Year One

Soon the world will watch Barack Obama take his oath as the 44^th President of the country I used to call home for 22 years, and on that same day we will be marking a personal milestone: our one year 'anniversary' of arriving in Jakarta.

After more than 20 hours of flying from Los Angeles, my husband and I and our two small kids finally set foot in Soekarno-Hatta Airport on the twentieth day of January 2008. It was a Sunday afternoon, the heat and humidity enveloped us like a blanket and combined with the fatigue from a long flight, everything seemed like a daze.

One year... those who'd made similar transitions of returning to Indonesia after living abroad said that the first year at home is the toughest. Yes, it was tough, but I don't think one year for me is a 'magic' line in the sand of time where things would somehow get very easy after I cross over it. How long a person has lived in another country will definitely have a direct impact on the adjustment period upon returning home. And I've lived almost two-thirds of my life away from here.

So, one year? I don't think so...

True, some things were easier to adjust to, such as the food (no problems there... hello, food paradise!) or having a nanny and a maid (yippeee!). While others I still struggle with or at best, simply tolerate: the heat and humidity (thank goodness for A/C) and the traffic, or more specifically: how people drive here, because I'm sure it contributes to the maddening congestion (even after driving for 20 years in America, I still don't dare to get behind the wheel in Jakarta).

There are also more intangible, internal things that I have to deal with, but those are not very easy to write about, and to tell you the truth, I'm not one to wear my heart on my sleeve for all the world to see (or read). Quite paradoxical given the fact that I have this very blog. Ehm.

There is one thing, though, that dawned on me as the one facet of life in Jakarta that permeates and affects almost everything else (especially the issues I still have a hard time adjusting to). This one thing is so obvious, but maybe not for a person who has lived in Jakarta all his/her life, for it's just another fact of life like the (polluted) air that he/she breathes.

So, what is this one thing?

It's Jakarta's very dense population. Depending on which statistics you're drawing from, the population density of this 'mother city' is between 10,500-12,700 people per square km. (it's already one of the most densely populated city in the world). Compare that to Los Angeles County (not the city of LA itself, for I lived in its suburbs), which is estimated at around 1,000 people per square km. Jakarta is about ten times denser than where I used to live in southern California!

This hyper-concentrated number of people living in one area was a shock to me. I didn't need to research the statistics above to know, feel and live with its effects. I remember that long drive from the airport to our 'home' in Kelapa Gading, how tightly packed all the houses and buildings were as we drove by them. Everything was cramped side-by-side and on top of each other. And there are people, large number of people, everywhere... right outside the house, walking, shopping, driving, waiting, loitering...

What's the big deal, you may ask? See, if you've lived in Jakarta or any other densely populated cities (New York City or Tokyo, maybe?), it's just 'normal'. But for me who'd lived in less dense suburbs of Los Angeles, where streets are wide, parking spaces are numerous (and free), houses have front and backyards and don't share walls with neighbors, and there was just more 'breathing space', it was a shock to the system.

On my first trip to the mall here on a weekend, I was amazed at how crowded it was. It was packed like LA's malls on the last few days before Christmas as people cram in their holiday shopping (which I mostly avoided back then for that reason). I asked the person who took me there if it was usually crowded like this and she said yes, it's just another normal weekend. Okaayyy....

Large population also produces an astounding amount of trash. Combine that with the nasty habits of many Indonesians of tossing trash anywhere but into the trash can, you have yourself a city with garbage littering the streets and sidewalks, and choking the gutters, canals and rivers. I took photos of some small canals running through Kelapa Gading, but I don't want to post them here, because they're just gross. Ugh.

More than 10 million people here also means hundreds of thousands of cars, motorcycles, buses, and bajajs on the streets. I'd never seen so many motorcycles until I moved back here. Jakarta's traffic jams are notorious. The congestion is not only caused by the sheer number of vehicles, but also by the lack of adherence to traffic rules by most drivers (do they even know the rules? hmmm...). At some intersections, traffic lights are regularly and brazenly ignored. A three-lane street is bottlenecked to just one because a) the rightmost lane is converted to bus-only lane, and b) the leftmost lane is taken up by street vendors, illegally parked vehicles, and/or by angkots (small vans converted for public transportation) stopping wherever they please to pick-up/drop-off passengers.

Then, in that remaining middle lane, cars can squeeze two abreast and motorcycles can weave in-and-out the already tight spaces. In the beginning I used to be so strung out when I was riding in a car, and after one year, I still wince ... just not as much.

Another example: using the car horn in LA's streets and freeways is usually reserved for the most extreme situation and usually in a very 'angry' way, but not here. In Jakarta you honk your horn casually, just to let the vehicles in front of you know that you're 'here' (because nobody bothers to see what's behind them... yeah...).

Whew. Really, you don't truly know 'defensive driving' until you navigate the streets of Jakarta. In all my 20 years of driving in LA even though we were instructed to 'drive defensively', I took it for granted that other drivers would obey traffic rules and respect each other (for the most part).

Well.. we're not in LA anymore, Toto! We can chuck that notion out of the window!

Now you know why I haven't started driving yet.

I'm also still getting used to the noise level here. The only time everything is quiet and calm is way past midnight (if I'm still awake). Quietness is another 'life in LA' aspect that sorely I miss (and took for granted). Back then I could wake up to no other sound except the birds' cheerful chirping; here it's the motorcycles, sputtering bajajs and one very obnoxious bird.

Okay, it's a very long post already, I'll stop here before this turns into a novella. For my musings throughout this past year, you can check out the archives on the right starting in January 2008. The journey continues... now entering the second year!