A slightly unacurate portrayal of what life is like oversees.

So, I live in Indonesia. And whenever I go back to America, especially when I went to public school, everyone would ask me what life is like living in Indonesia. So I thought I would write something telling how my life is like here.

Every morning I wake up around 4 in the morning to the glorious sound of the mosque and the cows mooing. I jump out of bed and go to the back of the house and take a mandi (a mandi is a type of shower like thing where you scoop the water on yourself with a big plastic ladle) in the well we own right outside our house. The water is cold and the air is fresh. 

After that is done, I go get my usual breakfast. Rice! I usually eat rice 3 times a day for every single meal, and sometimes for desert. I eat the rice with rice cakes and rice meat, so as to add some variety to my meal. 

On some mornings my father sits at the head of the table wearing a sarong, which is a skirt-like thing that men wear here, it is sorta like a kilt but longer. He sits and preaches to us in Javanese for 2 hours. Since there is three tinkats, or levels when speaking in Javanese, it takes especially longer for him to preach because he has to address my mother using one, me using one, and my younger siblings using another, so as not to offend anyone or use the wrong level. If you use the wrong level of Javanese then people tend to get offended, especially if they are a position of high authority and people have permission to hit you 3 times over the head with sticks, to punish you for your insolence. But my father is very good at Javanese, so he has received less head beatings then the usual foreigner in Indonesia.

After breakfast I go to school. Some days I ride the family's elephant, but my dad usually rides the elephant, so I end up riding the neighbors water buffalo to school. The water buffalo is a large cow with horns, that is used here for harvesting rice. The water buffalo is quite good for harvesting rice, for it is strong and can pull a heavy plow, and the farmer who sits on the back of the plow, and the little kids that ride the water buffalo while the farmer sits on the back of the plow, and the occasional farmers wife that sits with the farmer and the kids while the water buffalo is pulling the plow. It is a very advanced level of farming technology, that I think should be implemented in the states. The water buffalo rice is the best kind of rice, which is why it is eaten for every meal. But unfortunately, water buffalo's are not built for speed, so the 10 minute walk to school often takes 30 minutes while riding the water buffalo. Sometimes more if it stops to poop,  or it gets distracted by another water buffalo walking down the highway. But because of the delays I often end up going to school late.


Now, in American schools you get a tardy slip, or lose the perfect attendance award or something. But that is not the case here. Here, if you are late you get hit with a stick. And then if you come at the wrong time you also have to dance. Because in the morning we have exercise time, and so the whole school comes out and marches around the soccer field, and does aerobics to patriotic music, and sometimes to Justin Bieber. The music blares full blast from the speakers, so loud that the whole ground shakes from the bass. So if you arrive late, you have to dance in front of everyone.