Yesterday, as part of our mapping project of Kali Code Zanny and I ran a drawing workshop with the kids. As an understatement, you could say it was a huge success! We were set to start at 10am and arrived at 8:30 to a bunch of kids already waiting for us with their little pencil cases and tables- they even cheered when we arrived!
First we played Draw off – a game my sister, Texta, and I invented a while back when she was newly appointed the matriarch of the marker- anyways, it involves you choosing a partner then drawing them, whilst they simultaneously draw you. Simple enough concept- but the results were astounding and involved more than a few laughs.

We then got all the kids to draw their houses and laid out them all out around this strip of blue paper (representing the Code River) to map where they all lived. The drawings were incredibly beautiful and many of the kids kept drawing throughout the day.

It was a long day as the day before we interviewed a bunch of people and that night we had a nongkrong with a bunch of Kali Code Punks, whom we got to draw a map of the area after a few Bintangs. Our ideas about gender divisions in Indonesia, that girls don’t nongkrong at night, proved to be incorrect, as there were a few females- but maybe this is because Kali Code is somewhat of a ‘free space’. One of them decided that I was her saudara hidup (sister for life).

Tomorrow its back to more interviews and, as there’s both a Chinese and a Javanese graveyard that Ratmakan and Jagalan Kampungs of Kali Code are built on we are trying to catch the local ghostbuster- most people have a cerita hantu (ghost story)- there’s tales of bigfoot, faceless women, dismembered hands, mini horses…who you gonna call?!