Before I continue writing about my travels in Ukraine, I wanted to go back to Indonesia. The burp caught me off guard. It was my second day in Indonesia and I was busy worrying about lunch, learning a new language and my own foolish decision to accept a yearlong job offer in a country I knew almost nothing about.
Bali is there. On my first day in one of the hottest countries I had ever allowed my pale, prone-to-burning body to enter, I had gone to lunch with teachers and students from my language school. I had watched as everyone else at the table took two, three, four or even five spoonfuls of the red sauce and dumped it on top of their plates full of rice, vegetables and meat.
Two spoonfuls later, I was a total wreck. My pale skin had turned bright red, I was sweating profusely and I was desperately trying to hold back tears. You like chili pepper sauce? The loud, deep burp interrupted my painful recollection of lunch.
I was startled. I looked over and saw a group of middle aged motorcycle taxi drivers sitting with their tank tops rolled up over their bellies while smoking clove cigarettes that created clouds of intoxicating smelling smoke. Where are you going? And then, one of the drivers burped again. You know people here believe in ghosts and magic. Ghosts that sneak into homes and people accidentally sleep with them.
After a week of language classes I moved to the traffic-clogged, smog-choked capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, and started work as an editor at an English-language newspaper.
