Visitors, Showers, Helpers and Carrefore!

Sorry I haven't written in a while, we haven't gotten the internet in our house set up yet. The past couple days have consisted of real Indonesian food, shopping, church, and settling into our new living spaces. I really like the house that I live in. My roommate Jennie is awesome. She teaches high school science, is from Kansas, and loves eating adventurous food including sushi! I am really excited to get to know her better this semester.
So far I haven't eaten anything too crazy. We went to a hole in the wall outside the neighborhood for authentic Indonesian cuisine. I was expecting to get sick from the looks of the kitchen, but the food was very good, I especially enjoyed the pineapple juice. We had an amazing chocolate dessert on Sunday similar the Molten Chocolate Cake at Chili's (what a relief to know that I won't have to live without that for four months:)).
One aspect of living in this country that I am not sure I will ever get used to are the visitors in our house. These visitors include geckos, cockroaches, mice, and rats. The geckos are everywhere, yet they move so fast that I haven't been able to get a picture. They are actually pretty cute and eat the cockroaches and mosquitos. The cockroaches like to come up through the shower drain, so I brace myself for creepy crawlies every time I step foot in the bathroom.
Speaking of the bathroom, the shower is another thing that is extremely different from the states. Some have the enclosed bathtub like you see in the states and others simply have the shower head in the bathroom, meaning you stand in the middle of the bathroom and take a shower. Of course mine is the latter, but it actually is not that bad, you just have to make sure not to get everything in the bathroom soaking wet.
Every house has two helpers: a pimbantu and a jaga. The pimbantu does everything around the house--cleaning, cooking, laundry etc. She irons all my clothes and even makes my bed everyday. Her name is Ibu Nancy. She's a cute older lady that comes up to about my hip:) The jaga is our night watchman/handy-man. He hangs out outside our house at night, and during the day will repair any electronics that aren't working, build anything we need him to build or paint. Sometime this week he's going to paint my room:) I was telling my mom she needs to move here so she can watch HGTV and then ask her Jaga to do what she just watched. It is really nice having them and we get to support their families.
Yesterday we took a trip to Paris von Java, a huge shopping mall 15 minutes from the house. I was worried I wouldn't get to shop for the next four months...little did I know that Bandung is shopping central! This mall was amazing! They have great restaurants, and every store imaginable including Carrefore, the Indonesian equivalent to the Super Walmart. Talk about overwhelming. We were there for a total of four hours because the Durhams and the Emily's had to get everything to set up their houses. I got a few essentials including a hair dryer, some picture frames, towels, and a new cell phone. Funny story: so when setting up my cell phone the clerk asked for my Kitas, or police registration card. I don't have one of those yet, so she grabbed the police registration card of one of the other store clerks and entered his number. So, my phone is registered under some random guy who works at Carrefore. Apparently this is a common occurrence--to get a driver's license you pay money for someone else to take the test for you and if they pass you get a license:)
I am still loving it here. Charity and I are getting the classroom set up. I helped put up some bulletin boards today--kind of a pain, but they turned out nice. I have gotten quite a few mosquito bites including one that blistered exactly like the one I got in Ecuador...weird. Mrs. Durham is a nurse and has been making sure that I wear more bugspray:) Tomorrow we are doing some more shopping at an electronics market where I am hoping to get a coffee pot so I can start enjoying the coffee here!
I hope you all are doing well!