Born in 1993, Condro has been performing since her third birthday. She and her friends from the childrens group perform regularly for local events where they both dance and play the gamelan. Condro has been performing as a dhalang wayang kulit since she was five.

"At my seventh-month touching the ground ceremony, I chose two wayang shadow puppets and held them, one in each hand, as if I were really performing wayang. Everyone here says that what you choose predicts what you will do with your life. I started dance class here at home when I was two, and performed for the first time at my third birthday party. Everyone cried. I've been performing wayang since I was five and now all my friends play the gamelan instruments that accompany me. Now my group, which is called Srikandi, has been performing together for more than six years. We have dance classes three times a week. We have gamelan classes twice a week. We like fast, strong music. We also like hard, strong dances too. I take ballet classes, too. We kids are always working on some new dances or choreographing our own dance, and we'll get the musicians to put it to music when it's done-- or we'll probably just do the music ourselves!."

Indonesia -- The Islands of Fire

My name is Sonya Condro Lukitosari but people call me Condro. (Say it like this, Chondro.) I’m 12 years old and I live on the island of Java, which is right next to the island of Bali. I live in East Java in Tumpang, Malang, which is located about two hours away from the huge city Surabaya and an hour away from the active volcano, Bromo. I go to a school called Wesley International School, which is an hour away from my house. My seven-year-old sister, Ndaru, goes there too. I’m in 6th grade and my sister is in 1st. There are only 11 people in my class at school. I like to dance Javanese dance, ballet, and play Javanese music, which is called gamelan. If I’m not at school or having dance and gamelan lessons with my neighborhood friends, I’m at home reading Eldest or Harry Potter. My house is a dance/music (gamelan) art center. My family lets anybody, mostly neighborhood kids, have lessons in dancing and playing gamelan.

I was born in Java. My mom is American but she has been here for 16 years and met my dad here. He is Javanese so I speak Javanese to him but English to my mom. My sister and I were both born at our house in our own beds. My great-aunt is a dukun bayi. Dukun bayi is the same as midwife. When my mom was seven months pregnant with both my sister and me, my family had special ceremonies for her and the baby, which is to protect the baby. Five days after I was born there was an all night ceremony with mocopat, a special sung Javanese poetry. There was another ceremony a month later. Then the most important was for my seventh month touching the ground ceremony. The Javanese say that babies first live in water, then come out into the air, and only after seven months can a baby touch the ground. We had a big ceremony with lots of performances. Then I got to roll in the mud! Rice is always an important part of these ceremonies. There are special dishes for different occasions. We eat rice every day. Even for breakfast! My favorite food is yellow rice and tempe, and this is one of the special foods for these parties.

In Indonesia, the beautiful scenery such as wet rice fields, twisting mountain roads, sandy beaches, and powerful volcanoes make people want to stay here forever. Indonesia is the biggest archipelago in the world. Indonesia is also home to the famous volcano, Krakatoa. Krakatoa is in the middle of the sea separating Java and Sumatra. Because where we live in Malang is so close to another active volcano, Bromo, we often find all our things covered with gray ash. The people of Bromo, called the Tenggerese, still live like the people who lived in the times of Majapahit, which is an ancient kingdom. East Java has many different cultures and languages. In Tumpang where I live for example, people speak Javanese and keep Javanese traditions, but in places like Madura, a small island to the north of Surabaya, they speak Madurese and do things differently. Everybody who lives in the country speaks their own local language and learns Indonesian in school. People who live in big cities such as Jakarta usually speak only the national language, Indonesian.

Indonesia won its independence in 1945, and Sukarno was the first president. Indonesia is a democracy. The current president of Indonesia is Susilo Bambang Yudoyono, SBY for short. He has been president for only a year. He was elected by the people in the first ever direct election. You can only vote when you are 17 or married. There is supposed to be freedom of speech but it hasn’t reallyworked out that way. Indonesia is modernizing really fast and while it’s great to have cell phones, MP3 players and ipods here, people are forgetting a lot about the traditional culture.

My dad established the art center in 1989 because he worried that people would forget the traditional arts. My mom met him in 1990 and has been helping him ever since. When there is a show, my whole family performs. My mom is a Javanese singer and dancer, my dad is a choreographer and a shadow puppeteer, my sister and I dance, play gamelan and I do shadow puppetry too like my dad.

I have a dance and gamelan group called Sri Kandi. We have been performing together for six years. I started dancing when I was 2 years old and the first time I performed was at my third birthday party—my grandma cried when she saw me! I started playing gamelan in 2000. I have gamelan, dance, or ballet lessons every afternoon after school plus all day Sunday. We learn traditional Javanese pieces and dances plus modern compositions. My group sometimes makes our own dances. When I’m not busy, I like to read.

Here’s a recipe for my favorite yellow rice:

Nasi Kuning

2 cups rice

2 cups stock

1 t turmeric

2 pieces stick cinnamon

2 cloves

1 bay leaf

½ t cumin

1 t ground coriander

2 t vegetable oil

Soak the rice for an hour, wash and drain. Heat the oil or butter in a saucepan and sauté the rice for 2 minutes. Add turmeric and sauté for another 2 minutes, and then put in the stock and all the other ingredients. Boil until the rice has soaked up all the stock, then steam or continue cooking. Cover the pan very tightly after you have stirred the rice and turned the heat down as low as possible. Cook at low heat another 10 minutes. Enjoy!