Photostory Friday - Palembang Train Station (Part 1)

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Aaron is two now and its about time we explored a little more of Palembang. I have been thinking of heading to the train station and just going as far as the first stop before turning back. I don't think I'm ready to be totally adventurous with overnight trips to unknown destinations with a toddler.

Today, we took the long 45 min drive to Stesen Kertapati (Palembang's one and only train station) to try to get some sort of timetable. The main building where I'm guessing ticket sales happen was closed but the gates to the platform were wide open. This is what we saw:



I couldn't see the station master or anybody that looked like they worked there. That train didn't look like it was leaving anytime soon and there was no way I could contain Aaron anymore so we went exploring. He thought he would find Thomas, or Percy, or some other train he knew there.

The place smelled similar to a zoo, or a farm maybe. Apart from the three goats that greeted us, there were also plenty of chickens around. The train there had some of the carriage doors open and I didn't see anybody around (initially) so I took Aaron for a tour inside.

This train only had Executive and Business Class seats. The Executive seats were in the tinted window and air conditioned section of the train which was locked. We walked through the Business Class section.







They don't have timetables as such but we met a friendly man who gave us the run down on the schedule.

The trains don't run very frequently and the closest stop is somewhere 90mins away. That train leaves in the morning and there will be no returning train until some time in the evening. The destination is a small farming town. It will be hot and there will probably be NOWHERE to go. My sense of adventure is somewhat dimmer after finding that out. Its hard when you have to keep a toddler entertained, cool, napped and fed.

The alternative is a 'private' train that is used only by students to go to a college about 30 mins away. Supposedly, I can negotiate a prize and hop on for a ride. My objective is just to see the outskirts of Palembang and also to let Aaron have the whole train experience.

I'm determined to make some sort of a trip next week so, stay tuned for Palembang Train Station (Part 2).

Thursday Thirteen - My Desk

13 Things I Have On My Desk

1) My camera - Canon IXUS 850 IS. I got this about 4 months after Aaron was born because he was starting to move faster and my old camera was too slow for him. That was the excuse I used anyway.

2) My cellphone. Its a Nokia but I have no idea what model. Its nearly 4 years old and ancient by today's standards. Richard got it for free at work but passed it to me to use.

3) One of these things left over from Aaron's party. I have no idea what they're called.



4) A Rubik's cube that I got for Christmas about 20 years ago. It frustrated me so much back then that I tried to peel the stickers off. Unfortunately, they are VERY WELL glued down. I finally solved it for the first time about 3 weeks ago, with the help of the internet. Since Monday, I have been trying to master the technique. I've got the hang of the first two layers so far.

5) Aaron's nappy clip. We use cloth nappies for his naps and this is what I use to hold it together. I started out with the safety pins but pinned myself one too many times.



6) Two fake guitar picks from Aaron's guitar.

7) My hairclip. Its a bit of a useless one because it holds very little of my hair. I use it just to keep the hair out of my eyes sometimes.

8) The book I'm reading, Breastfeeding : Biocultural perspectives. Its a compilation of various research and commentary on breastfeeding and how it is both a biological as well as cultural phenomena. Basically, I got it so that I would have some decent statistics based come backs to the range of questions/comments I receive from people about me still nursing my 2 yr old.

9) My Philips CD Player / Clock / Radio. Richard wanted to get me an iPod but I chose this instead. Cheaper and more useful for me and Aaron. The sound out of this is good and it plays normal CDs as well as MP3s. Sometimes I connect it to my laptop. There is a USB port there but I haven't tried it yet.



10) My mini torch. I got this from the night markets in Ipoh for RM 5 (USD 1.25). I keep it here because we've been having power outages several times a week.

11) Big blue cup that I stick my pens, marker pens (many dried up) , pencils, craft scissors, Aaron's nail scissors, USB cable, audio cables, highlighters, tags, receipts in.....yes, its very congested in there.

12) Two of these things. The black one is purchased but I made the 2nd one myself. Its so easy if you happen to have a narrow but long cardboard box. Both are stuffed full! Wet wipes, blutack, tripod, CDs, Reader's Digest, Coloured Paper, notebooks....



13) And of course, my laptop. Also getting to be a little old at 4 years. Its my connection to family, friends and the rest of the world. I leave it on and online the whole day. Sometimes, my mother and I have Skype on with video and carry on about the house as normal. I've been trying to justify getting myself a desktop but haven't been able to yet. This one is still working fine.

Childbirth Hearsay

Life here in Indonesia is really so different from the life I was exposed to prior to coming here.

I've mentioned before that there are so many people that are poor here. There are poor people everywhere but I just feel that I come across sad stories so much more often here in Palembang than in the other places I've lived. I heard some things today, but I haven't checked the information with other sources. After all, I'm not writing for CNN or BBC., just The Milk Bar. Its an account of what I encountered today.

I heard that if you go to a hospital to have your baby and then are unable to pay the bill. They send you home but keep the baby there until you pay up. Of course, there are consequences all over the world if you don't pay the bill but I've never heard first hand accounts of such things before. The average bill for a normal and unassisted delivery is supposedly about IRP700,000 (USD 76). The problem is that for many of those poor families, their monthly pay is only about IRP400,000 or less. And all that money goes to their daily life. How would they ever save up the money to have (and then look after) a baby?

Carrying on the topic of childbirth, I also heard about the women who opt for delivery by a traditional midwife. These are usually home births of course. I can understand that cost would be a factor in choosing this option but to my surprise, there was another reason. Supposedly, some women choose to give birth this way because they won't get stitched up afterwards. Yes, they do not want the stitches because there are supposedly a lot of horror stories circulating about women who had their babies in 'birth centers' (a cheaper option to hospitals) where they received their stitches without anesthetic. YIKES! Maybe the anesthetic costs extra....

Two years ago, an Indonesian maid in Malaysia told me that after she had her babies, her abdomen was wrapped in several meters of cloth. I think she mentioned that this is partly to push your body (inside and out) back to shape. Also, her big toes were tied together for a month so that her legs were forced together. NOW, after today's new info, I'm wondering if she had her toes tied together because she had the extremely natural delivery and recovery process.

Childbirth is a scary enough thought for an average person but imagine if you're young, poor and married off at 15?

Why do people give boys guns?

Up until now, I haven't bought any toy guns for Aaron. I've never even mentioned guns or make a pretend gun with my thumb and index finger. I just feel that there is no need for young kids (or ANYBODY) to play with something so destructive. Its not that I'm trying to shield him from reality either. When he understands more words, and we come across guns, I'll explain to him what they are.

He received two 'guns' as birthday presents the other day. He looked at them and asked what they were. I said "Guns" and showed him that when he pressed the trigger, all sorts of annoying sounds were played. The noises were just awful; whiny, siren-y type sounds mixed with some one yelling 'Fire'. Aaron didn't show much interest in them after that and I definitely don't want to be hearing those noises all day long so I've kept both guns.

I took photos of both because they had some 'interesting' wording on the packaging.


"Press trigger, the light revolves. Send out the combat voice of the true condition. The gun tail sends out the twinkling light. Demolishing end! It is super to kill the wound dint weapon! Finally Weapon. The gun of the space warrior" BTW, those aren't my typos.


Wording on the lower left: "The best welcome gifts for children, novel style, vivid figure, special design, unique package, alot of fun, simulating atrue style" Once again, no typos on my part.

Labels and Judgement

Today, I've been thinking about some unfair criticism that I have doled out in the past. They are from the time before Aaron was born or maybe when he was still only a few months old. Basically from a time when I didn't know any better.

I met a super energetic 4 year old at my brother's wedding in January last year. He was labeled "Monster Child" almost instantly. He was so full of energy, screaming and bouncing everywhere. He annoyed the heck out of everybody. I wasn't there to witness it but he supposedly also slapped my brother's mother-in-law's in the face.

Now, whenever we go for an event that involves having large crowds of people, I think of that boy and worry that Aaron is going to be the "Monster Child". I also realize that the original Monster Child was probably overtired, bored and high on all the junk food that was circulating. I'm a little wiser now and am definitely not going to judge his parents. They were probably trying their best to be with the family as well as keep their son manageable.

Another thing I've done in the past is look disgustedly at parents in malls that let their children throw tantrums. Aaron has had a couple of meltdowns in public that I have ignored and either walked on with him grabbing my ankles or continued browsing the shelves of the supermarket as he thrashed around in the shopping cart. I couldn't give in to him just to keep him quiet. And since all my other reasoning didn't work in those particular situations, the only option I had left was to show him that kicking up a big stink wasn't going to get him anything.

So its easy before you have children, or before your children reach those stages, to judge and label. I know I did. And sometimes, even now, I catch myself thinking that "I'd never let Aaron be like that". But I k now better than to let my thoughts go any further because it would probably come back at me in a few months. This whole parenting thing is so unpredictable. And, unless you have gone through that particular stage, there is no way to genuinely understand enough of whats going on to make any judgment. Of course, once you're there, you'll no not to judge at all. These days, I feel guilty even just commenting.

2nd Party for the 2 yr old

Today has been a really really good day. We had Aaron's second 2nd Birthday Party at home. We had a combined celebration for him and my father back in Malaysia but this one was specially for him, with all his friends. Also, I don't know how many birthdays Aaron will have here so I felt we should take the opportunity to have a party so that we can look back on it in 20 years time when we reminisce about Palembang.

We invited 8 kids (aged from 1-8) and their parents. I found it a little hard to get the adult conversation going but once the games started, everybody joined in. They were all simple games and were all rigged so that I could make sure that everybody got a "prize". Nobody threw a tantrum, everybody had lunch and it looked like they all had a good time.

Aaron enjoyed himself too. It was good to see him having friends and starting to socialize.

The girl in the pink dress is his current BFF and comes over almost everyday. She's five but somehow, the two of them play together really really well. I think Aaron is wondering why she looks so fluffy today. You can also see the guitar that he 'won'. He kept strumming it and walking here and there with it. Would NOT let go!



Take a look at these three:


Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of all the children together because 3 of them were late. I wish I thought to take a group shot of them towards the end of the party.



Here is my favorite photo from the day (taken before anybody arrived). It was so hot that I almost wanted to leave him half naked. Just as well, I didn't. A few of the people who arrived early asked him why he wasn't getting changed yet. He WAS already. Singlets are the only shirts he owns over here!!

Photostory Friday

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Photostory Friday today is all about living with lighting fast toddlers.

Look at that face.


2 seconds later.


I should have expected it. How could I let myself believe that this particular 'painting' session would be any cleaner than the others.

Alright, gotta go. Have to get that lighting fast and constantly moving toddler to settle down and go to sleep so I can watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

UPDATE (1 hr later): I am the ONLY person not watching the opening ceremony right now. I'm also not going to get to watch ANY of the games. I had just assumed that there would be coverage of the largest sporting event going on but nooooo....we don't have it here. Can you believe it? Why am I paying so much each month for TV when I can't watch the most exciting TV of all? Supposedly one of the local stations will have coverage, and supposedly, I have that station but all I'm seeing is some crappy local goth band! Something needs to be done tomorrow.