Baby steps.

I survived my first day, and am about to begin my second. I have yet to get a full night's sleep thanks to the mosque, though it hasn't woken me up, it is impossible to get back to sleep if you do wake up anytime near the morning prayer call, which lasts--wait for it--TWENTY minutes. Twenty minutes of anything is bound to bore you--imagine if American Pie were twenty minutes long? Would people still listen to it? My roommates laugh at the heavy towels I've tried draping over the windows to block the noise, though they don't really do much.

My lesson from yesterday is to take things one day at a time. If you can't sleep one night, try to sleep the next, and don't worry about it. In that same vein, I am not going to become an expert in the Indonesian legal system and language in one day! I'm also not going to be able to figure out all the best restaurants/food carts in the area in one day, either.

There are a few things I did learn yesterday, though: the office has a coffeemaker. Yes, they only have powdered creamer, but this is a step in the right direction. Some of the bigger supermarkets sell milk, and soon I will have my morning cup of coffee all figured out. I do hope to either make it to Sumatra or buy some of their delicious beans here in Jakarta to take back with me, but for now, caffeine in the mornings is enough.

My first day of work was both exactly what I expected and not what I expected at all. The office is in an old converted mansion, and is beautiful--stained glass windows, a garden open to the elements in the middle of the house, and with AC (sort of) and wifi. Most of my co-workers are Indonesian, but there is one Australian here for a year on sort of Peace Corps-like project who gave me the real dirt on things (aka, the things I didn't quite understand coming from the Indonesians). Everyone was very nice, though, and have already started giving me travel and food tips.

What I have expected and dreaded about working for an NGO, however, is that the head can be pulled in many different directions--and it is true; Brian is in Sri Lanka this week, so until I can talk to him, my work might be limited. The other problem, which I knew coming into this job but didn't really consider, is that there are no lawyers at my organization. They work(ed) with prisoners and partner with legal foundations (LBH Jakarta, a legal aid organization, and KontraS, where an NYU 2L worked last summer), and they had a program doing legal education to the Indonesian people, where they partnered with the Indonesian Supreme Court, called Access for Justice. However, most of these projects have wound down or are on hold at the moment. I am going to try to set up meetings at the aforementioned organizations and maybe use their lawyers for legal information and help guiding my research. In the meantime, I suppose, I will just read, read, read. And Agus, the program manager, sincerely wants me to benefit form being here, so he promises to help as best he can in connecting me with lawyers.

Hugh, the Australian, took me to another big mall where we ate at Cali Deli, a Vietnamese sandwich shop. We had both expected a hole in the wall run by Vietnamese immigrants, and instead we found a restaurant in a mall food court, but my sandwich and frozen strawberry juice were quite good. My coworkers helped me order authentic Indonesia satay for dinner (I tried to use the chile sauce but one small taste lit my mouth on fire!), so I did get some Indonesian food. I still don't feel comfortable walking around at night yet, though (I'm not sure that I ever will), and our proximity to the equator and lack of daylight savings mean that the sun sets at 5:45, so I might be stuck getting dinner either at the office or on my way home.

The last thing that still surprises me about Jakarta is the pollution. The little three-wheeled "taxis" belch nasty-smelling smoke, and many people walk around with masks on their faces--I don't blame them. The vegetation is lush and beautiful (especially the giant plant market we drove past yesterday I am going to have to find again!) but they don't seem to appreciate it here--trash spills onto the streets, and everyone smokes. Yet their carbon footprint is probably 1/100th the size of America's.