Roman numerals, tennis neck and cigarettes ...

JAKARTA (JP): "There! There it is!"

Screeching tires lodging a protest, the cab jolted to a standstill. "Sorry, Pak, didn't see it."

Of course the cabbie didn't see it, while maneuvering the vehicle through a collection consisting of: a motor scooter carrying daddy, his son standing in front of him, mommy as pillion passenger with a baby in her arms; two push-bikes; a man pushing a cart loaded with vegetables; a *rujak vendor selling his fiery fruit salad, and three pedestrians -- all of whom for reasons only they know had elected to be at exactly the same spot at exactly the same time as my cab. Or rather, the cab that contained me. I don't own the thing.

There it was... Jalan Prapanca Buntu, literally, Prapanca Dead-End Street. Oh, joy! Oh, bliss! We found it at long last, after cruising around for what was beginning to feel like a life time.

But joy quickly turned to despair as the cab started its slow procession down the street, looking for the desired No. 6. First (on the right) came No. 71 while its neighbor displayed No. 24. Then came No. 10, followed by 65. On the left side house numbers began with No. 12, next to it was No. 37 (by then I was in danger of contracting tennis neck) another No. 10... you get the picture.

Tennis neck, by the way, is exactly like tennis elbow, only it's the spectators who get it. You get it from watching the ball going back and forth, back and forth during interminable drives. And also when driving through a Jakarta street looking for an address, especially in the new boroughs. It's impossible to concentrate on one side at a time.

Anyway, there did not seem to be a No. 6 on the street. Not on that particular Jalan Prapanca Buntu anyway. A young man, busy leaning against a fence post, told us there was another one, "you go back, then turn right at the end of the street... follow that one to the end, and turn right again... then you turn right in the next street on your right... follow that one for about 50 metres, then turn left... that's also Jalan Prapanca Buntu."

But that ain't all. An address, written down, may well look like this:

Ms. Sarinah Puppendorff

Jalan Jeruk Nipis Selatan XXVIII/17

Kav. 4, Rt. 01/Rt. 03

Jakarta 13110

That comes to six numbers: XXVIII, 17, 4, 01, 03, and 13110.

Kav is an abbreviation of the Dutch word, kaveling, which means lot (of land). Sometimes, maybe out of fear the above won't be clear enough, a Blok number is added, e.g. Blok 15. And apart from all that, there could also be more than one Jalan Jeruk Nipis Selatan XXVIII.

How to distinguish one from the other? Simple. Add a letter, beginning with A. Ergo -- Jalan Jeruk Nipis Selatan XXVIII-A/17-- which on no account is to be confused with Jalan Jeruk Nipis Selatan XXVIII-B (or C, or D)/17.

Suppose you had met Ms. Sarinah Puppendorff at a branch of Juliana's disco in, say, Timbuctoo, or in a smart bistro in beautiful downtown Ulan Bator and she'd urged you to look her up if you were ever in Jakarta. Well, don't go search for her during the evening. You see, while driving through Jakarta's streets in the dark, even at a leisurely pace, you will be hard put trying to make sense out of a jumble of Xs, Is, and Vs strung together.

Also don't go by yourself. Take someone who knows all about locating addresses in Jakarta and speaks Jakartanese which is different from the formal Indonesian you probably learned before arriving on these shores. They will have to confer with cigarette vendors or the owners of the little stationary stalls you encounter on practically every street. Apart from their main business of selling, those mini enterprises are also social centers for the sundry of household employees like cooks, nursemaids, gardeners and drivers. Therefore, the cigarette stall operators know everything that goes on in the houses along their street, including tidbits the occupants rather they didn't know.

Anyway, those vendors are well-nigh indispensable to anyone in quest of the right address. They may not know the number you want (and since an address may well involve at least three numbers, who can blame them?), but provide them with a bit more info and you'll eventually hit the bull's eye. CV : "What's his name?" You : "Pak Sastro (Mr. Sastro)." CV : "Which one? The bald one or the one with

the beard?" You : "The bearded one."

CV : "Oh. Over there (pointing to the house). But

he's out, gone to the airport to meet his

mother-in-law."

See what I mean?

--Jak Jaunt