Tuesday Sept.7 evening-still not very hot; a storm is building

Fasted again, almost: I had breakfast after sunrise, but nothing to eat or drink after that.Not difficult at all, actually.

Again Herizal ( ( the language center director ) picked me up at 8 and we stayed at school till 3.He took me around to meet another group of deans and department heads, including the woman Education dean who visited Philadelphia and was curious about Quakers, Amish, and other Anabaptist sects.We decided to have a bosses-only English 'chit-chat time' weekly, rotating among deans' offices, to discuss whatever interests them.Everyone I met is an Islamic scholar of one kind or another.They are eager to get me out speaking at pesantrens and all seem very gratified to find that I have lived in many Muslim countries.

After that Herizal and his assistant Yani were busy for hours setting up over 80 class sections for English and Arabic - and some students came to see Herizal again.I chatted a while with 3 students waiting for yesterday's TOEFL results ( each got 400 or less - no surprise to me after I chatted with them.They've graduated now, though, and are looking for jobs. )I also read through lots of the 2 boxes of materials the RELO Office sent and found some I may be able to use with students or for my own reference. Some good small-poster photo sets too.

Wed. night Sept. 8

Just had an hour + conversation with the manager, Widi ( ? ) in the café about religion, politics, history, etc.He says he hasn't been able to find anyone in Palembang to have serious talks with ( he's from Java ).All the café staff know me now and are very friendly.I always wait for dinner till the sunset prayer, and they give me the same complimentary snacks/drink they offer the fasters - or would if any came in! As usual I was the only diner there. ( Though at breakfast there were 2 Chinese girls in short-shorts and Tshirts - very insensitive but apparently not that uncommon. )

Short day at work.At the office we just chatted a while.Absolutely no one else was around.I brought my laptop and connected to the internet easily with the new connection installed yesterday- but had no messages of note. Mostly we spent hours going back yet again to Immigration and to the provincial police.At Immigration I eventually got my passport back with one ID card of the 4 I need from them.At first they couldn't find my passport, and seemed to have forgotten that they'd told us to come back on Wed. to pick it up; at first, in fact, they seemed to have forgotten who we even were, and it's hardly as if it's busy there.At the police office I got fingerprinted again - by hand and quite sloppily and ineptly, as opposed to Immigration's computerized scanner.Then there was a long form to fill out with not only my height/weight/blood type/eye color/hair color but the shape of my face, the shape of my chin, the shape of my nose, the shape of my forehead, the shape of the top of my head, and the shape of my head in profile - and the shape of my lips!All this from a cartoonish wall chart with one head that looked like The Coneheads, no joke.There were 12 categories of lip shapes, many indistinguishable to me, plus 6 each of nose and forehead types - each with a category name in Indonesian that Herizal was unable to translate.He was just shaking his head in bewildered frustration at it all, and at the long wait/inattention at Immigration.But at the end I did get the police ID card at least.

Herizal will have me look at a vacant house he owns next to his family's home, furnished even with internet, built for rarely-visiting relatives but his wife said he could offer it to me.We'll look at it Friday when he brings me over there for Lebaran.I expect I'd be very happy to live next to his family; I'm sure I'd spend lots of time with them - and with other family living in neighboring houses.We drove through the area today - it looks very nice, with lots of professional people, just a block from a park with walking paths around a pond, and close enough to walk to a hypermart.

Back here I finally got into "To Kill a Mockingbird", which I'd brought along from home - wonderful from the first page.I can't understand how I missed out on reading it long ago. Scout has to be one of the strongest and most distinctive characters in American fiction!