BAA

So it's been a few weeks, but my pictures have finally arrived from our photographer, and now I'm ready to share my wedding with you!

To start off, we were married in Bali, Indonesia on March 21, 2009. The ceremony was held in a private villa, where we only had a few people come. My family was unable to attend, as flying overseas was just too expensive for them. I was okay with that though, it was actually more important that my wife's family was there, and thankfully some of them were able to make it, most importantly being her mother. I was so glad she was able to make it; otherwise I know my wife would have regretted it later on. Before the ceremony started, we were taken to the villa by the company who was organizing the entire event, and it was amazing. Walking through it, I had a bit of a hard time imaging why anyone would want to rent this place while staying in Bali....it was just too elegant. It made you want to spend more time inside the villa than seeing Bali, which is crazy. Here's a few pictures of where we stayed:


From the chairs, I often swam from that end of the pool, to the other....


and then hopped out to grab a snack or watch tv while I waited for the staff to prepare everything else.
This area was especially nice because of the hot day. Our guests were able to sit in the shade and rest their feet in the water, and the kids just loved it. Too bad they were picking up the pebbles and tossing them in the water....oops! No problem, I swam in to pull them out later that night so the staff wouldn't think we wrecked the place. I liked having a refrigerator so close to the pool, heh. When the staff was ready, we were taken inside and they had to prepare us. We wanted a traditional Balinese wedding, so they had gathered the costumes, makeup, and other accessories that you'll notice we're wearing. This was me before...

Notice the smile? It's vanished in the next picture. To say I hated being prepared would be putting it lightly....They wanted to put makeup on me for the photos, which I already knew, but I'm not the type of guy who wears makeup. Never have been. This was the only "decent" photo I felt like sharing during my transformation.

The reason for the makeup wasn't just because of the photographer that we hired. It was also because we specified that we wanted a traditional Balinese wedding. Little did I know, the tradition including looking like this guy below.

Yes, that's lipstick. And it's brighter than his own wife!  And ofcourse, it wouldn't be complete without the fake mustache. Mustache rides, anyone? J/J.  I was actually prepared to wear all that, but I knew my wife would murder me, so I opted to skip it. Besides, I was already happy with having a unique wedding. No need to go overboard, so I'll compromise.

Anyway, so that was my part. Little does my wife know, I'll also be sharing hers!



As this was going on, the staff was preparing the area where the ceremony would be held. Some of it was typical, like flowers on the ground, but I guess because it was my wedding day, I thought it all looked wonderful. As I looked over the garden, I was just speechless. In a few moments I'd be married here. I wouldn't be single anymore. I'd have a wife. A bigger family. Just thoughts after thoughts, and the scenery of it all just made it perfect to me. Anyway, this was the area being set-up.

And before I knew it, I heard soft music playing in the background, letting me know that it would begin soon. As the music played, the family/friends who did come started to make their way into the garden, and they all scattered to find a nice place in the shade to watch. It was a HOT day! I guess nothing can be perfect, and having a wedding in tropic weather = sweating. Especially if you're wearing layered clothing. Thankfully, I got use to it after awhile. Once all the guests were there, the music faded into a new song, Brian Adams and Barbara Streisand "I've Finally Found Someone". I tried to resist my inner south park jokes of Barbara Streisand, but the song was rather nice to hear. I even ended up downloading it later that week. Corny, I know I know...As people poured out, I started saying to myself "Okay, here she com....nope, no that's just her friend. Well this next one should be....nope, no that's just her cousin. Ah here we go, here comes the.....nope. Some guest I don't even know." This carried on halfway through the song, until.....
 
Here comes the bride! At this point I was trying to take in the moment as much as I could. It would be an event that I would always remember, one of those memories that would bring me happiness as I grow older. It was the first time I got to see my wife in her wedding gown, although I did get to sneak a peek at the gown when her aunt was tailoring it. I loved the Balinese additions she made, such as the golden ornaments in the back of her hair (mahkota) and the armbands/sash. She was going to wear a full Balinese outfit but a few months prior she changed her mind to having a "mixed" look instead with a western wedding gown. Just one of the many decesions we stressed over, but all worth it. Next to her is my mother-in-law, Sonja, and I was so happy she could make it. I know it meant the world to my wife.

And before I knew it, we were here:


But don't worry, you can see our faces here...

And so the ceremony started. We exchanged vows, the priest gave his blessings, and it was all rather short. I think the entire ceremony took maybe 45 minutes tops? As you can tell, we still had Christian marriage, though we were not able to do the Catholic route ((Even though we're both Catholic)). It was too complicated because we're required to take marriage classes before getting married, and I didn't have the time for that. My contract would expire in a few more months, and I'd have to return back home to the US. Boo! But the minister/paster did a fine job, and we were blessed to have him offer his services to us. After it was over, the next step was the legalizing of it so Indonesia would official recognize it. Now, having been an altar boy as a child, I served my own fair share of marriages. I do recall the priest having the bride and groom sign a document, to which he then presented them as "Mr and Mrs. whatever". This is basically what took place here, but twice. Once for the religious ceremony ((As required by Indonesian law)) and again by a government representative. And after signing, we were now a happily married couple!

And it was done! We're now Mr and Mrs. Hebert. Daisy chose to inherit my name, something I wisely deceided to talk about much earlier on. Thankfully, it was quite easy. She very much wanted to have her husbands family name, and I very much wanted a woman who didn't give me grief about it. Though this tradition of a woman taking the mans family name is common in the west, here in Indonesia it's not always the same way. Plenty of people don't even carry family names, and those that do either keep it or opt to just inherit there spouse's. Like my sister-in-law. She's married to a Balinese man who has no last name, but she does. After getting married, she continued to carry her family name, which was then continued on to her 2 kids, even though her husband still only has a first name. This whole name changing would create a world of other problems when we arranged our documents for the US embassy after the marriage, but it was quickly remieded when we just had Daisy "lose" her passport and file for another one, thus telling her government of her new name without any complications.

But enough of that, as I could go on forever on those troubles. At this point, we just gathered with out guests, I got to meet who else my wife invited but forgot to tell me, and yes, more pictures! Below I'm standing with our niece and nephews ((from left to right, Shanti, Gung,  Andraes, and Erik)). I'm going to really miss them when I go back home :(


And the wedding was done! Like I said, it was all very quick, but we had wanted a "simple" wedding from the beginning. By simple, I mean no long ceremonies, dance halls, or having people sing. I know lots of people enjoy that at a wedding, but I've always hated it. Always. Even with free alcohol, it just makes me want to go home quicker. I'm just anti-social like that I guess. Money was the other ((bigger)) factor too though, as paying for a wedding in Bali was expensive enough. I just didn't have the funds for any other exciting things, and I was already over-budget with what we did do. Oops....But it was all worth it. I have 0 regrets about the money I spent, it was a day I'll always remember.

 

Once we all had eaten and talked for a while, we moved to the beach, mostly for more photos. They would be used in our photo album that the photographer made. I recieved the book and video from the photographer about a week later, and I was blown away by the work. I almost skipped buying the dvd, because I figured I could save money by just recording it myself. But I left my tripod up while recording, and my video was NOTHING compared to the job this guy did. He really knew how to put it all together, and I was glad to have bought it. Trying to pose for some of the pictures at the beach turned out to be quite funny, as many of the tourists and other people there stopped by to take a look at us and take pictures. In a few minutes, we had a rather decent sized crowd watching the photographer take pictures of us.

And that was it. It ended with a sunset, and her in my arms. Truly one of the happiest days of my life. We took a few more photos for our album, and then headed back to our villa. We would spend the next week ANXIOUSLY waiting for our pictures because we were SO ready to see how they came out. That's why this blog was a little belated too, as I wanted to share the photos in it instead of making a 2nd blog with pictures. I know I'll look back on this blog some day when I return home to the states, and I wanted a nice, long one with the photos to look back on. I couldn't of been happier with how it all turned out.


So if any of you consider a marriage in Bali, send me a message and let me know! I can get you in touch with a very great company who's been in this buisness for years, and they do a phenominal job. They will give you info on all the places you can stay, provide any costumes if you need, and transportation. Little things that make it all work out nicely! Now, Daisy and I move on to our next challenge in life, establishing our intent to move to the US together. For anyone who's gone through this process, you know how gruling it can be. Today, ironically enough, I stopped by the US embassy to file my I-130 petion for DCF (Direct Consular Filing) along with various other paper work (G-325A, birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports, and plenty of copies) so that Daisy can get her visa/green card to come live in the US. She's excited about it, though I know it will be a tough transition leaving her family/friends behind. But she loves me, and says it's what she wants. In about 2 weeks, we'll hopefully be contacted to go to our interview, so I'll have more to blog on that later.

A few days ago ((on my birthday!)) I was given the best news from my wife fiance. In our horrid luck with trying to find a religious ceremony to host our wedding ((required for Indonesian marriage)) we've decided to just take it up in Bali. Jakarta wants just as much money, doesn't offer anything as nice as Bali, and complicates things with churches wanting us to get re-baptized. Screw that. Bali can offer the same thing, bypasses the religious nonsense ((kind of)) and allows us to have a marriage that Indonesia will recognize, and most importantly, we will never forget. A wedding overseas, in a place as beautiful as Bali? Those were things I often though was only reserved for the extremely wealthy. For once, things have worked out in my favor. I'm so excited!

Atleast....so far.

We haven't booked anything yet. We My fiance managed to find out all this great info, and tomorrow she'll be inquiring about pricing, but from what she was quoted today, it sounds VERY possible. I hope this all works out, because I really wanted a Balinese style wedding. I've seen photos from my Australian friend wedding who married my fiance's cousin, and it looks so amazing. The ceremony is held on a private beach, there are Balinese children doing traditional dances, and I'll have my fiance's niece and nephew ((who, ironically, are Balinese)) being a flower girl and ring bearer. It's like a dream come true! We're even looking at wearing traditional Balinese wedding clothing, which I'm really excited about. My fiance isn't so thrilled about that, because the women wear a big golden triangle-shaped crown above their heads, and according to her sister ((who married a Balinese man)), that crown is HEAVY!

Anyways, right now my hopes are all up, so I don't want to post pictures yet of anything incase this doesn't work, but if it does....then I promise there will be many pictures I'll blog to share about!

Wish me luck!!!!

Happy Valentines Day! And good luck getting any chocolate from her....

So in preparing for my wedding, I've had to find a church ((non Catholic)) that can perform a religious ceremony so Indonesia will recognize my marriage to my Indonesian fiancee. No, they do not perform civil marriages, the government requires a religious ceremony, which has been a pain for me. Daisy and I are Catholic, but I don't have the time to enter the classes they require before getting married. It takes about a year to complete the marriage course, and I'm only going to be here for another 5 months. So no Catholic wedding, but I need SOMETHING.

Thus I've turned to other Christian churches. Well, Daisy has. I'm usually busy at work, so I let her concentrate on that. We were suppose to attend a mass today, followed by a meeting with a pastor. But now we're not. Apparently this pastor gave my fiancee a guilt trip for being raised Catholic. Now, even though I'm Catholic, I'm not religious. Indeed, sometimes I don't even consider myself as being Catholic since I stopped going to church years ago. Hell, even in my military years I didn't bother going, and there's much I don't agree about it. But I have never felt bad about being raised Catholic. But this "pastor" sure made a point in making my fiancee feel bad.

Instead of asking important questions, like "Are you ready for marriage? How did you two meet? How long have you been together? What changes are you prepared to make as a wife?" You know....IMPORTANT stuff pertaining to why we're there, he's more interested in asking about the Catholic church. To sample some of his questions: "Do you bring a bible to Catholic Mass?" "Do you pray in tongues?" ((wtf?!? You seriously want me to believe this?)) "How much money do you donate to the Catholic Church?" "Are you prepared to become a true Christian?" ((Didn't know being Catholic wasn't true....))

Needless to say, this was too much. Feeling beyond insulted, my fiancee actually lost some sleep over this pastors words. We decided to skip going, and hopefully we can find another Christian church that isn't built on so much anti-Catholic hate. I was willing to enter into another church and be open to their ways, but I won't tolerate hatred as one of them. I don't see why this place had to concern themselves so much with how other Christians practice worship. It doesn't involve them, and I've never heard of a priest condemning other religions. Why does a pastor find it okay to do this? Is this really what other Christian churches do, judge the Pope over some jealous rage? I hope not. Otherwise I may not get married after all :(

Selamat Datang! After reading on tripcrazed post about looking for posts from people who taught or studied abroad, I felt compelled to write my own post of my experience of teaching in Indonesia. Of course, I don’t want to go into every detail, as that would create a novel when my goal is to just share a short blog anyone can read and enjoy. If someone should have any serious questions, please feel free to send a message my way. I’ll try to keep up with any comments.

   

Arrival

When I first arrived in Indonesia ((2007)), I stayed in a city called Surabaya. My wife happens to be Indonesian, and I ended up staying with her family for a few weeks while I applied to various schools in areas I was interested in. For some schools, my age was a little problem ((24 at the time)). The ideal age for a teacher here is someone in their 30’s+. This is because of several younger teachers that have developed a reputation for leaving a school before their contract is up.

 

Teaching: What to expect when job hunting

Now, I mentioned teaching. Like most expats, I was coming here to teach English. Being white and American is often all that’s needed depending on the school. While I don’t agree with it, that’s how it is. Most parents are looking for schools with expats from the following countries: USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Seeing this gives them some false hope of a genuine English education for their children. While it might be true with speaking, it ends there. I’ve met people from all those countries, plus more. None of them held a degree in teaching or English, including myself. The truth is, we were picked because we were white expats.

 

Teaching in Jakarta

But I could carry on about that for pages and pages worth….time to move on. As I said, I arrived in Surabaya to look for teaching jobs. I finally found one I liked, that was suggested to me by my Australian friend. It was a private Catholic school located in Jakarta, teaching all grade levels from pre-school to high school. It was well established, had plenty of expat teachers, and English was the official language used in school. I met with the principal, an American, who after interviewing me, offered me a teaching position. For my first year, I taught several different English courses throughout the week. Some days I taught preschool, 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd graders, while the next day would be 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders, and that schedule would rotate. 2 days out of the week I would teach high school students….something that terrified me at first. After my first few months, I realized it wasn’t all that bad. And the students really do look up to you, which really made me felt welcomed.

 

My 2^nd year of teaching came, and I was moved to another part of campus, this time to teach 1^st grade. No more teaching different classes each day. I welcomed the change, as I had grown fond of teaching this age group. They were old enough to help themselves with most things, yet young enough that I could get them excited about doing any assignment.

 

The students

Most of my students came from VERY wealthy Chinese families. They were not your typical Indonesians that you study about back home. Some were Javanese, and some were from other various islands that make Indonesia the world’s largest archipelago. But by far, most were Chinese. Because the school is Catholic, the major religion practiced was Catholicism, but there were also Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist students, as well as non-denominational Christians. Their English speaking abilities range anywhere from weak to surprisingly strong. What I enjoyed learning about them is that most of them had already traveled to several different countries. As a kid! I never traveled overseas at that age, and I know that’s because I’m an American and thus it’s much more expensive to travel compared to a European or Asian….but wow. It was nice to hear stories about their family trips to Malaysia or Singapore….certainly more refreshing then the Disney trip you always hear about back home.

 

The Interesting, The Unusual….

As most probably know, Indonesia contains the world’s largest Muslim population. Shocking, since Indonesia is not part of the Middle East. And indeed, their culture is far different too. Unlike the Middle East, Indonesia has had to work side by side along various different religions in order to become a nation. I find that there is lot more tolerance for non-Muslims here….but not always. For instance, for many government positions, including Presidency, one MUST be a Muslim. Any other religion is forbidden. Muslim holidays are considered national holidays….yet not others. And Muslims are generally treated with higher regards….but this is all dependent on which area of Indonesia you are in, and who you are dealing with.  The main island of Indonesia, Java, is widely Muslim, but there are other islands, like Manado ((Where my wife is from)), that are Christian. So there are a lot of factors in place, but one thing is certain. I’ve always felt safe here. Even despite the Bali bombings, the string of hotel bombings…..Indonesia does an excellent job of responding to terrorists compared to the Middle East. I never felt my life was in danger when going out. Of course…there are some exceptions. Certain areas of towns, hell, certain provinces, I would NEVER go to. But even back home I experienced areas like these. New Orleans certainly has its fair shares of unsafe places; Indonesia was no different in this aspect.

 

One thing that kind of annoyed me was the lack of technology here. My internet provider charges me $65 a month for an unlimited plan ((DAMN that’s a lot!)) and the speed is incredibly slow…almost as bad as dial-up. Almost. Most laptops sold here are atleast a year or two behind the current ones sold in the USA, and yet they cost TWICE as much. This is largely due to the tax Indonesia places on imported goods.

 

But these are small annoyances. Just about everything else is incredibly cheap. Movie tickets? About $2 usd, and the theatre is actually clean, and not full. Going out to eat? Depending where, food can be as cheap as $5 for a group of 3 to eat, and it’s delicious ((just be careful with the spices))! Clothes/shoes/bags….oh my. Ladies would love it here, for two reasons….clothes is VERY cheap, often around $10 usd depending on the style, and much of it is knock off. Now, for some, this sounds like a negative….all I have to say is, you’ve never seen some of these knock offs. I’ve seen authentic Louis Vuitton bags and compared them to some clever knock off counterparts, and for some….you simply could NOT tell the difference. This isn’t just with bags/purses, but clothes, shoes….lots of things. Pirated dvds is another thing. Because pirated dvds are such a huge market here, the movie theatres are often empty. They’ve lowered their prices to compete, which is great for someone like me who enjoys going. Often times a newly released movie can be out on the pirated market within a month, sometimes with perfect quality, and they usually cost less than $1 usd. Same for entertainment systems such as Nintendo Wii/DS, Playstation 1/2/3, and xbox/360. They sell pirated games for these systems and they install famous “chips” that can play these games. This practice is HIGHLY illegal in countries such as the USA. For my Nintendo DS, I purchased a pirated game cartridge which held over 30 games that I picked out. Again, very cheap. But this doesn’t define Indonesia…indeed, a lot of this simply comes from places like Thailand or Hong Kong.

 

Now, a lot of people will be asking me about cultural stuff. I’ve traveled to Bali, Manado, Surabaya, Bandung, Jogjakarta, and many other places. They were all unique in their own way. Jogjakarta is known for having the world’s largest Buddhist temple, Borobudur Temple. It was absolutely beautiful, and I look forward to going again. Bali is like a Hindu version of Hawaii, with various Hindu temples scattered about and much of the island smells like incense. When walking around, you could see brightly colored flowers lying about on the streets. Truly lovely, with a history that deserves to be experienced, not told about.

 

But of all the things I’ve mentioned, none of it was my reason for traveling here. I wanted to marry my wife, who is Indonesian. We first met when I lived in Japan, working for the US Navy. After I left, we returned to our home countries. I worked on a way of finding a job in Indonesia so I could be with her, and with God’s help, I succeeded and finally got married. I’m a lucky man, but had it not been for her, I’d of never been able to experience all these wonderful things this country has to offer. If you’re like me, and prefer experiencing Asian culture over European, then you should consider a trip to Indonesia. It’s a cheap country to live in, and is very close to Singapore and other parts of Asia, making it easy to travel. While I don’t like everything here, I believe that can be said about anywhere. The things I’ve experienced here I’ll carry with me for a life time, and words simply can’t do it justice.