Home sweet home

as an urban guy, i never thought about living in a small house in suburban area. so indonesia is changing my life, so i am a proud renter of a small house in a "kampung" in the subburbs of yogyakarta. indeed there are no high rise buildings at all in jogja, but the place is different to the area where i used to stay. locationwise it is pretty much allright cause its in the "cool" north of jogja- student lifelyhood, hyatt in walking distance and of course the office is also nearby. you have to ride your moto whereever you wanna go in jogja anyway- so no problem at all. this is indonesia, so things tend to be different here. sometimes you could compare certain situations here with former "east" countries (GDR e.g.). So you could not rent just a place in a kampung like mine. when you move in, you have to show up at "Pak RT"- he is the head of the kampung. when we went to pak rt he got already copys of our passport- amazing! in indonesia you don't just show up for a talk- you have to bring gifts. therefore pak rt got a cake and some money as kind of entrance fee to the kampung and for "safety" within the kampung. our pak rt is pretty old and just have a few tooth left- i would rather say just five. but this is a serious thing- he asked a few questions about us and agreed later on welcoming us to his kampung. but pak rt is not the only one who will get gifts- also all neighbours should get a lunch box. so you have to organize thoose boxes and present to your neighbours to say hello! all that is pretty important, cause when you skip this you won't get any security- nobody will care about you if your house will burn or there is a robbery.
coming back to the topic- our "garden" looked more like a desert when we moved in. my roomates chris and dita engaged so i decided to suprise them with a new garden. i had a few hours to prepare everything and with "little" help of some gardeners we are now living in a green environment. the only "problem" is that the green needs a lot of water every day, so i find myself often wearing my sarong watering the garden. i can't wait to be able to chat with the neighbours and clean my moto every saturday.
stay tuned for my next story about my new golden fence!