This past weekend many Indonesians celebrated Idul Adha, a Muslim holiday where an animal is sacrificed (usually a cow, sheep, or goat). After I got out of church, my host father Pak Handono took me to his office where some of his coworkers prepared a goat for sacrifice. We arrived a little late- I didn't get to see them cut off the head, which I was bummed about- but I did see the beginning of the skinning process. Idul Adha, as I was told, is based on the Muslim tradition that more fortunate families sacrifice an animal once a year and share the meat with the poor. The animal has to be male and also cannot be deformed or sick. Pak Handono also said that before the animal's throat is cut, everyone says the equivalent of "Allah mahabesar", which means "glory of God". My host family is Catholic, obviously, so I didn't get to learn much else about Idul Adha, but I'm glad I was able to see a bit of the sacrificial process. We had to leave the office fairly quickly to go make rice for lunch, but the goat meat was all made into sate (a traditional Indonesian food, like small meat kabobs). The sate part isn't important to Idul Adha; just a personal preference for how to prepare the meat.
The leftover goat sate- we grilled it in the backyard Sunday night for dinner. Delicious.
While on the subject of meat, I should share my latest culinary adventure- cow lung. Is that considered meat? I finally got to eat at a masakan padang restaurant Sunday evening. I've seen these types of restaurants all over (they always have dishes stacked in the front window for display), and I was told that the food is very spicy (which is why I was anxious to try it). Now that I've been to a padang restaurant I think the title refers to the style of dining rather than the extra-spiciness of the food, though. Instead of getting a menu, the waiters just place a bunch of dishes on the table, each with a different type of food, and you can choose what you want to eat. I suppose it's like a buffet where you don't have to leave your seat. The plates were small- only about two servings to each one- and you only pay for the ones that you try. And of course there are big bowls of white rice to accompany your meal. I spotted the cow lung because it had a lot of chili peppers on top of it, and once I knew what it was I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it. It looked like a mushroom- black and somewhat shriveled. I picked up my spoon to try and cut off a piece, but turns out the whole thing was stiff. Like a piece of bark. Relief came when I saw my host bother using his hands to eat, so I followed suit and picked up the lung to take a bite. It was like a Triscuit cracker- very hard and fibrous- and didn't taste like much except greasy from being fried. I was surprised that there was a grain to it- like beef jerky- so that when you bit down it would only come off in strips. Overall, a bit of a letdown for as odd as it sounded.
There was fish brain there, too, which I wanted to try so bad, but I was too full. I have accidentally eaten fish brain before (this was before I knew "kepala" meant "head"- I ordered snapper head soup at a restaurant) and it doesn't taste bad at all, but I stopped eating once I figured out what it was. I guess it was the whole experience of thinking casually I wonder what I'm eating right now, this looks a little odd... and then figuring out that's a fish skull in my bowl and I'm eating its brain, that freaked me out and I couldn't take another bite. I'm still waiting for a chance to redeem myself and eat brain like an adult.
On Tuesday, I came home from school smelling like a barbeque. All lessons were cancelled at SMKI and there was a cooking competition between the classes instead. I cooked with students from XT3, my basic dancing class, and we made bakso (Indonesian meatballs), sate, meat that was breaded and fried, green beans, carrots, and french fries. We lucked out with perfect cooking weather, too. The sun was out all morning, which is a rare occurrence since the rainy season has started, and there was a slight breeze to keep cool. It was a nice, relaxing day.
The clay cooking pots everyone used. Here, we're boiling water for the vegetables.
French fries- made from real potato chunks.
Class XT3, who I take most of my dance classes with.
Cooking sate (pronounced sah-tay)
There were a lot of festivities this week at school because this year is SMKI's 50th birthday. Every night from Sunday to Thursday there was a different event at Pendopo- a karawitan performance on Sunday, a dance performance the next day, then wayang (traditional puppet show), and then theater. On Thursday there was a fancy reception where the sultan of Yogya came to speak. I got to see the karawitan and dance performances, which were great. Groups from all over Java came to perform, and I don't think there was an event that ended before midnight. (The wayang performances went until 2 am I heard.) Needless to say, I was tired from staying up so late two nights in a row. I'm used to going to bed really early since I get up at 5:30 every day. However, it wasn't a problem because most of my classes were canceled this week at school so that everyone could prepare for Karnaval- a parade put on by SMKI and other dance companies (maybe alumni of SMKI? Not sure) Thursday afternoon to celebrate 50 years of teaching the traditional arts. Each class choreographed a short dance routine, but I don't know if anyone got to perform their whole number; the parade setup was a bit disorganized so many classes weren't accompanied by a truck of gamelan players for music.
A children's group that performed gamelan on Sunday night. They were so talented! I was in awe watching them play. The performers were in elementary school (not sure what grade), and it seemed incredible that kids that young could play so fast and memorize a whole set list of songs. Fun to watch.
This is another elementary group that performed, but they were a bit older. This group had kids
singing Javanese, too, to accompany the karawitan (sitting in the front). They were very good
as well.
This is the SMKI student karawitan performance, the group on the left sang and there are students playing gamelan to the right.
A traditional dance performance with live gamelan music (this was during the karawitan event Sunday night). This style of dance, if I remember right, was from Surakarta, a city in central Java sort of close to Yogya. (Notice the different way the dancers pin their sampur: up over the shoulder instead of tying it around the waist like the style I learn at school.)
This was one of the first dance performances on Monday night- a dance/theatrical performance put on by cross gender dancers. I was a little surprised at first, considering the generally conservative culture here, but they were great entertainers and the crowd loved it. At the end of their performance they walked off the front of the stage into the audience singing in Javanese about gender/sexual equality (as I was informed by Bu Ami, the Rotarian I went with), and everyone gave them a huge round of applause.
I quickly got over my initial reaction at the brazen performances- this was a modern dance/theatrical number done by three men wearing only briefs and body paint. I don't have the slightest clue what the performance was supposed to convey- there was a lot of rolling around on the floor and fire crackers exploding.
Another traditional dance performance, with live gamelan.
I woke up Thursday morning at 4:30 in order to shower and make it to school by 6:30 for upacara (and I was also really excited for Karnaval, so I couldn't sleep any later). After the flag raising, everyone went into the dance studios to get ready for the parade. I was dressed up as Sarpokenoko- raksasa perempuan (female giant- very fitting of my stature here). My face was red and I had fangs painted on my chin, but I ended up not looking that scary. The costume was so hot (but so worth it)! I wore leggings, pants, a kain, jacket, sampur, belt, headdress, jewelry, and keris. Thankfully it was cool with grey skies on Thursday, or the parade would have been a struggle.
Students getting ready in one of the large dance studios
Everyone packed onto six buses and a handful of trucks (for the gamelan players, mainly) and headed over to Malioboro. Buses here don't have doors- riders just hop on and off when the bus comes to a stop- so all the monkeys on my bus, with their teased hair and painted faces, were hanging out the doors and windows hooting and hollering at everyone we passed. Other buses had soldiers painted gold who were brandishing their swords at pedestrians. We were quite the sight- everyone stopped to stare. For Karnaval, the performers walked the whole length of Malioboro street and ended in the plaza at Kraton. It was a long couple of hours. Some of the groups danced their way down the street, I just walked with my male giant counterpart. There were several other karawitan and dance groups in the parade, not from SMKI, that I wish I could have seen, but it was great to walk down the street all done up like a giant. I would definitely do it again.
After Karnaval we took the buses back to SMKI- it felt great to take off all the heavy makeup and clothes. Everyone was pretty tired, and most students went home shortly thereafter, but I stayed at SMKI with some teachers to get ready for the reception later that night. I didn't really understand why I was invited to the reception (none of the other students were going)- it was something about carrying a mountain of rice somewhere- and I had to get all dressed up. My hair was dyed black with colored hairspray and put into the traditional updo, and I wore traditional Javanese dress: a kebaya (lacy shirt), corset, stogen, and kain. The reception ended up being much shorter than the other events. There was a tari putri performance by professional dancers with live gamelan, then the sultan of Yogya made a speech. Yogya is special because the city is under government regulation, but also has a sultan that rules over the city, separate from government control. I'm not sure how it all works out, but the royal family certainly is a big deal here. After the sultan spoke, there was a long prayer and then I heard my name mentioned and was ushered onto the stage. A school official took a spoonful from a cone shaped "mountain" of rice and dished some other food from a platter onto a plate and gave it to me. I thought I was supposed to present the plate to the sultan, so I started heading toward his table, but then the headmaster Pak Sunardi redirected me towards me own seat. So I received a plate of food at the fancy reception, but I still don't know why. It was delicious, though, and I was hungry from my long day.
Pak Sunardi (in white- headmaster at SMKI), Pak Handono, and the Rotaractors who came
to see me! I was required to wear short heels, so I was ridiculously tall. The kain (skirt) is
wrapped tightly, too, so I would walk like the mom from the Adams family. I hope I didn't look
as awkward on stage as I felt. I didn't trip though, syukur Allah, thank God.
Today there is no school for SMKI students because of all the events earlier this week, so I'm using my extra time to blog and then catch up on some much needed sleep. I think I need to start writing more often- these long entries take a lot of energy. Overall, it's been a great two weeks. I've been busy and tired, but I'm sad to see SMKI's birthday celebration come to an end. Now, back to normal life. Sigh. I'll have to start studying hard on my Indonesian- I'm still waiting on my first dream in another language!
Selamat Ulang Tahun SMKI!
No comments:
Post a Comment