Jakarta

I admit I was guilty for not posting in this blog that I spent the week that past in Jakarta, for job purposes. It was an educational trip, the traffic was well... I can't comment on the traffic without cursing and swearing so it is best not to. It became immediately apparent that I had to pick up Bahasa Indonesia fast considering the fact that I would be there quite often from now on. Rarely anybody speaks a word of English. Not even in what was suppose to be an international airport, and added to that, what little Bahasa I know is Bahasa Melayu which most of the locals do not understand. So that was for first impressions

On a side note before leaving for Jakarta last week, I wanted to inform my friends about my trip through SMS. I tried spelling Jakarta on the "all powerful" T9 mobile dictionary every handphone on earth has but I simply could not. Jakarta was simply not in the dictionary. I remembered that the word was spelled J-A-K-A-R-T-A, but my phone would have none of it, saying that I was wrong and had to spell the word in manually.

So I thought, "ok, I must have remembered the spelling wrongly." Therefore I turned on my computer and logged on to the "really all powerful" "dictionary.com" and typed in J-A-K-A-R-T-A and lo and behold, my spelling was right. Jakarta simply doesn't exist in my phone. So I got curious and tried to input words like "Singapore", "Taiwan", "Malaysia" into my phone, all of it was there except "Jakarta". The capital of the most populous Musilm nation in the world, you would have thought that at least earned you a place in the dictionary, even if its a phone dictionary.

Indonesia as a nation has been through a lot, terror bombings, tsunamis, earthquakes and fickle minded volcanoes that can't decide went to erupt. But there were no signs of that in Jakarta, it was business as usual. It definitely speaks volumes of the peoples' will to survive and make a living for themsevles. But I can't help but feel that the people in Jakarta are also in denial of whats happening in their country, turning a blind eye to tragedies and trying to go about their business. This is a country that needs God and definitely needs a lot of prayer, though I admit I have no particular burden for Indonesia I do acknowledge the nation's needs and will not hesitate to put my hand to the plow if required.