Doctor doctor, give me the news

Part 1: “It’s pronounced ‘appendicitis.’”

So, wow. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been less qualified to do something in my life.

I found myself standing in front of 200 ICU surgeons from the Palembang Hospital at 7am sharp, lecturing them on correct medical terms while they scribbled down notes. I wanted to say, “Perhaps you shouldn’t really listen to what I’m saying. After all, you routinely cut open bodies and sew them back up, and I try not to even make contact with my own fingernail clippings because they’re gross.”

As a rule, we’re not allowed to accept any other jobs during our 9-month contract in Indonesia, teaching English or otherwise. But I couldn’t refuse Gustina, one of my favorite teachers at IGM, since she’d been begging me for weeks to accompany her to the class she teaches at the hospital every week.

Luckily, the class pretty much runs itself. The surgeons take turns presenting cases they’ve worked on in the last week. Instead of explaining them in Indonesian like they normally would, they conduct all business in English on Fridays. And MY job was to correct all their mistakes. Very publically.

So after each presentation, I would clear my throat and sort of wobble my way to the front of the room. Then I would hold my page of notes up in front of me and say things like, “Um, actually, you ‘commit’ suicide, you don’t ‘get’ suicide. And you just ‘slip,’ not ‘got slipped.’ But, uh, everyone did a, uh, really great job today. You just keep on keeping people alive…”

I still can’t believe how often English words just blow my mind while I’m trying to explain them. One doctor used the word “reposition” incorrectly. “Reposition,” I explained, “means to move something again, usually just a little bit.” He nodded. “To move again?” I nodded. “So… to re-move. Remove is same as reposition.”

Hmm. No, it’s definitely not. But that’s weird.

All of the surgeries fell into one of two categories: motorcycle accidents and stab wounds. I feel like that pretty much sums up Palembang in my mind… crazy traffic and unbridled tempers.

Honestly, though, it was really shocking. Slide after slide after slide showed these terribly bloody, often fatal, photographs of crash victims. I complain a lot about not getting my international driver’s license before I came here, but seeing those pictures made me think that maybe it’s ok I’m not weaving my way through traffic every day. At least half of the people brought into the emergency room died from head trauma where they collided with another vehicle or “got slipped” on the road in the constant rain.

Another interesting point: the other IGM teacher Gustina and I were the only people in the room who weren’t medical professionals. And still, in each of the pictures where brains and other organs are splayed out across tables, any genitals or breasts were completely blocked out with bright, funky purple ovals. That is so trademark Indonesia.

Why do we “perform” surgeries?

“Flatus” is a word that has been haunting me in Indonesia, only in the vocabulary sense, I swear. They use it as a substitute for “fart” or “flatulence,” which, I mean, it is. But it is so odd to hear my students and teachers say, “I flatus often.” They also use the word “defecate” in a lot of uncomfortable ways.

One lesson I learned: doctors in Indonesia are really no different than children or teachers or ojek drivers in Indonesia. I entered the room to whispers of “bule,” and they all wanted to shake my hand and ask me if I like pempek. They offered me a paid position on the staff, but I politely declined.

A group of surgeons approached me after class and invited me to go with them on their weekly bike ride. Keep in mind I have a general distaste for physical activity. Still, I figured I had a good fifteen years on even the youngest surgeons. How bad could it be? I gave them my number.

Part 2: Tour de Palembang

Later in the day, I got this text: “Hi, Ketty! I pick up you at 5:30 for 70km on bike.”

Uhh. They expect me to ride 70 kilometers at 5:30am?

I groaned. Oh, well. I can do it one time. How bad can it be?

As it turns out, it can be kind of bad. I could have handled the distance had they not all wanted to prove how very ‘fit’ they all were. I explained that I’m grossly out of shape, but they insisted on off-roading.

In Indonesia, driving on paved highways can feel like off-roading in the US. You have no idea. There was simply no way to bike through the mud on the path they were following.

“So sorry, Miss Ketty,” they said. “We should not have tried to show off for you. We picked the wrong road, and our bikes do not work.”

One doctor broke his chain trying to pedal through it. They instructed me to carry my bike the next 10 kilometers. Carry doesn’t mean push. It means lift into the air and carry.

“With all due respect,” I began. “I am trying. It is early. I have had zero servings of caffeine, and I haven’t bitten anyone yet. That alone is a considerable feat. I cannot carry this men’s mountain bike 10 kilometers in any direction.”

Frustratingly, they delighted in my struggle. They took pictures while I cursed them under my uncaffeinated breath. Finally, after I fell over in the mud four times because my shoes were too heavy to left, they helped.

One of the doctors shouted, “Miss Katie! This is the test of your life!”

I considered that. If that off-roading path really was the test of my life, I apparently survive with the help of friends while I complain that life is ruining my shoes. Actually, it sounded pretty accurate to me. I finally emerged triumphant and exhausted on the other side.

Emotionally, I think I was pretty done at that point. I’ve never been a biker. Actually, I really enjoy it, just as a means of actual transportation, and usually with a stop for dessert somewhere in between.

“Hey, want to ride our bikes to Dairy Queen?”

I’m your gal.

On the infrequent occasions I subject my body to actual exercise, I prefer something that burns calories a little more efficiently. Still, I couldn’t help but enjoy the scenery. Sumatra is smelly, but it is smelly and beautiful. We passed palm trees and rice paddies and forests and piles of burning trash.

Then what always happens to me… happened to me. I started to get bored.

I sought distractions. I taught them all to say, “Katie is the queen of the road!” every time any time one of us passed another. That entertained me for a good half dozen miles before it backfired and became grating.

I tried to salvage a little respect with my one very basic bicycle talent: riding without hands. Note, surgeons do not think this is impressive and will begin yelling in unison for you to stop immediately, causing you to swerve embarrassingly.

I talked to the doctors about all the motorcycle accidents. They said crash victims account for a huge majority of the cases they see each day. One surgeon said, “Yeah, do not wear your helmet! It is money in my pocket!!” Grr.

Luckily, we stopped for a break at about 35 kilometers. A few of the doctors took me on a hunt for coconuts up in the trees. It’s times like that that I can’t help but be immeasurably happy. We just pulled to the side of the road and are hunting for coconuts up in the palm trees on the island where I live.

So it was while I was skipping along thinking grand romantic thoughts about traveling the world that I fell into a hole.

Indo has a way of pulling you back down whenever you’re up. Literally.

Ok, it wasn’t very deep, but it scared the s*** out of me.

“Do you teach those words you just said to your students?!” they all cackled and whooped.

But we found coconuts. You just hack off the bottom of the husk so it’ll sit without rolling and hack a big hole in the top. Then you drop in a straw and just drink the water. I mean, it’s no Diet Mountain Dew, but… oh come on, that’s awesome.

Then we dined on tempe (one of my favorites) and sat around taking pictures and laughing. I managed to actually forget we had another half of a bike ride to finish.

I started warming up. “I’m decently happy with my performance up to this point, and I don’t want to end up irrevocably bitter towards all of you…”

The poor fellow whose bike chain had broken back during the off-roading asked if I would mind very much if he took my bike the rest of the way and I could follow in the car that had joined up with us after the mud portion of the trip.

I happily accepted his offer and spent the rest of the trip cheering the others on and munching on rambutan. “Now YOU are the king of the road!” I would shout as they pedaled past us.

They were very happy and the head surgeon even offered me a ride home early.

“I’m sorry I suck and didn’t make it,” I said.

“Oh, Ketty,” he said. “Biking is not really about biking. You have given us life today. You have put the life into our wheels.”

Well, shucks.

5 Simple Happy Things

I complain enough, don’t I? I figured it’s time for some happy stories. Here’s a countdown from the last week:

5. Sweet success

I made muffins! Sometimes it’s the little things, right? The delicious little things in foil wrappers. Mom bought me a camping oven for Christmas, and I assembled it, installed it, and cooked with it. Success is delicious.

4. Dirty laundry

I pay $30 every four weeks for a woman to wash my laundry. I’ve come a long way from when I arrived and felt “uncomfortable” asking someone else to wash my underwear. $30 is a lot of money, actually, but it’s that or transport my dirty clothes 45 minutes downtown and carry them on ojek/angkot, so I opted for the woman near my house. Except lately, she’s been slacking.

This week, my clothes still weren’t done two days after I was supposed to pick them up. Employing my new sassy attitude that worked at Telkom, I said “I need my clothes! I pay you a lot of money to have them done by Sunday night, and it is Tuesday!” (In Bahasa—woot!)

And later that night… she carried them over herself, apologizing for her laziness. We had a nice little chuckle, and I gave her a muffin.

3. Orange and black? That’s a go.

I discovered my fashion freedom. Do you know what Indonesians say when you wear green and red together? Nothing. They say nothing. Or they say, “You look so pretty today, miss.”

You can look like a Christmas tree or an Easter egg and it doesn’t remind them of anything but their own closet. And as a plus for me, it feels sort of ornery.

2. Sry learns to swear

One of the teachers at my school has started flipping through the pages of her English dictionary when she’s bored. She’s looking for dirty words. I would teach her some, but she’s never asked, and it’s more fun to watch her search.

After settling on a few new words, she says them as often and as loudly as she can in the teachers’ lounge.

Sry’s choices for this week? Tit, booger, and venereal disease. She uses them more than I use my hand sanitizer.

“Would people in America laugh if I yelled ‘nipple’ in a classroom?” she asks. I told her people would probably just find that awfully strange.

1. Auntie

I’ve been hanging out with an Indonesian couple named Andy and Sylvia a lot. They’re married with one daughter, and their second child is on the way. On Shanti’s birthday (their daughter), I went with them to Andy’s family’s house for the dinner and celebration.

I didn’t realize that one of my favorite teachers at IGM was giving some of the younger children private English lessons in one of the studies. When I finally saw her, we were both really surprised.

“But,” she said, looking at the kids, “They didn’t say a bule was here! They just said their Auntie Ketty was visiting.” (I am Ketty to most Indonesians.)

This was a huge victory celebrated with a single word. They didn’t say a bule was visiting, they said it was their Auntie Ketty.

Oh, you crazy kids!

Only a short video, I promise. I just want to show you what I mean when I say little kids go absolutely, insanely crazy when they see a "bule" in Palembang.

I met my friend Yanti at the elementary school where she teaches. The kids are not acting this excited because of my video camera; this is at least a minute into their rampage. Yanti says most parents here aren't interested in teaching discipline to their children and think it's their teacher's job. You can see her swoop in at the end and try to save me with some scary swatting.

Holla to Bryant for teaching me how to correctly upload a video.

When I watched the video hours after I took it, I realized it comes off as sort of adorable. And it was. But try imagining being in the middle of this frenzy. I assure you, it was cute... but also pretty intimidating. They all want to hang out with me, and if they can't hang out with me, they'll settle for touching me.

Boy talk.

My counterpart Yana quit. I shouldn’t say quit, I guess. She passed her exam to become a civil servant (after failing the first three times), which means she's now eligible to teach at a public high school. She says this means “her future is secure and she will never have to worry again.”

In some ways, she’s right. Now she gets paid leave and benefits and retirement. But she just left. She (and another English teacher at the school) immediately quit working at IGM, and she begins her new job in March.

I think it’s actually been a good thing for me. I got a new counterpart Laily, who is a little older, married, and incredibly sweet. She tells me often to pray that “God will give her a baby.”

I love it when people ask me to pray for them here, especially because they know I’m not Muslim. But they value my prayers, too, I guess. Who knows, really, which one of us is right? But I’m grateful, at least, that I was born in a place where I was taught my prayers are heard whether I'm dirty or clean, covering my head or with my hair hanging down, in the middle of eating or drinking or surfing the internet or riding on a motorcycle.

The teachers at my school find it nearly inconceivable that I’m not in a relationship or actively pursuing one. "So you don't want a boyfriend?" they ask. I try to explain that it's not that I want one or don't want one. They say, "Katie is in the middle. Katie is in the middle about a boyfriend." I tell them no boy would like me in Palembang because their pempek makes my breath so smelly. They think this is hilarious.

Yana used to make me crazy.

“Katie, what colors do you want for your wedding? I think I want bluuuuueeee,” she would say, dragging out the vowel on the end.

Anyway, two English teachers leaving IGM meant two new teachers were recently hired at IGM. Enter Ida, a 29-year-old working on her doctorate in education, and Rudi, a 20-year-old MAN (the only male English teacher) who recently scored off the charts on a national English exam.

I went to the movies with Ida last weekend. She got the times mixed up, and we were three hours early to see Avatar. So we opted for Sherlock Holmes instead, and we got coffees in the hour before it started.

I spread out my Bahasa Indonesia notes on the table and started asking her the differences between English and Indonesian commands. She answered politely, and then she leaned forward on her elbows and said, “Oh, Katie. What will your husband look like?”

Sigh.

“I really don’t know, Ida. Can you check and see if I spelled this word right?” She nodded and pouted a little.

But, no. This is a new Katie, one who revels in these differences in cultures and has sworn to – gulp – go with the flow.

“I think... maybe… he’ll be tall,” I offered.

She instantly perked up and leaned forward with her chin resting on her hands.

“Yes! You American girls all want tall, dark, and handsome, yeah?” she giggled.

“Hmm, definitely tall. Handsome would be nice. And I’ll take dark or light or medium,” I said. I was wary of requesting dark, considering she was sizing up the waiter serving our coffee.

“And what will his job be?” she asked.

“Maybe… a businessman. Or a lawyer.” She literally clapped her hands in delight.

(Ida is engaged, although she doesn’t wear a ring yet. She said her boyfriend “promised himself to her.” Hmph.)

“And what colors will you have in your wedding?!”

Sigh. Sigh. She looked at me with hopeful eyes.

“Well, I really love the color pink,” I conceded.

“Yes, how perfect! You should invite me! Promise you will!”

I promised.

And then I couldn’t believe it. She really started to talk to me. About other things! When I finally relaxed, she started to open up. Hey, this getting-along-with-people thing is more than it’s cracked up to be.

“We heard bad news from our neighbor this morning,” she said.

She told me how her neighbor’s daughter, a 16-year-old girl, had just found out she was pregnant. She knew the father was her boyfriend, who is also 16. I don’t have to tell you that this is bad news in Palembang. This isn’t “life-is-so-much-harder-now” news like it might be in America. This is very nearly “life-is-over-now” news.

She said the very sad part was that the boy’s mother won’t permit him to marry the girl. His mom says he has to at least finish high school first, which won’t be for another two years. The girl, of course, has already been kicked out of school, and she won’t be allowed back.

“Will she work now?” I asked. Ida said no. She’ll just raise the baby once she has it in another six months. “With what money?” Fortunately, her family will support her, though Ida said they are “very, very angry.” The boy won’t be responsible at all, even continuing to go to the very school that kicked his girlfriend out for carrying his child. After he graduates, he’ll choose whether he wants to marry her or not.

SuperKatie, of course, wants to save the world one pregnant Muslim teenager at a time. I wanted to ask to meet the girl, tutor her, give her my clothes when I leave, and be her friend. But am I what she needs? I’m like a celebrity when I walk around the mall here, but I doubt I’d be so popular if I came swooping in on this girl.

And maybe I’m not being fair. Unmarried sex here isn’t what it is in America. Even married sex here isn’t the same. My students were allowed to watch the movie Orphan as a reward one day; the teacher skipped any scene in which the husband and wife even kissed, but they were allowed to watch a nun being beaten to death with the spiky side of a hammer. This young couple had been warned to an exhausting point, I’m sure, about the risks—religious, cultural, and physical—of unmarried sex.

Inexpensive contraceptives are available here everywhere… oh yes, even in cringe-inducing flavors like durian. (Ewwww.)

I suppose it doesn’t really matter now. I told Ida I felt very bad for the girl and that she should let me know if she thought there was anything I could do to help.

Of course, she quickly bounced back to more entertaining topics. “How many children do you want to have?” she asked.

Going with the flow felt like less fun now. I persevered. “I think maybe two,” I said.

“Ooh. Very nice. I think I want to have threeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

Cool people who do cool things.

Christine's town of Depok was veryyy excited a second "bule" was visiting back in December, and nearly everyone knew I was coming. Her friend Rie even wore his best pair of pants to meet me, which is, frankly, better than what I get from most American guys.

I wrote about this in a previous blog, I think. One night, Christine and I were lounging around in her living room when Rie and his friend Anas asked us to play Uno. We invited them over. They shifted around uncomfortably before finally just saying they felt too uncomfortable being in a girl's house, especially after dark. They suggested we play in Anas's family's restaurant down the street.

"Ok," we finally agreed. "Can I go like this?" I motioned to my t-shirt and shorts.

"Ooooohh, no!" Rie said. "There is a parental advisory on your knees!"

I thought that phrase was hilarious. So I put on long pants and we dragged ourselves down the street, where I was thoroughly demolished in two consecutive card games.

But Rie made me this awesome t-shirt:

*NOTE: The phrase was "There is a parental advisory on your knees." Rie, a good Muslim boy who won't even kiss a girl until his wedding night, doesn't understand that "Parental advisory. On your knees!" has an entirely different connotation. But I'm not going to be the one to explain it.

Rie actually does freelance graphics work for a guy out of Los Angeles. He's really good. And he edited a picture of Chris and me from Bandung. Don't worry, I did not bare those shoulders on the streets of Depok.

He turned this...

...into this:

Isn't that awesome? I love that we are "100% FRESH." It's really too bad about the "on your knees" part. Although, I'm glad we're advertising only to ages 12+. ?!