Going Solo

Kieran had to go to the university for the first time today so I was on my own with the kids. We've been checking out possible preschool options for Eamon and he went to a summer program at a Montessori preschool yesterday for a couple of hours and liked it so much he wanted to go back today. So, at 8:30am I loaded up the boys and with addresses and Bahasa Indonesian crib notes tightly clasped, headed off in the rental car with Fanto, the driver. Getting to the preschool wasn't too bad since Kieran had pointed Fanto in the right direction, but once there I was faced with my first dilemma - Rory had fallen asleep in the back - so, leave him be or wake him for the trip upstairs to drop off Eamon? I pointed to the sleeping baby and mumbled "tidur" (sleep) to Fanto who responded with something that I hoped indicated he would look after Rory and park out front, and headed inside.

Woodlands Montessori preschool and kindergarten seems pretty nice. It's clean, tidy, the staff are friendly and organised. It's main drawback is it's on the 12th floor of an office tower, so as you can imagine, outdoor play space is rather limited - as in non-existent. They do, however, have a basic indoor playground so I guess that's something. It portrays itself as Montessori and does follow some of the ideas/methods, but disappointingly misses some of what I thought were rather good parts of the philosophy (there is a "proper" Montessori school further south, but the positives would be outweighed by the horrors of the commute).

Drop-off completed, I headed back down and out the front to see.....nothing. No car, driver or baby in sight. It was at this point that I also realised I had left my crucial notes, along with the driver's phone number, in the car. Oh crap.

<moment of suspense>

Luckily within a time-dilated minute, the car came back into view - I guess he'd been moved on and gone around the block or something. He may have explained, but not in words I understood. Oh well, move on to next errand.....ANZA is the Australia & New Zealand Association, an expat. organisation that does a bunch of social welfare activities and fundraising for the local community. It also has a playgroup on Wed mornings and seemed like a good place to go to find other people I could chat with. (As it turned out, since school is currently on holidays, there weren't many people at the playgroup. In fact there was just one, but that was ok). Anyway, recite next address to Fanto, sit back and enjoy the view.....which changed very slowly as we crept through traffic for the next 40 minutes and then drove around, stopping periodically to ask for directions from random vendors, security guards or whoever else was beside the road and looked like they might know where they were.

I should add at this point that Jakarta's streets are fairly random. Blokes (or gals) who don't like asking directions will not like this town. Street signs exist for the bigger streets, but most go unmarked and the naming convention, while seemingly sensible albeit different, (for example we were trying to find Jalan Erlanggen V or Erlanggen Street number 5 - yes, they have multiple streets with the same name), is in fact incredibly obscure as streets that are named sequentially aren't always located consecutively, nor do they necessarily run parallel to each other.

We eventually found the right street and the right gate and I was able to enjoy a short sit down and chat, and Rory a chance to escape the car seat or stroller, before heading back to pick up Eamon.

By this stage I was feeling rather successful. I had negotiated two different locations and even passed a few pleasantries with Fanto regarding, I believe, whether I had ever been to Bandung and where the new elevated road being constructed was going. I had even made it back to the preschool on time for pickup. I should have known things couldn't continue this way.

Our next task was to acquire lunch and do a reccy of the Embassy Dr's clinic so that we would know where to find it if we have to go there in a hurry. In incredibly bad Indonesian I managed to determine that Fanto thought it would take 40 minutes to drive there (despite being very close in distance) which put a bit of pressure on so Eamon, Rory & I zoomed into the mall ("zooming" at 3yr old, ~45cm long leg speed that is) to find food. Note to self....strollers in malls are severely speed reducing as they limit the user to utilising elevators which are invariably overcrowded, slow, and surrounded by people to whom letting those already waiting go first is a foreign concept.

Back in the car and on our way again with basic sustenance in hand (Eamon must be loving his diet at the moment!) I realised two things - the driver had no idea where we were going, and I had broken the unspoken rule of life in Jakarta again - never try to do more than 2 things in a day, preferably 1. Rory spent the next 40 minutes protesting vigorously about being back in the car while I sat behind him trying to feed and console him while also trying to get directions from the clinic for the driver.

In the end we made it and Kieran met us there, but it took an hour at a cafe afterwards before I could face the drive back to the hotel, and I have absolutely no faith in finding the place again, let alone under pressure! Oh, and Kieran found out he is going away before dawn tomorrow for "team building" exercises until midday Friday...