Just a day in the life...

6:30 PM “Masukan nomar telefon…” It is the voice of trying to make an international call from my office where you dial a code, get this message and then have to enter the telephone number you are dialing, then the pound sign and then, inevitably, still do not get connected to the person you are dialing. After hearing this message too many times I gave up, sent the woman I was supposed to interview an “I am sorry” email and headed to the gym. Already off my schedule since I was hoping to leave at 6…"jam karet" – rubber time – I am living like an Indonesian.

There were no taxis. I mean NONE. And I could see the busway from where I was standing and it was packed. Buses were only coming about once every 10 minutes and they were stuffed to the gills, only letting about 4 people on the bus at a time. No taxi, no bus….argh. So I decide to walk. It is about 30 minutes, meaning my schedule for the evening was going to be running late. It is now 7:15 PM. I reach in my bag to call Howie…hmmm…where is my phone?? Actually, this pocket feels light. There is usually a couple thousand Rp in here for the bus…Crap. Pick-pocketed. 10 months here and you think I would know better than to put anything in the front zipper pocket of my bag. Maybe 10 months has made me careless. Whatever the case, the phone was gone.

7:30 PM Back to the office for one last check for the phone. Maybe I left it on my desk? Nope. Not there. OK, I freak out for a minute and then realize I need a new phone and I have to keep my phone number and if I do not do this now, it is never going to happen. Off to the Ambassador where I bought the phone the first time. But now I am back to the same problem I had when I left the office. No taxi, tons of traffic in the direction of the Ambassador and the little mini buses I take, there are none to be seen. There is a huge crowd waiting to the minibus and when one comes – they seat 10 people uncomfortably – there is a mad scramble. I cannot fight my way on the first couple, but as I get more and more annoyed, elbow fly and there I am on the minibus.

7:45 PM I find the office for the phone company (Indosat) and by some miracle and after only about 16 pages of paperwork and no fee I have a new SIM card, with my same number and all I need is a phone. Luckily, there are about 100 cell phone dealers at the Ambassador. Right near the Indosat office, go figure. By 8:30 I have a new phone and the SIM card is working. All that is missing are the phone numbers of the few people I know, which in the grand scheme is not a big deal since they can still call me. Yay.

I run to the supermarket, pick up some fish since I had promised to cook dinner and after waiting in the “basket only” line for 30 minutes since, although they say basket only, they do not specify how many baskets you can have, I am ready to go. I am back on the minibus and almost home.

9:15 PM Home. Finally. I whip up some dinner – a damn nice meal of rice and fish, beet salad and zucchini – and we are eating by 10 PM and I have crazy conflicting emotions. On one hand, man this day sucked. Getting around is so irritating, nothing worked right, I was pick-pocketed!! But on the other, I did it. I did not let Jakarta get the best of me. Happy. Accomplished. Sleepy. Just another day I suppose...