Bouncy Town

Sunday is normally a holiday for me but for some reason I decided to volunteer to help man a promotional booth that my school had set up in Bouncy Town. I had no idea where Bouncy Town was but I assumed it would be located inside an air-conditioned mall (all such previous promotions have taken place within malls). Nobody ever mentioned the word OUTDOOR and so it was with a sense of growing apprehension that I found myself sitting in a tent watching a blazing sun climb towards its zenith. I was still sitting there four and a half sweltering hours later.

If I do venture outdoors during the day in Jakarta, it is only for the purpose of moving from one air-conditioned environment to another. I can't believe I sat where I did for as long as I did. Sitting here writing this in my air-conditioned study, I still feel hot. Worse still, the booth was a marketing disaster, because there were hardly any visitors, apart from the one or two that my more enthusiastic Indonesian colleagues managed to drag in.

I was the token expatriate face that parents of prospective students supposedly like to see. This day however, it was a very sweaty face and the beaming smile ;-) that normally adorns it was gone. The smile still hasn't returned and it will take some time for the memories of my meltdown at Bouncy Town to fade.