Six Degrees South

I am always filled with paroxysms of guilt after partaking in a meal of fine dining. It seems sinful to eat an extravagant meal when literally billions of fellow travelers on our small planet live without. It is also seems sinful to eat meat, a practice that takes up far too many of the earth's resources.  Eating fast food and corporate, mass-produced food also has unethical components. Even the humble, healthy blueberries I purchased from my local grocery store, became a source of consternation when I noticed that they had been flown all the way from Spain.  I think the only way one can eat ethically is to consume exclusively the fruits, grains, and vegetables one can cultivate oneself or in a cooperative with other sustainable farmers. But such practice might not be possible for many of us. And my monthly donations to the World Food Program and the Spokane Food Bank do not absolve me of any of my food guilt. 6 days a week, I try to eat as humbly as I can, but one day a week I cel

Taking advantage of a special deal in order to have a 24-hour vacation from my apartment, where I spend 99% of my existence. I stayed last weekend in Downtown Jakarta at the Oriental Mandarin Hotel.  Two views from my room. And a view from outside picturing my hotel and the Selamat Datang Monument. The phrase selemat datang means "Welcome" and the monument was built in 1962 to welcome athletes and spectators to Jakarta for the 4th Asian Games, the Olympics of the continent. It is, without a doubt, the happiest, most welcoming monument I have ever seen. And 50 meters from the Selemat Datang Monument is a sculpture that seems pretty happy and welcoming too. 

Decided I wanted to start up a little indoor garden again. I had a small indoor garden in Kyrgyzstan because I was desperate for leafy greens in my diet, where none were available. In Indonesia, fortunately, leafy greens can be found in abundance.  Instead, there were a few herbs I wanted to grow. During COVID one cannot travel far and wide searching for seeds, so I had to settle for what I could find in the ACE Hardware store in the mall that houses my pharmacy. Their selection was limited and included watermelon and pumpkin seeds, produce I certainly could not imagine cultivating on my window sill.  Sadly, the sage did not germinate, but the three varieties of basil are flourishing.  

The day Ramadan began, a large yellow fruit popped up in the compound grocery store. This fruit, known as Timun Suri in Indonesia, or Cucumber Suri or Tropical Yellow Cucumber, has a special significance here in that it is one of the most common foods used by the observant to break their daily fast during this holy month. The timun suri is a wise choice for this purpose as its high moisture content helps mitigate the effects of the dehydration that can result from fasting. Additionally the timun suri is extremely nutritious, loaded with antioxidants and an array of nutrients to help reinvigorate and renew. The timun suri is in the pumpkin family, though it possesses the attributes of a melon.  The one I purchased tasted like a bland version of a honeydew melon, but I may have chosen one that wasn't fully ripe. Usually I don't purchase melons and gourds that don't have a firm texture, but I will make an exception next time to see if I can choose a sweeter timun suri. Or mayb

The kind and esteemed librarian of the Naryn campus sent me this picture of what it looked like outside the Giant Yellow Spaceship when he woke up this morning. Wow!  I don't know which I miss less, April snowstorms or grechka?  Well, while I ponder that question, I will decide whether, here in Jakarta, I will go swimming after work at the 29th Floor pool or the massive outdoor pool on the ground floor. 🙂  Decisions.

When I was about 5 years old, my relatives in Germany sent me a pair of traditional short leather pants called lederhosen for my birthday, so they are very much an "old world" relic in my mind.  Perhaps it's just a normal reflection of the modern consumeristic world, but it seems surreal to me that I am not only getting an authentic German-style meal delivered to me for dinner in Jakarta, during a pandemic, but the fact that it was also delivered to me by a man riding on his scooter in a pair of lederhosen seems to make it all the more surreal.

Whenever I travel I try to bypass the hotel chain and stay at the distinctive family-run inn. Villa Sabina, in the Villa Rosseno complex, was definitely one of those memorable one-of-a-kind places. Yes, it was incredibly comfortable, the service impeccable and totally personalized, and the Indonesian food delicious. But the feature most unique are the 22 cats who live here too. The proprietor is a kitty rescuer who spays/neuters the abandoned feline souls who end up on her doorstep.   Each has a tragic story in their past, like the old tabby brought to the propietor with a bullet wound in his skull, one eye obliterated the other permanently danaged. Though the vet could not restore the tabby's vision, he now lounges on a small throw rug enjoying the same 5-star treatment as the villa guests. Though I am neutral in my opinion of cats, the feline community seems to show a great affinity toward me. I don't know why. Perhaps it is the soft tone of voice I use when speaking near the

While I have taken a couple of excursions on my trip, I have spent most of my time, either in the pool or sitting in the little Indonesian style gazebo, which I have termed the Book Nook. What a relaxing and pleasant place to read the novel and a recent copy of The New Yorker that I brought with me.  And the view from the Nook to the rice paddies that surround the villa complex is also sublime.

After a morning of touring the Borobudur Temple, under the hottest sun I've experienced thus far in Indonesia, I was pleased to be driven back to the villa in air-conditioned comfort. Somehow the conversation the driver and I were having landed on the topic of coffee, which is strange, because I don't particularly enjoy coffee.   "How would you like to try the most exclusive coffee in the world?" he asked. "No, I don't want to go out of our way," I replied, hoping we could get back to the villa as soon as possible, so I could enjoy that cooling dip in the pool I was craving. "Actually this place is on the way," he enthused, always eager to please his client. As I could not gently convince him to proceed directly to the villa, and I hesitate to be an aggressively assertive American, we ended up at Coffee Luwak Mataram.  It turns out, "Luwak" refers to an animal that in English is called the Asian Palm Civet. It is a nocturnal creature

I don't think I am a traditional Christian. In fact, I no longer identify as one because every single horrifying racist, Trumpist, homophobe, misogynist, fascist, or cruel hater of the poor I have come in contact with in the last several years has been an emphatic, self-proclaimed hardcore Christian. Yes, there are many wonderful Christians out there who exemplify the Gospels, but something is seriously wrong in American Christendom where so much hatred prevails that I have decided to become a religious version of Sweden--a decidedly neutral party who, while appreciating the tradition in which I was raised, eschews dogmatism and believes in ecumenicism among all traditional religions, a person who sees spiritual beauty and truth emanating from a variety of paths. I decided to commemorate the spirit of Easter at Borobudur this morning.  Borobudur is the world's largest Buddhist temple and was completed in the mid-9th Century. After centuries of abandonment and decay, restoration

Here are a few photos of some of the fascinating sculpture and relief work found on the ancient 9th Century Hindu temples of Prambanan, which I visited today.   I was fascinated by the gargoyle-type creatures serving as water drainage spouts, just as you would find at European Gothic cathedrals, like Notre Dame, built a few centuries later.  The depictions of animals are also interesting, particularly the monkeys who are depicted as mischievous fiends across most cultures, almost symbolic representations of the human id. And at Prambanan, the images of monkeys are no exception and seemed to me, shall we say, particularly candid.

One of my main goals of this trip was to visit Prambanan, one of the most magnificent ancient Hindu temples in the world. The Prambanan temples were constructed in the 9th Century, but were abandoned in the 10th Century and most of the complex collapsed in the great earthquakes of the 16th Century. The site, which had largely been covered by volcanic ash and jungle growth, received worldwide attention in 1814 when Sir Thomas Raffles publicized its existence. It took over 100 years to sort out all the stones to figure out how to reconstruct the temples we see today.  During an approximately 20 year span, in the mid-1900s, most of the current temples were reconstructed, though restoration is an ongoing process. Nevertheless, about 200 temples have not yet been restored, though because much of the old stone was plundered for other buildings after the site was abandoned, a much larger reconstruction might be impossible.  Not only is the temple architecture extraordinary, highlighted by the

Decided it was time to see something other than my compound in Jakarta. Planned out a trip with as little COVID risk as possible. It helps that you can't even enter an airport in Indonesia without providing documentation of a negative nasal swab antigen test conducted on the day you fly--and I don't leave the compound without wearing both an N-95 mask and face shield.  Took a one hour flight to Yogyakarta, a city on the southern coast of Java. Staying out in the country at Villa Sabina, one of the three villas in the Villa Rosseno complex. Amazing food, every meal custom-created by a couple of Indonesian chefs. Tonight was a lovely Sop Ayam, Indonesian-style chicken soup, where you add a multitude of ingredients and condiments at the table.  I have 24/7 access to a driver and a Toyota Land Cruiser, so I have a couple cool excursions planned for the weekend. Best of all, each villa comes with its own private pool and garden. Just finished a refreshing dip in the pool, in a dream