I am staying in Rantau Rasau, Sumatra
Island with safety and good health. Additionally, the research to take gas and
soil sample is going well.
In this post, I will write about usual life
and events in Rantau Rasau during 2 months.
Despite of rural area, I can live in Rantau
Rasau with comfort. However, I had puzzled to the difference of meals and
toilet when I was new to here. The difference of meals means the richness of
rice and oil. Basically, we eat rice in every meal everyday with lots of fried
cuisines. Besides that, here doesn’t have dairy products such as milk, cheese,
and so on. If you were worried about deviation of nutrition here, you need to
eat much soy milk and fruits, I think. Indonesian style toilets are different
from Japanese ones. When we want to flush, we take water with tub from big jar.
In this room, we also take a bath with cold water. I take a bath twice a day
before breakfast and dinner in the same way with host family.
As events, I write on end of year fireworks
and attending to a wedding party.
I
enjoyed end of year fireworks with my host family in the garden. When I asked
my host mother what we would do at year end night, she answered we had no
activity at the night. Then, Santa Claus being late from Japan were sent to the
house and the family were allowed to enjoy fireworks. At the moment to come new
year, I had slept unfortunately. On New Year’s Day, most of people, farmers,
worked as usual though school was in vacation. New Year’s Day like this was
very new for me because I had been to shrine, eaten soba, buckwheat noodles and
osechi-ryori, special dishes prepared for the New Year in Japan every New Year’s
Day. 
In order to attend relative’s wedding
party, we went to Jambi city, the nearest urban area from Rantau Rasau. It took
3 hours by car. The party had been held all a day and started with Islamic
scriptures and greeting by fathers of a new married couple. After that, all
participants started lunch until night enjoying music, dancing singing
themselves. Indonesian people were very cheerful and enjoyed the party all
time. I helped receptionists and greeted with participants. I learned
Indonesian people had various style of shaking hands such as shaking a hand
normally, just pinch a partner’s hand with one’s hands softly, not shaking
hands with different gender but just putting a hand on one’s chest, and so on.
 |
| "Hira" , traditional painting on hands and legs for new wife |
The life with cheerful people in Rantau
Rasau was so different from Japanese busy one. Although income isn’t so high
and there is a little inconvenience, people here live more fulfilling lives
than Japanese, I felt. Besides, people not only here, but also in Indonesia, are
very kind to strangers and treated me kindly as if I am a member of their
family. Through this experience, I found there were various people and life
styles. I would like to spend days in Japan remembering life in Rantau Rasau
and always be positive even though I am busy.
Thank you for your reading.
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