Start of the rainy season

I could be wrong and often am but I do believe the rainy season is beginning albeit slowly. However over the past couple of weeks there has been some big storms around the city, flooding in areas despite the drains and river being cleaned up and emptied of rubbish and muck and silt. 

So far I have been lucky with my journeys to and from work. Travelling 16km each way one sees a lot of different things, apart from the traffic. The skies in the south are often different to the skies in the west and the haze/pollution/smog that is in the west is not found where I am. 

Friday morning was a great example of a near miss because as I headed into Tomang, I could see that the clouds were building and it was getting it windy so by the time I arrived in Puri, it was dark and the clouds were gathered ready to burst. And they did for over an hour. In some parts of the city there was the inevitable and usual chaos because of it. Still the storm looked in impressive from inside the building. 

The average temperature at the moment here is around 32 during the day though I suspect days like today are more at 38. The evenings and early mornings seem to cool down and with the wind in the right direction, you can feel the coolness and the temperature reaches around 26 which is er, almost cold!!!

There is a sign near Tebet which tells the temperature and it said 38 today. Where I teach in St.Ursula, the temperature is often 34 degrees outside. When the storms come the temperature drops a little to say 29 and then as soon as the storm passes it rises again. 

The storms on Friday were so strong that they knocked out the internet for our school and probably countless other places. This is normal. It rains, the internet goes down but it appears that there has been some serious damage this time because the internet was still down Saturday and I have a nagging feeling it will be the same for Monday. I hope I am wrong. 

As I am sat writing this the wind has picked up and the clouds are gathering slowly to the east and west and the blue sky is disappearing. By dusk I feel a storm will be here but as long as it has passed and all dried up before 5.30am (when I leave for teaching tomorrow) let it come and let it pour. My house will not flood even though the road 50 meters either side will. 

Me now, life can be so hard sometimes

Once December comes then the rainy season will become more fierce in Jakarta with January being normally the worst month. I will need to buy a new raincoat and trousers before then, just in case. The bike has so far been great in the storms and I suspect it will continue to be so. I hope so. But from experience, every time I choose not to fill the bike with fuel until the last minute I have to ride home in a great storm and torrential rain. 

Typical days weather and view from my house

Signs that the rainy season is coming and that it will rain 

When it rains, it rains

Then blue skies again and all is nice and hot

Jeremy 6 months on

This time six months ago I was lying on a small sofa in one of the rooms in the Angrek ward and YPK Mandiri hospital Jakarta, with Yovita discussing the fact our son, Jeremy was 5 hours old and could almost fit in my hand. (Photos at end of blog).

6 months on and he is just a bundle of energy; alert and observant, always happy noisy and full of happiness. Jeremy has developed and grown so much and it is amazing to watch and see.

He is getting bigger and taller and the doctors seem happy with his progress.

As for vaccinations, he is still in the process of being jabbed for all. So far he has had the following:

BCG x1 (finished)

Hepatitis B x3 (finished)

Polio and Rotavirus x3 (more to come)

DPT x2 (more to come)

HIB x2 (more to come)

PCV x2 (more to come)

with the measles jab being the last major one at 9 months then a respite of a few months before more come. The offer of the influenza jab is also there but that does not need to be done straight away. The MMR jab is also required and that will be done at 15 months. 

Every jab makes him grouchy for the rest of the day and then he sleeps and wakes up the next day like nothing has happened.

Unsurprisingly, Jeremy is cow milk intolerant at the moment which means we are feeding him Hypo Allergenic milk formula. Yovita is no longer producing enough breast milk for him so he has been on formula for the past couple of months. However he is now at the stage where he can eat, Banana and other soft fruit, Baby food in a Jar, Farleys rusks and soft porridge which is great. We have also started him back on normal formula to see if he is now able to drink that. He can also drink juice and also water. Feeding time is always fun and messy and it won't be long until its high chair time. The Farleys rusks however seem to go well with tea and so we are always buying more than we should!!

He has some teeth on their way and they should be here before Christmas as well which will be something new for us all.

For clothes, Jeremy seems to be outside the scale out here in Indonesia. We are now buying by weight rather than age although if we go with age then its currently 9-12 months. Still, saying that everyone brand of clothing we choose is different in size. The clothing from England so far has been awesome and bang on but out here it is more pot luck. Happily there is Mothercare which does have the right size at the wrong price and Marks and Spencers has a limited range. Still he has enough clothes at the moment. Shoes on the other hand are still not something we are using mainly because it is too hot and he does not need them yet. 

His motor skills are improving and he is able to grap, pull, scratch, poke, kick, slap, punch, throw, splash, bang, suck his toes, and hands. He can also roll forward, backward, crawl in a zigzag and sit up and remain sat up for short periods of times. We are looking forward to him crawling and learning to sit up on his own and then walking. Plans are already a foot to make the house safe when he has mastered these skills. 

Then there is his voice. He can scream with joy/happiness louder than a whole class of students at my school and over a long period of time. He only really screams when he is hungry other than that he is either babbling or screaming. He laughs more and more now and can sit and laugh which of course is infectious. I am currently trying to encourage him to blow raspberries which he can do although seldom. When he speaks will be a great day. 

All that in 6 months. Our lives have been turned upside down with Jeremy and everyday has been a good day. I am lucky enough to spend 3 or more mornings a week with him before work so I can play and spend time with him which is great and then all Sunday is spent with him. 

The next 6 months will see even more change and I have no idea what that will look like or how he will continue to grow and develop but I know it will be just as exciting.

15 minutes old

2 weeks old

1 month old

2 months old

3 months old

4 months old

5 months old

6 months old

Yamaha Bike service

Riding with no front lamp or brakes, sort makes you realise its time to get the bike serviced. Getting time to do that is often really hard but it has to be done.

So today on my day off, instead of sleeping in and playing with Jeremy I got up early, service book in hand and rode off to get the bike serviced. The plan to drop it off at the local Yamaha service shop and then go and have breakfast and come back and collect it later.

The local service station was great and well known for its service. However on arrival I find its closed down, gone. Never to reopen. 

This is 7.30am on a very busy Friday morning. I really need the bike sorted out and this weekend too. Otherwise I would be worried that the bike will just break down.

Undetered by this I set off south and head to the zoo and then take a left into unknown riding country. I end up at Pejaten and then to Pasar Minggu which is a sprawling mess of a market then into the worst traffic and back toward my house. I spot in the distance a Yamaha service station and so cutting across 3 lanes of grumpy and snarled up traffic I do a U-turn and roll into the place.

Being English and attempting no English I hand the girl behind the service desk a note with a list of things that need fixing. I am number 5. Which is good.

So  I sit with the others and watch as the bikes are taken apart, serviced, put back together and then collected and so on.

My bike seemed to take the longest time to get serviced probably due to the list of things needed doing; new front lamp, brakes, oil, tune, chain needs tightening and the horn does not work always. But the man fixing it 'Ray' seemed to do all this with ease. 

My dirty old bike is the middle one

180,000 idr later or just over 12 English pounds its all back together and well I rode it home and its all nice again.

Having a Friday off means I have a little time for me which is always welcome. Upon getting back to drop the bike off, I can hear Jeremy screaming. Not in pain or in hunger but in happiness as he is playing with our housekeeper. This screaming makes the head spin....

Then off to meet Yovita for a quick lunch in the city and now its a few beers in a bar (Barley and Hops, Epicentrum) in the city playing 80's soft rock and drinking buy one get one Heineken. 

First time for a very long time I have been able to do this and its good. 

Idul Adha

Yep missed it again. I will one year get out of bed and observe the second most important festival in the Islamic calender. By observe I mean go down the road and watch the smiles on the childrens' faces as they watch goats and cows get slaughtered in the name of Ilbrahims sacrifice.

There has been more cows and goats in the local area than I have seen for a very long time and they have been tied and tethered to each for at least a week. But by Tuesday morning they had all gone, even the bones.

Goats in a make shift stable around the  corner from my home

A goat outside and inside a house

Now however barbaric you may find this, the actual reason and use of the animals is very clear. This passage from BBC schools explains it most clearly for me:

"The story of Ibrahim's sacrifice

Eid-ul-Adha celebrates the occasion when Allah appeared to Ibrahim in a dream and asked him to sacrifice his son Isma'il as an act of obedience to God.
The devil tempted Ibrahim by saying he should disobey Allah and spare his son. As Ibrahim was about to kill his son, Allah stopped him and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead.

Note: This story is also found in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament (Genesis 22). Here God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, his son with Sarah. Isma’il was his son with Hagar."

And every year since goats and cattle have been killed instead. The dead animals are then stripped down and the meat is distributed to the poor and needy and so everyone gets a bag of meat. The animals don't come cheap with a cow costing upwards of 14 million rupiah or just under 800 pounds and a goat at 3 million or 170 pounds. How to buy one? Well there are phone numbers and special markets where you choose one, then they deliver it to the mosque of your choice I guess and then it is chopped up and everything given away.

It certainly is big business thats for sure.

The night before there are fireworks and drums and parades and this year the city government shut a main road to help everyone celebrate. The men in the mosques were busy shouting out prayers (I guess) all evening but it did all die down around 11pm.

The best thing really for me, was having a day off! I worked Monday and then Tuesday was a national holiday. The banks were closed and many people had decided not to work. Yovita was sent home at 2pm as the roads were closing and that was good for her as well.
What did I do with the day off? Nothing. Coffee, some shopping, sleeping and reading and that was that really.

Next month its Moslem new year on 5th so thats a double celebration of Bonfire night and happy new year for me.

Despite a lot of short comings living out here, the national holidays are plentiful and are taken on the day they fall and with 3 new years, and some many religious festivals given national status, extra days off are always around the corner. 11 public holidays in the week this year and at least 12 next year.....That can't be bad.

Water Supply in Jakarta

Last year I had a ground well which ran out of water during the dry season and into the rainy season and well to be honest, never really filled back up. So when we moved into our new house with modern fixtures and fittings and direct access to water, we never looked back.

Direct access to water means water that is supplied from the water company. The water is certainly not recommended to drink but as a rule it does not smell, it is clear and it safe to wash in. Only when you don't have water do you realise how much you waste and use needlessly. I am not advocating everyone spend 3 months living in a place with limited access to water but it does teach a valuable lesson.
Our water comes into the house via a large holding tank under the car port floor. The space has to be 4mx4x2m in height so that is a lot of water it can hold and like a cistern the level or amount is controlled by a ballcock arm and float. Very simple. The water is then pumped to a tank on the roof and then gravity feed to the taps and toilets and the pressure is OK but not the best. However, I am not sure if the tank on the roof is ever full or even if there is one. I am assuming as a tank can be seen from the road if you are coming in from the right direction.
Apparently we have been very lucky with our water supply compared with the neighbours, who have had leaking pumps, pipes and other issues resulting in them paying for each others water. Weird but its understandable. The pipework itself seems to be robust and we have had only one issue which was fixed immediately. However there are water stains on the ceiling that cannot be explained. I suspect thats the roof.... but I can't be sure.

So the other week whilst showering the water turned a nice gritty light brown colour for a while and then stopped coming out of the shower. Then the toilet would not refill etc. I pay a visit to the holding tank to discover it is empty. There is no water. The ballcock had rusted at the joint which allowed the water to flow in at some point over the past 6 months and so it just ran its self empty. Forcing the lever up, out came the water. However what came out of the pipe was not really the nicest thing to see. First of all the bottom of the tank is covered in a layer of black or dark green slime which because we never new the tank was empty has been pumped around the house (it has all gone now) and then the pipes filled up with mud and I suspect the holding tank on the roof.

The black stuff could be organic but organic what?

Once I managed to wash, I went back to the tank and tried to stop the water coming out only to have the lever snap off in my hand and even more water pouring into the tank. A quick call to the wife and I was off to the land lady. I turned the pump and the water at the mains off before I left. I did not want the pump to go bang and have to pay a lot of money for that. The ballcock lever arm had just simply rusted out as it was made of metal and the cheapest one probably, around.

The landlady looked surprised and concerned when I handed her the lever and she sent her maid round to take a look at things. A man came later that night and replaced the arm and filled the tank. So I am waiting for a very big water bill next month much to my dismay.  However it took 3 more days for all the taps in the house to run clear with water and even now we sometimes get brown water come out. Not idea if you are shaving or cleaning your teeth at that moment.

I have done a little research into the water quality around my area which was actually easier than you would think because our supplier PALJYA water provides documentation and information about the quality of the water each month which is actually very impressive.

Kalibata and Tebet are both next to Mampang.

Both taken from http://en.palyja.co.id/home/

The water from the areas around my house both passed the tests made which could be false hope or could actually be good news. I will go with the good news. Still wont drink it though.

The water we get comes from a reservoir somewhere outside Jakarta and it is raw river water which gets treated and cleaned and then pumped to the house. But due to the way the pipework and connections work leaks and infiltration happens and so the water gets dirtier and more unsafe. We use the water only to wash in the house and nothing else.

I strongly believe that there is a septic tank under the house as well but I cant be sure and no one seems to care. There are several pipes that carry water into drains outside the house to a stream which connects to the a bigger stream, then a river and maybe is then re-pumped into the water supply somewhere. I don't really think about it.

Despite all this there is no real desire to improve make the water safer or cleaner or accessible to all even though that is something everyone agrees is needed.

Gangs of Pancoran

Its been over 7 years in Jakarta for me now and I have to comment that overall the place for me is a secure one. Of course, I may be living in a bubble or I don't or don't want to see anything but the good.

I remember watching pickpockets in Bali target and steal from a tourist but before I could do anything the guy had just disappeared. I remember my first trip out on the Transjakarta Busway mainly due to someone trying to steal my wallet and of course, the month before I got married, having my house broken into, everything that mattered to me taken and leaving behind a bitter taste of Indonesia in my mouth. 

The night watchman said he was powerless to stop the crime in the area and carried a gun and a knife to protect himself. The fact he was nowhere to be seen on the night of the break-in suggests he was not that useful as a deterrent or as a watchman. Still angry about the break in? Yes and forever will be.

So last night around 2am, I am woken by the wife who is telling me there is a fight going on outside. Thinking a fight being a 2 or 3 people shouting at each other or a wife letting go at her husband, I went out onto the balcony to see what was going on. This running street battle had been raging for at least 2 hours I was told after.

This is my Facebook update from what I saw:  

It's 2 am and the locals have busied themselves into a little mini riot. Chains, belts, machetes, clubs. Night security look a little rushed off their feet. No police that can be seen.

Yep. From my view point I could see a couple of lads with belts fighting at the top of the road. There were stones and bricks lying around, clearly having been thrown and coming down the road was a man with a Machete heading into the fight, however, I never saw him return. Cars and bikes were turning around and all the locals were out looking at the noise and commotion near them. 

Best not meet a man with a sword at 2am.
Photo courtesy of demotix.com

A couple more people ran by one carrying a makeshift 2 meter long spear with something sharp at the end and then one of the night watchmen came from nowhere shouting and waving his big stick about. I think he must have done something useful as there was some dispersement. A couple of 'pops' from something made everyone run down the road and the locals dive back into their houses and that was pretty much it for the night. The police eventually arrived not en-masse but in a car but the fight had pretty much ended by then and it was replaced by brushes and brooms sweeping the road clean and tidying things up.

This is the stuff the locals fight with, golf clubs clearly for the more affluent street fighter

It appears that there has been running fights for a while now up and down the street at night with some gangs of bored youths and men probably fighting over nothing like normal but the fact they 'tool' or arm themselves up makes it more concerning. 

Still this being Indonesia, the locals will take matters into their own hands and ultimately once the ringleaders of the fights have been caught, they will face a very severe beating or worse by them. 

I am hoping this ends soon, I am sure it will as these things often do. The streets are still far safer than many in England and I am not stupid enough to outside my house at times like those