We call it superstitious, they call it believe..

While I write this blog Ramadan has almost come to an end and things start to be crazy here in the city, prizes on the market has gone up again. For 1 kilo beef you pay 100.000Rp (€ 8,70/US $ 9,90). On Monday I still paid 11.250Rp for a 19 liter gallon of drinking water, today it made 13.000Rp and some even ask 14.000Rp…

The spiritual atmosphere is more intense. People spent a lot of time in the mosque, especially 10 days before the end of Ramadan, so my friend told me.

All people (pulang kampung) return home, so from all over Indonesia people gather together. Places like Jakarta are quiet these days and newspapers are writing about this event. The last tickets for airplane, bus or train are sold for prices that are shocked me.

Since today my helper is not coming in, because she has 1,5 week off. Now she will be home backing cakes, sweets and other delicious local dishes for Idul Fitri, the feast to end the Ramadan.  So I have to take care for the house myself. Poeh…I can’t tell you I feel so blessed to have her doing my laundry, swiping and mopping the floor, and cleaning outside where it’s extremely dusty..

In the meanwhile I started in unit 7 at school. I’m enjoying it very much! Every day I learn new things. This 3th level of language learning isn’t that much about gaining vocabulary or pronunciation, but about learning to understand the way the people think, trying to understand their believes. Can tell you I learned some pretty interesting and useful things.

So I learned about pregnant women about the cultural do and don’ts. I learned about that when a women is pregnant there’s a lot that she’s not allowed to do. Such as standing in the opening of the door, cause that will induce trouble during giving birth, she’s not allowed to eat too much Icecream, not because of she will gain ;) but because of they believe her baby will be very big. Her husband cannot go out fishing otherwise their baby will be born without arms or legs. They like to squeeze cheeks of other babies or touch white people (like me) when they desire their baby to look the same. Some even believe a pregnant women is not allowed to cut meat or cook.. well it’s clear that these times can be troublesome.. 

We call it superstitious, they call it believe..

But the most interesting cultural stuff  for me to learn was about ngidam (cravings of a pregnant women) In Holland (and in the western world) we believe that these desires for food come from hormone change and come from the mom. But here they believe that these desires or cravings come from the baby. They believe when they don’t fulfill these longings from the baby it will be a drooling baby when it’s born. So they will do anything to not have a drooling baby.

So these desires go from understandable to weird and crazy. When I was talking with my friend about it I asked her what ngidam she had. She told me when she was pregnant with her first child she longed to eat pork. Now that’s not so interesting in itself, but this friend of mine is Muslim, so eating pork is not halal, not allowed. But since they didn’t want to have a drooling baby, she, her husband + family decided that it was ok for her to do so. But in the end she only licked the pork to make the baby think that she eat the pork and no drooling baby would be born.

Well these stories and new cultural information got me thinking. I really try to understand how did people start to believe these things and why is it so difficult for them to let go. And till today still people believe this even people who are educated, like some of my friends who I never thought of that they would believe this things.

This week I learned so much and what I shared is only the tip of the mountain ( as we say in Dutch). In these moments when culture is so overwhelming and sometimes goes together with culture shock, hitting me in waves, I try to find my way in this maze of information, believes, values and culture. Where is the line between accepting and adapting or to disagree.  In those times of confusion I like to send this prayer up into the sky:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference..