Happy 4th of July, everyone! Greetings coming from Malang Town Square...
A quick update on my activities in this beautiful city - On Saturday our friend Bayu took all of the volunteers to Taman Safari, which is a little zoo park that is set up like a safari. You drive your car through the zoo, and all the animals can literally come right up to your car, which is insane when you get about 3 feet away from a lion or tiger or bear, oh my! Granted, we're pretty sure the big animals were sedated, but you know. I got to hold a baby orangutan, which was amazing. Her name was Tsunami, and she was adorable! She tried to eat my necklace, though, which really just meant that I ended up with a lot of monkey slobber on my neck. Good times...
On Sunday we went to church bright and early. Service was boring, considering the sermon lasted approximately an hour by itself and I couldn't understand very much of it. Meh...After service I got dragged around by my host mom, meeting more people than I can remember. I got invited to do English Fellowship with a group from the congregation on Monday evenings, and I got invited to teach some English lessons to the choir on Wednesday evenings, and finally I got invited to take part in a radio discussion on Thursday evenings. Sounds like a relaxing vacation, right? ;-)
After church we all (there were 15 of us!) went to eat lunch at Pizza Hut, which felt oddly normal - Pizza Hut in Indonesia. I had seriously been craving pizza for the past two weeks, so it was amazing! After that, we decided to go swimming, which was fun. The pool was beautiful!!
Later on Sunday evening, all of the volunteers and their host families gathered at Brandon's host family's house for a big barbecue. It was really nice - we did sate (satay) with a really good sweet soy sauce kind of deal. No peanut sauce, which made me sad, but it was good nonetheless. It was cool being there with everyone, kind of like a last hoorah before they all started teaching. :)
So the volunteers started teaching on Monday, which means I haven't been seeing as much of them as the last two weeks. Ainsley (the volunteer who lives with me in the same host family) has been really tired recently. I think she's fighting something off, so I hope I don't get it. Thankfully I don't get sick easily. Knock on wood...
On Monday evening my friend Seprido and his father took me and Ainsley to his gamelan practice. Gamelan is the traditional Indonesian orchestra, complete with all kinds of really cool metallic instruments, drums, and gongs. It's really quite neat - Google it if you have the chance!Anyway, Prido's dad showed Ainsley another dance (and I have definitely decided that I am NOT coordinated enough to do any sort of traditional Indonesian dancing! It was quite a sight...). He showed her this "monkey dance" in which the woman dancer plays with a monkey (male dancer). Ainsley played the woman and Prido played the monkey. He and his dad are quite the artists - they both dance and play gamelan. I gotta say, despite the fact that Prido is probably 5'5 and maybe weighs 130, oh and the fact that I'm pretty sure he's gay - I'm quite attracted to him. I know, I know...
Big news! My host family told me the other night that they would like me to stay for the entire year. I am seriously blessed to have them in my life. They are the most amazing people!!
I have visited two volunteers' classes, and it seems that all is going well with the teaching side of this experience for them, so I am quite pleased. I will spend the rest of the week visiting the others. Then this weekend is Amelia's (my host sister) 22nd birthday, and on Saturday night we are driving up to Mt. Bromo (the volcano). To be honest I don't really want to go, but I guess I kind of have to take the volunteers there!
Alright well that is pretty much the extent of my exciting life...Hi everyone who left me comments! I love you and miss you all!!
Oh, and Amy - it's "billiards" with two "i"s. And yes, that is how they say pool here...they got confused when I said "pool," and they wanted to know if I needed to go home and get my swimsuit...I'm sad that I didn't get a book, though :)
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3 comments:
Dearest Lambykins,
I'm terribly sorry you were disappointed by my short comment on your last posting. I'll try to do a little better here. ;-)
So naturally I still miss you, but am still glad that you are having such an amazing experience. I'm also really happy/relieved that you'll be living with your host family. How wonderful for you! I bet that it takes a lot of pressure off of you. Now all you need is to not get deported... :) Ok, so perhaps that wasn't really funny, but you can't blame me for trying. In my defense it is 4:21am EST, and I'm tired.
It sounds like you are a hot commodity over there in Indonesia. You should write a book. That's just my opinion. You could call it "The Merry Marvels of Malang: My Year in Indonesia" and then in the sub-title - How I Met and Married My Husband. Lol. I think it's cute that you have a crush on the short, gay dancing man. :)
Let's see, was there anything else I wanted to comment on in your post...Oh, yes, about the billiards, I'm sorry I didn't put in the second "i"... I thought it only had one, but apparently not. I stand corrected.
As for things with me, I'm hopefully going home on vacation after this evening's staff meeting at 6:00pm... so in about 14 hours I'll be fleeing campus for some relaxation at home. I can't wait.
Interestingly enough I think I'll miss some of my co-workers when I'm gone. I've formed a group with three of the other girls, and though we're very open to others joining in on our activities, we are the largest group of friends on staff. (Most of the others have paired off, or just hang out with friends from outside of staff.) On a side note, I have to laugh a little bit because the girls I hang out with are all very strong-willed, outgoing, confident, opinionated black women. I'm like the token "white/asian" girl. lol. Quite the cultural difference. They're teaching me to dance so I don't look like Elaine from Seinfeld. They're good sports about it. lol.
Very different demographics from my school year friends. (I don't see much of the girls these days...Amazing how easy it is for them to forget about me when I'm a fifteen minute walk away. Oh well. These things happen.)
Anyway, for vacation I'm going home. Officially I have a week off, but since Kyle took my Friday shifts, I'm done with work as of 5am... or 25 minutes from now. I would leave earlier in the day, but I can't miss the staff meeting apparently. Sigh. oh well. I still get to spend almost a week and a half at home then, so i can't complain.
Actually, that's not true. Mom and I are going to Philadelphia for two days (13th-14th) so we can see King Tut's treasures. Apparently there is an exhibit of artifacts from his tomb on a world tour (which is apparently very rare), and we're going. I'm excited. I know I'm a dork, but I love looking at things like that.
Other than that, I'll be at home getting all of my doctor's visits done before I get kicked off my mom's health insurance. Stupid not being in school... >:( Grrr. So I have the regular doctor, the eye doctor, and the dentist. Oh well. The only one I don't like is the eye doc, and that's only because our old guy went out of business, so we have this new guy who looks like he's 23 (well, admittedly by the time I saw him I had my glasses off and my eyes dilated so he may have been 40 for all I could tell)...
OOO! In really exciting news, Christie (you know her from the Gala) is finally getting to adopt! Hurray! Hopefully this will be occurring in September... Anyway, to cut to the chase, her mom is sick, so her father may not go with her, but she needs another adult to go... and she originally asked my mom, but my mom doesn't really want to use two weeks of her vacation time to go to China, so she suggested that Christie ask me... so depending on how things go, I may be going with Christie to go get her baby! How AMAZING would that be? I think it would be really cool... and you know that's saying a lot since I don't much care for small children.
Ok, so I'm going to wrap this up, as I have to leave the desk soon. I'll keep on the look out for more posts from you. I like hearing about your adventures. :) What did people do before there was the internet?
Love always,
Bunny
P.S. What is your address in Indonesia?
P.P.S. So, I apologize for the disjointed writing style in the above post. I'm just really sleepy, so I'm afraid I'm not terribly coherent. :) Love, B
Hello Sweetheart:
Love reading the blog. Keep those entries coming! I liked what Amy said - what did people do before the Internet?
I'm glad the teaching is going well. It sounds like you have done a stupendous job, naturally! I'm thrilled your host family is willing to keep you. Tell them they only get you for 1 year.
Yesterday was the 4th of July. The entire fam came over to our house. We tried to swim, but it kept raining on us. We had set up two canopies so we just sat outside in the rain and played cards. We decided on our next family vacation - Lake Michigan next summer. Apparently, you can take a 1 hour train ride into Chicago, so that might be fun. It is cheaper and much closer than Hilton Head, and everybody seems to like that. Two summers after that, though, we are back to HH!
Nothing else going on here. Nay Nay and Robby are off on their cruise this weekend!
Nay Nay posted a comment to this blog, but it is not showing up. I saw it the day she posted it, and it was there, but I haven't seen it since that day. Just thought you should know.
Any news on your Visa?
Maybe Prido is NOT gay! What is the radio discussion thing all about?
Love you and miss you SOOOOOOO much.
Mum
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