Going With The Flow

Going With The Flow June 23

We’ve recognized that the greatest challenge for us as we live in Siantar is just giving up any thought of “control” and being flexible to react to the unexpected in a positive way. It’s really hard not to push back with the attitude of “why is this happening to me right now?” when something happens to shatter our illusion of a predictable world and our sense of control.

As I write this a rooster struts by our open front door and let’s loose with a loud “cockadoodledoo!” as if to put an exclamation point on my thoughts.

This morning Nancy and I were ready to enjoy a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs. The eggs were in a bowl, ready to be cooked. I went to start the propane stove and…no flame, no gas. I looked at the tank, which is so big that the thought of it being empty is inconceivable. The arrow on the meter pointed to red. Actually to the far side of red. It was empty. No eggs for breakfast, and for the moment, no baking of the bread which was rising on schedule to be baked right after the eggs cooked. No problem, with the eggs and the dough stored back in the refrigerator, we enjoyed our new menu of bread and strawberry jam. Some of our unpredictable moments can be countered with our abundance of options, but not always. (In the time it has taken to write this report, our next door neighbor Putra has loaded the huge but empty tank onto his motor bike and returned with it full. Thank you for your very fast work Putra!)

Sometimes unpredictable moments can only be handled with a “hmmmm, that was weird!” For instance, two nights ago we were sitting in our living room, doing a little reading before bed. We are used to the cultur here where it is OK to visit friends in the (dark) evening without an appointment or calling ahead. So whenever a van or motor scooter pulls up to our house we are ready for the knock at the door. We were ready for the knock when the door swung open and an unknown middle aged man, lit cigarette dangling from his lips (a redundant statement here) steps into our living room. He looked surprised to see us, and I believe I said something loudly that didn’t include “may the Lord be with you”. He apparently either didn’t speak English or was scared by our furious response, and he quickly retreated back out the door. We looked at each other and tried not to be shaken, and that is life here. We believe he was likely a visiting lecturer or worker for the university who is temporarily quartered in the rooms accessed at the back of our house. We are now starting to lock the door in the evening as we learn from our experiences.

Last night we had a ferocious thunderstorm with lightning, high wind and prolonged heavy rain. We love to hear the sound of the rain drumming on the rusted metal roof. We gathered on the covered front porch, much like we would at home, and enjoyed the overwhelming power of the storm. After about a half hour the wind shifted and the rain began coming sideways, forcing us to move inside. You may recall that our home is open air. There are glass windows, but each is topped with a transom which is just screened. Though these are right under the eaves, the sideways rain still found it’s way in. Not to worry, a little water on the tile floor is not a big issue. It was a bit of blessing as it served to pre-soak our dirty clothes waiting to be laundered. Then we check in the kitchen and the water was dripping down from the ceiling. This was a bigger concern, but something that could be addressed with a carefully placed pot on the floor and a watchful eye on the ceiling section. The ceilings here look like homemade drop ceilings, with a crisscross of wood strips holding large panels in place. We’ve seen enough ceilings with broken or missing panels to know that they are not permanent. Anyway, our ceiling remained intact, and by morning the water that had splashed out of the pot onto the floor was almost dry.

Another unpredicted event from the storm was the power going out. It was just like the power going out in America, in the dark of the evening. We sat in the darkness and waited, hoping it was just a brief flash of time without power. We talked for a little bit, discussed how our flashlights were at home in America, along with my nice raincoat, hat, and several others things we intended to bring but left behind. We have little clip on reading lights and those served as flashlights. Jacob was working on his computer, and had his I-touch handy, and they added to our available light. Thankfully it was nearing bedtime (9 pm) anyway, so after about 30 minutes of bumping around in the dark we called it a night. The power returned around 3 in the morning so there must actually be an emergency crew that the power company has available in the middle of the night. We noticed during our morning walk that many tree branches were broken during the storm. I imagine many people in Siantar were without power for some time. The positive aspect is that we have no electric clocks that plug into the wall here. So there was no need to reset the time on the microwave, stove, coffee maker, alarm clock, etc. Life here is much more simple.

We don’t pretend to have control of our schedules. Granted, when folks invite us to events, we can always decide if it is a good idea, and check to make sure it doesn’t conflict with something we’ve already agreed to do. But many times invitations come at the last minute (or actually after the last minute) and we aren’t quite prepared to shift that quickly. A few days ago we were returning from our morning walk at 7:30 and saw Mam’Reina at our front door. We met her on the walk and she asked if we would join her Pragmatics class that morning. We asked about the time….when did it start? She said “7:30” but not with any urgency. It’s Indonesian time, no need to get worried about getting things going at the actual start time. We told her we’d love to join, after we had a bite of breakfast. So it all worked out, it just wasn’t something we had planned for.

Sometimes we attend classes and our purpose is only to “make commens….(comments)”. We listen to presentations from students and give feedback. Other times we will walk into the class and the teacher will introduce us, or ask us to introduce ourselves, and then step quietly to the side. This is sort of the “guest speaker” lesson plan we have in America, where you invite the guest speaker to your class and they take over. The only problem is we haven’t been able to predict when we will be expected to take over the class. This is challenging to step into a class where you know almost nothing about the students, know very little about the subject matter and what has been covered most recently, and do something meaningful for the students. We are great at improv but it would be nice to have a little warning.

When we arrived one week ago we noticed that our house was missing three light bulbs (this means darkness in kitchen, living room and Jacob’s bathroom), and a desk from Jacob’s room was also missing. We gently mentioned these things and we believe the message was received. Several days later nothing had changed, and I mentioned to Dean Tagor about our need for the desk, as Jacob has much homework to do. He immediately made a phone call to his staff and assured me it would be taken care of. Then later in the week Marnala was visiting, and we mentioned the light bulb issue to her. She called out to Putra, spoke with him briefly, and within five minutes we had a light bulb in our kitchen (with 15’ high ceilings it’s an effort to install a light bulb…so we don’t know how he did it). That was several days ago. At this point, no desk and still a need for two light bulbs. There has to be a reason why we can get one light bulb installed with Marnala’s help, but not the other two. As for the desk, I have seen literally dozens of desks and tables around campus that would work. We can’t understand the delay, and we recognize we have no control over the timing or even whether these things will be taken care of.

A final point about the unpredictable nature of life here is the mastery / non-mastery of English in the people we meet. We can walk down the road on campus, make eye contact with hundreds of students, smile and say “hello” and try to connect with them. Most respond with “how are you?” but cannot say anything more than that. In a group of students there is usually one who is brave to speak, and the rest take a step back, not wanting to be embarrassed by being unable to hold up their end of the conversation. Then, unpredictably, we will bump into someone who is truly fluent and they will want to talk. And talk. And talk. This is always exciting to actually connect with someone, but I haven’t been able to predict who it is going to be. I always feel rude when I end the conversation after about 15 or 20 minutes. Though I am always gracious and polite in explaining where I am going or what I must do, I still feel like I am cutting them off. Since there is little sense of time here I believe some of the conversations would continue literally forever.

So that is life in Siantar and at Nommensen. We are enjoying it and are much more comfortable than last year, since we know the lay of the land and how things work…though of course there are continuing mysteries.