Well, I intended for this to be a food blog.

Well hello,

As the title suggests, I was going to turn this into a summer food blog, but then ate all the food before I had time to document the recipe/record pictorial evidence of the actual occurrence (mostly because each meal takes me a long time to make as I'm slow and chop vegetables at the rate of a blind person). Honestly, I only made about 3 meals, but that's a 300% increase from pre-summer cooking. Also, I titled the url 'poonomnomnom' and had to justify the name.

But no, no food blog. At least not for now... Because I'm in INDONESIA!!! (it's beautiful and I love it). Bandung specifically, although tomorrow we're leaving the house at 5:30 am to head off to the rural village of Sindang Sari for four weeks, where we'll develop a project based on the needs of the village and the ways in which we can apply our education thus far. By 'we' I mean myself and the 20 or so other interns from all of the world. Netherlands, China, Bahrain, UK, France, Finland, Vietnam, etc.. I'm the only one from the U.S., and will do my best not to slander our reputation. Actually, most people don't hate the U.S. I thought they would after the shit we pulled with Iraq, but I think electing Obama really smoothed things over. American music and cinema is EVERYONE. A lot of the interns and indonesians know more about pop culture in the U.S. than I do.

So, from the beginning:

After traveling for 1.5 days, hopping from detroit to tokyo to singapore to jakarta to bandung, I was picked up by Odi and Huski, two AIESEC members here. They were amazingly nice and took me to a local food joint. My entire meal of eggs, tempe, rice, and soup was about 70 cents. We were supposed to go straight to a meeting, but hunger prevailed! At the meeting, I - -

SIDENOTE: a transvestite just entered the internet cafe, shaking some musical instrument, and singing her song. She would love PRIDE week in the states, but for now must be satisfied serenading society until she gets her money (Rupiah).

-- I met the other interns, about 20ish kids from all over the world, ages 20 to 24 (i think). Everyone is incredibly nice. Yes, it's only the third day and claws usually emerge by day 6, but we're all similar and that we chose Indonesia to meet people, experience someone rare and unexpected, and somehow change ourselves for the better. So even though we're technically here to help people, we're getting so much in return, probably more than we can actually contribute.

After the meeting, as excitement trumped jet lag, I was wide awake and surprised to find that the AIESEC organizers put us up in this beautiful mansion overlooking Bandung. Ersan (more about him later. He is so amazing and deserves his own paragraph, if not billboard, movie, and fan club)'s friend Ari's (also amazing) grandparents are in the parliament, and use this house only when they're in Bandung. The house has a hot shower, a western toilet, a maid (although we try to clean up after ourselves as much as possible) and a huge tv (others took advantage of this to watch the world cup!). On our downtime, the interns and local AIESEC members hang out, play games, talk, walk around the city, and laugh a lot (by the way, this internship is organized by an international organization called AIESEC. Their whole motto is to learn through cultural immersion and network with people from all over the world, so we can go home with a broader sense of the world, people, and global issues).

Last night, we went to a hookah bar/restaurant. The hookah bar was unfortunately closed, but we had a really delicious dinner, played 'ten fingers', and tried to convince Ersan to do the Single Ladies Dance, which a handful of interns had been lucky enough to see the night before. Ersan was tired and didn't bend to the peer pressure, which we ended because the guy has done such an amazing job taking care of ALL of us. He's always there for us despite currently going through a family crisis. His parents were in Bangkok and disappeared. WHile we're in the village, he's going to go to Thailand to look for them. I had absolutely no idea until another intern told me, because he doesn't let this show. When I'm angry, I'm pretty sure I radiate furious energy and heat. I contribute to global warming. But Ersan is always in a good mood, with a big smile on his face, joking with us, making sure we're all ok, and essentially babysitting 20+ kids who don't know the language (yes, he's also our translator). He doesn't get paid to do this, as AIESEC is just an extracurricular. again, he is amazing.

In fact, Indonesia in general is so lovely. It doesn't smell like India, but some of the busy market streets look similar. Yet, it has the most beautiful tree and flowers. The people here really smile. As in, with their mouth, eyes, and entire being. It makes me smile back, so I spend a good portion of the day smiling (don't worry Mom, this is all while protecting my purse and passport).

The highways are pretty crowded. They were serpent-like slabs of concrete packed with cars all cutting through to find the fastest route. Only my bus driver was honking. Everyone else was pretty chill. And they actually pay attention to road lines (For the most part), but driving here is still crazy. Only Noha from Egypt is capable of maneuvering through the motorcyclists, cars, and hills.

Soon, we are going to get toilet paper and other commodities for the village. I'm going with Noha from Egypt, Carolien from Holland, and Nikki from the Netherlands. A ten minute walk away in another village will be Sofia from Finnland, Nathan from China, and Jeremy from France. The girls have made plans to do yoga in the morning, and i bought a soccerball at the mall yesterday so we can play with the kids in the village.

Of course, this blog must at least begin and end with food, so I can call it my pseudo-food blog. If you don't like rice, eggs, spice, and tofu, don't come here. Luckily, I love the aforementioned items and am trying to take pictures of everything I eat here. In the village, we cook for ourselves, so my goal is to learn how to make authentic Indonesian dishes.

So yes, here is the sparknotes version of my trip, devoid of funny moments and craziness, full of parenthesis so include details I deem important. I'm also keeping a journal, so will update the blog as much as possible.

Although, (pooja, this is for you) they have a magical car shop here. They chant or something around the car to fix it, opposed to using western schools of mechanical action. I thought that was hilarious. They're very spiritual, and believe in mystics and the inexplicable. The culture is so different, and very refreshing in many ways.

You're probably wondering when I'm going to stop talking. ha. never.