***This is going to be a pretty bitchy post. I don’t mean any ill will toward the American
Women’s Association; in fact, I am thankful that their organization
exists. My experience, though, was
pretty shitty, and I’m not going to sugarcoat my feelings from Tuesday morning,
or my feelings now in reflection.
Consider this to be my disclaimer.***
On Tuesday morning, I attended the American Women’s
Association Newcomers’ Coffee Meeting with another teacher from my center. We planned to meet with another couple of
teachers from a different center. The
coffee was scheduled for 9-12, so we left at 8:15 by taksi because Google Maps
told us that it would take 30 minutes to get to the house in Kemang.
Well, traffic wasn’t great, so we arrived in the right
neighborhood around 9:10. Our driver
didn’t recognize the address, so he dropped us off in front of some apartments,
and we walked around the neighborhood and called a contact from the AWA a few
times for attempts at directions. It was
hot and frustrating, and I’m not going to divulge the amount of expletives that
came out of my mouth. Specifically, I
was irritated that an association specifically for people who do not speak
Bahasa or know side streets did not include a map or directions on their
website. I was even further irritated to
learn that the address we were given was spelled incorrectly.
The AWA representative seemed very irritated herself, in
that we were lost and that our driver had left.
She eventually sent her car and driver to pick us up in front of the
apartment complex. She also sent a woman
from the AWA to meet us. The woman was
Australian and upbeat. She was here
because her husband was a diplomat.
The first question we were asked was, “So, what do your
husbands do?” I realized quite quickly
that we were headed to a meeting of housewives with household income levels
probably ten times what we are making.
The car pulled into a gate and up to a house that looked
pretty typical for the Kemang area – gated with 10 to 12 foot fences, a
security hut, a small front courtyard, a small back garden, and about 2000
square feet of “living” space. This is
nothing like the houses in the Tomang area, and especially nothing like the
“kampung” neighborhoods within the Tomang area and most of the other regions of
Jakarta. A kampung is a very low-income
housing neighborhood, like the images below.
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My neighborhood is a mixture of kampung, gated housing, and
office buildings. This is quite typical
of Jakarta. The Kemang area, where the
AWA is located, is home to a lot of ex-pats and is very gentrified. The streets are noticeably quieter, there are
manicured medians in the roads, and there are gates and fences everywhere.
A side note – because I am bule, or white, most Indonesians
will assume that I live in Kemang, much like the taksi driver who took me to
Kemang, even though I told him the road that I lived on. A 50,000 IDR (about $5, which is pretty major
for a taksi ride) mistake that I had to eat, even though it was his fault.
We signed in and were asked to sit down because the newcomer
presentation had already started. The
first part of the presentation was about safety and talked about getting to
know your neighborhood, securing documents and valuables, and car safety. Much of it was common sense, but it was
helpful to hear some reminders.
The presentation was largely geared toward ex-pat families
who had households and vehicles in Jakarta, which I suppose I should have
expected.
The next portion of the presentation dealt with health,
which was again, mostly common sense, but somewhat helpful. I did learn that the giant orange tanks on
top of houses held water. I also learned
how to clean vegetables (if only I had a kitchen!), and the importance of
charcoal tablets for “Bali-belly” was reiterated. (Note to self: pick up charcoal tablets, even though you
don’t need them yet. You won’t want to
leave your room to pick them up when you do.)
The presenter covered common illnesses, such as TB, malaria, dengue
fever, typhoid fever, typhus, and the avian flu. I guess I won’t be playing with any dead
birds during my stay. *sigh*
I did learn that doctors here see hundreds of patients
daily, and only native Indonesians can practice medicine in Indonesia. Chances are, the doctors do not speak
English. You do not need a prescription to
pick up most medication, so what I took from the presentation was to
self-diagnose on WebMD, go to the Indonesian doctor for confirmation, and then
to research my “prescription” before actually using it. Hopefully, I won’t have to use the hospital
or the apotek (pharmacy) for anything serious.
I did have to buy Claritin a couple of weeks ago, but I had to write
down the ingredients and look at about 5 different types of pills that the
pharmacist tried to sell me before purchasing one with the Claritin
ingredients.
At this point in the presentation, we took a coffee break
and were able to introduce ourselves to the other ex-pats. (And we ate vegetables! Fresh vegetables!) I learned that the reason we couldn’t get good
directions to the AWA house was because the woman giving us directions had
never driven there herself. She admitted
to always looking at her phone or reading while her driver took her
places.
The other women all had husbands who worked. Their jobs were primarily to take care of
their households. There was one woman
who said that she wanted to work, but many looked at us as though we were in
the wrong club. The presenter apologized
to us for the next portion of the presentation in advance, the portion that was later reflected on by one
of our group as “a flashback to The Help.”
Basically, we were given instructions on how to run a household
with a security guard, a pembantu (maid), a nanny, an errand boy, and a
driver. Oh, if only.
She went through lists of “dos and don’ts,” scenarios, and
answered dozens of questions, such as, “Should I feed my maid lunch?” and “Can
my maid’s husband visit her?” All in
all, I felt as though the presentation was in poor taste simply because of the way that
the women talked about their staff - much in the same way that the women of the
South talked about their help in the 50s and 60s.
Truthfully, hiring help is offering people jobs, so
I don’t know that I can complain about the practice of this. In all reality, these bule families are expected
to provide jobs while living in Indonesia.
It creates a very conflicting feeling for me. The household staff makes salaries that are
about 1/6 of what I make as an English teacher.
The presenter confided to the women that Indonesia is considered
a “hardship post” as a way to let the women know that their own personal
frustrations were justified. I found
this to be very funny. These women will
never know “hardship” in the way that us teachers know it, and even we will never know hardship in the way that these maids know hardship. The workers make the equivalent of $50 a
week. They work 12-hour days, six days a
week.
I suppose that my most conflicting feelings rest in the idea
that the average Indonesian that I pass on the street lumps me into a
category with these bule families, while in reality I cannot afford the luxury
that they can, and yet, I can still afford so much more than the Indonesian. It is as though I belong to this “limbo”
class where I make too much and too little all at once.
