My good friend Kyla (who co-stars in my Europe posts) is teaching English in Indonesia currently. I've been following her adventures in her MSN Spaces blog. Just recently, I was trying to discover where in Indonesia she was staying so that I could try finding it with Google Earth. Doing a quick web search for Kyla and Indonesia unearthed two interesting results, that if you are a friend of Kyla's, you just might find interesting.
It turns out her two fellow housemates also keep blogs of some sort. Miriam uses the esteemable Blogger and Joey, seemingly the most verbose of the three, uses LiveJournal.
This is cool for a number of reasons. Firstly, because you are now getting three times the coverage. Secondly, because you gain a new perspective of what's going on.
The following is two parallel excerpts about the same situation I found amusing, having travelled with Kyla before. I had read Kyla's story before finding the other journals and here is what Kyla had to say about a day trip she took out into the rice paddies:
At one point this crazy guy comes running up the steep side of the hill carrying coconuts, and said that he saw us walking. He claimed to have been working in the terrace across the valley when he saw us and ran down into the valley to pick some coconuts for us. It was a great refreshing treat; and then he asked for money! It was worth it though.
Kyla's Space: November 5 Bali!
Here is Joey's version of the story:
Kyla and I kept walking with no one around, until suddenly a man with 3 large green coconuts pops out of the grass saying, saw you, and I climb tree, and I get for you! Before we know it, he takes out a large machete and starts chopping them open for us. We graciously took them and drank. Very refreshing after a long walk. I then gave him 10,000 Rupiah and we continued our journey.
This story just struck me as a classic male-female moment. When I envsioned this story in my head, the man comes up and in what Kyla assumes to be an action a genuine goodwill, offers them some coconuts. He ruins that though by asking for money and turning it into just a cheap commercial money grab. The refreshment is worth the price, but the moment is lost through the dissapointment. On the other hand, to Joey, although seemingly being the one who ended up paying, the fact that he had to pay is somewhat auxillary to the entire event. He's just happy to get some refreshing coconut milk to drink.
Of course, either Joey or Kyla may end up reading this and telling me I'm way out to lunch. However, sometimes reading a story is more interesting than actually being there. Anyways, go check out the journals, for what life is like teaching English Second Language to people in Indonesia. An excellant distraction.
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