A "Quick" Return to Medan - Jim

Today is Wednesday, June 19^th. We’ve been here since late Sunday afternoon and we are starting to feel a lot more human. It is very difficult to process this world and appreciate it when you are jet lagged and on the verge of exhaustion. Last night we enjoyed a great rainstorm. The timing was perfect as, before the storm, we took our first microbus ride to the CFC (California Fried Chicken) and done a little more looking through one of the grocery stores. Of course it’s hard to find some items but all in all what we need is available in the stores. The rain started a few minutes after our return and in a short period of time ratcheted up to a real downpour. The sound on our tin roof is great, it made us just stop and enjoy it.

Yesterday I was blessed to be taken back to Medan by Dean Tagor, who volunteered without hesitation to help us find our one piece of lost luggage. It took us a full day to realize we were missing the bag. Nancy went through in her head what we didn’t have, in terms of stuff, and we finally concluded that it was all packed in one bag, and when we checked our bags on hand vs. our baggage tags, the light bulb went on. Sometimes we are slow. I went to the Dean yesterday and asked for his help. In America you’d make a few phone calls, be put on hold for a long time, and find the luggage. Here you have to assume that the folks at the Medan airport still have it tucked away, and then drive all the way up there and track it down. That’s what we did. It’s such an ordeal to drive up there and back that we’d have just written off the luggage, but it contained many books we bought at request of our student friends, and also Nancy’s clothes. That clinched it, I didn’t want to see Nancy in the same clothes for six weeks!

We left at 5:45 in the darkness. We had a few false starts before leaving the campus, and then headed out at high speed (our course). The trip up to Medan went fairly quickly without any traffic jams or delays. The roads vary from pot hole filled gravel/asphalt mixes (thankfully only for short stretches) to relatively smooth but narrow two laners with no line down the middle and no shoulders, to the toll road, similar to a four lane interstate highway in a rural US area. We topped out at a maximum speed of 140 km/hr. on this toll road, very impressive performance for a vehicle that I wouldn’t consider to be high performance.

We stopped in a village to satisfy the Dean’s craving for a fried banana. He returned to the car with a sack full of snacks, including: things resembling hash brown patties, only containing rice, fried patties containing ground green beans, and a mixture of rice and coconut, wrapped in banana leaves. But no fried bananas, they must have been sold out. I ate those things until I was full, without really making a dent in the pile. They were good if you are starving, but the oil and the coconut make them a bit rich for my taste. The Dean was up to the challenge and finished off the rest before we reached the airport.

We arrived at the airport around 10, so that was about 4 hours of travel. Whew! At the airport Dean Tagor explained what we were looking for to a security officer, who quickly walked us through the restricted area to the international baggage claim and the Lost and Found office (for your visualization, this entire area of the baggage claim could easily fit into a basketball court, the airport is much smaller than McGhee Tyson even though Medan is a city of 4 million). I think the lady was sleeping in the Lost and Found office because as we came around the corner I saw her feet we on the desk. She was very nice and when Dean Tagor said “Friedrich” her ears perked up and she knew which bag was ours. There it was! The red bag was found! After a few formalities of paperwork we were out the door, and back on the road by 10:30.

Sometimes traffic in Medan is orderly, other times not so much. Some intersections are just  uncontrolled cross roads, leading to exciting times!

I suggested we at least have a cup of coffee in Medan to make it feel like we had been there for more than 15 minutes, but the Dean was anxious to return immediately. My buns were already numb, having not recovered from our airplane time, but I reluctantly agreed. So we jumped back in the van and started the trek home. We were about half way home when the traffic jam happened. The roads jam up for a variety of reasons around here. It seems that in this one area there was some sort of political rally, and there were cars and motorcycles turning into an assembly grounds. Near that was also a piece of equipment clearing out the roadside ditch. Whatever the cause, we spent an hour going very very slowly. At one point an ambulance passed us, traveling in the lane for traffic in the opposite direction. After just a moment of hesitation, Dean Tagor swung into the same line and joined the parade, traveling at a reasonably fast pace. So there were three lanes traveling in our direction and still two lanes coming in the opposite direction, with one of them forced over to the shoulder. After a few kilometers our lane morphed back over to the correct side of the road, and then rematerialized in the third lane quickly. Of course I was looking around for the police, but apparently this driving behavior is not grounds for punishment here.

Even with these extraordinary actions we still took a long time returning. There’s always something interesting to see, such as the guys standing in the middle of the road, filling in pot holes with sand. They’ve got a great strategy, you have to stop because they’re blocking traffic, and they only move when you give them money. Dean Tagor commented that they were doing a public service and gladly shared some money with them. I can’t imagine there’s much sand left in those pot holes after our big rain last night. At one point one lane of the highway was blocked with piles of sand, which would be used to form a shoulder at some point in the future. This contributed to the driving challenge, and I’m glad I wasn’t the driver.

Since it was mid-afternoon we stopped for lunch at the Bayou Lagoon, which is not a typical Indonesian place. It’s a concept that may work in America. It includes the great outdoor swimming pool with designated areas for little kids and grownups. 


It features a big bucket that gradually fills up with water and then dumps over, with the water splashing off a roof and onto the swimmers below.
 Several nice dining areas overlook the pool. I bet how it works is the families come, the mothers and children swim, and the men sit in the dining areas and smoke and eat (drinking in public just doesn’t happen around here, unless you are at a tuak shack…more on that later).

We enjoyed a great meal, including two types of fish, chicken with a spicy sauce, and greens. Of course rice was included, it always is. I convinced Dean Tagor to have mango juice, and it was so thick you almost needed a spoon to enjoy it.

After that feast we were back on the road, and limped into Nommensen around 4. We were just minutes away from Nommensen when Dean Tagor received a phone call, informing him that he was required to return to Medan tomorrow for a meeting. He assured me that this was alright, that he was happy to have taken care of our luggage. We are so thankful for his willingness to help.