Cendana Homestay (by John)

When we woke up the next morning we met Bullet. He takes care of the homestay with Kini, cleaning, doing repair work, and occasionally playing his ukelele. After breakfast he helped orient us to the city, gave us directions to the post office and tips on things to see. Kini let us know that there would be a ceremony that evening and things would be busy.

The ceremony was to celebrate the 35th day of life for a new baby in the family. We had no idea what to expect. Perhaps a religious ceremony, perhaps a prayer. Was Kini's mention of it an invitation for us to attend? Or to imply that we should stay in our room? Since our room was just outside the main courtyard and family room, we would hear the ceremony anyway.

By 7:30 p.m. people began filling in the small courtyard. I peered through the drapes. Piles of shoes, thongs and sandals were everywhere. People were sitting on the stone wall, on the living room floor, on chairs, on mats, on our doorstep. We decided to investigate.

We certainly wouldn't have expected a Javanese baby ceremony to be anything like this. There was a hired twelve piece band complete with three female singers with incredible voices. At 10 p.m. a buffet dinner was served, with the band playing everything from traditional Javanese songs to ballads to love songs.

We had front row seats and a great time. We met the cello player, Endro, and one of the singers, Dari. She even sang a song in English just for us. Endro kept egging Janet to get up on stage and sing. "The band will follow, don't worry," he said. But the competition was tough and she declined.

By the end of the party at 2 a.m., we had made arrangements to meet Dari and Endro for dinner the next night. "No wait, that would be tonight. We'd better get to sleep." Endro loaned us an English to Indonesian dictionary. We had one day to brush up on our language skills.

The book actually came in very handy. We learned how to order meals without meat, something that up until this point had always been a head-shaking, hand waiving ordeal. We learned to say more than just hello, please and thank-you and enough so that our conversation with Endro and Dari the next night was somewhat understood. Of course we all kept grabbing for the dictionary and pointing to words then correcting each others pronunciation.

We were going to meet Endro again the next day, but unfortunately it didn't work out. We were late returning from our batik course: designing, waxing, painting, dying and boiling took all day. And Endro, who hadn't gotten much sleep in two nights, was exhausted from his day of melon picking.

I left a short note in the book Endro had loaned us and asked Bullet if he could return it for me. Bullet went over the note with me and pointed out all my grammatical errors. Live and learn.

We spent five nights at the Cendana Homestay and when finally we left, we felt like we had made many new friends. As I waved good-bye to Kini and Bullet I reflected that the best memories I will take home with me are of the people I've met.