Baptism.
One of the wonderful things about working in a foreign country is that you can get invited to just about anything, including a baptism. The administrative assistant in my office adopted a child a few months ago and I was invited to the baptism on one Sunday morning.
Step One: Drive my scooter to the boss’ house and meet others there since the admin asst lives in the hills somewhere. I would get lost.
Step Two: We pile into the old car my boss owns. She owns a newer one but rarely drives it. It is the ‘image’ vehicle. If the event has important people then she drives it. Daily activities get the old jeep.
Step three: We arrive to the church late. Our party of 8 or 10 finds seats in different places. I end up sitting next to the other American from our office. He understands Indonesian wonderfully and clues me in to some of the things going on. He’s a self-proclaimed Atheist. He also happens to be one of the 15 or so godparents. The godparents all stood up while the baby was baptized (see photos). Afterwards, they were asked to sing a hymn together in front of the congregation!
Step four: Give money. Not one time but seven. There were seven different ‘plates’ passed around this time. People usually throw in 1000 rupiah per toss (about 10 cents US). I ran out of 1000 rupiah notes and had to toss in 20,000 rupiah (about 2USD).
Step five: Eat. First, we were bid to have breakfast around 11.00am. We ate a little bit.
Step six: Another sermon by a pastor and another by the reverend. Two more collections of money.
Step seven: Eat lunch. Lunch included the ever popular forest rat and dog. I stuck to the rice and pork. Splendid.
Step eight: Leave. Around 3p we all climbed into the beat up jeep and went along our way with bellies full and day long gone.