boI spent a few days battling (warrior imagery, trans-continental variety) my stomach ailment in a house outside Yogyakarta that belongs to friends. However, with these friends back in Jakarta, it was just me and the house staff (its kind of a big house) and, needless to say, we can't communicate much more than me saying 'thank you' and 'good morning'. The rest of the day is pretty much filled with smiles and giggles on both sides.
Anyways, I spent most of my time reading between taking meals alone and sleeping. Dinner would be especially eerie because everyone would be out and about in the village after breaking the fast. I would be sitting at the end of a long table eating soup and papaya (enforced as my diet when I was sick). Anyways, last night, I was so touched by the lady who cooked for me (and calls me 'mister'), coming into the house and putting on some American music while I dined--one of those gestures that anywhere else would seem unremarkable. The collection was called 'Sweet Memories, Vol 6' and, as the staccato electronic exhortations from the mosque tumbled across the hard tiles of the house, its saccharine melody carried on:
"There's a kind of hush--all over the world, tonight, all over the world..."
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I would have thought that the rigorous training and questionable diet at CCC would have prepared you for the intestinal ailments and solitude-related soul searching that now confronts you "over there". If I have taught you anything, it is that any adversity can be overcome provided you have adequate peanut butter, the entire Grateful Dead catalog, & whatever Hooch is available.
W.P.
Northfield, MA
The U.S. of freakin' A.
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