Today we finally managed to visit Ibu Mesiyah at her house. We took an angkot to the entrance of her gang and then proceeded to walk down, down, down. She lives unbelievably far down into her kampung. The houses are even closer together than in our kampung and you can’t take a motor bike down to the bottom! Finally, when we were almost down by the river, the same one that flows below our kampung, we reached her home. I thought our neighbours had a small house… Wow, her house is tiny, but cute. The photo was taken while I was standing in her front doorway. To the left is the kitchen and washroom and beside the fridge is a tiny bedroom. (note: there is absolutely no sink in the entire house) Up the freaky stairs are two small bedrooms and a sitting area. The nice couch area in the photo is the official guest area. If they are hanging out they sit upstairs. That’s why her furniture looks so nice. It’s quite old, but they only use it when they have guests. Ibu Mesiyah lives in this house with her two daughters and her younger sister. Ibu Mesiyah was married while still young to a man quite a bit older. The marriage was arranged by both sets of parents. At first Ibu didn’t want to get married to her husband, but he liked her right away. But after they got married, she fell in love with her husband. He was a very good man. Sadly, he died in a car accident about seventeen years ago. So Ibu Mesiyah had to work to support herself and her daughters. In the late 1980’s (I think) she had the opportunity to go to Saudia Arabia with the family that she worked for. She knew that if she took the opportunity to go, she would be able to save money to buy her own house and be able to pay for her daughters to go to university or college. I believe she stayed there for three years. Although, if I understand correctly, there was some time spent in Malaysia as well. While Ibu lived in Saudia Arabia she had the opportunity to go to Mecca with her boss’s family a few times. So she has actually achieved the title of Haji. That is the title given to women who’ve been to Mecca. Being able to go to Mecca made her very happy. There are five pillars to the muslim faith and going to Mecca is one of them. Normally, when a woman has achieved haji, they wear a head covering. But her theory is that the head covering isn’t what makes her a good person, it’s what’s inside her heart. So she only wears one on special occasions. When she returned from Saudia Arabia she was able to buy her house, although at that time it was really old and in need of a lot of work. It also only had one floor. She only recently put in the second floor. Although, according to Hugo, it is not the strongest floor ever built. It is made by 2x4’s with plywood on top and when people are walking on it you can see the 2x4’s straining… You’ll notice that she has a rather large fridge. This is quite unusual as most people can’t even afford a fridge, never mind a large one like that with a big freezer on top. Ibu was able to buy it cheaply from a family that she used to work for.
Ibu had made donuts and these other deep fried things made with flattened bread, chicken, carrots and spice. Then she had made a chicken curry dish with rice that has been cooked inside banana leaves until it becomes a solid mass. I wondered how it would go with all seven of us in her house, but it went pretty well. The nice thing about visiting Indonesian folks is that they basically take over Brynnie so we don’t have to run after her and keep her out of trouble. Of course, Ibu had to take Brynnie around to the neighbours and show her off. They all think she looks just like a doll. We think so too… Ibu put on a video for the other kids and that kept them in one place so it went rather well I think. Now in two weeks we hope to visit Ibu Tati then I can tell you her interesting life story.