The Thoms Family in Indonesia: September 2013

Today (Sunday, Sep 29) Hefni first sent us his driver to go shopping, then he had us picked up to go to the water park "Marco Polo" with him. Hefni does not only make sure that we have everything we need here in Indonesia, he also shows us around and cares for our entertainment - he is like family to us! Especially to our boys he is their kind Indonesian uncle ("Oom Hefni").

Visiting Hefni and his wife at his home.

This is Hefni's impressive new house.

Cooling off in the "Marco Polo" water park

The temperatures here allow swimming without being cold.

Robin all of a sudden became a great swimmer and diver.

Ari loves slides - but much more before he is sitting on them all the way up.

Robin is not scared at all.

...and Ari is not scared of scary crabs.

Without Hefni the start in Bogor would have been MUCH more difficult for us!

Ari got a rice cooker as a gift from Hefni - you wouldn't imagine how proud he was and how important it was to him to immediately cook rice with it when we got home from swimming.

Robin got bananas - two different types; these ones are the "king bananas" (pisang raja in Bahasa Indonesia)

A few words about Taman Kencana:
Taman Kencana is an area just north of the huge botanical garden in the center of the big city Bogor. The International School of Bogor is in Taman Kencana. It hosts a large number of expat families (mostly working for the international organziation CIFOR). These families form a tight community that we are now becoming part of. This is great, if not essential, to be able to settle in Bogor. This, as well as the great support by ISB and our old friend Hefni make it possible for us to feel comfortable in this new and very unaccustomed enviroment we are experiencing as newbies in Indonesia. Having lived in Guam before, many things seem familiar at the first glance. Yet, you can't imagine how many little things we still have to learn and get used to (at least we would never have imagined how many such such things there are). If one has to do this without help by friends, this can become very tough. Fortunately, we get this tremendous support.

Welcome to our house on Jalan Tangkuban Perahu (jalan means street)

This is Jalan Tangkuban Perahu, looking from our front yard.

...and this is our front yard.

So come on in. You can enter our house by the garage. But the main entrance would be via the front pation, which you can see on the right of the picture.

This is the inside of our garage. On the right (behind Nadine) if you go straight, you'll get into our backyard. If, before getting there, you open the door to the right, you enter the house. If you open the door to the left, you'll get into our kitchen.

Let's turn left and go into the kitchen first. Yes, you are right, the kitchen is not part of the main building of our house. This is a bit of a problem for us, because we always have to leave the house to get something from the kitchen. It's because in Indonesia, usually housemaids do the cooking.

Alright, let's leave the kitchen and go straight into our backyard, before entering the house. Robin and Ari are standing on our back patio and are looking into our fish pond.

This is our backyard. It is very well maintained (almost too well for us and our wild boys)

This is the house and the patio looking from the other side, standing in our backyard.

There are many nice plants. This is a coconut tree. There is also a mango tree, a cashew tree, a breadfruit tree...)

And there is a lot to explore. Many interesting plants and animals (unfortunately, also a lot of moskitos)

Okay, now let's enter the house. You remember the two doors from the garage. When entering the right door (opposite to the kitchen door), we get directly into our dining room.

In the back, there is a small desk.

And when you turn right, you get into the living room.

Many houses in Indonsia, including ours, have a reception room.

While the living / dining / reception room area is huge, there, unfortunately, are only two more rooms (plus another room in the side wing of the building). This is why Robin and Ari currently are sharing a relatively small room. We have to see how we can rearrange things a bit (but are also still searching for alternative homes).

BBQ at Mireille's and Dan's place


...but one thing is for sure: we will stay in Taman Kencana - because of the very friendly Taman Kencana community and the closeness to the school. Today (Sep 28) we were invited over to a BBQ by Mireille who has already helped us a lot (e.g. showed us where to buy German-type bread and many other important things; brought us in contact with our future housemaid Nany...). As you can see, there are many kids in Taman Kencana, and everything is next doors, so that they frequently visit each other.

This is the only photo we took of the BBQ. That's because we were so busy talking to friendly new people.

Quick overview over the things we have experienced so far

We only occasionaly have a camera with us. Because of this, most events pass without us taking pictures. Here a quick list of what happened until today (Saturday, Sep 28, 2013):

Sunday, Sep 23:

Arrival in Jakarta Airport
Hefni (an old Indonesian friend from my PhD times) and Pak Sukardi, a driver from DAAD pick us up
1,5 hours trip to Bogor (we were pretty tired after the long flight!)
We drop off our luggage at our house (where we also quickly meet Erwin, who might soon become our driver), then Hefni brings us to the Mirah Hotel
in the evening (after 4 hours of sleep) Hefni picks us up for dinner at Pizza Hut
in the late evening I walk around with Robin & Ari (to our house and to ISB, where the guard lets us in to let the boys play on the playground)

Monday, Sep 24

In the morning, we walk over from Mirah hotel to our house to find out that there are still renovations going on and the guy who does the work will sleep another night in the house - not in the main building, but we nevertheless decide that we prefer another night in the hotel (also to ensure breakfast the next morning)
We walk over to ISB (remember: that's Robin's & Ari's school) and say hi to Pak Tio (who had already helped us a lot before we came to Bogor; e.g, by organizing the house for us) and Jim (who is the ISB principal)
When we get back to Mirah hotel, we learn that the hotel is fully booked. So we have to move to a hotel next doors (which is almost as good, so no problem).
Robin & Ari swim in the hotel pool (remember the picture in the first post?)
At noon, Hefni picks me up and we go to a mobile phone store, a bank, and the Giant supermarket to buy food etc.
Hefni and I drop the shopping items off at our house, then I pick up Nadine, Robin & Ari to eat lunch at our house

Tuesday, Sep 25

breakfast at the new hotel, then Ari, Nadine and Robin go for a swim in the Mirah hotel pool, while I work on the computer in the hotel room
we take a taxi to get our stuff from the hotel to our house
I talk to the people at DAAD Jakarta and find out that there is going to be trouble with our airfreight (still ongoing!)
the owner of our house comes by together with her sister (who lives in Düsseldorf and speaks German)
we start to unpack our things in the new house
Hefni pick us up for another supermarket shopping tour
we quickly drop buy the school office to buy school uniforms for Robin & Ari

Wednesday, Sep 26

Robin's and Ari's first day at their new school (ISB)! We drop them off into their respective classes at 7:45 am. No problems at all - they both leave us behind happily and join their groups.
We intend to pick Ari up at 11:15am, but find out that his class only ends at 11:50am. So Nadine and I go for a quick walk in Taman Kencana (see photos).
At 2:30am we pick up Robin and go back home

Thursday, Sep 27

Robin and Ari go to school (again happy)
Ibu Melani from ISB comes by and gives us lots of advice
Nadine and I walk around in Taman Kencana to look for houses to rent
Pak Ate (Hefni's driver) picks us up for shopping (food + clothes for the boys)
We are invited over to Katinka's and Markus' place for dinner. Both are Germans, too working for the UN and the Allianz, respectively (one of the few expats in Taman Kencana who don't work with CIFOR)

Friday, Sep 28

Friday's ISB school performance event (see photos in previous post)
Mireille takes us to the "Edelweiss" - a Swiss/German bakery where you can actually get bread that is not too far away from German bread; she then drives around with us a bit to show us around in Taman Kencana
when we pick up Robin from school at 2:30pm, Mireille introduces Ibu Nany to us, who is going to be our housemaid from next Monday onwards
in the evening, we eat the many different exotic fruits we bought earlier that day

Saturday, Sep 29

in the morning, I tidy up the garden a bit (tons of huge leaves have fallen down during the few days we have stayed in the house so far) while Nadine cleans the house and the boys play inside; then we take the garden & house photos (see above)
at noon, we walk over to Mireille's place for the BBQ, where the boys swim in the pool and we all stay until 5:30pm, enjoying talking to many nice Taman Kencana people in a very relaxed atmosphere
because of heavy rain (remember: Bogor is the "Rain City"), Dan drops us off at home with his car
That's it as far as yet; more to come...