My first week is now officially over and I have a six day schedule next week to look forward to.

A view of 'Little Indonesia' from a cable car. One of the students was kind enough to take me and my house mate for Chinese New Year.


I naively believed what I had read about mosquitoes. Namely that they were only active at dusk and dawn and that a little repellent would keep them at bay. In fact they will happily suck your blood, and fuck you off, at any time. They will even bite you through clothing if they have too. I know this because I'm currently nursing eleven bites on my left foot and six on my right. I often exaggerate but that is the honest truth. They seem to love my feet even when I wear socks to sleep and taking a step now, despite a liberal dose of anti-itch cream, is excruciating.  It doesn't help that my AC is broken. At least I have the noisiest fan on the planet to put on every night until it gets fixed, so I can't complain too much.
Mosquitoes aren't the only irritant in Jakarta. There is a drain in the corner of our bathroom floor that all the shower water, and the occasional rouge shit, flows into. It's also an entry point for over half the cockroaches in the house. There's one huge one that frequents kitchen. He's white and about an inch bigger than average. Somehow he's managed to survive two direct hits from a shoe which has left him with a tell-tale limp. A few times it's been possible to pick out the distinctive trail he leaves in the dried suds after the maid has mopped. I have to think back to Ahab and his crew and lay my shoe back down before my obsession with that roach gets the better of me. He isn't the most famous white thing in the neighborhood.
That prize goes to me and my roommate. There are many places in Jakarta where just being white is enough to make you a sort of local celebrity. A few days ago the shop attendant in our local supermarket waved his camera at me hopefully. After I nodded his friend snapped a quick photo. Then they swapped places so we could take one with the friend. Then, seeing her opportunity, a woman in line at the checkout leaped in between us for a third photo on her camera phone. Just the other day when I was running away from a bat on my way home I got lost in a thatch of houses and got to know half the neighborhood after shaking their hands while they shouted 'bule' at me (slang term for 'white'). I don't mind it, but I can't help but wonder what attention white people who were born here get.  

A Komodo Dragon from Komodo Island. This was alive but sadly many of the animals in the 'Little Indonesia' enclosures were just carcasses that had been left to moulder. Indonesia is famed for Surabaya Zoo which has the worst animal care in the world. Animal care didn't seem to be valued here either.