He arrived right on schedule bearing two sarong made from really nice ikat (a gift from his wife to us) and an udeng for Tim. He had to teach us both how to wear the sarong: a man's sarong is wrapped with the two pieces coming together in front, allowing legs to move at a rather natural stride. However, the woman's sarong is wrapped around the whole body and reaches down as close to her feet as possible, leaving very little room for a long stride. I am not used to taking mincing little steps and kept practically tripping myself as we walked from the house to the ceremony at the Payangan palace. Tirta is a descendant of the royal family, and as such, presence of at least one of his immediate family is required at important life events like this (or at least that's what I think I understood). He also had to teach Tim how to wrap and tie the udeng. He explained that you could play with the cloth on top to personalize your look, but after Tim returned from the mirror, Prof. Tirta looked horrified and said he couldn't personalize it like that! He apparently looked ridiculous, but in my initiated eyes, I couldn't tell much difference after it was fixed to look less silly.
This store was unlike any of grocery stores we'd been in yet. It was decent sized but not huge and had everything an expat might want. At first I was excited to see yoghurt and cheese (and Tim was excited to see beer), but our excitement quickly turned to a slightly sick feeling. I'm not sure there were any local customers. Most were pale-skinned and speaking Russian or French, a few might have been Malaysian or Filipino (that's what we were told anyway), all of the staff spoke to everyone in English (they had lots of samples to share: everything from coffee out of fancy bags to Balinese whiskey (not bad) to hippy seeds and nuts). A lot of the food was imported and it felt like we had left Indonesia entirely. All of the meat was neatly cut and carefully wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic wrap. There must have been 25 varieties of sausages, all of which looked imported. It was like we'd been transported from Indonesia straight to some alternate universe of white privilege. It made me sad to see people who clearly live here longer than the average tourist but who hold on so tightly to the places they left behind. I don't think we'll be coming back many times while living here.
Such a contrast to the morning...