So apparently we're having a baby... and soon!

Yep - according to the experts the bun in the oven is sufficiently cooked, and the new addition to our family could arrive any time now. Officially the due date is September 11, but who knows?

The baby is clearly ready, as this video from about a month ago attests..

To be honest, I'm kinda starting to freak out about it. Not in the what-else-is-there-on-the-to-do-list-before-baby-arrives way. More on the conceptual level. I'm going to be a dad. Again. Our family is now going to be four people, not three. Charlie's going to be a big brother. That sort of stuff; big picture stuff.

Until now we've been focussing more on the immediate challenges that come with having a baby in a foreign country.

The language barrier is the obvious one. Being able to communicate with... well, just about anyone Indonesian. About when they baby is being born, where, how, with whom.  Doctors, midwives, concerned well-wishers. I'm relieved that Kai speaks a reasonable amount of Bahasa Indonesia, as I just don't have the language skills to understand all the questions, let alone provide meaningful answers. I can order food, ask for an provide directions, book a ticket on a plane, or train or even get somewhere in a taksi. But fat lot of good that will do me in an emergency. The idea of being unable to represent Kai's wishes and needs if anything should go wrong... that's more than a little scary. And with about two weeks to go before B-day, there's not a whole lot of time to learn. 

Another challenge has been the fact that, according to the Central Statistics Agency survey from 2010, "only 1.2 million, less than one percent, Indonesian people are Rh negative", so Anti-D (look it up if you don't know) is only available by import and therefore expensive - $200+ for a shot they give for free in Australia - and finding a willing donor in case of emergency was something to worry about, now fortunately sorted.

How about finding a midwife and doctor who support your own belief in birth being a perfectly natural process, requiring intervention only when things are going wrong? That's a problem anywhere, but in Indonesia (and presumably most developing countries madly chasing their own perception - perhaps as much as 20 years out of date - of 'how they do it in the West') , it was even more of a challenge.

Thankfully the midwife part is sorted. We found an amazing bidan - midwife - based in Klaten, a town a little over an hour's drive north east of where we are living. Bidan Kita - loosely, our midwife - is a small practice run by an amazing woman who teaches meditation and hypnotism as tools to reduce pain of labour. She's rather more out-there and mystical than Kai or I, but we are comfortable and reassured with her as our midwife.

Doctors - not quite. The one doctor we were recommended by a German-Indonesian couple turns out to be be very much of the 'I am the expert, I know best' model. And has all the personality of a brick wall. This doctor works at what is widely regarded as the best rumah sakit (literally, sickness home, or hospital) in town, which is reassuring, but seems to be quite at odds with the non-intervention (unless necessary) model that we aspire to. Kai has visited an alternative hospital and given it the thumbs up, but we have not yet met the doctor there who is apparently a little more in tune with our vibe.

Rencana A (plan A), as previously discussed, is for a birth at home, ideally in water. That requires a bath. A bath which we've ordered and were promised 10 days to delivery, about 14 days ago. Problems from the manufacturer's supplier, or some such. Getting nervous.

A car we have planned to have on standby for all of September, because taking a labouring woman to the hospital (if needed) on a scooter is, while comical, perhaps not a smart idea. Not yet confirmed.

Cloth nappies - also a rare thing over here.

And so on. It's these details that mean you don't really have the time or headspace to contemplate the gravity of what's about to happen.

We have done our best to prepare Charlie for big brotherhood, and I'm confident he is as ready as any child can be ahead of such a massive upheaval. His affection towards the bump is one of the sweetest things we've ever seen.

Right now we have a Dad somewhat slowly realising what's about to happen, a Mum battling Braxton-Hicks and nasty leg cramps who is basically over the whole pregnancy thing, and a fair few pieces of the plan yet to fall into place. There's much to be excited about, but we're in now rush.

Besides, I haven't made enough use of baby shelf yet.

Not sure how much blogging there will be between now and the bub arriving, and perhaps expecting even less than that afterwards, at least for a little while as we adjust to being a family of four. But in the meantime, just know that we are all reasonably healthy, happy, and basically just excited. Sure, having a baby here is at times scary and challenging. But all in all we are just looking forward to meeting anak dua (child number 2).

I'll conclude with a picture of a random statue in honour of breastfeeding, which I stumbled upon not far from Charlie's playgroup. I have absolutely no idea if this is outside a village midwife or just randomly placed. But it made me feel reassured that pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood and parenthood are universal, and that as a team, our family will be fine.

Home life

Hey. How's it going? It's been a while. Sorry about that.

In short, life's been good. Definitely 'living' in Jogja these days. It really doesn't feel a holiday any more. And that's perhaps the main reason I've not been updating the blog very regularly. We experience so much every single day that might be extraordinary for folks back in Australia, but having been here for six and a half months, they just don't strike us as being unusual. Because of this, I'm not really sure what I've logged on to write about. Saya tidak punya rencana - I don't have a plan.

Perhaps I'll just put some photos up, in date order, and see if the story tells itself.

We're coming towards the end of dry season. Counter to my preconception of the tropics, the dry season is actually incredibly dry. Hardly any rain. Perhaps two significant downpours in three months, and maybe only another 3 or 4 showers - at least, down here in Tembi. Maybe closer to the volcano in the north they get more rainfall (courtesy of the orographic effect - one thing I actually remember from high school geography!). But down here in the village it seems drier than Canberra. Consequently, the staff do spend some time watering the garden. Here's a pic of Charlie helping out, in the lush surrounds of Yabbiekayu.

Here's an early evening shot from early July, of the sawahs behind out house, resplendent and green with tall rice almost ready for harvest, with clouds gathering along the mountain ridge to the east. Even in the depths of "winter", Jogja's climate is very pleasant. The dry season is a very comfortable max of low 30s by day, down to overnight lows of low 20s and even occasionally mid-to-high teens. Certainly colder in the middle of the night than in wet season, but not noticeably so during most days. Right now, at 9:30pm on 22 August, I'm sitting in the house with doors wide open, the breeze drifting in from the sawah, in shorts and a t-shirt. The weather app on my phone says the current temperature is 25 deg C, with an apparent temp of 27. There have a been a few nights where I have been cold, and needed to drag a light blanket over the top of the thin sheet that is our only other covering. A couple of times I even needed to turn the bed fan off, too. Dingin - cold!   One thing's for sure: the Facebook posts from back home of mornings clocking in at -8 degrees C sure don't have us rushing to get back!

One thing we are definitely missing is cooking. The joy of a home cooked meal here cannot be overstated, as it is drastically less frequent than back home in Canberra. The food from warungs and even restaurants is so incredibly cheap here, it is actually more expensive to buy ingredients and cook yourself. But when we do, it is like eating happiness.  Pumpkin soup, chicken casserole, spaghetti bolognese, even simple cheese and salad sandwiches are a sure-fire cure for the blues. Here's Charlie helping his Mum prepare corn fritters.



And here he is, enjoying home made banana 'ice cream' - nothing but pure frozen banana put through an ice cream maker, sprinkled with Milo. Tropical climate dessert awesomeness.
















As you can probably tell, Charlie is doing really well. He has settled in comfortably here, and to my knowledge hasn't yet requested to go "home" to Canberra. He spends his weekdays at an the amazing playgroup we found a couple months after we arrived. It's a Waldorf model playgroup (or Steiner, for those more familiar with that name), so the guiding principles are learning through play in a natural environment. Other schools we looked resembled concrete playgrounds with welded metal play equipment and a rather rigid teaching structure. I'm sure the 8am Monday English lesson and the 9:30am Wednesday maths lesson are excellent - but our son is 3 and half years old. Getting covered in mud and building a sailboat out of half a coconut shell, a piece of bamboo and some material off-cuts is what we see as being more important at this stage in his development. So this playgroup (named Kulila, in Kasongan) is ideal. Non-exclusive religiously, with children from a range of nationalities (many with one Indonesian parent), it is a place for Charlie to learn and grow and play with other kids, in a forest-like garden rather than a concrete one. He loves it and we love it. Here he is, playing with two of his playgroup buddies, and helping one of the gurus (teachers) move the wheelbarrow.



When Charlie's not at playgroup, we sometimes find it a challenge to entertain him. In Canberra it was easy enough to just jump on the bike and ride along a nice bike path to a nearby park or playground. Jogja doesn't really have parks. Or bike paths. Or playgrounds. Not open aired, free-to-use ones, anyway. There are plenty of shopping malls, many of which include a kids play area for which a ticket costs the equivalent of about $3 AUD - rather expensive by Jogja local standards. But worth it for struggling parents. These play areas are invariably obscenely loud, crowded, and all rather  similar. And he's usually the only white child there, sometimes resulting in his being showered in attention from other kids, especially slightly older girls who like to mother him - which is both good and bad, as I will perhaps discuss in a separate post.

Another favourite way to occupy an hour or two is to put him on his green bike and ride around the village. Sometimes he stops to play with other kids, but as often as not he's happy just riding around and finding driveways or slight inclines in the road, so he can go naik, naik, naik (up, up, up) and turun (down). Here is a picture of him riding his green balance bike, which he's very nearly too big for now.

It's not all about Charlie though. My wife is doing well with all of her endeavours. She has completed her language immersion semester at UGM (Universitas Gadja Mada), and is now focussed on her Midwifery honours year by correspondence with Uni of Canberra back home.Well, that and growing a new addition to our family. Hardly surprising to those who know her, she is excelling in all these pursuits. While it has taken a while to put all the ideas together in a structured way, the insights gained through being immersed in this very rich and different culture coupled with her own first-hand perspective as an expectant ex-pat mother and western-university-qualified midwife in Indonesia are providing a sense of direction for her thesis. The pregnancy and our experiences are worthy of further explanation in a later blog, so for now you'll have to settle for a photo of  my lovely wife, glowing at about 7 months pregnant.

I could perhaps talk about my own experiences, but this post is already getting a bit long and I need to leave something for future episodes! In the interim, here's a selfie of me in my new(-ish) specs.

And a funky retro car, just because Jogja's cool like that.

And finally, a photo I took of a bird house, sunflowers and a view across the sawah to the south of the Yabbiekayu bungalows. When you stop and remind yourself that you are living somewhere else, you notice again just how beautiful the place is.

There's a lot to love about being here.

#100HappyDays - Day 42 - Catching up with Amy

Spent a bit of time catching up with Amy. Was really nice to speak face to face with a dear friend from back home. It's easy to forget, living in a country where you don't speak the language and spending a lot of time with a three-year-old, how important adult company really is.

#100HappyDays - Day 30 - Wedding Anniversary

Mark and Kai get married - June 4, 2011 - Photo by Rangga Purbaya

June 4, 2011, right here in Tembi - my wife and I celebrated our marriage. Amazing that three years on we are living here. Not-so-amazingly, we are as much in love as ever.

Thanks to Nanna and Poppy for babysitting Charlie for us, and to Dave and the Yabbiekayu team for letting us have a romantic evening together in one of the lovely bungalows. It was heavenly.

#100HappyDays - Day 28 and 29 - Music makin'

In the interests of actually catching up on these updates, I'll merge these two together. Sorry if this is boring.

Travel music studio

With Charlie's Nanna and Poppy here, there have been some extra ears around to listen out for the boy. This has given me the freedom to spend a little time on a hobby I don't often get to spend a lot of time on - making music. Over these two days I spend a lot of time practicing my production skills, making two of the strongest tracks I've ever made. I still have a lot to learn, but having the time and headspace to work on it has made me extremely happy.

Not quite ready to share the results of my efforts, but hopefully that will happen soon.

#100HappyDays - Day 25 - Part 3. Home-grown produce and yummy dinners

Finished off a nice day with:

SUPER fresh kelapa muda (young cocount), straight off one of the trees at Yabbiekayu;

(look closely, you'll see me in my new specs!) 

Charlie peruses the menu at Mediterranea

and dinner at Mediterranea, our favourite local restaurant when we feel like something a little fancy.

#100HappyDays - Day 25 - Part 2. Shopping Mall Talent Show

Solo mission to Malioboro Mall today, to get adjustments made so my new glasses (yay!) don't slip off my little nose (boo!). As I walked in to centre court, I found a performance taking place, called "Moms and Kids".


The first thing I noticed was that it was loud. And I mean really loud. I can only presume that Indonesian PA engineers are all already deaf, because I'm yet to find one turned to anything lower than ear-splitting. So loud was the music that I'm only 70% sure that they were singing in English - though that may be due in part to the kids' adorably accented take on the language. It sounds like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...



After the charming rendition, the hostesses appeared, their attempts to hype the crowded mall hindered because their voices were super-distorted. Both women were very attractive, if rather heavily made up. But I admit to being mildly concerned for the innocence of the kids sitting on the floor, watching the particularly short-skirted hostess strut around on stage.



After I think what scared/fascinated me most about this strange cultural experience was seeing the proud kids, after one-by-one yelling their name into the microphone before disappearing back-of-stage, re-emerge to join their Moms (and a few dads), triumphantly carrying their prize - a drink of water and a box of fried chicken! 

Indonesia: proudly increasing children's confidence AND waistlines... (and killing their ear drums).

Experiences like this remind me where I am, and definitely put a smile on my face.

#100HappyDays - Day 09 - Fruit from a stranger

Yesterday the kind old bapak (father, Mister) who lives up the street, whose name I don't yet know despite regularly exchanging pleasantries whenever we pass, stopped me as I rode past his rumah (home, house). I didn't quite understand what he said, but the general gist was "wait here, I have something for Charlie". He went inside and returned with a bag of fruit. Turns out to be jambu air, also known as water apple, rose apple, Java apple or bell fruit. Certainly made for an interesting breakfast, and set is up for a happy and productive day.

Shot with Sony Xperia Z1

Three months and 'otherness'

May 6 – the day I started writing this entry – was an auspicious occasion; exactly three months since we left Australia. A quarter of our time here already gone; our Jogja experience slipping by unbelievably quickly.

View from D'Omah restaurant, where I write this.

The open-air gym at D'Omah hotel.

On that day, and again today, I have treated myself to a gym workout, a swim, a few minutes of sun-bathing, and a brief meditation at D'Omah Hotel, about 3 minutes walk from our Tembi home. Now I'm not much of a gym guy; the five sessions on the treadmill at the hotel gym this past fortnight is the only exercise I've done in about five months, courtesy of a severely sprained ankle courtesy of Ultimate Frisbee. Nor am I a swimmer, but try running 2.5 kms on a treadmill in 34 degree apparent heat and tropical humidity of 80%+; you'll never appreciate a pool more! Anyone who has ever seen my white flesh can vouch for how seldom the sun touches this skin. And to be honest, my efforts at meditation are only very recent too; an attempt to slow my mind down and claw back some headspace. But the combination of all these things this morning has been therapeutic, and got me feeling all reflective (I think that was an accidental joke about my tan – hey, I cracked a funny!).

Looking skyward from a D'Omah sunbed

Much has happened in three months, but the infrequent blog updates suggest I'm not good at making time to document my experiences. Joining the #100HappyDays movement has certainly helped me feel more grateful and positive, but it does reduce the impetus to blog in detail. There's usually way more than one thing worth writing about each day, and even the negative experiences have value (at least retrospectively). Feel free to let me know in the comments whether or not you like the addition of the #100HappyDays.

Actually, the lack of updates to the blog has been weighing me down a little of late, as I enjoy writing and feel like I'm failing somehow by not updating the blog frequently. This is a weight of expectation that I've put on myself, and I think in my current mood I am realising how destructive this is. Timely then that after my morning wellbeing-for-beginners session I watched that “Look Up" video that's been doing the rounds on Facebook lately. I must say, I'm as guilty as any of you reading this, when it comes to the role social media and modern technology plays in my life. After watching this, I can't help but wonder how many awesome experiences I might be missing because I'm too busy stressing over writing a blog about the experiences I've already had!

In the interests of brevity, so that you can go out and have some experiences of our own instead of reading about mine, perhaps the best approach would be to share just a few photos from the adventure so far and then sum up how I am feeling now, three months in to this life changing experience.

First, the photos. My god there are loads to choose from. In fact, I will limit this to just a few selected highlights from just the first week or this post will break the internet. Apologies to those reading on mobile.

Bye bye, dry brown land. Shot from the plane on Sony Xperia Z1	Charlie at play in paradisal pool. Kusnadi hotel, Legian, Bali. Shot with a Canon 700D
Happy boy in Tembi Tembi village, Bantul. Shot with a Canon 700D	Getting arty in Tembi Tembi village, Bantul, Yogyakarta. Shot with a Canon 700D
I love the sky here, the way the clouds play in the light. Rumah Budaya, Tembi Yogyakarta. Shot with Sony Xperia Z1	More Charlie, but what a fantastic model! Tembi village, Bantul, Yogyakarta. Shot with a Canon 700D

And to sum up the current mood: the “otherness” is fading. The breath-taking, exhilarating feeling as you round a bend and see sights you've never seen before is less frequent and less dramatic as it was. The satisfaction of getting 'found' after having gotten lost - accidentally or deliberately - is no longer as strong. The fact that it's a different culture and a different landscape seems to be less immediate, replaced by a comfortable familiarity – that sense of “home”.

This onset of familiarity happens subtly, creeping up on you until one day a busy road into Jogja could be a busy road into Sydney or Melbourne or any other city you have only vague familiarity with. Sure it's all still very distinctly Indonesian, unmistakably so - if you look. But that's just it; you stop actively looking, stop noticing, and that sense of "otherness" disappears.

Here's a challenge: on your next commute to or from work, trip to the local shops, or any other journey you have done a thousand times, try and notice something you've never consciously noticed before. Safely, of course – I don't want to be responsible for a spate of accidents. But I bet you'll find there are hundreds of things, even really obvious ones, that you've not noticed because you've long since stopped looking at the world around you.

I think this is the thrill of travelling, especially travelling to new places: getting away from familiar scenes, getting uncomfortable, so you can re-learn how to be 'aware' of your surroundings and once again see the magic and the beauty and order and chaos all around you. And that's the feeling that is slipping for me a bit now. It's all still there, abundantly - but I now need to 'try' to see it. Three months in Jogja and I'm not "travelling" any more, I've "moved home". The otherness is fading.

#100HappyDays - Day 03 - Bumpy Lunch

Lunch date today, at an odd prison-themed restaurant called Bong Kopitown (www.bongkopitown.com) with my lovely wife and the bump within. I love my family.

Why?

It's 10am on a Tuesday. A tad early for a soundtrack of Indo Pop. My Bahasa Indonesia is coming along just enough for me to make out about two or three words from each song. But I don't really need to speak the language to know that it's pining, teen angst emanating from the speakers. “Maaf!” – “Sorry”, the young Indonesian man sings with heart, though for what I can't quite tell.