American Womens Association of Jakarta

We received our new car last night and met our new driver. Mr Fadi is the brother-in-law of the driver we had on our trip last year. He seems very friendly and competent, though he has extremely limited English.

I also got a new cell phone; only my third one ever! I have had my last Nokia for the last 6 years and it still works fine. GJ thought that I should embrace new technology and get a phone that takes photos, movies and has access to the web. Now I just have to figure out how to use the darn thing, I couldn’t even ring GJ today. I have just attempted to set up a bluetooth connection from my phone to laptop......to no avail. I can show you how to program any piece of million dollar PC base Noritsu equipment and describe in detail the chemical steps that occur in each stage of developing a colour film, but new fancy cell phones are beyond me until I study the manual!

To celebrate all this we stopped at Amigos on the way home last night for a Mexican dinner and a jug of our new favorite, Strawberry Margaritas. BTW, not a drop of champagne has touched my lip's since arriving in Indonesia.

Today after work Ben and I stopped off at the AWA; the American Women’s Association of Jakarta. I signed up for membership (you don't have to American to join) and stocked up on some of the great books they publish about living in Jakarta, geared towards expats. The AWA also has a thrift shop with used books and magazines. I have not had anything other than my laptop and cereal boxes to read for the last 3-4 weeks…… I got 10 glossy magazines for 50 000RP ($7 ); now that is so good I want to celebrate with another pitcher of strawberry margaritas! Imported Australian or US mags are very expensive, as are English language books.

One thing that I can’t find in Jakarta is pre-wash stain remover. I have tried 5 different shops all to no avail. Some one suggested Amway, but I am always so scared that I am going to get stuck listening to hours of spiel instead of just getting what I need.

Ben seems to have inherited my love of washing, only his current fascination is emptying the clothes basket of DIRTY clothes onto the floor and rolling around in it…..