indonesia and me

I think a lot of people have a love and hate relationship with their own country.. and so do i . 

It has been 13 years since i left and evertime i come back here ( and br would know this better than anyone) a lot of things... and thought.. come back to me. I can be really excited about things and get really upset about others. Partially it is because i care, and it frustrated me when i see something that i know can be change for the better. 

running around the house

I went for a run this morning. It was 85 degree and humid. I didn't think I've sweat that much since my first hot yoga class. Finishing up the last mile of my run, I came across a dog. As most of you know, i love dogs ( or some of you might say sarcastically "oh really? we don't realized that" ). 

And of course, I pet the dog, She was sweet and playful. Her fur was matted and rough. She would be a very pretty dog if she was well taken care of. And like anyone in the right mind would do , I picked her up and started asking around to find the owner ( right???) 

If you never been in indonesia, the street here is always busy. If you think San Francisco has a lot of car, well multipy by 3 and add chaos into it , then you get Indonesian traffic. 

I walked around for 20 minutes, asking around. No one seems to know who the owner. It was interesting for me to see how people react to this dog. Like in a lot of muslim culture, dog is consider "dirty" So when i walked around with a dog in my hand, people either smile or looked at me in horror. Some people refused to get close to me, some people offered a friendly chat. Such a contrast. 

cute stray dog

I finally found the owner after a nice lady with a dog recognized the dog. The owner live 2 house down from my house. I went there and the dog run in . The maid of the house came out and i told them i'm returning the dog. They said "oh she always goes out in the morning and come back on her own" . Fair enough . I'm not happy but not that i can do anything. I told them that they should watch her because she has been going thru some trash and eaten some chicken bones. At this point the owner finally came out . He was nice but i know he doesn't care when I explained to him why i brought his dog back . He just said " I'll tell them " 

Tell WHO? sigh..

So to summarize my first morning back home. I saw the good side of the people here where they are smiling ear to ear when I said Good Morning, when they nod their head when we had eye contact. That gave me warmth feeling and a little hope.  I am also sad to see how some pet/dog are treated here. I'm adjusting to the heat and failing misserably, it's going to be very interesting to running in this heat. I miss the food. I miss my dogs and Br. And I have jet lag