Ibu Ibu Meeting

On Wednesday I attended my first Ibu-Ibu meeting. My friend Robyn from Australia attended it with me. She’s about 2 units ahead of me so I was hoping she would be able to translate things I didn’t understand. There were 29 women present of approximately 37 that usually attend. Of the women present there, 7 were Muslim, the rest would have been one of the other 6 sanctioned religions. When we arrived a few women had arrived before us, so we went around the room shaking hands with each one. Then as each woman arrived after us, they made their way around the room shaking each woman’s hand as we had. By the time everyone was there we’d all personally greeted each other. We opened the meeting with prayer – more like a time of silence during which each person prayed to Whomever they pray to. Then it was time to conduct business.

My understanding is that they collect money from each member for the various items of business. Some money goes to help with the upkeep of the community, other money goes to members of the community that need financial assistance and to local schools or free clinics. There is also provision made for women to use the organization as a savings account. They put their money in for special occasions, etc. and then when they need it, they can draw it out. All monies were reported on and made note of. Different officers gave their reports. I also noticed some recipes being read aloud – not quite sure why, though, if you consider we’re all women there, maybe that’s a normal way to share recipes! The Ibu RT – the leader of our community’s wife – gave some cautions to everyone there, telling them that diarrhea was going around and to be careful. Each person should drink their water warm and not cold. That would keep them healthy. (Robyn & I smiled at this one – we boil our water for at least 5 minutes before drinking it.)

Then we were served warm sweet tea in small glasses, bowls of boiled peanuts and each given a small box of treats for our snack. (The box was approximately 6”x4”x2” and catered by the lady down the street from me.) Inside was a cream puff type of pastry with a yellow filling – looked like vanilla pudding but didn’t taste like anything. I didn’t open the box until I got home so I got out some chocolate syrup, poured it over and shared it with the kids. The other two items in the box were shaped like egg rolls. One was actually like a crepe rolled like an egg roll. It was filled with rice and something else I couldn’t identify. The other was actually fried like an egg roll would be but the filling seemed to be all vegetables. They also included some hot peppers on the side.

After all the business was concluded (after an hour), Robyn and I were asked to introduce ourselves and they welcomed us. They closed “in prayer” in the same way that they opened it and opened the floor to a traveling salesman who was selling some “high quality” kitchen appliances. Robyn and I chose that time to head for home as it was 5:00 and time for dinner.