Author: tompepinsky

Well it’s hard to believe, but we’re leaving Indonesia for Malaysia just about three weeks.  We went to the Malaysian Embassy this morning to begin the next round of our favorite activity, fun with visas.

Luckily, the Embassy is located only a 20 minute walk from our apartment so we don’t have to sit in traffic driving all over town trying to find the office.  TP had gone once already around Christmas to see if we had all the necessary papers and to check how long the process would take.  We needed an additional letter that was more specific, so we got that and tried again today.  I (JM) couldn’t help but compare this place to the Indonesia immigration office that we spent so much time at.  It’s actually a nice building which is not falling apart, it’s calm and organized, there are no huge stacks of passports, and there is  air conditioning and no smoking.  Also, the people actually tell you where to go and what is going on- for example, the guy said "I’m going to go check about this, wait here I’ll be right back"  instead of "Go over there!" which we heard a lot of at immigration.   However, as with so many things we try to do in Indonesia, our efforts were futile.  They told us that because we need a study visa we’ll just have to show up in Malaysia, get a regular three month visa on arrival, and then contact Tom’s sponser and immigration to change it to a multiple-entry six-month visa.  Fun.

So here’s what we want to know.  Even though we were technically on Malaysian soil inside the embassy,  was the fact that we are physically in Indonesia still enough to make things go wrong for us again?

So those of you who know us know how much we love our cat and how much we miss him this year.  In a sense, it’s nice to be in Java, where cats live all over the place (dogs are considered unclean by Muslims, so they are a very rare sight).  On the other hand, it can be sad because we can’t pet or play with the cats that we see, and they also are often not in the greatest shape.

At the guard post outside of our apartment tower, there is a cat who has apparently made it his terrority.  It’s a good spot because the guards will often throw him a bone or two after they are done eating, and because he can watch everyone coming and going.  We are always eager when we pull up in a taxi to see if he is out and about.  We have named him Tika Splotch, which combines the Indonesian words for "three foot" and a description of the coloring of his face.  When we first met him, he had a lame leg, but he got better quickly.

Anyway, Tika has again become a Tika–his left front leg is hurt, so he’s been hopping around sadly and looking extra pathetic and skinny.  We are very worried about him because he can’t hunt when his leg is hurt, and his normally manly howl has turned rather pathetic-sounding.  So, yesterday, after seeing him howl at us, we bought him a tuna sandwich from the convenience store downstairs.  He scarfed the whole thing down, even the bread, like he hadn’t eaten in days.  (Of course he could be completely playing us.)

We felt so good about ourselves for feeding him yesterday that we decided he could have another treat.  This resulted in a ten minute head scratching session in the canned and potted meat section of the convenience store this morning.  We finally found one can of tuna packed in water, and took half of it down for him this morning.  As soon as he saw us walk out the door, he was up, meowing, and hopping around us.  We think we’ve created a monster.  He was very appreciative of his tuna snack, and he’s obviously very hungry still, but we are a bit worried that he has come to associate us so quickly with food.  We’re going to have to fight the urge to keep feeding him now because he might stop hunting if he thinks we are a dependable food source.  Also, the grant is already feeding two of us, and we can’t afford a third who only likes tuna.  Sigh.