Home Sweet Home

And now on with the story...

After claiming our baggage in good shape and all accounted for, we stuffed ourselves and our luggage into 2 cars about the size of a Toyota 4Runner. It kind of reminded me of those clown cars you see at the circus where clown after clown squeezes into a car and the whole audience wonders how they all fit in there.

With traffic it took us a little over an hour to get to our new home in Executive Paradise. By this point my body was screaming for food, sleep (since I had only slept about 2-3 hours in the last 40 hours) and to stop having the boys car seat gab me in the thigh. I needed rest.

We pulled up to our house and were greeted by a small group of energetic and smiling Indonesians who started unloading our luggaging into the house. My first thought, "Who are these people and what are they doing with my stuff?" I had assumed that we would be coming home to an empty house and was looking forward to the quiet. It was a little weird arriving to some random people inviting themselves into your home and life. But I quickly came to appreciate them as they had prepared the house for arrival.

So who are these random people that I have now come to enjoy greatly? The security guard, maid and gardener/houseboy. Justin's company had sent them to help us settle in and paid for their services for the month of September while we decide whether we want to hire them full time, except for the security guard. He is always compnay paid. So, let me introduce you to our staff...

The Security Guards - Casto, Ahmad and there is one other but I don't recall his name. He is the night guard so he is always here while we are sleeping. But Justin has met him since he is leaving our house at the crack of dawn, literally, every morning. Along with watching over our house and controlling who comes in the gate, he also has the unofficial job of helping the driver back the car out of the driveway. I have found that people in Jakarta like to direct traffic.

The Maid - Mujiem. You pronounce her name moo-gee. She's great to have around. She takes care of the house - cleaning, doing laundry, a little cooking, washing dishes, ironing, etc. Thanks to her I feel like I am living in a hotel. Nice crisp, clean sheets to sleep on every night, ironed and folded laundry, swept and mopped floors, sparkling windows and mirrors. Hey, a girl could get used to this! She has even cooked us one of her specialties, nasi goreng, which means fried rice, and chicken satay. It was yummy!! Indonesian fried rice is a little different than what you and I are used to. Instead of using salty soy sauce like in Chinese fried rice, they use a sweet soy sauce they call Indonesian ketchup. Justin and I have decided we are going to keep her around and she will probably end up living with us.

The Gardener/Houseboy - Benny. Okay, the term houseboy is a little misleading. Benny is 50 years old. He spends his days tending our yard and doing little odd jobs around the house.

The Driver - Bambang. You pronounce his name bomb-bong. Although, he likes the kids to call him Bangbang. He says that means candy or is a type of candy. The company has loaned us a car and driver until we get our own. So, Bambang is only a temporary member of our staff. Basically, he "stands by" to take us anywhere we want to go. And then when we get to our destination , he goes and waits in some mysterious location until we call him from our handphone (what they call a cell phone) to come pick us up. He's a funny guy, likes our kids and is teaching us all kinds of Indonesian words.

Which brings me to my next item:

The Word of the Day. I thought yall might like to learn some Bahasa Indonesia along with us just in case I get so fluent that I start mixing in some of those words in with my English. HaHa! So,

Today's Word of the Day - Hati Hati, pronounced hotty hotty. It means "be careful". It was the first word (okay, phrase) that the boys learned and enjoyed putting to use. We saw it on a street sign as we were driving around town.

Tomorrow...The Grocery Store