Indonesia is a very superstitious country. This is still a long-lasting influence of the Hindu background and animism. Today as part of our homework we had to ask Indonesian’s about some of their superstitions. I spoke with one of our neighbour ladies and as we are both women, we talked about superstitions during pregnancy. For example, when pregnant, women should not cut up chicken. If they do the baby might be born missing an arm or leg. Also, the father must not go fishing. If he does, the baby might be born with a cleft pallet. The father also must not play cards or the baby may look like one of the characters on the cards…. And the list goes on… As you can guess, when a baby is born with something wrong, the parents feel an incredible amount of responsibility as they must have done something to make it happen.
Indonesians are also very suspicious of large dark trees. They feel that there are ghosts inhabiting the tree that will snatch children away.
I have written before about "masuk angin", but in case you didn't read it before I will explain it again. Indonesians believe that wind(angin), "entering" (masuk) your body is a bad thing. When air is still it is okay, but when it is moving fast, it is bad. Therefore when riding a motorbike, you must wear something like a jacket, if the zipper is broken, wear it backwards, or a vest. This bad wind entering your body will make you sick with many different things like, the common cold, or the flu. Even while riding crowded stuffy angkots, people will close the windows because they are afraid of the wind.

We are now officially in our last week of unit 3! After this unit we will have 2.5 weeks off, yeah!