This Saturday I finally tried 'rendang,' with a student and his two friends. It was a slice of beef about the width of my fingernail coated in a ball of red spices the size of a bulls testicle. Like all the food in Indonesia it induced a healthy sweat and tasted like flames. After I ate rendang, which wasn't 'the best food in the world,' me and the guys went and played pool. It cost about £1.50 an hour and there was a lady who sets up the balls when the game finishes. It struck me that pool costs more in the UK and you have to set up your own balls like an animal. But, as I know from the maid, people are cheap in Jakarta. It seems like there is someone to do everything for you. Someone always packs your bags at the supermarket and every time you reverse into the road a little man pops out and stops the traffic. I even saw a guy do this in an empty car park. The custom is to always give them about 10p.
Apparently the people directing traffic have nothing and the parking system works like an unofficial tax. My AC constantly explodes and sometimes I have to make the 30 second walk to the house during my break to point at part of a mechanism I don't understand and mutter in English to the 'technician' so he can scratch his head look out the window. Rather than walk though, the manager always gets the office boy to drive me on his scooter. I've hardly got on before I have to get off again. Trying to stop the service is impossible. In those same breaks it's possible to watch the 'delightful' children of the school being spoon fed by their maids. Some of them are aged 8 years old...
As we drove down to Burger King after pool my student opened the window so I could look at the prostitutes.  Some of them looked very young and my student told me that was because they were very young. Many were underage girls from the villages who get sucked into it because of poverty. He pointed to a hotel which sold rooms by the hour. While we ate our burger a couple of guys sat down and ate with prostitutes before walking over towards one of the hotels.
A weird thing I found out today is that the native Indonesian teachers at the school get paid less than half the salary of the white teachers, despite the fact we have the exact same job. They don't get medical insurance either. Personally I think the severity of equal rights movements in the UK often undermine what they set out to protect by making unnecessary allowances. I think a rule is fair only if it applies to everyone. For instance I think everyone should expose their face in petrol stations. The pay difference is uncomfortable because it's a direct contradiction of my ethical beliefs. Still, I'm the one who gets paid double, so I'm not going to complain too much for now.