Nescafe Leads To a Long Night

Lured by promises of Nescafe, I was caught in an incredibly uncomfortable situation last week under "no-win" circumstances equally disagreeable to both advancement and retreat.

I left the house late in the afternoon, hoping to explore some new village paths and recruit Frisbee players. But I didn’t make it far. Within the first five minutes, I found two of my regulars playing in an alley. The two girls ran off down the path before I could talk to them, and after rounding a corner, they disappeared into someone’s wood-slat home. As I drew close to the house, a woman—probably mid-twenties—lifted the wooden flap and invited to come inside and drink some Nescafe. Visiting people is a big honor in Javanese culture, and since winning village friends is high on my early priorities list, I said “sure” without much hesitation.

Once inside, though, things took a sharp turn to the awkward. The woman proved extremely polite, and spoke slowly enough that we could communicate pretty well. However, the girls had retreated to the back of the home, leaving both of us alone. I felt conscious that—at least for propriety’s sake—there should be a third person with us in light of my stranger status, the girl’s marital status, and both our similar ages. However, the woman’s husband fixed that pretty quickly. After about ten minutes, he came in from the fields, dumped a load of grass in the corner, and played host while his wife disappeared into the backrooms.

I felt more concerned when the wife returned carrying a bowl of Lele, a six-inch river thing that looks more like a salamander than a fish. My host family raises its own Lele, so the two of us were already well-acquainted. However, the Lele held a respectable record against my stomach (2-2), so despite being shown a great courtesy, I struggled to reach down and pull back the meat with my fingers. The fish might have been dead, but I’m pretty sure its open eyes wanted to warn me that I’d be in for a long night. To complicate matters, the wife had brought an infant into the room, sat down directly across from me, and begun nursing the child in the traditional fashion without effort to cover up for company. I knew that Java’s conservative culture was full of expectations—at least to my American eyes, but I still passed the next five minutes stunned in awkward, eye-averted conversation, knowing that only by finishing my Lele—a threat in itself—could I make a quick, respectable exit.

The night surely didn’t pass comfortably. My Pepto again proved useless, and the Lele mercilessly advanced its record to 3-2. However, I feel better knowing that I’ve made at least two new friends and hopefully learned a bit more about Javanese culture, however awkwardly.

This week in photos...

(1) The goats live in a shelter just behind the kitchen. They are loud, and practically demanded some web exposure.

(2) To celebrate the end of the first week of teaching, another volunteer, John, and I visited this tea plantation on the mountainside overlooking my town. The Dutch founded the plantation in 1928, and the walking paths are now free to weekending locals.

(3) "Motivated" students are very important here, and several student bands of varying talent were asked to perform at the close of Orientation week.