty. Red clouds puff up as the dogs run ahead and back and cover us in fine grit. It hasn't rained up here for weeks.

In the early 1900s, Dutch colonizers planted vast acres of pines to shade the coffee plantations they planned on the mountain slopes. They were driven out by Indonesian and Japanese soldiers during WWII. The pines thrived but the coffee was never planted.

After, we go to Pipin's Japanese restaurant Matsuri for lunch.

The food is fresh and delicious. I have soba noodles.

By the time we get home, PakG has arranged the GG classroom tables and washed Bailey, the small white dog. The helpers are finish cleaning the hall, so they're tidying the house and porch.

They scrub two bags of baby potatoes. I coat those with olive oil and herbs. They bake while I'm sluicing the hike's mud off in the shower. A change of clothes. And I'm ready for grading and writing.

Seven deans of universities are on my list. I've contacted them and set up a few in-person meetings for next week. We need volunteers to teach English to disadvantaged kids. Who better to make a difference in the city than faculty or students?

Friday

Guests for the first meeting are running behind a bit so I try a new recipe: vegan cheddar cheese. "Needs more salt," is the general consensus. It's not bad on the fresh bread baked by IbuS.

It's a delight to meet friends on the Porch and pray together. God will hear and answer the deepest longings of our hearts. We send cookies home with them, as per our house rule: "Once food is taken outside, it doesn't come back in."

After lunch, there's a pause before the next meeting. What to do with a half hour? Well, while sorting papers last night, I found the recipe for JD's Bangkok Brownies. So guess what I'm baking today? Yup, JD's brownies, made famous while he lived in Bandung.

Local-baked brownies tend to be cake-like and minimally chocolate. They may have waxy local cheese grated on top. Many foreigners either can't taste that cheese or don't like the texture. (Cheese and chocolate? I'm not convinced either.) These are deeply chocolate = one cup of powdered baking cocoa per pan.

W wraps up his course with Q&A sessions while I host one meeting online and another in person. I miss an appointment based in Thailand because it overlaps with another. The host has logged off by the time I get there.

Saturday

I'm in the mood for egg sandwiches and a friend is coming for tea on the Porch. Between yesterday's brownies, banana bread, and 2 last pieces of pumpkin pie, we're covered.

W and I carry on with Duolingo. He's +200 days ahead of my 750-day streak. He's learning a LOT. It's not like I know all the words so far, but I'm tacking on sentences here and there. This unit is about medical terms. Easy, right?

We're praying today for a 16-yr old whose attention got diverted while he was driving a motorcycle. 24 hours later, he's unconscious in intensive care with three broken bones. One of my brothers was in a weeklong coma at about the same age, after a similar accident. We pray, understanding the agony of the family who is waiting for their child to wake up.

A mouse has died in the kitchen ceiling. There's no access to the carcass. As it desiccates, the odor is foul. Meanwhile in the garden, dozens of fish and some frogs are thriving in a 130 cm (50") flowerpot that serves as their pond. The solar fountains bubble happily to aerate the water.

The gardens are dry. There's been little rain for weeks. It's hot until noon after a sunny morning, but the temperatures cool as the cloud cover blows over. W has a lunch meeting and I have a mid-afternoon group. The weekend is in full swing.

Read more:

*Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God and wander about for lack of food? Job 38:41

*So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 1 Corinthians 3:7

Moravian Prayer: We’re pondering you, Beloved, as gracious gardener— tilling, planting, tending, harvesting—all to feed us and all of creation. The earth is your garden; our hearts are your garden. May we, together, bear the fruit of healing, wholeness, life, light, and love. Thank you, gardening God, for your love and trust. Amen.