Our first field trip day: rain!

During study, Thursdays are our day set aside for a full-day field trip.  For this first day, we planned on visiting the Kraton here in Yogyakarta.  Yogya is a “special district” and continues to have a living Sultan who rules as governor here.  The rain poured down, but we braved the public transportation bus anyway.  We had had an excellent speaker the day before (Pak Munjid) who had talked a little bit about Indonesia being a “wet culture,” where people are less bothered by being wet.  We were privileged to experience that today as we forged the kilometer between the bus stop and the Kraton.  Frankly, though, we were ready to be out of the rain by that point, so it was disappointing to learn that the Kraton is under renovation and not open to the public.  Wah!  (Wah is a general exclamation of disbelief in Bahasa Indonesia!)

The Kraton is closed! Heading back the way we came from to Ft. Vredeburg

So we trekked back towards the original bus stop and quickly transitioned to a field trip to Fort Vredeburg.  Here we wandered through the 4 halls of dioramas depicting Indonesia’s struggle for independence.  It was pretty inspiring to see read some of the stories behind the 4 years of resistance to the Dutch post-WW2.

Following the museum, we ate at a small restaurant en route to another bus ride to take us up to Interfidei, an organization structured around inter-religious dialogue.  We had a good introduction to the organization by Ibu Elga and others there, including a couple of interns from Australia.  There are many people doing inter-religious work here in Indonesia, and we’re trying to learn as much about this topic as possible– from speakers and field trips both.

The rain didn’t really hurt us one bit, and it probably helped us to practice our flexibility.  Our group has generally been taking these discomforts with grace.  We know it won’t always be so (we’re only human after all), but we’ll keep working on it.  Growth mindset!

Friday saw us at the House of Raminten for a traditional Javanese meal and a dance.  The afternoon was free for catching up with journals, hanging out with friends, or napping back home.  The first week was busy!

We’re now halfway through the second week.  Each morning students have language class, and the afternoon is filled with different activities.  On Monday we gathered at Rumah Goshen to learn from a professional traditional Javanese dance teacher.  It was a hit!  Tuesday afternoon provided time to process, reconsider our experiences of culture shock, and plan for our upcoming trip to Pak Iqbal’s pesantren on Thursday.

I’ve been asked a couple of times about Mt. Merapi erupting (you may have heard this in the news).  Mt. Merapi is often visible from Yogyakarta, depending on cloud cover.  It did indeed erupt on Sunday, spewing ashes into the air.  No one has been concerned around us, and we’ve taken our cues from them.  It’s actually a fair distance from Yogyakarta (27 km).  We keep our ears open and have lots of people looking out for us.

Check out our pictures below– some from our time together and some from students’ activities with families.   The last few are just a couple of glimpses into what was on students’ minds this week as we met at Rumah Goshen!