Internet & Iyam Burring (Internet & Chicken)

With Oka’s daughter’s wedding on the 23 of September, I know today is my one day to get work done. Every day I say I will work a few hours, every day Oka or Annie nod only to take me to a new “very Indonesian” thing to try, taste or see. It’s fantastic. I feel like I’ve been suddenly embraced by a whole new world and family. (And at times feels a little suffocating.) Everyone is so friendly to share with me. But to stay in Indonesia for a month, I must work or I have no money, I finally tell them.

Annie drops me off at the hotel next door. I meet Ketut and Dwan by practicing my Indonesian. They carry out a table from the little hotel to the hut at the pool. There I sit, drinking iced green tea, working on email marketing strategy and spreadsheets, as it softly rains and ducks sift through the muck of the padi. I pay four dollars for me 3 hours and tea.

I need internet at the house. For work and I want practice writing. I want to share the day-to-day adventures with my friends and family at home. I realize that is what I miss, traveling alone. It is not being alone – I enjoy experiencing times of solitude and find myself fully open to new things – but at times, I’m overwhelmed with the honest desire to simply share this beauty, adventure, sensations (and frustrations) with someone too. To experience and figure it out together. There is as much richness in that, as there is in being alone.

I talk Annie into helping me find internet for the house. We stop at the computer store, I meet Gabby, stunning blond Swiss transplant who sold all she has to set up a yoga directory, for Bali, on the internet. Annie finds out from the boys at the computer stand that there are modems in the market at Denpasar, then get a sim card, then prepay for internet, finally: internet.

Oka takes us to Denpasar, where Annie smokes cigarettes as she barters ruthlessly with the teens at every stand. Only to explode with words, grab my hand and walk to the next. I get tired, I don’t care about the best price anymore. I just want internet and just want to be done. But she claims it’s all too expensive and, besides won’t work at the house! I’m not sure I agree, but I can’t understand all they say and Annie gets frustrated translating at this point. I have to blindly trust a woman who’s never used the internet to get me the pieces, otherwise, it’s another 2 hour drive to the market and back tomorrow. A younger man steps up, to say hello to the American. He practices his English as I explain the problem – I need internet and I’m not sure we know what we need. He steps in to help direct the conversation. Adding technical savvy to Annie’s Indonesian. I am grateful as he finds the modem he’s sure we need, Annie barters one last time, I count out $800,000 rupiah ($80 USD) then another $300,000 rupiah ($30 USD) for about 30 hours of internet. I can refill my card in the Ubud market.

I’m too full for dinner, but Annie and Oka still need to eat. My journey for internet took well past dark. They stop at a roadside warung (restaurant). The plastic tarp roof is tattered, the walls are dirty with grime, but the food is good Annie tells me. The three men manning the warung laugh as I pull out the camera to take pictures and tell them, with a smile, in Indonesian: Saya "turis”. (I am tourist) Annie laughs the hardest, she gives me the correct Indonesian word for "tourist", which I forget, and tell her I forget (Saya lupa!) in Indonesian. Everyone laughs.

Chicken burring (roll the “r” like it’s Spanish!). Rice, cucumbers, sweet-spicy red chili sauce, and fried chicken are piled into brown paper “packets” which we open at the villa, bringing an extra for Oka’s son who as guarded the villa in our absence. We sit to eat. Wash fingers, Annie tells me, no forks. I scoop rice and chili laden chicken up with cucumbers and eat. It’s a surprisingly great combination, absolutely delicious. (Enak!)

After the men leave, I slowly set up the software, from Indonesian prompts, with Annie’s help translating. After a few attempts, it works. Internet, I love you.

Annie teaches me to say: I work now (Saya kerja)