To Manado!

View of the beautiful village of Tomohon.

I went to the island of Sulawesi over Lebaran holiday. What’s Lebaran holiday? Oh, yeah, we don’t celebrate that in the U.S. We should. At least the week off of work part of it. Short explanation: It’s the last week of the Muslim fasting month. Those who fasted for the month celebrate their perseverance and their devotion. Muslims ask for forgiveness and make peace with those they’ve offended over the past year, and give gifts to friends and neighbors. It’s a week when almost all Indonesians go on religious pilgrimages, return to their families, or go on vacation.  A group from church decided to go on a mission trip.

The house at the back of the picture is where we stayed. It was an amazing house!

 We went to the village of Tomohon and stayed in the house of man who knows Pastor Jeff. The house was at the base of a volcano that had erupted earlier in the summer. It was a beautiful place to stay!! It made me long for the mountains of Idaho so badly! Each morning I would have my coffee and devotions out on the balcony that looked out at the mountains. It was the picture of serenity. 

Every balcony should have this view.

Creepy bug that flew into the house at night. It's about the length of my index finger.

Down the road, there was a pig farm. I’ve never been on a pig farm before. Reading Charlotte’s Web is about as close as I’ve gotten to one. So, one of the guys with our group went with Carrie and I down to the pig farm to check out these massive pigs.

I repeat: MASSIVE PIGS.

A lot of them were easily 600 pounds. It was just ridiculous how big they were.  big. and miserable.  We were convinced that all the pigs were named “Wilbur,” every rat we saw was named “Templeton,” the geese could talk, and the spiders were writing secret messages in their webs.

Our group of 28 people mostly consisted of young adults, and each night the common area turned into the game zone. Indonesians are experts at having a good time. Each night was a mess of sharing chairs around the tiniest game table and basically throwing cards all over the place. I’m glad the game of Nerts exists in Indonesia.

There was a little restaurant called Parakletos up the road that had a lot of traditional Indonesian foods. Their specialty, Ice Parakletos, tasted like a snickers poured over shaved ice. I also tried an iced drink that sounded so disgusting I had to have it. It was shaved ice with beans, avocado slices, chocolate, and sweet and condensed milk. I ordered it twice. :)  Fried bananas were delish. I also loved their specialty porridge, bubur Manado.

 

Ladies from the church served us meals every day. The food was very traditional with lot of fish, rice and spice.  I’ve had to get used to looking my open-mouthed fish in the eyes before digging into its scaly belly. 

Wait, nope. I’m still not used to it.  

I was actually a little disappointed that I didn’t get to try a lot of the specialty meats from the island. Supposedly, people from Sulawesi know how to cook all sorts of meats. All sorts. I was warned that I would be eating really strange meats, but we really weren’t served anything out of the ordinary. One day, at the construction site for the men, they were served up an entire lunch of strange meats. Bat. Dog. Cat. Rat. Boar. The men came back all proud of themselves that they had eaten crazy foods.  I did have a chance to try one bite of RW, though. Won’t have that again.

the little/big things that end up mattering.

Got homesick. Finally. It was recently when I was hanging out with some new friends. And it came about for a really ridiculous reason.  It left me fighting back tears over dinner at a restaurant and longing for people who know me well.  I also probably cried in the car when we left, when I knew nobody would notice.  It took almost 6 weeks for me to get homesick. I think that’s pretty good, right??  All this to say that I miss home. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss familiar places and foods. 

Oh. The thing that made me homesick: nobody laughed at my jokes.

How ridiculous is that??!

Kuche Und Kaffee

So, apparently, when you move overseas, or really, anywhere new, you’re supposed to find a place that becomes your “home away from home.” A comfortable place where you can go to recoup, especially when culture shock starts taking over. For me, this place is Kuche und Kaffee. It’s a 4 minute walk from the center where I work and my friends Carrie, Amanda, and I discovered it on my fourth day here. Since then, I have been back 6 times and the owner, Nadia, knows my “regular.”  There’s good food, yummy coffee, and friendly service.  There’s even live music on Saturday nights.  So, basically, I love it. 

Xin Zhong

This is one of my classes of kindergarteners at Xin Zhong. (Notice how popular making the peace sign is in pictures!) 

Teaching

I work at a school called English for Excellence (EfeX). It is a private after-school English center. It is run by two of the most caring and compassionate people I have ever met, Dave and Ani. I have really enjoyed getting to know them and working for them over the past couple of weeks.  Ani is a very passionate advocate for people, which is great when it comes to education. She pushes for the best use of instructional time and practices. Dave is just as passionate about relating with students and finding new and effective ways to help them learn. They are quite the dynamic duo.  They have been so gracious in taking the time to coach me and teach me how to teach the curriculum.  

EfeX has classrooms at the center where students come after school for either an hour, or an hour and fifteen minutes, depending on their level. Most students receive English instruction at their regular school, so coming to EfeX is like getting a step…. Or 10 steps ahead.  There are currently 60 students on the waiting list to get into classes at EfeX. There simply aren’t enough qualified teachers to accommodate all of the students.  

They actually had me observing classes within 24 hours of arriving and then teaching 2 days later!  For this term, I’m teaching an upper elementary class, a middle school class, and a high school writing class. I meet with each group twice a week. It’s a neat challenge to plan for various levels of classes. I do, however, having about 1 hour of planning time for every hour of teaching.  

EfeX also contracts out to regular schools. One school, Xin Zhong, is a Chinese school. I teach kindergarteners there 4 mornings a week, Monday-Thursday. I work with them for three hours on basic phonics and reading simple 3 and 4 letter words.  It’s very entertaining to spend time with these little kids. They’re so cute!  Most of them have never seen a bule before (See last blog post!) and want to touch my hair and my hands. 

This is the center after my class yesterday. My students were confused as to why I was taking a picture.

First Indonesian Musings (to be continued….)

1.   My very first interaction with strictly Indonesian people was when I walked down the corridor in the airport to wait at the gate for my airplane.  The term “bule” would soon become a common part of my speech, but at that time, the only phrase I knew was running through their minds was, “white girl!” Yep, I’m a bule. And everyone stares at bules. Anyway, this flight was very different from any other flight I’ve ever taken. Not in how I was treated, but in the noise level. Indonesians are social! During the 5-hour flight, people were talking the entire time. Loudly. Even when the lights were off.  People were talking and laughing with the people next to them, down their row, and when that wasn’t enough interaction for them, they would stand and talk with someone who was several rows away.  It was very entertaining!

That’s been, by far, my favorite observation about the people here in Indonesia. They are very good talkers, listeners, and laughers.

2.  Driving from the airport to my house, it looked very much like the streets you would see in any third-world country. Very similar, in fact, to the scenery when we were driving in the capital of Nicaragua just a month ago.  Small houses lining the streets. Vendors selling their daily produce and homemade food. Cars and bikes crowding the streets, fighting to get through. Our drive took us past a lot of places that have a high poverty level as well as areas that have very nice homes.  The part of Surabaya where I live, though, is in a pocket of upper middle class houses with gates and security guards surrounding the neighborhoods. It is starkly contrasted with the homes very close by. I feel safe though. (That’s for you, Mom!)

3. I have eaten out more in the past 6 days than I have in a month in America. Well… maybe that’s not true, but it feels like a lot! It’s what everyone does for meals here.  A lot of the food is fried (fried noodles, fried rice, fried bread, fried meat), but there are also a lot of non-fried foods as well. It’s so fun to try different foods! I have an ongoing list of recommended foods that I need to try, which will be fun. I like lists.  Also, food is extremely  cheap here. I have spent between $1 and $2.50 for my meals. And most of the time, I have plenty left over to eat later on.

4. Mosquitoes love me.

5. I get stared at a lot. Apparently, Americans don’t travel to Surabaya too often, so when they see a tall 

(yes, I’m SO tall here!), white, blond girl, they have to look at her. I’m not quite used to that yet.

Traveling: Redeemed

It’s not a mystery to anyone who knows anything about me: I love to travel. 

I. Love. To. Travel. 

My eyes flutter and my heart beats wildly when I think about planning a trip somewhere.  I have a long list of places to visit before I die. I love being in another culture and experiencing everything about it.  As strange as it sounds, I relish the thought of being mistaken for a local.  And when I return to my wonderful Idaho home, I feel, at least for a while, as if I don’t belong.  I’ve been blessed to have been able to go to quite a few places, thanks to friends who have opened their homes, a work schedule that has lent itself to having consistent time off every year, and great travel buddies.  I love being a traveler!

On a somewhat related side note, I have a confession to make about my thoughts on travelers…

I have always somewhat judged those people who always begin conversations with “This reminds me of the time I was swimming with sea turtles off the coast of Maui and…” or “Once, I toasted with this tall, dark, and handsome Croatian man who…” or “If you think this sunrise is great, you should try seeing it from the top of this one volcano in a far, distant land I climbed when….”  You get the idea. The braggers.  The ones who tell stories to make the conversation turn back on them so they can see the envy and jealousy etched on the face of the listener.  I have NEVER wanted to be one of THOSE travelers. (I also apologize for the moments when I have been one!)

I’ve been convinced for some time that God has been very purposeful in His design of my personality. The passions I have are not something to be avoided, shunned, or shamed, but recognized.  He planted within me, a purpose.

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua with a local church’s young adults group. It was a trip that, honestly, I probably wouldn’t have committed to if I had known I would be moving to a foreign country the next month. But, as what happens during all mission trips, God had something clear to teach and remind me through this experience.   You see, THIS trip, for once, wasn’t about me.  And for those who are reading this and thinking, “duh!” yeah, I can clearly see that now... But seriously. It felt fulfilling to be in a community of young adults who had the sole purpose of serving.  We weren’t there to be tourists.  We experienced a very specific part of the country’s culture in Jinotega.  We were there to be with them and for them. (Thanks for that, Kenton!)  That is to be why I travel.

It was as if God was taking this opportunity to, once again, remind me that He has a purpose for me. He designed me to have a passion for traveling and other cultures for a reason.  To be with them and for them. To serve. To love. To teach.  I have come to understand this year that God’s timing is absolutely perfect and intentional. I needed to commit to this trip at the moment when I did. Not solely for my own pleasure, but for His.

So as I, this crazy ranting girl, set off for Indonesia, I go knowing that I get to delight in the desires God has put in my heart.