Things that make no sense - My first post about traffic

I started to write a post about all of the things that are a bit different, or annoying, or ridiculous here, but I realized that it would turn into a very long post.  Instead, I’m starting with the first thing on my list: traffic and traffic lights.

Of course, traffic lights barely exist in this city with 17 million people and 11 million vehicles (the square footage of vehicles actually exceeds the amount of road available).  A good illustration of the traffic problem can be summed up by this picture from Reuters:

I’ve seen four or five traffic lights total in my time here, and they were all at intersections where three roads meet.  At a traffic light, after the cars stop, the ojeks will continue to weave around the stopped vehicles, making a crazy line of motorbikes at the front of the light, much like this YouTube video* illustrates:

You can observe, too, that the ojeks don’t always obey the light, moving along as they see fit.  Many Indonesians see ojeks as the solution to the traffic problem, as they are always faster than driving a car due to the weaving and breaking of laws.  Ojeks will weave even when traffic is moving.  I’ve seen them drive against traffic, ride on the sidewalk, and clip pedestrians walking in the road (I’ve actually been a clipped pedestrian and have the bruise to prove it). 

As a side note, yes that is a tuk-tuk you see in the traffic to the right.  They are more common on side streets.  I’m not sure that they are allowed on the major roads, but a traffic law never stopped anyone in Jakarta.

Okay, you’re thinking.  Traffic sucks.  So what if there are no lights?  Well, there are no on-ramps, either.  You are going to be turning into (to the left, mind you) multiple lanes of traffic with no room to merge. 

The solution?  Not a light; that would take away from jobs.

Instead, see the photos of my friend below (on a pretty slow traffic day):

I’m not sure what his name is, but I’m calling him my friend because his face lights up every time he sees me.  Sometimes he has a partner at this intersection.  His job is to direct traffic.  And yes, that is a cigarette he is holding; I won’t even get into teenagers smoking here.

Basically, he is watching for cars approaching the main road.  When one pulls up, he will physically step into oncoming traffic to stop the left-hand lane and allow the vehicle to enter the road.  His hands are continuously waving the traffic along.

When I approach, he yells “Hello!” and “Taksi?” and “Blue!” because he knows that I need a taxi and I will only get into the blue ones.  Now, I can very well hail my own cab, but this is his job.  From my observations, these boys work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

What does he get paid, you may ask?  Well, he doesn’t.  He is depending solely on tips from the drivers.  If you think that he did a good job for you, you will pass him 500 to 1,000 rupiah from your window (4 or 8 cents).  This, of course, slows traffic down even further, but I’m not getting into logic here.  I give him 1,000 rupiah for hailing my cab.  There is always a smattering of coins littered underfoot, and I am guessing that he collects these at the end of the night. 

This isn’t a post to pull at your heartstrings, even though my friend pulls at mine every time I see him.  On the contrary, he continuously wears a smile and does his job.  I guess I don’t know what kind of post this is.  I guess it’s just a post.

UPDATE:  I have confirmation from 2 Indonesian sources that the boy who directs traffic is known as "Pak ogah."

*borrowed from YouTuber Laurentiu Morariu

How the Other Half Lives, or The Real Housewives of Jakarta

***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.

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.

What to do when your Taksi driver removes his glasses to eat fried rice.

Oh, wait.  That was supposed to be a question.  What do you do if your taksi driver removes his glasses to eat fried rice?  On a busy highway?  Without a fork?  I just sat there and hoped he understood my directions.

I was going to write a post about money, but my ride home made me change my mind.  See, I’ve been having some difficulties getting home.  Going to work is never a problem.  I walk about 3 blocks to the nearest major intersection, passing an alley full of food stalls and lines of ojeks (motorbikes).  The ojek drivers call out to me, asking if I need a ride, and I just smile and yell “Hallo!” back to them.  NO WAY IN HELL am I getting on the back of one of those death-traps, with or without a helmet.  Granted, the traffic probably never exceeds 30 mph, even with the ojek weaving between lanes, and traffic accidents are very rare in Jakarta (which amazes me, considering that Jakartan drivers squeeze an extra lane or two out of just about any road and considering that traffic lights are non-existent), but I can’t get past the idea.  I’ve read a few ex-pat blogs where the writer swears by his or her personal ojek driver.  I’ll pay the extra fifty cents for a taksi.

So anyway, I walk to the nearest major intersection.  Here, in lieu of a traffic light, you will find a teenager directing traffic.  Seriously.  In exchange for about ten cents, he will literally stop three lanes of traffic to hail you a cab.  He’ll do it for nothing, actually, but the ten cents goes a long way in traffic karma.  The only cabs you should trust are Bluebird (blue in color) and Express (white in color).  This morning, I made the mistake of simply accepting a blue cab, and I realized about halfway to work that it was not a Bluebird, only blue in color, by noticing the way the meter jumped randomly. Bluebird drivers will never ask you to go “off meter,” and the charges are based on mileage rather than time (which goes a long way in crazy Jakarta traffic).

There are two major differences between the ride to work and the ride home.  First is the cost.  A ride to the Mall takes between 5 and 25 minutes, but the price will only be about $1.20 because the ride is only 1.2 km.  The ride home takes between 20 and 30 minutes, and because of the road design, is 5.8 km or $3.00.

The second and more annoying difference between the ride to work and the ride home is the directions.  The ride to work is easy.  I get into the cab, say “Mal Taman Anggrek, silakahn,” and away we go.  Once we get to the mall’s entrance, we pull into a security stall, the driver pops the trunk, and a guard checks for God-knows-what.  After that, I say “Matahari!” and point to the department store entrance because this cuts about 5 minutes off of waiting in line at the entrance.  The driver crosses three lanes of traffic without a light, and Bob’s your uncle.

The way home, on the other hand, is a beast in itself.  I’ve had a printout of my address to show drivers, but many drivers look at the address, shake their heads, and then drive off.  I have to approach an average of 4 drivers before one will shake his head but still give me a ride.  Last night, my driver explained that the address is written wrong.  He explained what I should write, but he explained in Bahasa, so I have no idea what he said.  I am nothing if not innovative, however, so today at work, I went on Google Maps, printed the route map very large, and wrote the address as it appeared on my Kost’s webpage.  Ingenious, right?  Yeah, except for that my driver looked at my map and then looked at me, and then back at my map, and then back at me. 

He didn’t know how to read a map.

He pulled over a total of three times during the trip to look at my map and scratch his head, and I kept pointing at the main road, repeating, “Tomang Raya,” and saying “maaf” (sorry) when he would ask me questions.  He pulled over to ask questions, mind you, but he did not pull over to reach over to the passenger-side glove-box (which is the left-side, by the way), take out his rice, remove his glasses, and begin chowing down.

Luckily, I was able to convey the name of the large road by my Kost, and once there, I was able to point the directions home. 

Well, that’s my taksi post.  Any suggestions for a future post?