Five-Legged Seller

Pedagang kaki-lima translates to "five-legged seller" and is a common site in Indonesia.  So how do they get this name,? you may ask.  Take a look at the picture below.

Ok, let's count them up - 2 legs for the seller and.....oh, 3 tires on the cart, and there's your 5.

Many carts like this can be found being pushed around Bandung and cities all over Indonesia.  Yes, these sellers are in good shape as I would guess some of them travel miles in a day!  They also sell, cook, and often times prepare the food all from their cart!  That takes some skill that's often learned over years.  Many of these men have also developed a community or at least friendships with one another, especially if they tend to gather in one place.

I frequently visit a group of "five-legged sellers" that gather and sell their food in front of a local store.  This group includes the man with the blue hat on the left selling a dish that mixes potatoes, cabbage, tofu, and maybe a couple other foods with a sauce on top.  The men pictured below, along with a few others that frequently stop at this location, are also there.

Cilok is kind of like a small meat ball with a specific
sauce,only sold in small bags, like a snack

This seller sells a fried dough of sorts that is generally plain
testing, so the sauce that accompanies it is almost certain.

So how does this process work?

First the food must be prepared, thus most all carts are equipped with some a propane bottle for heating a frying pan or creating a kind of steaming machine to cook and keep the food warm.  Then its waiting time, which seems to consume most of the day for these sellers or pushing their cart along to the next spot.

Once someone comes along and places an order, then its time to bag up the food for take away or to serve it up in a plate to eat on the spot.  If eaten on the spot, then the sellers also must provide the eating utensils and some water and soap for cleaning afterwards.

When the foods bagged up or already eaten, its time to pay up.  Here you can see the exchange of money and plastic bag containing the food to be eaten later.

On right you can see a line of these sellers in a more permanent location beside a school, located on the right.  They are closed now, after school, and mainly only open for lunch, so the children can come out to eat.  Many schools are crowded with these five-legged sellers during lunch time, these just have a more permanent residence, which is likely to help with traffic.

Language School

Since arriving in Indonesia, language learning has been one of my main focuses, and much of that has happened through the language school I attend.  The school is only teaches Bahasa Indonesia and is run by all Indonesians, which makes it nice because we get to learn the language from native speakers, many of which have been there for years and know how to teach foreigners.  All students at the school are foreigners here for varying reasons, but the majority are here for business and community development work, both of which require learning the language first.  I have heard the nationality of students varies from year to year, but right now the approximate statistics are as follows, Koreans (50%), Americans (35%), with a mix of Aussies and Europeans to finish it off.  The age of students probably averages out in the upper 30s with several young families attending.

The school has 9 units total, each four weeks long with a three day to one week break following.  The number of students in each unit vary, with the average around 7 students in the earlier units and dropping to around 3 or 4 in the later units.  My group started with 9, has added some and lost some, and is now at 4.  This makes it nice to have a lower teacher to student ratio, thus more individual time with the teachers.  I am in a class with a couple from Belgium and a mother/wife from Korea.  We enjoy learning and laughing together!  Many of my closer relationships with foreigners are with students at language school, especially since we are having similar experiences.

The early units at the language school focused on listening and speaking, the same way we learn our first language.  We learned the basics and tried to practice our language every day with other Indonesians.  This continues to be the practice now that I am in Unit 5, but there is an added emphasis on reading and writing.  We start most classes with singing Indonesian songs, then a student gives a presentation followed by correction, and finish with the remaining and majority of the class time focused on the text for the day in smaller groups.  Here's a couple photos from school!

Unit 1 - a classmate giving his introduction or sharing his experience from the day before.

Unit 1 - One of my teachers instructing the class.  Notice the Christmas decorations.
Yes we celebrated together after school one day.

Unit 5 - Me giving a presentation to a few of my classmates.  One male student is taking the picture and the teachers are in the back noting my mistakes, so we can correct them together later.