Medan

Indonesia

Medan

The flight to Medan went well (of course in this plane no movie or computer games, it was only one hour flight). The arrival at the airport was a pit different than what we have in Amsterdam (schiphol), there was chaos yeah but just a small hall were your bags are coming in and were people are hurrying to carry your baggage. It was a complete different world there. There were men in uniform standing there and looking angry, waiting there in case something goes wrong or when they have to check some luggage.
A driver from my father’s work came to pick us up, I was glad that we were finally in the car where it was quite and cold, and hopefully we had all the luggage insight, because we had a lot, and by that I mean A LOT!
So of we were to my father’s office, we met some colleges and could go on internet for awhile. It was nice to see were my father had worked all the time he was in Medan and now I also knew why he wanted to work there, because people here worship you as if you are a god (maybe because my father is also the big boss around here).

Medan is a really big city with a lot of inhabitants. Driving in this city is also like crazy, I know I couldn’t drive there, you can’t even cross the street easily!!! Everywhere there are cars, bejaks (bicycles or motor bicycles with a car next to it where you can sit in), bicycles, bemo’s (taxi busses, stuffed with people insight) and motorcycles blowing the claxon and trying to pass each other. The bemo’s go a sight when someone wants to get on the bus, so sometimes the just stop at ones in front of your car. Also here there are traffic jams all the time if you want to go into the city.

In Medan we could stay in Ron’s (a college of my father) house; he lives just out of the city in a golf compound; so when you drive in there you first have to pass a gate and a guard, than there is this big road and big trees strait trough the golf area. So there we were at Ron’s house; and what a house it was…..it was huge/ enormous!!!!
They had a dog (yeah lucky me huh?!) and a made, a driver, a big TV, a balcony, airco, a garden, a bath, big bedrooms etc. So enough to do and relax in this place.
On Tuesday my parents had to go to Bandeh Aceh (the capital of Aceh; a province of Sumatra) for official registration. There were some demonstrations to celebrate the one year contract of peace between the terrorist and Muslims, so they were afraid that they couldn’t go, but it all went okay (yeah they had to stay in the air for an hour because someone important came). Of course there was a lot of damage from the tsunami.

Dewi, the housekeeper, toke me to go to get some limes for my throat that day.
I wasn’t feeling very well that day and my throat was hurting, so my mother told her to get me some limes. But than when I woke up she just started to talk and talk (in Indonesian), I couldn’t understand a think she was saying, because she couldn’t talk any English and I don’t speak any Indonesian (yet), so she really overwhelmed me.
I thought how nice to have a day by myself and just relax, have some rest and enjoy my stay in this big house, but I was wrong….
In this kind of countries the culture is of course really different and they have other norms and values. For them we are really rich and the white people have big houses and a lot of money, they really look up to you (as if you’re really special and higher up than them). So they want to treat you right and take care of you.
So also Dewi wanted to make sure I was alright and take care of me, I didn’t want that, but I couldn’t make that clear to her. When I wanted to get something out of the kitchen she was there a head of me, making it for me and where I would go she would go to. So she said some things to me and I thought I understood, but suddenly she was closing all the windows and I had to come with her, where we would go, I had no idée…….
So there we went of, we walked and walked, I didn’t brought anything because I didn’t know were we where heading to. Than we got to the little shops and bought some lime and aqua for me. It was nice to go with her because she knew the prices and knew the people. So on the way back she also talked to some old ladies and to a friend, who toke us back on his motorcycle, yeah all three of us on a motorcycle, for them that’s really normal (for us not so)
She talked the whole day and it was good for me to learn some Indonesian, it’s really the best method to learn a languages. But afterward I was really tired and got some rest. Later I found out they had a lot of DVD’s (incredible how much they had, but who wouldn’t they are really cheap here), so I was enjoying myself with watching a lot of movies.

The house was not really nearby the city nor nearby my father’s office, so if we wanted to go somewhere we had to take a taxicab.
The other day’s we spend some time in the Malls, looking for stuff for our new house and buying some blouses (because of the Muslim aria where you have to wear something over your shoulders).
When we told people we were going to live in Simuelue they thought we were crazy, because of the Sharia rules there; they said that it would be really strict and that we had to wear something over our heads, thinks like that, Help, would it really be like that and would we really go to live in a place like that????
My father’s driver started laughing when we said we would go to Simuelue; he said: “They’ve got those beautiful beaches there, but than the people go swimming with there clothes on!!!! Whahaha”
A man in Malaysia said that it was very dangerous to go to Indonesia because of the earthquakes, tsunami and the volcano. So I didn’t know if I really wanted to go to this dangerous place, I will see how it is…
The way back home we toke a betjak; that’s a motorcycle with a car next to it where we sat in, it was shaking and I was so scared that I would fall out of it or that we would be hit by a car or so, it was a long drive, but it went well (I staid insight of it, didn’t get hurt or whatever) so at the end I found it really cool and an other great experience.
On Thursday it was a free day and there were some demonstrations and speeches in town. We went into town, but for the whole week I wasn’t feeling so well, so I also had some rest at Ron’s house.