My God can beat your God

Oct 22 Sunday

Check downstairs to Thomas’s room for porage tin I left there yesterday to find him preparing a fresh vegetable soup – I agree to partake – surely will be as good as Alice’s. get myself coffee and wait, and wait. 7.30 downstairs again where Pak Biwa and Ibu Wati are also cooking on the cooker under the stairs but Thomas is preparing for church. He happily accepts my suggestion of going too – he wants to introduce me to his ‘father’. The service has already started by the time we get there and park the m’bike – lots of people are sitting outside, mostly shaded by a large entrance canopy but Thomas finds us spaces inside. Not the principal church in Jogya but still large and new with the tower still surrounded by bamboo scaffolding.. The interior is brightly decorated with murals and the service is being filmed for transmission to those outside. I would guess about 6-800 people there. I refrain from taking the sacrament and we move on to a seminary college where Thomas first stayed when arriving in Java from his island (and presumably before being rescued by Alice). Attractive, almost zen like buildings and gardens – Father x, T’s mentor who studied in Paris shows me round while T returns bike to Biwa promising to return at one to pick me up. Lunch in the refectory with a dozen students and then to the games room where my offer to play chess is rapidly accepted but even after foolishly giving away my queen I am in control all the way to (with all modesty) a stunning victory – Hallelujah! The great sage in the mountains truly sayeth “my God can beat your God”. I should have been playing in Bridgwater last week! – on second thoughts…not.

Lunchtime siesta back at the hostel, it should be compulsory in this heat – you can do so much more first thing or in the evenings after sunset. Then a bit of wind temps me out with the kite but still not quite enough wind and I’m not about to start running! Thomas offers to complete the soup making which we can eat before going to the mall at 5pm to stock up on food before Idul Fitri, and to get a tea towel to improve my washing up hygene and reduce the scope for diarreaha potential. At 5.30 I declare that I will go by bus but apparently they will by now be finished for the day and have gone home – Ah well I’m ok for porridge, have a pint of milk and some fruit. Its 10.30 when Biwa and Wati get back so no chance for the mall and T suspects that all the internet places will also be shut for the holiday but we set of for the wi-fi one and are rewarded with iced drinks and French fries. T makes do with fried rice and chicken and a glass of tea. A number of e-mails confirming that blogsite has been found and Thomas is excited by the views from Google Earth of our hostel, his grandmother’s house by a volcano in Papua and Alice’s family area in Sumatra. All for £2 including food well worth it at least weekly? T has also found the light switch on the m’bike and we get the laptop home safely, without it and the village thing tomorrow we would have gone on to the city centre for the start of the Idul Fitri celebrations. The noise from the two nearest mosques is loud and continuous but it is too hot to sleep with the windows closed.