I was eager to turn the calendar on September. My illness made last month likely the most difficult yet during service. But now I am fully recovered from Zika (that was the doctor’s best guess), and oh man does it feel good to feel one hundred percent again. This month went by smoothly, and there were two highlights that I look back on with particular gusto. I will share stories about my recent visit to Kediri to meet the new ID12 cohort of Trainees, and those words will be accompanied by pictures of my solo trip to Thailand. Feel free to reach out with questions about any of the pictures! I would love to tell you about my vacation in more detail. The Trainees arrived in Indonesia the morning of Sunday, September 30th (they are not awarded the title of “Volunteer” until they swear in on December 10th). Just like me and the ID11 group over a year and a half ago, they spent two nights in Surabaya before moving to Kediri to begin the rigorous and demanding Pre-Service Training (PST) schedule. They spent their first three weeks learning Bahasa Indonesia, getting to know their temporary host families, and learning more about one another. I spent those same weeks anxiously awaiting my turn to head to Kediri to meet them. Fortunately, my trip to Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand kept me distracted during their first weeks in Kediri. I was assigned to help out in Kediri for week number four of PST. I spent time each day facilitating sessions with various Peace Corps staff members about teaching in an Indonesian classroom, dealing with stress at site, and detailing support offered by Peace Corps during emergencies. I predicted that the eventful week would provide plenty of new memories; but I didn’t expect the most memorable one to be my bus ride from site to Kediri. To put it blatantly, I am a fool. Many of you may remember my past stories about riding the bus. Bus rides on Java can be quite a unique experience! However, I must have grown accustomed to, perhaps even accepting of, the eventful trips. I think that I became too complacent with Java’s public transportation. How could I have possibly looked past the bus ride on that day?! Just when I thought that I had mastered transportation on this island, the bus threw me for another loop. But then again, there’s nothing more appropriate for bringing my head out of the Indonesian clouds than the bus. The following story will forever be my reality as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Indonesia. Because of my recent trip to Thailand, and for a combination of slightly irresponsible decisions, my Indonesian bank account was completely empty on Monday, October 22nd. I carried only 35.000 Rupiah in cash, which was the exact amount needed to travel to Kediri that day. I make a concerted effort to refrain from consuming too many liquids during the hours leading up to a bus ride. There are no toilets in the buses I ride around East Java. Furthermore, the bus does not stop for extended periods for people to relieve themselves. If I was to get off the bus to go the bathroom, I would need to wait for the next bus and buy a second ticket. I would have zero money after purchasing the first bus ticket, so getting off the bus to pee would be out of the question. I took special care to avoid water that morning, before this particular trip. Shortly after boarding the bus, I became concerned that the bus ride might be a little more uncomfortable than I had initially imagined. I have taken the four-to-six-hour bus ride between site and Surabaya dozens of times without struggling to hold my bladder. I was surprised to find only fifteen minutes into this ninety-minute bus ride that I was already feeling the sensation to pee. I considered myself lucky, because Kediri is a much shorter distance from site than Surabaya. “Good thing I wasn’t going all the way to Surabaya!” This bus ride would be over quickly. Oh boy was I wrong. Traffic was particularly daunting that day. I later learned that was because of a national ceremonial day. The bus was stuck behind trucks carrying petroleum, motorcycles carrying five people, and the occasional tahu cart. The driver swerved left and right to pass the eclectic mix of modes of transportation zooming up and down the two-lane road. I felt the contents of my bladder slosh around with each sharp movement. I was becoming more uncomfortable by the minute. I didn’t find any enjoyment in watching the crazy traffic scene out the window. I usually observe with a sense of curiosity and amusement, but not that day on that bus ride. Instead, I considered the chaos outside the bus to be a series of hurdles between me and the restroom. I couldn’t look out the window without getting irritated; I couldn’t enjoy listening to my music. I couldn’t do anything but focus on the bus’ sporadic jolts, infrequent accelerations, and abrupt stops. The bus ride was taking a long time. It took over ninety minutes just to pass through the first city. That usually doesn’t take any more than forty-five minutes! I started to curse at myself for handling transportation with such a nonchalant chip on my shoulder. How could I have let my guard down?! The bus driver repeatedly drew his eyes away from the road, waving at me to get my attention. I didn’t like it. “Look ahead and GET MOVING!” I thought to myself as I eagerly pointed towards the front windshield. If I peed my pants, that driver was going to be the first on my list! But the driver didn’t seem to think I was agitated enough. He continued driving at a low speed, even after we passed through the first city. My bladder was full, and I looked at Google Maps to see that we weren’t even halfway to my destination. What was I going to do? I walked up the aisle to the conductor to ask why the driver was going so slow. “He is looking for passengers,” he replied. Buses will often drive slow along the road in order to search for people waiting for a ride, because they want to fill up the seats on the bus to make more money. The bus was about a third of the way full, so this driver was going exceptionally slow. I began shouting statements of disapproval towards the driver from my seat several rows back. Did that accomplish anything? Absolutely not. Questioning the conductor and low-key harassing the driver wasn’t going to relieve my bladder. It was time for me to take action. I picked up my bag and walked down the aisle to the row of seats in the back of the bus. For some reason I imagined myself calming down if I had a row to myself. That didn’t work. I had exhausted all the options I could think of. I was still at least an hour away from Kediri, but my bladder felt as if it would burst in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t get off the bus, because I had no money for a new ticket! I was stuck. I did, however, spot a water bottle tucked in the back pocket of a seat a few rows up. I debated for a split second before snatching it up. This water bottle would be my saving grace. I dumped the contents of the bottle at the base of the stairway at the back of the bus. There was a slight gap between the floor and the door, through which the water drained nicely. I sat back in my row of seats and slid to the far right side against the window. I was at least eight rows away from the closest passenger. The bus continued to weave along the road, the chaos of Javanese traffic unrelenting. I watched as we haphazardly passed a motorcycle pulling a cart of goats. I wondered if all of Indonesia’s potholes were concentrated on this specific road; and if that was the case, was the driver trying to hit every single one? The bumps, swerves, and whatever decency I still possessed at the time did not prevent me from using that water bottle as a receptacle for my urine. After initially finding relief, my concerns returned when the water bottle was almost full and I still showed no signs of slowing down. I capped the bottle and was forced to wait out the remainder of my journey mid-pee, the discomfort almost worse than before. I spent that last hour asking myself several questions: Who am I? Does any shred of my dignity remain? Was what I just did acceptable? Inappropriate? And now I wonder, should I even be sharing this on my blog? I covertly disposed of the water bottle after disembarking from the bus. I impatiently bee-lined to the nearest restroom at the Peace Corps office, bending over just enough to ease pressure off of my bladder. I didn’t have any time to say hello to staff until I could stand up straight. Ultimately, I decided that the bus ride came at a perfect time. It reminded me to lead my sessions during PST as a peer, and not with a mentality of a “teacher” treating the Trainees as “students.” I wasn’t a teacher before my time in Indonesia, so I am anything but an expert when it comes to teaching reading and listening the classroom. I tried to provide advice and guidance the entire week with an asterisk that denotes, “not an expert.” Clearly I still struggle with public transportation in Indonesia, too. While discussing transportation on Java with Trainees, I should have worn a sign that read, “almost peed my pants two days ago.” And I will make sure to remember that bus trip as long as I am in Indonesia. For the remainder of my service, I cannot trust the bus to take a certain amount of time; nor can I rely on my bladder to hold up to Indonesia’s potholes on a consistent basis. After reflecting on the close call, an idiom repeatedly rings in my head: “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” The bus has fooled me many times; but for the application of this idiom, let’s say that I have been fooled twice. I don’t want to know what happens when I am fooled for a third time. I thought about that idiom every day during my week in Kediri. Sure, I have twenty months of experience that hopefully proves invaluable to the new Trainees’ efforts to integrate and understand Indonesian society. But ultimately, I am still learning about this country and culture. Once the Trainees complete the Pre-Service Training gauntlet and rightfully earn the title “Volunteer,” we will all be in the same bus trying not to piss our pants, both metaphorically and literally speaking. Shout-Outs:
HSO to the ID12s for completing their first month in Indonesia! ESO goes to the Trainees for surviving five weeks of Pre-Service Training. Good luck with your site visits this weekend! SO to the ID12 Trainee for the great compliment after I finished my sessions on Thursday. SO to site placement announcements this coming Friday! SO to the Brew Crew for a memorable October. SO to the Bucks for a great 7-0 start to the season. SO to my friend for sending an issue of The Economist. ESO for reading about “American democracy’s built-in bias,” and thinking of me! It was a great read. BSO to the Elephant Nature Park for taking such good care of the four-legged giants. ASO to how time flies. November 12th will mark twenty months since I arrived in Indonesia. HSO to Thai food. ESO to mango sticky rice. Wow. SO to mango season arriving in Indonesia. ASO to rainy season coming with it.
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