There is never enough time.
We just made wonderful friends and they wanted us to join them on their vacation to Bangka island, but given our circumstance and Indonesian immigration rules for tourist visas, we have to part ways very soon. I worry about how the kids will react, but maybe it's just me that is incredibly pained by having to leave people that I really enjoy being around. Even after thousands of farewells, it's not something that starts to pain less, but now maybe I've just learned to recover faster.
I want to use this time to reflect on our time here on what we ate, things we learned, and people we loved.
Food for thought
Indonesian food doesn't disappoint. My partner and I enjoy eating spicy food regularly, (she needs it to survive, I eat everything.) We lived in a suburban house with no vehicle, so we had to GoJek our food frequently. From Nasi Pedang to Ayam Penyet. Mie Goreng to Mie Bakso, everything went down with extreme satisfaction.
We spoke to lots of drivers for GoJek. Bahasa Indonesia has lots of rolling R's, and this one time, I thought he sounded like a bad reception Skype call. "I have your orderrrrrrr, can you give me your house numberrrrrrr" I started rolling my R's too. I think it's fun :)
Our neighbor took us to one of his job sites and introduced us to his customer, one of Galang island's multi generation native who owns the seafood trade channel for the majority of the markets in Batam. He gave us an awesome deal on prawns and squid.
My wife made Tom Yam Goong for our dinner and our neighbor's, and perhaps that was the best way we found to respond to the kindness and hospitality he's been giving to us so regularly.
Another day he decided to invite us to another job site, which was a papaya and guava farm. Lots of side roads are unpaved after the Barerang bridge, but very soon I'm sure many will come to put their hotels and resorts here. We got to the farm and it was gorgeous! Lots of great looking guava and giant papayas.
It was time to introduce our neighbor's to the next Thai dish the mountain queen was so proud of: Som Tam. We were gifted two giant papayas and after we got home, we made what we could with the ingredients at hand.
The entire family loved it. It was something they didn't have, and my wife makes an incredibly delicious papaya salad. We found a way into their hearts and felt so good to give back the gratitude we held for them everyday.
Learning is powerful when play is involved.
I spent most of my time home schooling our kid. Developing routines to have her practice phonemes, mathematics, and a bunch of problem solving and daily discussions before bed about what happened today. The neighbor's boy comes over very often and he's like a mixture between Winnie the Pooh and the hulk. So our home school now occasionally has two students and it was awesome to see her learning progress when she had a friend help her learn.
I'm fairly new at this guardian role. I was the youngest of my tribe and really had no responsibility over any life besides my own. So the kids really enjoy being around me because they know I'll play with them more often. Which leads me into very exhausting days because on one side I have Abu hanging on my left arm and Angry Pooh bear on my right.
We got to swimming, and now she's a proud landlubber who got into the deep end. Our six year old progressed quite fast on her own while learning to swim. I am constantly teaching her breathwork and telling her to close her mouth, but I guess you can't really tame a six year old's excitement. We are progressing towards diving and breath management and I'm just so proud of her confidence in the water :)
Love heals and inspires growth to all that have courage to experience it.
We have a pretty big language barrier with our new friends. But as our hearts grew closer, the silence between our conversations became more meaningful and memorable.
There is a certain amount of love experience at play when there is no need to keep a conversation rolling. When the pressure is relaxed, genuine interest comes whenever it wants to.
Our days are filled with laughter and joy and the big subconscious paranoia of what the other person is thinking slowly loses it's power as we regain strength to be present with the people around us.
Gratitude and open heartedness has given us a spot in the hearts of every day people here as now we will always think of our time here in Indonesia. I imagine future trips back, and I hope I get to see the angry pooh bear grow into an awesome guy. I hope that our neighbor makes way into his creative outlet and continues to share his genuine love for people and empower his beautiful family.
Thank you for spending your time with me, and I hope you are feeling courageous to love your neighbors as well.
All photos are originals taken by me or 
