PANAS!

"Panas" means hot for those of you who don't happen to be students of Bahasa Indonesia. The funny thing is that here it is panas. Always. In this equatorial clime the weather doesn't vary by more than a few degrees. Despite this predictable regularity, one of the comments I hear most often, usually right after saying hi to someone, is "panas!" accompagnied by a gesticlation of fanning oneself, as if this is some sort of suprising statement. Yes, I know its hot. I'm the foreigner here, the one who is currently missing a snowfall in Boston. Yet this comment is uttered with utter sincerity every time. Cracks me up.

Also of note: the dangers of packing lite in a tropical clime. "Packing lite?" You say? "Elizabeth? Couldn't be!" Well, I am here to tell you that I packed lite and am living to tell a somewhat regrettable tale. Because Laura and I decided to go small pack size and carry-on, (which was rather convenient, I admit) I am now living with 2 sleeveless shirts and 2 t-shirt and 2 long-sleeve shirts. It's character building. Unforuntately, the weather means that even sitting in an internet cafe in the evening I'm sweating, and thus that having 4 summer-ish shirts that then spend 2 days in laundry once a week is a tricky situation. I'm just saying.

Interstingly, in Bahasa Indonesia panas can also be used to describe a situation and/or issue, the same as "hot" is used in the US. A topic panas that I discussed today with one of my teachers is sex in indonesia. As a conservative (primarily) Muslim country sex ed is non-existant. Ironically then, according to my teacher, Indonesian has been found to be the country that views the largest amount of porn (where this factoid is from, unclear, so I don't stand by its verity). Unsuprisingly then, there are currently many problems (where aren't there?) in this domain. Many more girls are becoming pregnant in HS than previously, leading to their immediate expulsion. Very sad, though not suprising. In fact, my teacher's sister is a teacher at a local high school and recently eperienced one of those freak stories in which a girl didn't know she was pregant/didn't tell anyone/ did not look pregnant and then gave birth in a bathroom by herself during a final exam. There are also, predictably, the many problems/deaths that come with illegal abortions/ attempted self-abortions in desperation. Overall I would say that the conversation was a melancholy reminder of the importance of sex-ed in my opinion.

Despite the depressing nature of this conversation, however, I also learned some interesting local lore:
Durian (nasty smelling tropical fruit very popular in Asia) and pineapple are both said to be bad for fetuses and thus eaten in large quantities by girls wanting to self-abort. Duck eggs in conjunction with soda (? I got a bit lost during this explanation) are also used for the same purpose. Additionally, the pineapple is a multi-purpose fruit as it is also reputed to increase female libido, who knew?? (Eggplant is for male libido, for those interested). The result of this common knowledge is that unmarried women here do not like to be seen eating pineapple and often pick it out of their fruit salad!

a few random thoughts:

Rambutan is common fruit here, similar (though not the same, as I mistakenly thought) to a lychee. The word literaly means hairy thing (rambut is hair and -an is a common noun ending). For whatever reason I find this funny. Also, they are delicious.

Koran- the word for newspaper (as opposed to Quran).

And finally music. The music here really continues to amuse me, between my lunchtime american acoustic wannabe band serenade and the ever popular Celine Dion. Today in a cafe I heard a mix including "It must have been love," "I'm your Laddyyy" (don't know the real name) and "All by myself" among other gems. Saturday night I spent in an internet cafe catching up on the NY times while listening to Frank Sinatra. That was great. Especially in comparison to a different cafe where I heard a medley of Christmas Carol covers and Lady Gaga...

over and out from "panas" Yogya.