My Year of Rest and Relaxation!

I didn’t really like that book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. But I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I got here, especially in the last two weeks with the start of rainy season bringing two hours of heavy downpours every afternoon. The book is essentially about a woman that puts herself in a drug-induced comma for an entire year. Not exactly a premise I want to replicate. But in this year, away from everyone I know and my normal activities, I feel like time has stopped. This year gives me the chance to have my own rest and relaxation. For the first time, I can live in the present with so many less distractions than I normally have. I can watch movies or read books or sleep guilt-free.

But it’s funny how removing myself from my environment has shown me I’m always going to be the same person in many ways. It turns out I have innate qualities; everything about me is not just a reflection of my external environment. I’ve somehow managed to not change so many habits, even when I’m forced into an entirely different routine. Between my program, my grad school applications, and my weekend travels, I’ve managed to be the friend here to whom my friends say “we never see you,” “you’re always so busy.” It’s uncomfortably familiar to hear. I have my language class 8am-12pm Monday-Wednesday and 8am-11am on Thursday. On Mondays I volunteer with the American culture center, on Tuesdays I meet with my language partner, on Wednesdays I have dance class, on Thursdays I teach an English for Business course, and my weekends are normally for excursions in nature. I’ll be damned! I’ve somehow kept the exact same time management habits, even despite the completely free and chilled-out schedule handed to me for these ten months. But, getting involved here is the best way to have a deeper cultural exchange and enjoy my time (and make it pass faster).

My year of rest and relaxation has become my year of stress and frustration. In case those of you at home have forgotten me already, I have this fun little trait where my hands are always sweaty. But here, I’ve noticed a new development. My anxiety paired with the daily 90 degree weather means my hands are constantly so sweaty that they have become permanently pruned. Pruned! Like I’ve been soaking in a bathtub for all my days. Some things actually do change - they get worse!

But, things are looking up. This semester is wrapping up shortly with one final paper and final presentation, and then I get a five week holiday to explore other islands. And, I have some exciting updates for next semester. I am moving in with a host family! I think it will change my entire experience. They will cook all of my meals and practice Indonesian with me. I’ll have my own family and my own room. I look forward to having a more local experience that will make things feel less foreign all the time. Everything about it seems like it will go well after meeting the family, except for the fact that my host brother has a pet tarantula and my host parents have already made the most insanely racist comments (that Indonesians don’t consider racist). But there’s a dog? So it’s fine? Readjusting to a new home when I get back from my holiday will certainly be difficult, but an adventure nonetheless.

I also networked my way into joining a research project here, and the grant for it just got approved last month. The project is studying girls’ transition into puberty in the Islamic boarding schools here, and assessing the teacher and staff accessibility and resources for helping girls with this transition. The research hopes to fill the gap in the literature about this topic and eventually make a policy recommendation for the school (let’s go policy woohoo!). The project kicks off next week with them inviting me to the school to meet the girls. However, I found out yesterday my invitation is actually for me to give a 30-45 minute presentation about the American school system and how to survive puberty in front of a 150-200 person audience. Some girls from the Islamic boarding schools around my city have visited the American cultural center where I volunteer to engage in my English dialogue sessions; they were so sweet asking questions about skin and hair care. They also talked about getting their periods during that session, and I felt really excited that they’re already open about this topic - it felt like a sign for a good upcoming research project. I learned from them that they don’t fast during their period week during Ramadan, so they have days throughout the rest of the year that they fast to make up for the lost days. I think next semester, with help from my family and involvement in different activities, I will have more time for my rest and relaxation (I have said this before. I’m sure I will just fill my whole schedule again.).

Last week, I hit my three month mark here. It’s insane how fast the time has past, especially considering that I have spent most days praying they would go a little faster, just until the next exciting excursion or holiday. But I’ve started to appreciate the smaller things about being here now, without everything being so overwhelming. I cannot get over how nice Indonesian people are. There are men that stand in the middle of the street to help guide traffic just using a whistle and their hands. They often don’t do much, but they stand there all day. When cars and bikes pass them as they’re going slow around the turns that the men help guide, the drivers hand the men some small cash. I recently learned that they’re are not hired by the city or anything. They one day just bought a whistle and decided that that was their job. And the rest of society just sort of agreed and started paying them for their work. I also cannot get over how cheap everything is - my favorite fresh mango juice from the best mangoes on earth costs 5,000 rupiah, or about 30 cents. The best part of the juice stand I’ve started going to is Benny, the man that works there. He was actually the man with the wife and child calling me “a beautiful bule” from a couple of posts back. I never knew we would come full circle like this, but we are now madly in love. While he makes my juice, he teaches me how to flirt in Indonesia. He asked where I’m from, and when I responded America, he said, “No. My heart.” His wife was present for the whole interaction, laughing.

I’ve also had two hospital experiences that have not only helped me feel more localized, but shown me important insights into the exact issues I wanted to study in another country. The first trip I took was just for my routine blood check to send to my US doctor. Despite having the orders printed out and ready to go, the entire process took seven hours. They couldn’t figure out where to put me, so they stuck me in different rooms, including the emergency room where I laid next to an old man hacking so hard I was sure I would leave there sick even though I walked in healthy. They can’t send results over email or online, so I had to wait two hours for my printed results. I left and got dinner and returned after. My second trip was for my throat infection last week. The process was quite easy because an American staff member that works in my school and has been living here for 12 years conveniently walked in at the same time to get his kids’ routine vaccines. He stayed with me the whole time to help me translate. That hospital had a stand inside to sell hot cups of corn.

Besides settling into daily life, I’ve kept up my usual weekend excursions through chasing some of the local waterfalls (who’s going to make the TLC joke here). I went to one waterfall with a local friend I’ve made and my roommate. We hiked through other waterfalls to reach the final one, holding ropes along the side; it used to have more tourism there but has now been abandoned. We had complete privacy. We took off our shirts and showered underneath the waterfalls and stood there screaming into the void for a while. It sounds so cliche, but there was a uniquely feminine energy there, between the beautiful mother nature and a moment to just let out our angst in private. It was so freeing. The second waterfall I visited is one of the most famous tourist sites around Malang. One of my friends rented a car, and seven of us drove two hours to the waterfall. There are three different tourist sites within the one area. In the first waterfall, we had water fights and splashed around in the pool forming at the bottom. At the second and largest waterfall, we mostly admired the beauty from afar as it’s too dangerous to stand underneath the hard water falling from the tall height. Except for my friend that immediately ran underneath it and got me reprimanded, of course. My favorite area was the third and final spot: a smaller waterfall on the side with blue rocks on the bottom forming a beautiful, nature pool. From there, we climbed up rocks that were more like ladders than stairs through cascading waterfalls until we reached a cave at the top. The cave had it’s own waterfall pouring down the back wall that made a perfect shower, and my friend and I joked that we were going to move into the cave and live there forever. The hike up there was too wet to bring our phones, so I have no pictures of my favorite area, but I was able to truly enjoy it.

The most memorable part of the day came on the ride home when our maps lead us to a dead end, dirt road that soon turned to mud in the afternoon rain. We realized we were stuck when we tried to back out of it. It was a fun social experiment to see how the men were arguing over what to do, giving the driver three different directions at once. They talked in circles for about 30 minutes while the tires spun in one place, digging us into deeper holes. The problem wasn’t solved until my roommate essentially told them all to shut up and push the car. The tensions felt a little high in the car ride home; we were nervous our maps could once again lead us down the wrong road. Eventually, I made a joke to which the driver laughed and then went, “ahh, today was the best day.” All of our laughs broke down the tense air. And in my three months of stress and frustration, it really was the best day.

Thank you for reading my words. As always, feel free to chat me in the Substack app, email me in response to this, or WhatsApp me as I won’t be getting iMessages here. Sending handshakes from Indonesia (they don’t hug here :/). Pictures below!