Lists

Some of you may have been asking yourself, "Gee, I wonder what Jackie does when she's trapped in traffic jams for hours on end?" 

I'm so glad you asked. 

Sometimes I try to keep from going insane by making chitchat with the taxi driver. Sometimes I have to resort to blasting music through my headphones to maintain sanity. But, sometimes, I make lists.

Today, for example, while trying to get the airport this afternoon, I started making a list of things that were being sold on the street around my cab. Since the traffic may only move a few feet every 30 minutes, it makes good business sense for entrepreneurs to parade their goods past the windows of the trapped passengers. In one section of the road, I could have purchased:

1. Calendars
2. Magazines/Newspapers
3. Plastic toy airplanes
4. Pool rafts
5. Inflatable football helmets
6. Kripik (a kind of rice or shrimp cracker that is very popular in Indonesia. Pictured below)

On other occasions, I've seen:
7. Puppies
8. Bronze horse statues
9. Mango slices (mmm)
10. Inflatable penguins
11. Inflatable sharks
12. Inflatable Spongebob chairs

Google Image: Other inflatable things for sale in Jakarta.

13. Drinks 
14. Waria (wanita + pria = woman + man = transvestite; they get so excited to see bule!) 
15. Individual cigarettes
16. White boards
17. Those fighting figures that punch each other when you push the button on their backs
18. ShamWows
19. Jamu (a traditional medicinal drink that is mixed together for you on the street depending on your ailment)

Google image: Jamu Lady

20. Pant-less people (8 and counting...)

Another list I've been working on: Irrational Fears I've Developed Since Moving to Indonesia.

1. The manhole covers on the side walk on the way to the gym will burst up into the air because of incredible pressure building up in the sewers below. Said manhole cover flies straight up into the air as I am about to step over it, therefore catching my chin and taking off my entire head.

2. I forget to look where I’m going as I’m walking out on the tarmac to get on a plane, and I walk straight into the turbine. 

3. I walk under the boom gate that guards every single parking area in Jakarta just as the gate comes down and hits me on the head. 

4. My ojek falls into one of the gutters on the side of each road that is filled with the ‘bog of eternal stench.’  

5. I fall through the sidewalk. (this one is more rationale than irrational given the state of sidewalks in Indonesia).

6. Monitor lizard attacks.

7. Getting hit by the Transjakarta bus. This is a large bus that has its own lane, through which it barrels horn a blazing.

And now you know.