Cultural Excursions: Hospital and Rubber/Coffee Plantation

I am sooo behind...what's new!?! These are from September...

Here it is folks, the nicest hospital in Salatiga

It's called "Rumah Sakit" which literally translates to "sick house"
The next 2 pictures are of their Emergency Room


I just had to take this picture of the washed gloves hanging out back waiting to be reused...so different than America, eh?!




Here is one of the beautiful old buildings on the Rubber Plantation. It used to be owned by the Dutch.

They buried the owners or founders under the building, there are there gravemarkers to the right.


The man is showing us how they scrape the tree to get the rubber
and it starts to drip..
It was so neat to learn about how rubber is collected and made. The workers work really hard, they get up really early and scrape the trees like that and then go back home until the bowls are filled, then they pour them all into these buckets and have to carry them all the way to the room where they make it. I forget all of it, it has been a while since we went, but where the tree is scarred looking right now is the area they collect from for years and then they start in a new area and give that section of the tree a break.

here is one of the men carrying his gatherings back, but most of the workers are older women!!!
washing their bowls after
the rubber room where the process begins...

the collected rubber the people have brought back
the processed rubber mats hanging to dry
in the smokehouse to dry

then they take all those mats and compress them into these squares and paint them w/ lime or something(?), each square is worth approx. 300 U.S. dollars


So...they also are a coffee plantation! Below is 2 phases of the coffee bean fruit drying in the sun, on the right is the fresh, new and on the left is the stuff that has been sitting out in the sun for a few days
The fresh ones are so pretty and colorful
here is some more of the coffee that has been sitting out
Eden and I sitting in either a pile of coffee beans or cloves, they also harvest cloves there.

the coffee roaster
Eden wanted to eat a coffee bean, I told her not to!

They also have this stuff that is like their cotton. They use it for mattresses and such

My 2 favorite people!!

Animal Market Pt. III

Here's what J brought home:

You can imagine the suspense I was in, not knowing what he brought home in this sack.
And the shock I was in when I saw it was an eagle!

It was a very nice bird, but J came to the realization that it is not fun to have a bird like that in captivity and took it back.



This is the Palm Civet we owned for a short period of time before we sold him to a friend. These are the creatures that eat coffee beans and then poop them out and it costs a fortune (the coffee, not the critter, we thought about making some of the coffee:))


This is Marley, he was our dog for a while, but we ALSO got rid of him. He went to a nice Indonesian family...he turned out much more dumb that we had bargained for:/


And this is what is remaining...the cat! Eden loves her little kitty and the kitty is amazingly good with Eden. She has proved to be a good hunter too!


I know it looks like she is being choked to death in both these pictures, but she actually likes when Eden carries her around and Eden is pretty gentle with her.

Animal Market Pt. II

We call him the monkey man:)

This one was going a little crazy, hence the crazy look on J's face

This owl was sooo cool, wish I had a video of it! It would "purr" and blue eyelids would come out when you pet it.



The following are all pet's of our friends. They were all bought at the animal market for very cheap.



Our one friend let these guys go free

Pasar Hewan (Animal Market) Pt. I

We did one of our excursions at the animal market, but we also have gone for fun a few times. Although I am not sure how "fun" it really is! If you like jam-packed crowds, people staring at you like you are an alien and seeing some disturbing things, then it is fun. If you are like me, it is neat to go see all the different kinds of animals, but if you have gone once, you have gone enough. I like animals, and in the U.S., we have lots of animal rights, well here, it is completely different! I would not call myself an animal activist, but it is hard to see the conditions some of these animals are in or live in. J enjoys going to see what new things they have with his one friend and has formed a sort of relationship with one of the men who sells exotic animals there. I am going to split this blog up into parts because there are just too many pictures for just one.
Lots and LOTS of birds everywhere

This is how they keep the chickens in one spot, they tie their feet up and lay them down...sad for me, but they (the chickens) seem to be "ok" w/it? That is just my observation, I have not asked them:)

This is how they then carry them around

Baby chickens. One time the man took one out and put it on the ground for Eden to chase around, I think she could have done it all day, in fact I debated getting one!

Ducks as someone's dinner:( I wish they would kill them 1st and then carry them like that

Lots of ducks! Eden especially likes the ducks, when they have babies, we get to hold them

This is another way they transport the ducks, they put them all in a bag and poke holes for the heads to come out, very strange to see someone carrying around a big bag w/ a bunch of duck heads sticking out all over!

Little flying squirrels

Ugly lizards called "toket" b/c that is the sound they make

Now, for those of you with weak stomachs, proceed w/ caution. Content a little bit graphic (description worse than the pictures though, I assure you), NOTHING like in person though!!! I couldn't even watch this, it makes me want to crawl in a hole and stay for a really long time or die, but I am exaggerating when I use that word, lol! I don't know what to call this guy...he waits for a crowd to form, then he pulls out a cobra, he then cuts it's head off and drains the blood in a cup, he proceeds to peel the skin off and retrieve some nerves from the spine ( I am describing this to you as non-graphic as possible) to put in with the blood...and walah, you have a drink! I know, just what you were thinking! I am not exactly sure what the purpose is yet, but I heard it has to do with power. So someone buys the drink and believes it does something special for them.


I won't include any more pictures...enough!

Then we have this nice little man (compared to the last!) who is selling honey. He is draining from the honeycomb right there.

This guy really wanted us to take pictures of his snake trying to choke him!

Colorful chicks!...tempting!

This somewhat hideous cat was actually very expensive! It was imported from Australia, don't know what "rare" breed it must have been:) She was very sweet and soft though and Eden was thrilled it wasn't in a cage.

The cat on the left is a "jungle" cat, our friends bought.

Some crazy bird.


Now, I cannot put pics up of everything there is there nor begin to list them all because there are SOOOO many different kinds of birds, reptiles and animals. It is also hard to photograph them through cages. I will have more pics to put up, but there is JUST about anything and everything there...within reason:)

I know I use a lot of smiley faces!:) haha, couldn't resist!