We've been here a week! Woo hoo! There have been lots of ups and downs this first week, so making it through one week feels like a huge accomplishment right now. Let's do a little recap before I start forgetting all the things.
After arriving in Jakarta, we got to sleep at about 3 a.m. Indonesia time Thursday morning. Needless to say, we took it easy that first day. After getting up and ready, we went across the street to the mall to try to find new SIM cards for our phones.
Shae had to sit down for a minute and take a break from all the hot walking. Poor tired kids.
We found some food...and Pokemon. Apparently there are Pokemon hopping all over this big city, or so they tell me.
The kids have been loving all the white rice they've been getting. They want it with everything. "More plain white rice please!" This was my first Indonesian meal (other than what Darin's teacher has sent home from their class parties for me), and it was really good. That coconut chicken soup was delicious.
Trying not to fall asleep at the table while daddy pays.
We then went grocery shopping at the Farmer's Market in the bottom of the mall. That is where the stress started to sink in. Not knowing what to get, what to make, what things were, how not to just buy all the way more expensive American things I was seeing because I knew what they were. We did end up spending like $8 on a bag of grapes (pretty sure they were imported from CA) and $2 on a can of Kidney Beans. Sometimes the price is worth it for a bit of comfort/ease, at least that first day it was. But now we've really got to figure out the grocery shopping/cooking thing. I have a feeling we will be eating like 5 meals that can be made on the stove top over and over again. We'll see.
While there, Darin asked for 200 grams of chicken (you have to ask over the counter for meat here because they weigh it and price it right there for you). We have no idea how many grams anything is. It was about one chicken breast, haha. So I made him go back and ask for a kilo.
Another fun thing about our first grocery experience...we got to the counter and of course hadn't weighed all of our fruits. There is a little weighing station in the produce section where an employee weighs and prices everything for you. She sent me back with our watermelon and bag of grapes to have them priced. While I was there, she came over with our bag of eggs to price that as well. Rookie mistakes.
We tried so hard to make it until 6 p.m. that first night. But alas, Shae was the only one who made it. I turned on a show for the kids around 5 and crashed on the couch next to them. I woke up around 6 to see Belen out cold, as well as Darin.
The kids woke up around 2 and 3 a.m. and then we got them back to sleep until about 5 a.m. Those first few days sure were interesting.
I was a little nervous while picking out eggs at the store. I watched the other people around me and they would all inspect the eggs and then put them back, very picky. I had no idea what they were looking for, because all I was looking for was cracks. So I start cracking eggs for our first breakfast here and 11 of the 20 had little red bloodish looking spots in them. Thankfully I was able to make scrambled eggs with the other 9, but it was kind of a traumatic first cooking experience for me.
I have since googled and talked to some friends who have all told me that it is perfectly safe to eat those eggs. (I was under the impression that it was not). I guess I did not need to worry as much as I did. Still doesn't sound very appealing to me though...
Literally the first thing Belen asked us when we walked in our apartment at 2 a.m. that first morning was, "Can we go to the pool now?!" That's the only thing the kids have been able to look forward to in coming to Indonesia. And boy did she make it known. That entire first day she asked us about a hundred times when we could go. We didn't make it there the first day, but made sure to go the second day.
This pool has been our saving grace, and probably will be for the entirety of our stay. It's pretty great.
Watching Belen try and get out of it with that life jacket on was entertaining.
This is what happens when you tell our little goof ball girl to smile.
Then she sweetly says, "Now I smile."
Perks of coming to a hot place in November, we found this swim suit on the dollar rack at Walmart.
The pool has a perfect shallow area for the kids, comes right about to their shoulders. Then there is a deep end we can jump in and swim around in if Belen has her life jacket on. Darin has also been able to do laps in the deep end which has been great. (I might just have to pick up swimming too for some cardio because I went running in the outdoor area of our complex this morning and about died. My goal was to run for 30 minutes and at 20 I was a hot sweaty mess and had to stop. That sun is hot. So either I'll have to swim, or get up at 5 a.m. to run...) There is also a baby swimming pool where the water comes up to the kids thighs that I also like to play in. They just kind of hop from one place to the next.
On Friday, the RS president was so sweet and came over after work with her driver to take us to a bigger grocery store, more Walmart style. It was nice to talk to another American about living here, although her experience is quite different from ours. Her kids go to the American school here and they have housing paid for through work. They also have cooks, cleaning help, drivers, guards, and access to a commissary. That seems to be the case with many of the other Americans in our ward. They have all been so amazing helping us where they can and we appreciate it so much!
Neither of the kids made it home awake after the shopping trip.
Just soaking some vegetables to clean them off before cooking dinner, as one does when in Indonesia. I think?
Checking out the OTHER pool within our little complex neighborhood.
On Saturday, we went over to a ward member's house for a ward dinner. It was a Persian themed dinner. One of the refugee couples (there are quite a few refugees in our ward) apparently spent 10 hours cooking all the food for this activity. It was so delicious.
Taking our taxi to get there:
So much good food.
The view from the second floor of the house where the kids were playing pool with some other kids. Spot the Darin:
These boys were so sweet teaching Shae how to play pool. The one talking to him has a Pokemon shirt on, so you know Shae instantly wanted to be BFFs. He was so excited when the two boys asked him to sit next to him in church on Sunday. Kids can be so rude to each other, so it just warms my heart when I see kids being so kind.
See if you can spot the Selfs.
We woke up on Sunday morning to find ants all over our window sill, making their way across our headboard. That wasn't the best way to set the tone for the day. We'll just blame that for my tear-filled Relief Society class. I guess I didn't even really make it through much of RS (singing Where Can I Turn for Peace to start really got me) before leaving because all my feelings were surfacing and I needed to hide in a bathroom stall for a few minutes (but literally only a few minutes b/c there was no AC in the bathroom haha).
Everything really is fine, just all the little things added up, all the things that I knew would be hard going in to this, but knowing it would be difficult doesn't seem to make it any less difficult initially. The not being able to drive anywhere, walking everywhere or taking taxis with two little kids, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and even the laundry. Everything just seems a little harder in a new place, in a foreign country. Hang drying the clothes and having them feel stiff and funny. Soaking vegetables. Not drinking the tap water. Waking up to the extremely loud call for prayer at 3 a.m. every single day. The torrential rain storms coming out of nowhere. Add all that in with all the referring going on between my two young ones (I would be lying if I said I didn't miss Shae being in full day kindergarten), and I was bound to burst at some point. One of the sisters found me in the hallway and hugged me and let me cry and vent all my feelings and that helped quite a bit, and I'm proud to say I've only cried once since then! :)
The kids have been fascinated by all the mopeds. They also really enjoy shouting "Blue Bird!" whenever they see a Blue Bird taxi go by. They also see other kids on the mopeds and ask when they get a turn and I'm like, uh, never.
Shae got sucked in to this intense game of tennis as we were coming home from church and couldn't stop watching.
So Belen happily played on the playground while she waited for him to stop watching.
Things felt so much more "normal" on Monday. I was clearly struggling from the days and days without a routine and figuring out sleep, etc. I got up and worked out and then we did some school. It just felt so good to feel like we had some sort of a schedule/routine to life again.
The owner of the apartment we are staying in was in town for work on Monday and asked if she could come by and meet us (she had friends let us in when we arrived). She was so sweet and brought "the best donuts in Jakarta" to share with us, as well as bug killer for the ants (bless her heart). Pretty sure at least half of the donuts had coffee flavor of some sort in them. They were alright, but the general family consensus was that donuts at home are better.
The apartment owner also brought her cleaning lady over, probably in hopes of getting her some work. I'd been stressing a bit about the apartment not actually being as clean as it should have been so we went ahead and paid her to do an initial cleaning for us. She was there for a couple of hours and charged us 7 bucks. 7 bucks! I felt kind of bad only paying her that much, but the owner told us that that was on the higher end for cleaning so we went with it. With it being so cheap, I'm feeling like it might be nice to have her do it every so often. I'm also wondering how much she would charge to teach me to cook some Indonesian meals...
Darin left while she was cleaning, so I ended up trying to speak to her in Indonesian before she left since she speaks very little English. It was quite the conversation with her limited English and my limited Indonesian. I probably misunderstood everything she said and most likely sounded like a total idiot, but I was proud of myself for trying.
Turning a queen size bed in to a king for these munchkins by turning them sideways. Hoping to lessen some of those night time wakings due to an unwanted sibling taking over your pillow. We have since put a pillow in between them in hopes of having it act as a barricade.
Indonesian ID cards in the making.
While waiting for the ID photos to process, we found this Roti'O in the plaza. Darin was very excited to have us try it as it was a pastry treat he really enjoyed on previous visits.
And with a description like this, how could I not be excited to try it too.
But for real, it was super yummy. Like a cinnamon roll in a bun with a nice slab of butter in the middle. This plaza isn't too far from our apartment, so I'm sure we will be visiting often.
We also got some chocolate and strawberry slushies while there. While watching him add ice to the blender, all the blog posts about not drinking ice where you aren't sure if it comes from purified water came flooding in to my mind. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Just waiting for us to all get sick (but praying for some miracles too).
This is what a walk back to our apartment looks like. (We live in those tall towers). With a lot of, "Are we there yet?" "I soooo tired." "Carry me!" "I'm too hot and tired to walk." So maybe we won't be getting as many of those cinnamon buns as I had hoped... really feeling silly for not having brought at least an umbrella stroller with us.
Cause we aren't going to have this stroller daddy with us everywhere we go.
A few other things I want to remember from the first week but don't have pictures of:
Early Thanksgiving dinner at Monks. They did Thanksgiving on Tuesday since it is a holiday here (The prophet Mohammad's birthday) and everyone is out of school/work. We even saw some fireworks go off in honor of his birthday so it really did feel like a holiday to us too. They were so sweet to have us over. Their youngest son is 13, and was kind enough to let our kids climb all over him. He also showed them a bunch of magic tricks which they loved.
While at the mall grocery shopping, someone was offering cheesecake samples and I was like, heck yes. Then I took a bite and quickly realized it was Durian flavored cheesecake and was like, heck no and had to spit it out.
There's not many stoplights here so if you want to cross the street, you pretty much just have to jump out and go for it. At home if this happens, people tend to stop, but here, people still just zoom all around you still...slightly terrifying with two little kids. However, we have started to notice that when we do come across a kind soul who slows down, they turn on their emergency lights. It's happened about 5 times now, so we're figuring it must be the sign to let us go. I think some people are nice to us because we have kids. The kids have also picked up on what other pedestrians do when they jump in to the street, they just stick their hand right out, pretty much commanding people to stop, and now the kids do that too.
Shae: "Everyone here keeps smiling and giggling and waving or patting my head. I think that means they really like me."
