kaki kotor

carolyn | me | jenny

This post is both out of order and context, but I am afraid that is how things will be for a little while I revisit the past few months enough to get on track with updates on how life has transpired. I am also thinking that, in lieu of longer posts, I might start to upload pictures with captions, at least to illustrate my earlier adventures. Since my camera(s) come with me just about everywhere, and I (have been known to) take pictures of just about everything, some explanation here will suffice...

The picture attached conveys the meaning of kaki kotor, meaning dirty feet in Bahasa Indonesia. In my case it inadequately conveys just how sick and dirty my feet became during the course of one day. In Jogja, where VIA held our language training in August, I donned flip flops everyday. The walk to the school was short but dusty enough so that by the end of a few laps back and forth throughout the day, I felt guilty walking into my homestay with my kaki kotor (even after removing my shoes). If any kind of long distance trip was undertaken, say to one of the two nearby temple complexes of Borobudur or Prambanan my feet no longer resembled my feet as I knew them, and they became island feet or kaki pulau. The most remarkable thing, though, wasn't that the feet were dirty, which is bound to happen, but that my feet were substantially more disgusting than my fellow volunteers'. My kaki kotor became a constant source of confusion. We even compared flip flops; were mine closer to the ground and the dirt? did they lack the support the other's had? why was it I was guaranteed to return from the day with the dirtiest dirty feet of all?

At the point the picture above was taken, a few of us were on a smelly bis kota (city bus) after a long jaunt at Prambanan (also pictured with boys playing soccer, with kaki kotor, no doubt). My feet have more recently been subject to closed toed teaching shoes, and no longer face the daily turmoil which they once endured.