Sudah mandi ?

I’ve just realised that I have been very remiss in not posting anything yet on the massively important subject of Indonesian bathrooms and bathing habits. As in most hot countries, personal hygiene is very important to Indonesians and bathrooms and bathing (called “mandi”) are an important part of daily activities. Most Indonesian bathrooms are really like the wet rooms found in many up market western homes – i.e. they have a tiled floor and are designed to have water poured everywhere, rather than into a tub or shower tray. The water escapes away through either a drain in the floor or a hole in the wall to the outside world. Bath tubs are a rarity usually confined to posh top range hotels (or so I’m told – volunteers’ allowances certainly don’t stretch to such places !). Showers are found occasionally but, if wall mounted, are usually too low for Westerners to stand under. The bathroom (kamar mandi) will almost always contain a tiled tub (bak mandi) which is too small to sit in and too high to climb into although there are lots of stories of the uninitiated trying to do both of these. This is the source of the water for your ablutions and is usually filled by a tap above it. In many urban areas the water pressure is so poor that this tub may take ages and ages to fill so the water is collected over many hours and kept for when it is needed. In rural areas of course, the water will often have to be carried from a well or river. The other essential element of a kamar mandi is the gayung – a large plastic scoop or ladle with which you pour the water (cold of course) over yourself. It’s an extremely refreshing and cooling system and may take place a couple of times a day if working outdoors. In my homestay in Bali I frequently hear the sounds of splashing water from neighbouring kamar mandis if I’m at home during the day.

You may wish to stop reading this post now.
Ok, you were warned……

The other item of sanitary ware in most kamar mandis (although sometimes housed in a separate room) is, of course, the eh, “WC”. The traditional Indonesian facility is the squat arrangement formerly favoured by the French and which is obviously designed to discourage lingering or reading. Another major difference is the almost universal lack of paper – again, the bak mandi and gayung are used instead, and also for flushing waste away afterwards as most facilities do not have a cistern or any sort of automated flush. This leads me on rather neatly to a quick cultural lesson – it’s considered very rude in Indonesian society to hand something to someone using your left hand as this is the hand that is used for …. well, you can work it out from the details given above ! Also, when eating, many Indonesians eschew (sorry) the use of cutlery (not that there is ever a knife anyway, only a fork and spoon) and eat with their fingers (but always only the fingers of the right hand – again, work it out…..). By the way, if you are using a fork and spoon, the fork is held in the left hand and the spoon in the right and only the spoon ever enters the mouth. It’s not seen as particularly rude to put the fork in your mouth; just weird. Watching some of my left-handed recently arrived friends trying to eat soup with a spoon held in their right hand is quite entertaining, as long as you’re not sitting too close ! The title of this post is a frequently asked question which means “have you washed or bathed ?”. Two of the most commonly used words in Bahasa Indonesia are belum (not yet) and sudah (already). These two rather literal translations don’t really do justice to the wide variety of uses that both of these words are put to – as Indonesian verbs don’t have tenses, “tense markers” like these are important signs to tell if we are talking about the past, present or future. Belum is used as a negative answer to a question about the past tense and implies that there is still a chance that the negative might turn into a positive (much gentler than a flat “no”, isn’t it ?). Sudah is used as a positive answer to many questions about the past and also as a question word, as in “have you bathed ?” (a polite enquiry which doesn’t carry the implication that the questioner feels you should if you haven’t !).

Housing update : The doctor in possession of our house in Maumere is apparently still in possession. As we are due to arrive in Maumere this day next week (Thursday- general election day), it is starting to look increasingly unlikely that we will be able to move in on arrival. Fingers crossed……

Lastly, a random photo I took outside a nearby bar/restaurant on the beach in Sanur last weekend. the restaurant is called the Bonsai (look at the background for a clue why) and this tray of sundried (or soon to be sundried) was just outside the kitchen door. They don't just come out of jars, you know !