Humiliating Moment in Indonesia #1

I was at a meeting at the Department of Forestry in Jakarta. My boss and I had to present our workplans in order to be granted work permits. Funnily enough, both of us are currently working without permits, though this little detail hasn’t stopped us from actually working or from getting Visas or Residence Permits for that matter.

Everyone in the meeting spoke Indonesian, except for me. Before I began my presentation, I made a joke about how my Bahasa wasn't good enough (yet), but I didn’t get any laughs. Sometime after the meeting, a colleague reminded me about a potential new law that will prevent foreigners that don’t speak Indonesian from getting work permits. Oops. Not sure where this proposed regulation stands, but no doubt it is on the radar screen of the Department of Forestry team that deals with bules like me.

A few hours into this interminable meeting, I slipped out for a bathroom break. I decided to be smart this time and ask for toilet paper before heading into the bathroom, as I’ve learned the hard way that few public toilets in Jakarta supply it. My foresight served me well until it came time to flush. I noticed that this particular toilet seemed to have a new kind of flushing handle. Haven’t seen this kind before, I thought to myself as I turned it, only to be immediately and powerfully pummeled with a merciless jetstream of water. Letting out an involuntary shriek, I struggled to shut the thing off while my pants got thoroughly soaked.

Nope, it was not a handle for the flusher but a handle to turn on a faucet targeted directly at ones private parts. The Indonesian form of the "bidet" I guess. Its sheer force was astounding! The shower head at my home musters but a whimpering drizzle in comparison. Such an apparatus clearly renders toilet paper non-essential.
Of course, tp has never been essential in Indonesia, where the left hand and mandi scoop have been the traditional tool of choice.

Thank goodness I was wearing black, which helped hide the fact that my pants were soaked through to my skin as I shuffled by the Department of Forestry officials on the way back to my seat. I'm still waiting to hear if I've been granted that Work Permit, by the way...