Made in Indonesia

I've never heard of Jakarta, but that's usually how my experience with port visits start out. We pull in somewhere that I've never heard of and end up finding out something new about the world we live in. This time I learned that there are places that might rival the outskirts of Manila in destitute. Naturally, this being a port town, had it's fair share of classier spots(read: seedier).

It literally smells like no less than a hundred wet dogs just chillin' on the pier in the equatorial sun. Yum.

Indonesia, for the most part, is a Muslim country. This in itself is a new experience to me, and I think that put me on my guard for a majority of the time while we ported here. It's not that I'm a bigot in a religous manner, but is a new experience for me and I was curious and caught myself staring at many of the mosques, statues, and people.

The burkas and religious clothing, the otherworldly foods, the crescent moons on the top of the mosques. I took it all in, but was afraid of taking too many pictures. I am by no means a representative of the Christian community, but you get the idea that you're lumped into that category just for being white.

At a point in our travels where our taksi (Indonesian word for the phonetic) was bringing us downtown we went through a bit of a slum. Some of the scenes were just too incredible, like many things I saw in Manila. I would say that the movie "Slumdog Millionare" comes pretty dead-on to what you would see in the streets. Beggars from every age, taxis ranging from bicycles to scooters for 4 people to converted motorcycles that now had three wheels and a stained plastic shell. Masses of people were living on the railways, fishing out of the stream that trickles through the clogs made from trash and sewage. Trash, everywhere, was the one constant. The colors of red rust and dirt brown covered everything in this heat.

I looked over in the bus that came beside us and saw a girl, couldn't have been much older than 15 or 16 holding a baby. Whether it was hers or her absent mother's, I could not tell you, either scenario is possible. She was looking directly at me through the window that was permanently stained brown. The bus was a relic of another time, resurrected again and again through mechanical miracle. I wanted to help her out somehow, but our contact was cut short when we pulled on ahead in the traffic that could only be described as nightmarish at its best time. Imagine the New York City rush hour, but everyone is moving at one in that gridiron pattern.

I felt guilty for having an iPod in my bag. I felt like just my presence there was insulting. Then I thought about the rich girl on that YouTube video that was throwing a fit about getting a brand new car from daddy on her birthday that was the *wrong color*. I felt incredible rage and shame. The girl on the bus probably didn't have a lot of options growing up. The rich girl has plenty of options and education, which is totally wasted on frivolous things.

Sometimes I anger myself too much with things that could only be solved in the world on a person-to-person basis.

Sorry about the long post, but I've never been to Jakarta before and I was reminded again of humility.
~chase