Mary bead shopping. This little shop probably has more beads than what you might find in a large mall store. Mary had a great time looking through all of these goodies for just what she wanted for her necklace.
These are for Shauna – you might want to expand your business into a Dental Boutique and Beauty Clinic with a branch here in Jakarta. Also you might consider making false teeth. There seems to be a big market for them here.
Elder Tuxworth about 3 hours before he got on a plane to head home to Australia. Sam snapped the picture without warning us. Elder Whitmore on the day he was to be released with our good friends elder Roper and Thiemann. Elder Thiemann was just called as the Barat Zone leader and elder Roper was just being released as an office elder and has now been transferred to Solo…I think.
I shot the first picture so I could get the bread cart. As I looked at it, I discovered that I had captured almost all means of transportation in one shot. What is missing is an ankat and a bus. I also noticed I had a picture that I have been trying to take for quite awhile – a motorcycle carrying a ladder. This is not as big a ladder as some we have seen but it is a decent sized one. The bread cart is one of a fleet of carts that go out each morning and travel through the living areas delivering and selling bread. They pedal down the main streets right along with the cars, motorcycles and buses. Jakarta is an amazing city.
Two motorcycle loads that, while not spectacular, are interesting. The first is carrying badminton racquet, towels, and other goods. The blue and gold baskets carried bread. All of these loads adds interest to our many hours in the car.
Three pictures of scenes I found interesting. The first is a soccer team. What is not clear is there is a bus behind this first group that is filled with fans and another 20 or 30 are sitting or standing on top of the bus. It is stopped right now, but they will stay up there when it starts to move. It is amazing that we don’t read about 50 young people dying when one of their buses is in an accident.
The second scene I call – Competition. On the far side of the lamp post you can just see a fruit seller. For many months he was the only seller on this corner and he was always busy selling mangos. About two months ago the seller nearest the camera moved next to him. He brought in mangos and papaya. So the first seller brought in papaya. Now it appears that the newest seller is getting more business than the first one. What is really interesting about this is that both of them probably pay some gang that allows them to set up their stand there. If this is true, obviously the new man on the corner paid enough to get this choice spot that whoever is in charge allowed him to compete with the first seller.
It just goes to show that location, product diversity, competition and in this case probably a bribe works in Jakarta as well as the rest of the world to produce a successful business.