30
June
2006
Alla-hu Akbar
Alla-hu Akbar
Alla-hu Akbar
Alla-hu Akbar
Ash-hadu alla- ila-ha illalla-h
Ash-hadu alla- ila-ha illalla-h
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadur rasu-lulla-h
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadur rasu-lulla-h
Hayya ‘alas-sala-t
Hayya ‘alas-sala-t
Hayya ‘alal-fala-h
Hayya ‘alal-fala-h
As.-s.ala-tu khayru min an-nau-m
As.-s.ala-tu khayru min an-nau-m
Alla-hu akbar
Alla-hu akbar
La- ila-ha illalla-h
Everyday the Call to Prayer takes places across the Muslim world. Here in Indonesia it takes place five times a day (Sunnis pray five times a day, Shiites three) and the first call starts at 04:00 — that’s four in the morning in case you were wondering. Below is an English translation, courtesy of the smart people over at Wikipedia.
God is the greatest
God is the greatest
God is the greatest
God is the greatest
I bear witness that there is no god except God
I bear witness that there is no god except God
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God
Make haste towards prayer
Make haste towards prayer
Make haste towards welfare
Make haste towards welfare
Prayer is better than sleep
Prayer is better than sleep
God is the greatest
God is the greatest
There is no god except Allah
There is no god except Allah
When the mosques starts the prayers, the above isn’t whispered amongst the devoted, huddled in street corners, rather it is recited by a muezzin from the minaret (though in practise it is often a recording). This recital is then pumped out of the mosques in varying degrees of volume, but always, and I mean always, with the volume dial spun to 11.
Our house is located in such a way that we get the Call to Prayer from at least four different mosques — on busy days I’ve managed to pick out as many as six. It is loud. Very loud — lines 13 and 14 — Prayer is better than sleep — they weren’t kidding — our bedroom is double-glazed and still it often wakes me up.
Unfortunately the calls are not really synchronised — some have great sound systems, while others must have pinched theirs from an early ’80s Bon Jovi concert. Some of the muezzin have excellent voices and the call can actually be a beautiful thing to hear, but others must have been at the back of the line when Allah was handing out vocal cords.
The result is a cacophany of beauty and ugliness pumped out at distorion levels five times a day.
So, what’s this post doing on a baby blog?
Well I was reading on the BBC, that doctors believe that babies can remember for up to a year what they heard in the womb. Now you’d need to wrap yourself up in kryptonite to be able to avoid the Call to Prayer, so as I’ve kept S away from the kryptonite I’ve no doubts the baby is hearing this call five times a day — in fact in the chaos of our daily lives — different noises, activities and so on, the ritual of this recital is probably one of the most regular sound inputs our baby is receiving (except for West Wing soundtracks — more about that on Sunday’s entry).
It reminds me of some trinkets I saw a guy selling on Ko Pha Ngan a few years ago — funnily enough the trinkets were from Bali. It was a little bell that a pregnant woman wore around her neck on a very long fine chain. The bell more or less hung around the woman’s belly-button. As she walked around the bell would make a faint ringing sound. The idea was the baby becomes accustomed to the sound of the tinkelling bell, and once born, if the baby starts to get upset, you just ring the bell and the baby would almost immediately calm down as he/she drew the connection between the faint bell and the safety and warmth of the womb.
I really regret not buying one, and have been looking for one ever since (the bell is easy to get, but a chain that long has been impossible to find). I guess if I can’t find one, I’ll just get a ghetto-blaster and pump out the call to prayer whenever our baby sheds a tear…
Posted: Dealing with pregnancy
29
June
2006
I found myself holding up the bar of Jakarta’s latest Moroccan restaurant el Wajh (their martinis are good, but they can’t make a mojito to save their lives) waiting for dearly beloved and our North American friends C and E. They were running late, or rather I was on time — a rather rare event in Jakarta.
Anyway, S had been doing a yogo class with C who is a yogo-instructor and she was showing S all the right moves when it comes to doing yogo when pregnant (also known as pogo, and the instructors are called pogo-ists). I was supposed to go to the class as well, but I figured as I was not pregnant, the class probably wasn’t right for me.
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Posted: Nothing to do with babies
28
June
2006
I’ve got a bit of flack in recent days for giving S a bit of a hard time in this little blog (the farting post pushed a few over the edge it seems…), so I thought I’d post a few pics of places where I’ve been the most in love ever!
Posted: Nothing to do with babies
27
June
2006
This afternoon I was going through a bit of a spell of procrastination and decided to plan out some of my upcoming trip to southern Laos. I’m hoping to co-ordinate a portion of the trip with my mate A from Phnom Penh so we’re both ostensibly putting together plans to see where our paths will cross… probably worth noting that A is arguably the world’s greatest procrastinator, so I’m not expecting his plan anytime soon…you reading this A?
Anyways, as I’m putting together my trip (on which I’d been advised by the powers that be that I had a maximum of two weeks) I came to realise that my days of long, slow rambling trips have gone the way of backpacks with external frames. No more will I have the time to waste half a day sitting in a Lao bus station waiting for a bus to leave that never actually will — now it is bang bang bang — short sharp trips before running back to measure and rub S’s belly.
Oh boy… not good news.
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Posted: Baby planning
26
June
2006
Today I went down to Ranch Market — S’s favourite grocery store in Jakarta, on a special mission to pick up a fresh trout that S planned to steam up for a super yummy meal that she’s quite a talent at.
We’d talked the previous evening that she was feeling increasingly vague and forgetful, though I hadn’t noticed her being any more forgetful than normal 
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Posted: Food
25
June
2006
Like breathing for S not me!
They are coming non-stop now — a new silent but violent bottom burp seems to pop out every few minutes — particularly during and straight after eating, and always always, always during World Cup matches.
These air biscuits get tossed at me with distressing regularity and while they’re not quite rhino-stoppers, these one-cheek-sneaks are more like boa belches (ie., when your colon becomes so full of gas that it takes on a life of it’s own. Often likened to a boa-constrictor with a full belly. The resulting burp is long and very satisfying) — and so common now that S doesn’t even notice it — and just because they’re happening near non-stop doesn’t mean they’re not vile!
When I threw a tantrum during the World Cup, S retorted “It’s just like breathing for me”.
enough said
Posted: Dealing with pregnancy
24
June
2006
Turning to walk up the stairs today I brushed S’s belly and almost fell over in shock when I realised her belly-button is gone!
The deep tunnel that was once S’s bb, has disappeared to be replaced by a very shallow depression. I’ve done some research in my prime research text (Up the duff) and this kind of belly button vanishing act didn’t rate a mention.
Can anyone advise, does this mean the reversal will continue and S’s deep “in” button will become a huge “out” button?
If it turns out to be a 100% reversal we’ll be knowing her as Pinochibelly….
Posted: Dealing with pregnancy
23
June
2006
Talking to little sister E today about the decisions we’re facing about where to live and what we should look for in a house should we decide to move, I mentioned that I love our place here in Jakarta — especially as we’ve got a great pool set in a lush tropical garden. Here’s what followed:
E: “Oh yeah I forgot you had the garden and pool”.
S: “Yeah, it’s lovely”
E: “Does the pool have a fence around it?”
S: “No, it doesn’t”
E: “Well, you’ll need to look after that — you need to have a fence — that’s the law here (in Australia)”
S: “Oh it should be ok, we’ll just put baby on a leash and can control the danger that way”
E: “Yeah, I guess you can use the leash to drag the baby out of the deep-end”
Don’t you just love little sisters!
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Posted: Baby planning
22
June
2006
I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve whipped together a simply wicked Coq au vin courtesy of the Observer — I was given instructions by her roundness this morning to cook anything, so I did, and I must say it is simply magnifique.
This is all good as S has had another mega day, what with a full day of floods, sinking ferries and pending chaos in Timor Leste, so hopefully a hearty plate of chicken in red wine sauce will help make it all seem worthwhile.
The only problem is that normally when we have this dish, it is one bottle of red for the dish and another for us, but now, with S on a nine-month alcohol fast (also known as being pregnant) I’ve ended up with a spare half a bottle of wine — luckily I have to stay up till all hours to watch Australia play…
Posted: Food, Nothing to do with babies
21
June
2006
With all the travel I’ve been doing of late, it has only been in the last few days I’ve been able to just hang out and see how S is doing.
Overall she’s a lot less temperamental now than before, and while there’s definetely a round bulge, she’s adament it is gas not a baby and given the amount she burps (a LOT) there’s probably some truth to the gas theory, but even after a huge belch, the lump is still there, slowly getting rounder.
With food it is interesting that during my absence our address reached its peak levels of Izzy Pizza consumption, yet upon my return S has declared she is well and truly off pizza again… interesting.
I would have gone out to shop today to cook up a feast, but I had to bribe the electricty guy to stop him from cutting us off (after which he asked me for a job!) and so had no money — or well just enough to get to the corner store to have an ice cream. So we made do with Thai takeaway, which was much better than more pizza.
Anways, World Cup calls, so must head off.
Posted: Dealing with pregnancy
