Maria Non Sequitur Number 1

For the last 3 hours, Maria has been wandering around the office with a bright lime green polyester handbag. I think she's trying to sell it because she held it up to me and asked if I'd pay 30,000 for it (about $3).

As I walked to my meeting room and saw her sitting in a pod, still clutching the green bag but surrounded by young men. They were all distracted from their work and chatting away in Indonesian

As I walked away I heard the word "Anthony" followed by a lot of laughter. A lot.

"This can't be a good sign," I thought to myself, so I turned around and said in perfect Indonesian slang "Hey - I understand what you're saying."

But I didn't understand. This is just a phrase I rehearsed to help me fit in. Fucking backfired.

A Flibbertigibbet

Excerpt from a conversation with Maria today:

Me: i need you to get 2 things quite urgently - we can discuss them when you come to collect the document.

Maria: will come after lunch.

Me: time please?

Maria: around 1

Me: ok fine but remember i have a long meeting at 13.30 so please don't be late.

Maria: ok

Maria: ok

I think that second "OK" was a little unnecessary. I spotted Maria's eyes rolling over it.

People in Indonesia take lunch very seriously and the default response to questions about when anything will be done, or anyone will be available, is "after lunch". While lunch typically goes from 12-1pm, After Lunch can be any time from 3pm to 8pm. However, when someone uses this timeframe on a Friday morning it usually signals that you will be chasing this again on Monday afternoon.

So in the end Maria came straight down. I don't think she liked the idea of having to wrap-up her lunch early. So I asked her of course:

"So you don't have lunch now?"

-- "Yes but my friends are leaving in 15 minutes later and I am eating at the EX so it's going to be a longer time to get back."

"But EX is only 3 minutes walk from here"

-- "Yes ... [big sigh] ... but ...[eye roll] ... I have other things like maybe stopping to look at things and also for smoking."

I couldn't argue with that. While Maria may be a bit slow off the cuff, and her excuses were lame, the confidence in her delivery was remarkable.

I then signed something for her. This elicited the following observation:

"So you're a left?"

-- "Left handed? Yes. It's very unusual in Indonesia isn't it?"

"Yes but also me. They say we will die earlier"

-- "You mean from smoking?"

"No. From left handed. Left handed die young."

-- "OK"

I still mumbled "smoker" under my breath. A whispered attack from someone frightened and on death's door.

On balance, though, I saw this as a breakthrough. Maria may be taking me down, but in this instance she's prepared to take a bullet with me. And she called me young.

Nearly dead, mind, but young. I'll take that.