Bird Flu or Bust...Part Dua!

Falling Out, Falling Out...

2008-04-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

As Tara has duly noted, my grammar has been a bit off lately. Don't worry, I am trying to rectify this situation. I think teaching English in a country where I hear horrible English every day has started to take a toll on my brain...I've even started thinking that things like "My name Tori" actually sound correct...

So because my grammar has been a bit off, I decided to go with the Indonesian technique of just repeating things when you want to make them plural. Take a look at the title of this blog. I wasn't sure if it should be "Fallings Out" or "Falling Outs," and I'm still not entirely sure, although I think it might be the former...

So this will just be a quick update, and I do apologize for not having written in a while. I just had to take some mid-term tests at uni, so it's been kind of crazy these past two weeks...

Robe and I are now fine, as far as our injuries are concerned. Everything except for my knee is all healed up. Robe's foot is even fine, and the burn has gone away (miraculously!).

Tara, what I was talking about with my student telling me his sister died was this. In Indonesia, people don't seem to take death too seriously. Literally, the day after his sister died, he was in my class smiling and having a good time. His sister died suddenly and unexpectedly, might I add, so it should have been even that more shocking and upsetting to him, but he was totally fine. And the other students in the class were joking about it like it was nothing. I was just shocked and rather appalled at this attitude about death, but I guess that's just the culture.

Okay, so about these "falling out, falling out" things. The other day, we had a big dinner with my former host family and some friends. All in all there were 13 of us. We all had a great time during dinner, laughing and enjoying ourselves. At the end of the dinner, my host family paid for the meal as usual. Well, after getting home and getting ready for bed about an hour and a half after dinner, I got a VERY angry text message from my host brother, Octa. He scolded me for not having paid for dinner, telling me that I was impolite and disrespectful. I really didn't understand what he was angry about, considering we had gone out to dinner a million times before that and the family had always paid. Then it turned out he expected me to pay not only for my meal, but for everyone else's meal...and I didn't even know half of those people were coming with us until we got to the restaurant! I tried to explain myself and justify my behavior to him, but it was to no avail. I also texted my host sister, Amellia, and two of my Indonesian friends who were at dinner with us. They all said that it was okay, but that then they said, "But don't do it again!"

Shocked and confused, I continued to sms Octa, but he was having none of my explanation. Then he let out that he and his family didn't really like Robe or Robe's family. I asked why, considering that they had never in their entire lives given a good reason to dislike them. Turns out, my host family doesn't like Robe's family because at one of my engagement parties there was a Muslim prayer for me and Robe. WHAT?! That's seriously the reason why they don't like Robe's family!! So I texted him back, letting him know what I thought of biggots and told him that I did not associate with people like him. He texted back that he was very disappointed in me as a Christian and that the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life is calling me his "sister." And that was the last of our correspondence.

Crazy, right?! I was completely blown away by the whole thing. I guess I now know the true character of my host family. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I didn't even bother explaining to him that at that engagement party the majority of people were Muslim (Robe's neighbors), and they asked us if it would be okay for them to pray for us. Of course it's okay! And of course the only way they know how to pray is the Muslim way. I couldn't have told them, "I'm sorry, could you please pray to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior?" Ridiculous. Frankly ridiculous.

And weird, too. I'm not really sure where all of this came from. There is some underlying reason for his explosion that I'm obviously unaware of, but I guess the one good thing that has come of this is that I now know who my host family truly is.

Another falling out came about a week ago with an English teacher here, Bu Francien. She has been such a huge help to me ever since I came to Indonesia, but she blew up at me the other day and I haven't heard from her since. Here's what happened. I was helping her out, teaching a group of 12 adults who are getting ready to pursue their Ph.Ds abroad. Our class had to start very early in the morning, though, because I had to go to my own classes in the late morning. So we had class starting from 7:30 to 9:00am every day. One day she told me she would open the door to my classroom. Well, 7:30 came and went and she wasn't there, so I decided to find my own classroom. At 8:00, she called me yelling at me, asking why I left and why did I make her come down to campus for nothing. I politely reminded her that my class started at 7:30, which means that I start talking at 7:30, not 7:45 and not 7:50. She got totally pissed off and started yelling in Indonesian, so I just hung up the phone. I was in the middle of class, after all!

So anyway. Indonesians are weird people who get angry for weird things, like wanting to start class on time or like not paying for two big families' meals. Very, very strange. I'm kind of glad I'm coming home in a few weeks. I've pretty much had all I can take of this!

Okay here's some news - I will get in to Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday May 28th at 5:50pm. I'm very excited about this and cannot wait to see all of you!!!!

Alrighty well that's about all. I'm hungry now, so I'm going to go get me some chicken satay...man, I'm going to miss that food!! :)

Yes, I did actually throw a rock at a bus...

2008-04-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

It's true - I really did that. But trust me, I was in rare form that day!

So it seems I have been on a roll recently. I go from seriously lucky to having the worst luck in the world, then back again to insanely lucky (in one day!). Here's what I mean: This morning, I got up late, which would have made me late to teach except that all of my students were late! Then, I was supposed to get paid before I started teaching, but the accountant lady was late, so she ended up giving me an extra Rp100,000 (only $10, but that's a lot in Indonesia!). So I was on cloud nine, until later that morning when Robe and I got into a motorcycle accident. That sucked and made us late to the Immigration office here, but when I was there I found out that I didn't have to buy an Exit Permit to leave the country. And this is how my past few days have been!

So more on that motorcycle accident. Robe and I were putting along on his motorbike as we had left a little bit early and were not in a hurry to get to Immigration. *Remember, they drive on the left-hand side here.* Suddenly, this big dump-truck-like thing (carrying huge logs I think) pulled out of a driveway from the right-hand side and started moving really quickly into our lane. Robe moved left to let the truck in, but we quickly ran out of space when we realized the truck driver wasn't paying attention and he totally just pushed us off the road. This would have been okay if there hadn't been a huge hole on the left side, and we drove into it. This also would have been okay if the hole hadn't been filled with tons of mud, which made it impossible for Robe's motorbike to drive through. So the bike just fell over, taking us down with it. Luckily we weren't actually on the road, so the motorbikes behind us didn't have any trouble dodging our bodies... Yea...

I did notice one thing, though. Whenever someone has an accident in the US, people always stop to make sure everyone is alright and doesn't need medical assistance. However, in Indonesia, people just drive around you like they don't even care (and they probably don't actually care...). I was a bit angry at this, actually. It just goes to show that Indonesians don't really care all that much about other people...

So anyway. We are both okay. I've got scrapes & bruises on my left & right arm and on my left leg. We were both obviously wearing helmets, so our heads are fine (just a little headache). Although once my head hit the ground, my helmet flew off. Robe is buying me a better helmet as we speak. Robe only has scrapes on his legs, but he burned the bottom of his foot on the exhaust pipe thing, so that sucks a lot because it hurts to walk. My left knee is pretty nasty, so it's a little sore to walk on, but nothing compared to Robe! Poor thing!

I know what you're all going to say - don't ever ride a motorbike again! Well, we went back to Robe's shop after stopping by Immigration and Robe's family just made fun of Robe. They didn't really seem all that concerned that we had been hurt, but I'm starting to realize that this is just the typical Indonesian attitude towards certain things. Actually just this morning in class, I asked if anyone had any news from the weekend, and one of them said that Mega (a man in my class - I'm teaching adults who are preparing to do a Ph.D program abroad) might have some news. She even laughed when she said it, so I thought it was funny news. I followed suit, asking in a joking manner what had happened. He responded, with a smile on his face, that his sister died suddenly on Friday evening at the age of 35! I was shocked and immediately offered my condolences, but the others in the class seemed rather insensitive. After Mega told his story, one of the other men replied enthusiastically, "Oh yea, I heard about that! What a story!"

So after the accident, I told Robe that I was hesitant to get back on the motorbike again. He understood (and btw he feels really bad about the whole thing, the poor thing is a wreck - pun intended), but after talking to his family to see if I could use the car to get home from school in the evenings, they seemed hesitant. They didn't understand why I was being such a baby about getting back on the motorbike, so I guess I'm stuck with it for the time being. I have 2 options at this point - take the motorbike home or go by taxi. Considering taking a taxi every night would defeat the purpose of me working, I guess I'll stick with the motorbike. Oh, well...

Alrighty. In other exciting news, yesterday (April 13th) was Robe's Dad's (Yohanes) 52nd birthday. We didn't do much the day of, considering Yohanes was sick all morning. People stopped by all afternoon, wishing him a Happy 52nd and all that jazz, and we ate the traditional nasty food they eat for birthdays around here. Too bad for me, I can't eat any of the things that Chinese-Indonesians usually prepare for birthdays - fried noodles (eww), duck eggs (it's like eating the entire salt shaker at once) and pork (I could eat the meat if it wasn't drenched in this awful sweet & salty, teriaki-wannabe sauce).

So that was all we did, but then today all of Yohanes's kids planned this awesome surprise. They all pretended to be running late, and then they didn't open the shop on time. Yohanes got so mad that he actually came down to the shop himself early (he usually doesn't go in until 10am) to see what was going on. When he got there, he found no one outside and the gate to the shop half-opened. He pushed the gate open, and suddenly everyone (his kids & employees) jumped out and yelled "Surprise!" It was hilarious - he apparently went instantly from fuming red to laughing hysterically. It was great because it's nearly impossible to surprise this man. The only thing that sucked was that I couldn't be there. I had to teach. Oh, well...

Okay I guess that's all that's going on around here. I love you all lots and lots and can't wait to see you in about 5 weeks or so!!! Muah!!

~ Tori =)

P.S. To answer your comments, Robe still doesn't have his Visa and at this point we're looking at August/September as the time for him to come to the US. This process typically takes about 3-8 months from the time you start everything to the time you set foot in the country, and it looks like we're going to be on the long end of that timeline because Robe comes from the largest Muslim country in the world (and plus this country might have the record for the worst record keeping in the world, which makes it more difficult to do background checks). We're both pretty upset about the whole thing, considering we started the process with such high hopes. It's just like every day is another reminder of our future separation as we move closer and closer to my departure date. But I'm not worried. I know we can get through it. The US Embassy in Jakarta expects me to be there with Robe when he has his interview (eventually - maybe in July or August), so it's looking like I'll be coming back to Indonesia for a while at least...

Frustrating things about Indonesia...

2008-04-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

Hola everyone! So the closer I get to my departure date, the more frustrating things seem to get here.

Actually, that's not entirely sure. I feel like these days I'm having so much more fun with my friends. We're doing so much more these days now that we are all used to our school schedules and work loads. But the second I'm by myself or with Indonesians (i.e. not with my friends - they're almost all foreign!), everything just frustrates me to no end!

Let's look at an example, shall we? So at MaChung (the new Chinese/International university that opened up in Malang this year) there are about 50 founders. Basically, these old, nasty, rich Chinese-Indonesian men got together and decided that they wanted to make a really modern, exclusive university for their own kind (i.e. Chinese Indonesians) to study. Great. So the main founder guy, Mr. Naga, is really nice. He's a bit intimidating, but he's a very nice gentleman once you get to know him. His wife, Mrs. Naga, is a different story altogether! She is one of the snobbiest, nastiest women I have met here. I guess it comes with the territory of being super wealthy. Anyway.

I first noticed her ridiculousness the first day I met her, which was back in October. She decided that she wanted to attend my English class at MaChung. So, after the MaChung driver picks me up, we swing by her house to pick her up. Now I say "swing by" but it usually turns into a 15-minute or so stop, because she's never ready on time and she demands that we wait for her, whether or not waiting will make me (the teacher) late to the class! She won't even walk out to the car. She demands that the car pull into her gate, which means that her poor housekeeper has to walk all the way out to the gate, open it up, close it up after the car pulls in, then repeat that stupid routine 15 minutes later. If it's raining, her housekeeper is not allowed to run out with an umbrella when she opens the gate. Instead, Mrs. Naga (which, coincidentally means "Dragon" in Indonesian. I like to call her the Dragon lady...) makes the car pull in as close as possible to the house. Then she makes her housekeeper hold the umbrella for her while she walks the 2 feet to the car door. Her housekeeper then opens the door for her and lets her in the car, then gives Mrs. Naga the umbrella (which she keeps with her, even though she refuses to hold it for herself), runs out to the gate, opens it, closes it up after the car leaves and bolts back into the house - no doubt by this time drenched from head to toe from these ridiculous shenanigans. Shenanigans, I tell you!

Then the other day she was in my class, which ends at 6:00 pm. She waited until 5:50pm, realized she needed to go home right away for some random reason and just left, completely forgetting about me. She had the MaChung driver drive her home immediately, so because she couldn't wait 10 minutes for me, I had to wait around after the campus was actually closed for the driver to return. Exhausted and cold, I finally arrived home at around 8:00pm. Ridiculous!

Oh this woman is terrible! She talks down to everyone and I dread the 20 minutes we have to spend in the car together six times a week (to-and-from campus twice a day, 3 days a week...).

So anyway. Many women here are like that, and it absolutely drives me crazy how they abuse people who work for them. Mrs. Naga's poor housekeeper is a 15-year-old girl who only graduated from elementary school and has been working/living at that house for several years now...oh my. Poor thing.

So what else has me frustrated? Oh, so many things to choose from. Adults in Indonesia often act like children. I swear. At MaChung, I teach teachers/staff members of the university and also the students in the English Department, and I have to say that the students are so much better behaved than the teachers! The other day, one of the teachers made a presentation in the class on Prostitution. As soon as he started talking & giving statistics, three male teachers in the back (ages 28-35) started GIGGLING and making horrible noises & jokes. I was so astounded, I actually stopped class and had to kick them out. How embarrassing is it for a 36-year-old to get kicked out of class for misbehaving?! Seriously, so many Indonesians are immature like that, it just drives me crazy.

Of course then there are always the middle-aged men yelling obscenities at young women (white, Chinese, Javanese) walking by. If I am walking along and I see a group of men sitting by the sidewalk, I will cross the street and avoid walking in front of them. Sometimes it's unavoidable, though, and then I just have to grit my teeth and bear it. Sometimes they call innocent things out at you, like "Hey misterrrr!" (they don't know the difference between mister and miss...), but then other times it's more serious things like "Hey, bule! F*** you!" I hate it so much...

Also, the public transportation drivers here make money based on how many passengers they can pick up, so it's a real race to grab the passengers. Because of this, they honk incessantly while calling out at anyone walking/standing on the sidewalk/street. I generally choose to ignore this, but when I'm standing waiting to be picked up or something, it gets really old to have these stupid mini-buses drive by you at a snail's pace, honking crazily as they pass, then once they reach you have the driver stick his stupid-looking head out the window and call out something. One time I didn't look up from my book at a particularly insistent driver, and I could hear him call me a "white monkey" and some other choice words. What did I do? I looked around quickly, and noticing that no one was around, I picked up a rock and chucked it at his bus. By the time the rock hit the window, I was already back to reading my book as if nothing had happened. It was really funny to watch how angry he got out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't help but feel a little satisfied.

Another time (and this was a while ago), while walking in front of some nasty, greasy men on the sidewalk, they let me know what they thought of me (and let's just say that it was quite clear they did not want me there). What did I do? I stopped dead, turned to them and walked a few steps towards them. As soon as I did that, I could see the expressions on their faces turn from laughing to terrified instantly. They had no idea what I was going to do. It was hilarious. Then, shocking them that I could understand their language, I told them politely that it was not polite to yell at people, especially foreigners. I proceeded to politely tell them that tourism was the reason they had clothes on their backs and they better just leave me alone. They seemed to agree with me, apologized, and then I continued walking. It was such a great feeling! I had finally defended myself, and I was very proud of myself...too bad I don't have that kind of courage every time I get yelled at. Oh, well...

So anyway. I guess I should get going now. Oh, before I do, I better answer your comments. Thank you all so much for them! I love reading from my loved ones :) The couple that was going to help us ended up being very little help. The Indonesian guy actually immigrated through a process that would be considered Visa Fraud these days, so I definitely won't be going that route. And that story about my Polish friend just kind of faded away after a few weeks, thank God! He moved back to Malang and he's still studying here. He decided to change his look, though, so he grew out a mustache & goatee and changed his hairstyle, just in case!

Love you all! Muah!!

Sorry!

2008-03-31T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote...it's been quite an uneventful few weeks here, to tell you the truth.

Oh wow, Tara. Thank you for that comment. The part about you forgetting what mom & dad looked like when we went to Kentucky that one time made me laugh, which I needed... I'll be sure to tell Robe that you can understand his English. He'll be so glad to hear that. He's gotten so self-conscious about it that now in the evenings I am teaching him. Actually I'm not so excited about doing it because it means I don't get to hang out with my fiance at night, I get to hang out with a student. Oh, well...

And I'm sorry that so many people had trouble posting comments! Sometimes this website can be kind of finicky...

Anyway. I guess nothing too exciting is happening around here. I'm sitting here in Matos, and across the mall is a cute bule family (family of white people). Judging by their accent, I'm going to say they're Australian. I saw them earlier at the food court, trying to order food. It was hilarious. They don't speak any Indonesian and the people at the restaurant were trying SO hard to help them, but it was just ridiculous to an innocent bystander. I offered to help them order after about 5 minutes, more because I was hungry and I wanted my turn than I wanted to be helpful. They were very thankful. Anyway, it really is incredibly strange to see such a large group of white people walking around. I can't help but stare, and I know that seems ridiculous, but it just fascinates me. Op, there goes another white girl walking by the internet cafe. I saw a few white people at the grocery store the other day, and yesterday there was a group of British people teaching at my university. Ahh!! It's the invasion of the foreigners!!!

Sorry about that. Oh my gosh there really are like 10 people in that family over there. I've never seen so many white people here at once...sorry! I promise I'll stop now. Clearly it's time for me to come home.

Okay. So what else is going on...oh, Robe's birthday is tomorrow, so this past weekend some of our friends got together and celebrated together. It's actually really sad because I think his family forgot about his birthday. And two of his best friends canceled on him the morning of our big celebration. So that just left me, Robe, and my former housemates. We had such a good time, though, so it was their loss. We went to this rec center near my old house and went bowling, swimming & played pool all day. Then we went to dinner at the only restaurant in Malang that serves real steak. We westerners were thankful :)

In other recent events, I have taken on a lot of work again. Now I get to wake up at 5:00 in the morning and two nights a week I don't come home until 9:30 at night...the other nights I get to come home at 7:00pm. It's okay, though, because my weekends are completely free now, which is great!

I guess nothing else is really happening around here. My friends & I are trying to plan a weekend trip to Bali before I leave, so that's exciting! They found this really great hotel in Kuta (the tourist center of Bali) with little beach-front bungalows (for the equivalent of $10 a night!!!). I'm really looking forward to that. It will be like my little mini-Spring Break :)

Okay well I will leave you alone now. I've got lots of papers to correct & grade before I go to teach this evening. I love you all and miss you! See you soon!

Oh my goodness...

2008-03-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the developing world! I have had a very stressful/eventful last week or so, so please do forgive me for not having updated in a more timely fashion.

I suppose I shall go in chronological order of last week’s festivities…

As you may or may not know, Robe & I decided to try to get him a Tourist Visa, as we have been waiting to hear about his Fiancé Visa for over 2 months now and it’s not looking like we’ll be getting word anytime soon. First of all, I did my research to make sure that he was allowed to apply for another Visa while waiting to hear about the Fiancé Visa. Turns out, many people have done this because the F Visa process takes so long. Great! So we then prepared his application (which was very time consuming and quite stressful because record keeping here is like it was in America in, oh, the year 1807). Each applicant must then make an interview appointment at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, or the U.S. Consulate General in Surabaya. At the conclusion of this interview, the Consulate Officer will either grant you the Visa or deny you the Visa. Okay. Fine. So we made our appointment in Surabaya for Monday, March 10^th, at 7:30am (yuk!).

So knowing we had to travel to Surabaya (about 2 hours from Malang) and knowing that his appointment was at such an ungodly hour, we decided we would go up the night before and stay the night. Robe’s mom thought it was a good idea for us to stay with her sister and her sister’s family, who happen to live in Sby, so that we could save money. The Tourist Visa was already going to cost Robe’s entire monthly salary (about $130). When we arrived at Robe’s Aunt’s house, we found out that she is possibly the worst host in the world. We arrived at 4:00pm, and by the time we went to bed at 10, she hadn’t even offered to feed us dinner or even given us an idea of how to obtain food in the area. She made us sleep on a mattress on the floor in the same room as Robe’s Grandmother (who stays permanently with them), when there was a perfectly good guest room that was not being used. She offered us the mattress, but she neglected to offer pillows. In the morning, it was her servants (not her) that offered us breakfast (which, of course, I could not eat because it was too spicy, so I went hungry until we got back to Malang later that day).

Anyway, that was not the worst part of the night. As I said before, we slept in the same room as Robe’s Grandma. Well, the woman apparently only sleeps a few hours every night, which we did not know. So we tried to go to bed at 10. We had just laid down when she came in the room and started talking on the phone…very loudly. Fantastic. In Indonesian culture, you’re not allowed to ask anything of your elders, so we couldn’t exactly ask her to take her conversation outside so her grandson could get some rest before his very important interview. Heavens no. About 30 minutes later, she finally hung up. Did she go to bed? No. She fiddled around for a few minutes (not quietly or gracefully either. The woman carries around 300 pounds on her 5-foot frame, so she kind of fumbles very loudly everywhere.) After fiddling around, she took something out of a drawer. I didn’t know what it was, but the next minute I heard the very distinctive “Bing!” of a video game and then the very familiar Mario Bros theme song played. For the next 4 ½ hours, this song haunted me & Robe. The woman actually sat there on her bed, playing Mario Bros for almost 5 hours! I guess her arthritis flared up a few times, because every once in a while she would shuffle out to the kitchen to grab some food, bring it back to the room and smack her lips for about 10 minutes. Every time she turned her video game back on, I wanted to cry. She even kept the bedroom light on, so even if I closed my eyes, it still wasn’t dark enough to fall asleep. I begged Robe to say something to her, but he refused, saying it wasn’t his place.

Just so you get the full effect, imagine what was going on. A 74-year-old woman sitting in her little old lady nightgown (that she wears 24/7, I might add) on the edge of her bed at 3:00 in the morning, leaning intently over a tiny little pink Gameboy. That’s what I had to deal with until 4:30am, when she finally decided to turn off the light and try this new-fangled thing called sleep. Unfortunately for us, 4:30 was exactly the time my alarm was going to go off to wake us up and get Robe ready for his interview.

Oh, it was awful. We were so exhausted, and I felt so bad for Robe because he had a long morning ahead of him. We arrived to the Consulate at about 6:30am, but I knew I couldn’t go in with him (only applicants are allowed inside the building), so I just dropped him off and went back to his Aunt’s house. He also wasn’t allowed to bring a cell phone in, so I just had to wait (impatiently and anxiously) at the house until his taxi pulled up. I left him at 6:30am and he didn’t make it back to the house until noon. It was agonizing having to wait with no word…

Well, poor Robe. He had an awful morning. When he got inside the building, he went through security (several times, apparently) and waited until about 8am, when they gave him #20. There were 40 people there, so he was right in the middle. So he sat in a room until 11:20am (sweating profusely despite the AC. When he’s nervous, he sweats like crazy.), at which time they called his number. He went up to the window for his interview (after paying the 1.25 million Rupiah…) and gave the Consulate Officer all of his application materials. She took them, asked him one question and told him he couldn’t apply for another Visa if still waiting to hear about the Fiancé Visa.

So almost 5 hours of waiting for a 2-minute rejection. On not even one minute of sleep. Poor thing. I felt so bad for him, and I kind of felt like it was my fault because I told him it was okay to apply. I don’t understand why, but lots of other people can go on Tourist Visas while waiting for news. I guess Indonesians can’t…but I’m really upset because it was such a waste of time and money for us to go through all of that. I wish they would just put that information somewhere. And why can people from places like Spain and France go on Tourist Visas and Indonesians can’t? I’ll never understand. Part of me thinks that Consulate officer was wrong and we should protest, but you’re not allowed to protest or even ask for further clarification.

What hurt Robe more than anything was that the Consulate officer was really mean and stupid. She told him that she couldn’t understand his English and called for a translator. When he came back to the house he was so distraught about his English, and now he’s nervous to talk to anyone else besides me in English. He thinks that because I’m used to teaching English to foreigners, I can understand what he means but no one else can. I keep trying to reassure him that’s not true, but he’s really self-conscious about his English now…poor thing!

So anyway. I’m pretty much out of options at this point, and I don’t really see how it’s possible for Robe to come home with me… Robe’s dad has a customer at the shop who is married to a Swiss woman, and this guy’s brother is married to an American woman (very international family, it seems!). So Robe called this guy’s brother to get some advice. Here’s what they did. They also applied for the Fiancé Visa, but when it became clear that it was going to take way too long (according to them, European applications are processed quickly but it usually takes about a year for Indonesian applications), they cancelled the FV. They got “married” here (meaning they went to City Hall & had the certificate made), then got him a Tourist Visa, came to the U.S., had the marriage certificate translated & certified at the Indonesian Embassy in DC, then went to “US Immigration” (wherever that is, I’m guessing he meant the Dep’t of Homeland Security or something like that) and applied for a Green Card for him. And that was the end of that story. They got married in 2004 and he’s now an American citizen. Anyway, this guy and his American wife are visiting Malang at the end of March, so we are going to meet with them and see if they can help us at all. This guy has connections at the U.S. Consulate General in Bali, so he said he’d poke around a little bit for us.

Sorry if I’m boring you with all of this Visa talk, but trust me. This is what has been consuming my life for more than two months… And for what? I feel like I’m failing at every chance to get Robe into the U.S. I just wish it weren’t so difficult! If I have to wait a year to get him home, I don’t know what I’ll do…

Okay anyway. Moving on to a completely different topic. We came back to Malang, and the next morning (Tuesday), I was getting ready for school and Robe was bored waiting for me, so he turned on the TV. He started watching celebrity news (the equivalent of the E! Channel). I was minding my own business, drying my hair and all of a sudden I heard Robe yell my name. I jumped, screamed, and ran into the TV room, thinking Robe had hurt himself or something. No, no, nothing like that. He couldn’t even use his words he was so shocked, he just pointed to the TV. I started watching. All I could see was a very famous Indonesian celebrity (a very recognizable face here, maybe the Indo equivalent of Ben Affleck or Keanu Reaves). He was talking to some microphones that had been shoved in his face, saying things like “I’m sorry, that’s my personal life, so I will not comment on that.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but then the screen switched to some photographs of the actor and another young man (a foreigner), posing shirtless and standing very close together in a rather compromising position (Indonesian TV has no boundaries – they show everything including real dead bodies on the news). I gasped and my mouth dropped open. I knew that guy! There he was, Matt, one of my former Polish housemates, plastered all over Indonesian TV barely dressed. Oh my God…

I guess you can imagine what they were asking the celebrity. Are you gay? Is this guy your lover? Things like that. I immediately sent a message to Matt, just in case he didn’t know. I wanted to warn him to stay away from his school. He goes to a private, very conservative Muslim university here in Malang, so they would absolutely stone him if they thought he was gay. (Another Darmasiswa student, my friend Julia, was born in Indonesia but adopted by a German couple when she was a baby. So she looks Javanese, but the only culture she’s ever really known is German. She goes to the same private Muslim university as Matt. At the beginning, local students there thought she was also a local student and they would throw things at her and scream bad things at her because she didn’t cover her head. Yea…thank God my university isn’t like that!) Anyway, so I was just trying to look out for him. I didn’t care what was really going on, I was just concerned about my friend. He replied that he already knew about it, that he was in Jakarta trying to deal with it. He told me that one of the actor’s sisters is married to Matt’s uncle, so actually the actor was kind of like his uncle. Apparently someone is trying to ruin this actor guy, so they broke into his computer and stole all of these pictures and made fake photos and sent them to the media. Oh my goodness…the celebrity circle here is so dark…

So anyway, I have been seeing photos of my friend all over the TV for the past week. Matt’s still in Jakarta. He’s not sure if he’s even going to come back to Malang, and he’s even thinking about going home. I feel so bad for him…I hope everything works out.

Okay well I will leave you all alone now. I’ve taken enough of your time as is. I love you all and I will see you in a few months!

Not much around these parts...

2008-02-26T21:55:00.001-08:00

Surprised to see me update so soon this time? Even I myself am a little bit surprised :)

Robyn, I have to tell you that your comment made me laugh out loud in the middle of this Internet cafe. What was it exactly that I asked you that time? Was it "How do I turn the washing machine on?" And I don't think we were kids - I'm pretty sure it was when my fam was living on Cantrell...oh my. And yes, you saw me wearing 2 dresses in those pictures (the blue one and the black one). You want to know the sad thing? I had to go to a seamstress and have those two dresses specially made for me because I'm too big to shop in Indonesia...oy! As for your question about Robe. It's looking more and more like he won't be able to come with me in May. He may not be able to get his Visa until the end of the summer at this rate. The estimated timeline is between 2 and 12 months (great estimate, huh?). At this point I'm kind of thinking ours will be on the lengthy end of that. Actually I was in a forum for people applying for Fiance Visas and there was one couple (the girl was from Spain and the guy from the States) who got the girl's Visa in ONE MONTH! I told them congratulations, but secretly I hate them.

Tara - yea, I think Robe is going to be really weirded out by a lot of things, but I think he's ready for something a little more modern. Of course, I'm not entirely sure about that because when we went to Jakarta (the capital & biggest city in Indonesia - Indonesian equivalent of like NYC), he kept looking at everything like it was the 8th wonder of the world. It really was like "farm boy goes to the big city." Quite funny. He's going to be surprised by everything in the US - from the fact that we don't let our food sit out on the kitchen table all day to our weekend being two days instead of one. As for your car, I'm sorry I called it trashy. It's just that purple reminds me of like a white trash kind of car. But I'm sure if you like it, it must be the furthest thing from white trash. Just promise me you're not going to grow a mullet to drive it ;-) just kidding! I can't wait to see your hot new little race car :)

As for me, not really much to report from this side of the world. I've been battling some weird illness recently. I think I've just gotten so tired from all my sudden activities (after a month of complete freedom and relaxation), and the fact that this weather has been doing some crazy things. This is the worst weather - freezing (okay not really freezing, this is a tropical country after all) cold in the morning, burning hot in the early afternoon, ferocious rains in the late afternoon (but while it's still hot!) and then it's freezing cold in the evening/night with CRAZY winds. And the humidity jumps from 20% to 99% throughout the day, too. And that has been every day for the past two weeks, pretty much...

So this crazy illness is what the Indonesians call "masuk angin." Literally, it means "entrance of the wind" or "the wind enters" or something like that. Indonesians really truly believe that wind can get into your body through your belly button. And when the weather is really bad, or you're really tired, apparently you get this. They've even got special medicine for this. It's called "jamu" and it's traditional. I can tell you from firsthand experience that jamu tastes like minty poop. Don't ask me how I came to that conclusion. Probably the same way I came to call the icing on store-bought cakes "lipstick" icing. Anyway, up to now, I have not actually believed in this illness. I mean, how the heck can wind get into your body? Then about a week ago, I couldn't sleep because I felt really weird. Nothing actually hurt, though. My body felt tired, I was a little bit dizzy, and my stomach felt all rumbly and bumbly (in the same place where you get heartburn, so you can imagine how weird that felt). All at the same time I felt like I was going to faint, throw up or go number 2. This is probably too much information for you, but this is just such a strange story I had to tell it.

Anyway, so I felt so incredibly weird and uncomfortable that I couldn't sleep. I went out to the kitchen at about 10pm and Robe's sister was still awake, so we sat at the table and chatted for a while. She kept trying to tell me that I had "masuk angin" and I kept telling her that I didn't believe in that. (Imagine how strange it was for Vivi to hear this -- it would be like telling an American that you didn't believe in the common cold) Then Robe's other sister Lia came home with her fiancé Budi. Budi went to college in Canada, so he was trying to explain to Lia & Vivi why Americans wouldn't believe in masuk angin.

He convinced me to try to take some medicine to prevent it, but of course I was too stubborn to take the liquid medicine you're supposed to take. It smelled too much like wet dog and I was not about to ingest that. He said it also came in tablet form, but they didn't have any at their house. So Robe's sister Adi volunteered to run out (it was almost midnight at this point) and try to find a pharmacy. More than an hour later he came back, victorious. I had been suffering from these symptoms practically all day (taking Pepto Bismol to try and feel better), and after I took those tablets (which tasted like minty poop) I felt completely better in about 7 minutes. Unbelievable.

Anyway. All this to say that I now believe in masuk angin. I still don't think wind can actually get into your body, but I believe that this illness does exist in Indonesia. It's so weird, though. I've never heard of anything like this in the States. Maybe you guys could help me think of an equivalent. I think it has something to do with the weird weather here, though.

So next time someone tells you that you've got wind in your body, don't be so quick to reject the idea! :)

Valentine's Day gone wrong...

2008-02-22T17:08:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! So yes, I do realize that V-Day was like more than a week ago, but I still have to tell you about how frustrating my day was...

Actually Robe proved to be quite the romantic. I told him I would make him dinner, and so while I was preparing our meal he decorated part of his house for us. It was so cute and romantic – he put up black fabric to make it seem more private and set up a little table with candles and everything. It was all very cute. He tried to find flowers for me, but unfortunately florists don’t exist here. So he searched all over Malang to find me these really ugly plastic flowers. But of course I love them. It was so sweet!

So for dinner I planned on making chicken tetrazzini, one of my favorite dinners. Let’s just say that turned into quite an ideal because Indonesians just don’t have anything good to cook with…

First of all, the knives in their house are quite dull, so I had to practically pull the chicken apart with my hands. They don’t have small pots, so I had to use this really huge could-serve-an-army kind of pot that I was barely tall enough to see inside of. No skillets here either, so I had a choice between incredibly tiny or obnoxiously huge woks that are too heavy to pick up. I won’t even mention that they do measurements by weight (grams), not volume (cups) like we do. You can imagine me trying to measure things like “1 cup of milk” and “1 ½ teaspoons of black pepper.” If you know me at all you know how (not) often I cook, so I couldn’t really “eye” 1 ½ teaspoons of black pepper. I’m pretty sure I put in like 2 tablespoons, because the sauce was very “lada hitam” (black pepper) heavy.

Before I forget, they use these little gas stoves circa 1800 that poop out on you in the middle of cooking your chicken without you noticing. Thus, it took me about 2 hours to cook the chicken. Okay so let’s also not forget that nothing is in one place here (i.e. the kitchen). There is no water supply in the "kitchen," so I had to keep going back and forth between the bathroom and kitchen just for water. And they don’t keep any dishes or silverware in the kitchen, because that would make way too much sense. They keep them behind the pantry, where they have a very strange dish washing station which is very wet (all over, even on the floor!) and very disgusting. So if I was in the middle of cooking, oh I don’t know, sauce, for example. And I needed another fork, just for example. Forget it. I would have to stop everything I was doing, turn off the stove, and run to the washing station, grab a fork and run back to the kitchen, starting everything all over again.

That leads me to the sticking point. So after laboring intensively and uncomfortably (most Indonesian women are quite short, so their countertops are strangely low. I had to bend over awkwardly for about three hours while cooking), I asked Robe to get the oven out for me. He had told me before that they had an oven, but they put it away when they weren’t using it (so I’m thinking, a portable oven?). I was not prepared for what he did next. First he went outside, grabbed 2 bricks (and I do mean bricks, the kind you build houses with), and handed them to me. Yea, like I knew what I was supposed to do with those... He took them back, placed them on either side of the gas stove, then disappeared again. About a minute later he came back, awkwardly carrying this metal toolbox with holes in the side. Turns out, that metal toolbox was the oven. Oh my God. I swear you have never seen anything like this. He put the toolbox oven on top of the bricks, turned the gas stove on, and turned to look at me with this huge smile on his face. I just kind of stared blankly at him, all the while thinking “What the heck am I supposed to do with that?”

Anyway. After “preheating” the oven (did I mention there were no knobs or buttons or anything on this oven? You have no option about the temperature and you just kind of have to guess when the oven is hot enough), I pried open the oven door, literally using all the strength I had (with oven mitts on, of course, because the entire metal contraption was piping hot). I threw in the chicken tetrazzini and waited – for about an hour. Even after an hour, the dish was just hot, not even all good and melty, the way Mom makes it. Oh, well…

Did I mention that I didn’t start cooking until after 6pm? The housekeeper had told me she would finish cooking around 4pm so that I could use the kitchen. Yea, that didn’t happen… So poor Robe, who had worked hard all day, didn’t even get to eat dinner until after 9pm. I felt so awful. My “experiment” as I like to call it these days, didn’t even turn out all that great. I also made a salad, but that turned out to be a disaster because I bought way too many veggies (thinking Robe’s family could enjoy it, too). Clearly I was wrong and practically the entire salad went to waste because Indonesians don’t know how to eat anything that’s not fried. I told them they could eat vegetables raw, and they looked at me like I had three heads.

Oh, well. It doesn’t matter because after all the stress of cooking in Indonesia (which, by the way, I’m never doing ever again), Robe and I did actually get to enjoy our meal (which was not too terrible…).

That’s all I have for you today, ladies and gentlemen. I’m sorry, Tara, for not updating sooner! It’s been a little hectic around here lately… But thank you for all of the updates!! How is the new car? I can’t wait to see it!!! But purple…sounds a little trashy and weird to me…but if you like it then it’s definitely fine J

And it's been a long time....

2008-02-12T00:53:00.000-08:00

I do SOOO apologize for not having written in forever. However, in my defense I will say that I have had an absolutely insane last few weeks.

Thank you so much for all of the comments!! Robe says hello and thank you for all the congratulations. We are so excited to get back to the States. I miss it so much and Robe is really looking forward to this next chapter of his life (Aunt Heather's words, not his! ;-).

I wanted to say thank you to Dad & Tammy for the candy, Grandma Marsha & Grandpa Vic for the card and wishes, Aunt Becki for the awesome photo album (which made me really regret not being able to spend Christmas with you all...) and Aunt Heather for the engagement gift. Thank you guys so much! I feel like I was connected to you for just a little bit!

As most of you already know, my Mom and Grandma visited me here in Malang a little over 2 weeks ago. We all had an absolute blast! Robe and I flew to Jakarta to pick them up as they arrived in the country. The two of us had some fun touring the city for a couple of days before Mom & Grandma got here. That was pretty cool - one of Robe's dad's "employees" works up in Jakarta, and we met up with him. He gave us the royal treatment - finding us a really nice hotel and taking us around the city. We had such a great time!

So I was so shocked to see people I actually know get off the plane in Jakarta (Mom & Nay Nay, I mean). It was kind of weird to have members of my family actually in Indonesia, but I got over that pretty quickly. We picked them up around 9pm at the airport and we ended up staying up really late (like 2am) that night, just catching up and everything. Actually Robe's parents were on a trip in Cambodia and surprise! They came home two days early and met us at the hotel in Jakarta. The next day we flew to Malang and our little adventure was underway!

We did so much in a short 3 days -- we visited a neighboring city (called "Batu," which means 'stone' in Indonesian) where there is an absolutely beautiful waterfall called "Coban Rondo." We traveled around Malang a bit -- saw my university, Matos (the infamous local mall that I spend way too much time at), ate LOTS of (what I thought was) good food. I think Mom liked the food, but I'm not so sure about Grandma. They also got to meet a lot of people - all of Robe's family (and they were quite smitten with Robe's sister's fiancé Budi), my host family and some of my friends. We also had a rather amusing night at karaoke. Grandma, I have quite a hilarious video of you and Jonathan singing an Indonesian children's song. And Mom, I've got a video of me and you singing "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" which should never be shown without our supervision...

We all (Mom, Grandma, me and Lily) stayed at Robe's house for their visit, which was nice because we didn't have to worry about going back and forth to the hotel. The only thing that was maybe not so great was that meant that there was a lot of translating going on. I mean, I fully expected it but for some reason it stressed me out a lot. Whenever Robe's parents wanted to say something to Mom or Grandma, they would incessantly call my name regardless of whether or not I was already engaged in some other conversation. All in all, though, Mom & Grandma had a great time I think. Robe's parents are excellent hosts and everything was pretty much taken care of (and paid for) by Robe's dad. I'm pretty certain that Grandma wanted to take Jonathan (Robe's 14-yr-old brother) home with her.

Come to think of it, both Mom & Grandma were quite a hit. Everyone kept talking about how awesome my Grandma was (she taught Robe's sister how to knit and now Lia is absolutely unstoppable! she played silly card games with us and sang her heart out at karaoke). Then everyone kept saying how they thought Mom was actually my older sister and how pretty she was. I heard the phrase "hot mom" on more than two occasions...

It was really sad when they flew out, but it didn't make me more homesick (thank goodness!). I'm really ready to come home, but I've only got a little bit longer here, and I'm not that impatient.

So after that, Lily and I had some time before classes started up again at school. And actually today was my first day of real class. Yesterday Lily and I found out that they were allowing us to go into the regular classes with local students, which was exciting and yet terrifying at the same time. We were each allowed to choose our own classes, so I chose: Drama Appreciation, Phonology of Bahasa Indonesia, Semantics of Bahasa Indonesia, Sociology of Letters (not letters A, B, C, but Letters as in study of language), and Advanced Reading. So far I've been to one class of Phonology and one class of Semantics, and it's okay. Phonology wasn't so difficult and for Semantics I have a really funny professor who likes to show off his English skills (or lack thereof). The only thing is that each class is 1 hour 40 minutes, and at AU each class was only 1 hour 15 minutes, so I've got to get used to long class times. It's alright, though. I'm looking forward to really improving my spoken Indonesian. I was a scheduling genius, though, and now I only have to come to campus 3 days a week!!

In other news, I did decide to move in with Robe and actually I moved everything out of my old house this past weekend. It's okay living there, I guess. I mean, these days I stay out of the house A LOT on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I leave around 7am and don't come home until 6 or 7pm. The real test will be the end of this week, because I'll be stuck in the house all day with Robe's mom and their housekeeper. Their house is actually outside of the city of Malang, so it's too far to take public transportation. I'd have to switch mini-buses like 3 times just to get to the mall...Meh, I won't have much free time anyway because I'll be doing a lot of homework it seems!

Okay that's about it. Now I'm sitting here at the painfully slow internet cafe (but at least now I have my own laptop so I can use the wireless, which is a tiny bit faster...) waiting for Robe to pick me up and take me home. So I guess I will talk to you all later!! Miss you all and love you :) :) :)

Phew...it's been a while!

2008-01-13T23:21:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and family (and apparently other faithful readers...)!

Another message coming to you from the other side of the globe. Sorry it's been so long... My roommate (Lily) and I have recently taken to buying pirated DVDs and watching countless episodes of great American TV shows on her laptop. Shall we just say that it has absolutely taken over our days so much that we find ourselves too lazy to walk across the street to the Internet cafe. Tara and Amy - it reminds me of those days lounging on Mom's couch watching episode after episode of Grey's and Desperate Housewives and all those nights glued to our Prison break DVDs! So far this vacay, Lily and I have finished Season 1 of Brothers and Sisters, reviewed Season 1 of Desperate Housewives, we went through Season 1 of Gossip Girl in 1 day, and now we are working on Season 2 of Sex & the City. It's absolutely amazing, and by far my favorite way to spend my vacation...Luckily for us, each pirated DVD costs the equivalent of about 70 cents (in USD). I love developing countries!!

So anyway. What has been going on in my life other than wasting my days laying on my mattress (I can't really call it a bed...there's no frame!)? Well, since getting engaged, Robe's parents planned the most incredible engagement parties (not party) for us. We had one for his family, which consisted of me getting dressed up (dress, hair, makeup...they all said I looked like Barbie) and participating in some very strange Chinese-Indonesian customs (such as handing his aunts and uncles a shot-glass full of wine one-by-one and then shaking my closed fists up and down like I wanted to knock them out). Apparently getting engaged to Indonesians is just as important as actually getting married, and his family gave us quite a bit of money. All in all, we got about $800 (US). That's over 8 million rupiah (their currency). Sound like a lot? That's because it is...

The next day we had a big party for all of our friends & the people in the neighborhood. That was exciting - I shook hands with about 100 people I didn't know, but whatever, it was still cool. Robe's parents had both parties catered and there was music and fun and it was just great. His family really is amazing. Bu Dewi's (my former host mom) employees at her factory saw the pictures from this party and they told me that Robe looks like a Chinese movie star. That made me smile :) I'll post pictures next time, I promise! I just forgot to bring my camera to the cafe :(

What else? His parents asked me to move in with their family. They were telling me how they wanted to spend more time with the two of us before we leave, and it's hard with their son leaving every evening to come hang out with me. I definitely understand where they're coming from, but it would complicate my already complicated life here considerably. We'll see how this pans out, but I might be moving yet again very soon...

My Mom and Grandma are coming in less than 2 weeks now, and I am getting so very excited!! Robe and I are thinking about traveling a little bit before we go pick them up in Jakarta. We might be heading to Yogjakarta, which is the cultural center of Java (located in Central Java...about 8 hours drive from Malang). I've always wanted to go there, so that would be so exciting!!!

I think for now that's about it. I will keep you all updated on the exciting details of my life. Miss you all and see you soon!

Well Bali was a bust, but surprise!!

2008-01-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

Oh wow! Thank you guys so much for all the messages!! I want to give a special congratumalations to Aunt Becki for being a college graduate!! I am so excited for you :)

And thank you Tara, my lovely sister, for keeping me updated on everyone. What would I do without you?!

Oh my goodness, Kyle! Mr. Tumnus! Just so you know, the image of JT doing his sexy "Mr. Tumnus" flashed through my head and I started cracking up in the middle of this internet cafe. Everyone is staring at the crazy white girl now...good times...

And Grandma, you're not going to starve over here, I promise! If all else fails, we will hit up Pizza Hut, McDonald's and KFC (yes, they have all of those here...and they've even got a "Papa Ron's Pizza" which I find quite amusing). Sadly for Tori, Starbucks has not yet made it to Malang. There are several in Jakarta, a few in Surabaya, but none in Malang.

Anyway. So here's a recap of my WONDERFUL holiday in Bali - it rained, rained some more, rained again, kept on raining, continued to rain, monsooned, monsooned some more, monsooned again...I think you get the point. It was absolutely awful. Everything that was on the plan got canceled and we just ended up shopping, eating, and sitting on the bus for 4 days straight. The few times it wasn't raining we managed to snap some good pictures, and maybe I will post them here next time. The one redeeming moment was "Pulau Penyu" which means "Tortoise Island." There we got to play with giant tortoises that were over 100 years old, we held snakes and bats and eagles and had all kinds of fun. Unfortunately it only lasted 2 hours, but whatever...

I guess the one good thing is that the entire tour (food, hotel, transportation, admission to places, etc.) only cost $75 when you convert it into US dollars, so I guess I shouldn't complain too terribly much. It's much scarier when you think about the 750,000 rupiah it cost. Gotta love weak currencies!

So after we got back from Bali with sore butts and stomachaches at 7am, we all slept pretty much all day. Later that night, Robe and I went out to dinner by ourselves for some alone time. We went to this normal little seafood restaurant (even though Robe can't really eat seafood, he was sweet enough to let me enjoy my favorite cuisine). I thought everything seemed very normal. We were chatting and enjoying each other's company, as usual. Then after we ordered our food, he looked at me and said very casually "Will you marry me?" Seeing how casual he was about it, I thought he was just kidding, and so I just looked back and him and didn't say anything. It was then that he reached in his pocket and pulled out...yes, you guessed it, a ring. At that moment I realized he wasn't joking. Completely shocked, I didn't know what to say. And then I started crying. Robe was obviously worried when he saw tears, and he immediately started asking "Are you okay? I'm sorry, did I do something wrong? Oh my gosh I'm sorry! Are you okay?" He was so awkward about it, but it was just adorable. Finally I started crying, but I still couldn't say anything. After a moment of silence, Robe looked at me and said very unsurely, "So...will you marry me?" At that point I couldn't hold back anymore and said, "Yes."

So yea...it seems I'm engaged. Kinda crazy if you ask me, but right now I am absolutely the happiest person in the world. I'm sorry I couldn't call all of you and tell you, and I realize how much it sucks to read about this on a blog, but there's no way I could call everyone!

So there you have it. I'm currently talking to my mom about wedding plans (wow, that sounds so weird). Hopefully if we can get Robe's Visa in time, he can come home with me in June, and then legally we must marry within 90 days of his arrival to the US or else he'll get deported, so get ready for a mid-summer wedding everyone! That is, if we decide we want a wedding. We'll see!

Okay well I gotta get going. I just wanted to share the good news with everyone!! I miss you all and love you like crazy!!!

Winter Holiday!

2007-12-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!!

Yay!!! I am on vacation now!! :) We just had our last day of class on Wednesday, and our second semester won't start until FEBRUARY 11th! So I have 1.5 months to sit back and relax...I'm so excited!!

So on our last day of class we had a big meeting with the important ppl at our uni (the Dean, Vice Dean, President, etc...) and they're pretty sure that me and some of the other Darmasiswa students here are good enough at Indonesian that they are going to put us in the regular classes with real Indonesian students next semester...eek!!

Actually a lot has been going on around here. Wednesday night was the last night we were all going to be in the house (ppl are going home and travelling over the holidays), so we decided to have a nice Christmas dinner. It was great - we had Chinese food and traditional Javanese cakes and fruits...okay, so not exactly the Christmas turkey, but that's okay. The important thing was that we were all together and we had a lot of fun. After the dinner we exchanged gifts and it was really a good time.

Yesterday (December 20th) was Idul Adha, a big Muslim holiday where they sacrifice goats and cows and give all the meat to the neighbors. It was really sad for us because for the last two weeks they have been setting up these makeshift stables all over the side of the road where they've been selling goats and cows from. So we have gotten to really enjoy our little goat friends down the street, but on Thursday most of them disappeared and we knew that they had met their death. Sad, sad, sad...

Tomorrow we are heading to Bali on our little tour. It's going to be amazing!! Christmas on a beach in Bali...what could be better? Well, spending time with my friends and family at home would be better, but will be a pretty cool experience!

Okay well there's still lots of preparation I need to do before we leave for Bali tomorrow (like finding good sunblock...hm....). I miss you all and love you all!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!!!! :) :) :)

Is anyone reading this?

2007-12-13T20:01:00.001-08:00

I'm just curious - is anyone actually reading my blog? I haven't gotten any comments about it recently and I'm wondering if it is a waste of my time...

So please do me a favor. If you are reading this, please just leave me a comment or send me an email at victoria.blake.martin@gmail.com to let me know that I'm not wasting my time here updating...

Thanks so much!!!

I'm going to Bali!

2007-12-11T00:36:00.001-08:00

Hola everyone! Just thought I'd send a quick little update from this side of the world...

Exciting recent events in Tori's life:
1. We now have a stove (and working gas tank after quite an adventure) at our house, which means we can now make our beloved cuisines from our respectful countries (US, Poland, China). I tried once but failed miserably to make spaghetti with veggies. I had just placed the veggies in the pan to steam when poof! Our tiny gas tank ran out...and so after running around the city (at 9:00 at night, mind you) for an hour trying to find another tiny gas tank, we gave up and took our veggies to the little old woman down the street who owns a food stall and we actually asked her if we could use her stove to just at least finish cooking our veggies. We were quite embarrassed, but we didn't want to waste all those good veggies (I mean, we're talking broccoli, cauliflower, baby corn and carrots!). To our surprise, she not only let us use her stove, but she actually cooked the veggies for us while we sat there and chatted with her. She was so cute! And to show our appreciation we gave her Rp.5000 (about $0.50...yea we're big spenders!).

2. I'm going to Bali for Christmas!!! Hindy, Lily, Robe, Jonathan (his 14yr old bro), Vivi (his 26yr old sis) and I decided we did not want to be bored at Christmas this year, so we are headed off to Bali for 4 days!

3. I came home the other day as the Poles were decorating our very own Christmas tree! They bought this 3-foot artificial tree at a supermarket and decorated it with ornaments and garland. The only thing we are currently lacking is an angel or a star, but as you can imagine all of these things are hard to come by in a Muslim country...

4. We bought 5 fish for the pond outside our house, and despite the millions of cats that now hang out in our yard, all the fish are still alive! We thought about getting a cat or a dog, but then we decided this was a bad idea for 7 20-somethings to adopt an animal that actually requires real care...meh!

5. I just found out my Mom and Grandma Nay Nay are coming to visit me in January!!! Oh wow I'm so excited!!! I miss everyone back at home so much and this is going to be so wonderful! Of course, I might be tempted to come home with them, I don't know... :) If anyone else wants to visit me, please please please! It would be so great! You can have free lodging if you don't mind sleeping on the floor...

6. The other day I visited Blitar (a city about 2.5 hours away from Malang) to teach at a high school there. I was really happy because after my class, all of the teachers and the headmaster all told me that I had a great talent for teaching and that I was better than any of the other native speakers they've invited in the past. I was really pleased :) Just thought I'd brag a little bit...

Okay that's about it. I should get going. I have a class in 8 minutes. Busy, busy, busy!!

And we've all had it up to here with Indonesia!

2007-12-02T20:01:00.000-08:00

So it must just be because we are all getting fed up with all the nonsense in this country, but last night me, Lily, Hindy and Justyna (the Polish girl who lives with us) all of a sudden started letting out all of our frustrations with everything here.

It seems we are all sick and tired of being overcharged everywhere we go (I mean, we are students here and just because we have lighter skin than the Javanese doesn't mean we are made of money!). We are all so over getting yelled at on the street by uneducated men with funky teeth and dirty little kids. In fact, last night we were walking to get some dinner and some greasy guys squatting on the side of the road doing nothing (because a quarter of this country is unemployed) started yelling at us. We got a few "Hei Mister (because they don't know the difference between Mister and Miss), jalan-jalan?" This is quite an innocent statement if you translate it: Hey sir, going for a walk? However it was the way they kept saying it that just pissed Lily off greatly. She actually turned around and yelled "Shut up!" at them (in English). Then I yelled "kurang ajar!" (which is the equivalent of "what's your problem?") and they were absolutely silent.

The other night, we went to get bread at this really cute bakery around the corner we frequent. I just grabbed a loaf of bread that cost Rp.5000 ($0.50) and when I went to pay, the price suddenly jumped to Rp.5500. Knowing sales tax doesn't exist in Indonesia, I asked the woman why the price was different than the price that was marked on the bread. She told me that it was the old price and that they hadn't changed it yet. Well, I was angry so I decided to argue. I told her if the price was old then that must mean the bread was old, which is clearly against your policy that says everything is made fresh that same day. Then I demanded to get my Rp.500 back because she was cheating me, and I told her I would tell all my friends who often come to the bakery. Okay, so I may have gone a little overboard, but as it turns out, I've been asking my friends to pay attention and everyone gets overcharged there. Let me rephrase: all FOREIGN people get overcharged. They don't dare overcharge Javanese people...argh!!!

And we've also had enough of the Javanese boy who lives with us, who doesn't do his chores on time and is constantly late on the rent. By other countries' standards, the Javanese are lazy, excuse-making, inconsiderate, rude, cheating people and frankly I'm glad I don't have that many Javanese friends.

Quick little note: When I say Javanese, I mean the native Indonesians. There are two main ethnic groups in Java: Javanese and Chinese Indonesians (those whose ancestors came from China but most of them can't even speak two words of Mandarin). The Chinese tend to be the upper-class, more well educated people and the Javanese are more like lower-class, uneducated people. This has a lot to do with history, as the Chinese originally came in as merchants and when the Dutch took over the country they entrusted the Chinese as their business partners while they imprisoned the Javanese. Okay, but the point being that there is a big difference that can be felt still today.

I have made friends mostly with Chinese Indonesians, and I think there is a reason for this. Religion plays a role, I'm sure, as most Javanese are Muslims and most Chinese are Christian or Buddhist. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this entry, but I think I just needed to vent.

Okay other than that everything is going really well! I found out the other day that two of my students (twin girls) live right across the street from me, and so I went and had dinner with them last night. It was really fun, and they invited me back whenever I want.

Alrighty. Later guys!!

Boring week

2007-11-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

Hola everyone! I just wanted to send a quick update from across the Pacific...

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving!! And all of you who were lucky enough to eat turkey on that wonderful day, I hate you. Actually I was really bummed that I wasn't going to have a Thanksgiving dinner. But then Robe organized a big Thanksgiving dinner for me with my housemates, and I felt so incredibly blessed. Although it was Chinese food, it still felt special because we all ate together and laughed together. We played games, talked about the Thanksgiving story and we talked about why we were thankful. It was so great, and we didn't even go to sleep until 1:30am, which is unheard of in Indonesia. Granted, this was not the best idea we've ever had, as I had to wake up at 5am the next morning to teach at 6:30. Needless to say I was a little groggy when I walked into the classroom...

Anyway, nothing exciting really happened last week. I FINALLY got my passport back from Jakarta, but actually some of the other Darmasiswa students at my uni still haven't gotten theirs back. Keep in mind we sent in our passports to get our extended stay Visa at the beginning of September, when all the Darmasiswa students first arrived in Indonesia. It has taken Indo Immigration almost 3 months to get my passport back to me. Ridiculous. And some of the kids who don't have theirs back yet are planning on going home for Christmas. Clearly they can't leave the country if they don't have their passports. So we called Jakarta to ask them about this, and do you know what they said? "You will just have to wait until we can finish them. We are sending out about 10 per day and if yours is on the bottom of the pile, well then that's too bad." Then they said they hoped to be finished with all of the passports by mid-January. When we then told them some of us wanted to go home for Christmas, they pretty much said, "Too bad, so sad for you. You'll just have to wait." AH! INDONESIA!!!

Anyway, we found a nice little "warung" (very small restaurant/food stand) near our house that is extremely cheap and good. We can get a full meal - rice, tempe (fried goodness made from soybeans), veggies, and fish for Rp4000, which is about $0.43. Isn't that ridiculously amazing? And the best part is that the woman who owns the place doesn't skimp on portions. Wonderful.

What else? Oh, hanging out with all of these Asians for 5 months is starting to take a toll on me. Before I went out the other day I put on sunblock and when I walked outside, I opened my umbrella to shade myself from the sun. I didn't even realize I was doing it until it started raining and I thought to myself, "Oh, I better get out my umbrella. I don't want to get wet." Yea...I'm now afraid of getting a tan. I must protect my beautiful white skin!! Oh my goodness I'm becoming Asian...When I told this story to Hindy and Lily (the 2 Chinese girls I spend all my time with), they laughed and said I've been using my umbrella for quite some time now. Oi.

Okay I think that's about it. We're all still doing well here, battling the sun and the bugs and the rain. I miss you all!!! Later :)

World War III : Humans vs. Bugs

2007-11-20T00:36:00.000-08:00

...and unfortunatly I'm not talking about Bugs Bunny.

I'm not going to lie to you all, my house is quite the battleground. Ever since the rainy season started, bugs of ALL kinds have been invading our house. Every night has become a guessing game as to which bugs will inhabit our humble abode, and we've managed to turn it into a game. Whoever can guess all the different kinds of bugs we will see that day in the house does not have to do his or her household chores the next day! It's great fun. I promise.

We have begun calling the situation in the house "World War III" which is kind of difficult for the 2 Chinese girls to say because they mix up their Rs and Ls sometimes...

So let me tell you about one of the worst nights of this whole thing...it was about 1.5 weeks ago....

It was about 7pm when the rain started. And of course, it wasn't a nice, cool drizzle. No, no, no. It was one of these torrential downpours that lasts an hour. Now, of course houses in Indonesia are not really built all that fabulously, so when it rains hard, you can't hear anything. We were in the middle of watching a movie on Hindy's laptop, and we couldn't turn it up loud enough to hear it. So we abandoned that idea and moved on to quieter activities.

Now, we were keeping the door open because it is so incredibly hot in this country and it's nice when it rains because usually we get a little breeze. Keeping the door open was a huge mistake. I was laying on the couch reading the newspaper, Hindy was listening to her mp3 player in the living room, and Lily and Maksum were working on some Indonesian homework. So there we were, the four of us, all very quietly going about our business when all of a sudden about a thousand of these flying insects swarmed into the house all at once, catching us all off guard.

I actually didn't realize anything was happening, as I was quietly dozing off, but then when I heard Lily's piercing scream, I practically jumped out of my skin. There were so many of these nasty little things that it actually got dark in our house! Not knowing what to do, we all ran into our bedrooms and slammed the doors shut. Of course I got bored in my room after about 10 minutes, so I opened the door and peeked outside into the living room. It was seriously like a scene from some war movie. There were all these dead insects lying dead all over our floor. Upon further investigation, we found that these little guys looked a bit like those helicopter leaves that fall from trees in Autumn. You know, those ones that kids (or Tori) pick up and throw because they fall down to the ground like little helicopters? Anyway, it was absolutely disgusting. Luckily we have tile floors, so we just swept them up with a broom and threw them outside.

About a half an hour later, I went into the kitchen to make a little late-night snack. I reached up into the cabinet to grab a loaf of bread, and as I pulled it down to the counter, a cockroach jumped off of it and landed on my shirt. And I completely lost it. I started jumping around and flailing about as if on fire. The three Polish ppl had come home from the gym at this point, and were all sitting in the living room. Robert thought I was actually on fire, and reached for a bucket. He was about to pour the water on me when he realized I was screaming "kecoak! kecoak!" ('cockroach' in Indonesian). By the time I calmed down, the cockroach was no longer clinging to my shirt and was gone somewhere.

So just a few minutes later, I heard Hindy scream from her room. We all went to investigate, hoping not to find some crazy ax murderer in her bed. What we found was possible worse. There was a ridiculously huge trail of ants leading from her window to the middle of her room, where one of those ugly helicopter bugs lay dead. There might have been a million ants there, and I am not really exaggerating. So, each armed with our own individual economy-size cans of insect repellant, we went after those darned ants. Then we swept them up like the other bugs...

Since that night, there have been more incidents with the helicopter bugs (which apparently are similar to cicadas in that they live underground and come out for a 2-hour lifespan, in which time they must mate and lay eggs. And when they come out, Indonesians rush out after them, to collect them and eat them. I'm not joking. It's disgusting!), we had a frog problem the other day in which there were 3 frogs trapped in our bathroom and we couldn't get them out. And we have a huge, New-York-sized resident rat who comes in and out as he pleases through a hole in the side of our house that the owner says cannot be fixed. Great times!

Okay well I've got to get going now. I have to teach in 30 minutes....

I probably will not get to the Warnet (Internet cafe) before Thursday, so in case I don't, I want to wish all of you Americans a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! And for the Martin family, Happy Thanksmas. I will be thinking of all of you eating your nice, salty turkey and sweet cranberry sauce and deliciously scrumptious pumpkin pie while I am taking a test and teaching 2 classes and doing my radio show. Yea, no rest for Tori on her holiday...So sad!! haha anyway love you all and catch you later!! :)

Rainy Season!

2007-11-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

Happy November! It's probably getting quite cold wherever you are reading this, but let me tell you how it is NOT getting cold at all here. In fact, it's getting hotter and hotter each day. From October through March is the hottest time of the year in Malang. Oh joy!!

Anyway, I would like to share with everyone the funny adventures of living in a house with 6 friends. As you all know, it is the rainy season, and that means it rains A LOT every day. The first time it rained a lot, we realized that we have a serious problem. Our new house leaks! We ran around like chickens with their heads cut off when we realized our roof was leaking for the first time. It was quite a spectacle - trying to find enough buckets to collect the dripping rain. Okay, it was less like "dripping" rain and more like "flooding" actually. I don't know how we missed it, but there's actually a huge hole in the roof above our living room. We finally decided that there were 4 major leaks and about 5 or 6 minor ones. Oh my goodness! So we contacted the owner of the house immediately, but of course things in Indonesia move slower than molasses. It's been 2 weeks and we still haven't heard anything from him. We call him about three times a day :) Actually we all laugh about it, and the buckets that we've placed to collect the rain have permanent places in the house, so more than anything we've come to love them and appreciate them :) :)

We also just had an adventure the other day. All of a sudden one night, our water stopped. We thought it was because we forgot to pay the water bill (that actually happened once with the electricity, but we quickly sorted that out! it was NOT my turn to pay the bills, I promise!!). But after realizing that someone had just paid, we tried to figure out what was going on. There are two random nozzles on one of the walls upstairs. It looks like there should be a tap attached to them, but there isn't. Now initially we just thought the people building the house forgot to put the taps in, but then we realized that the nozzles had something to do with the flow of water throughout the house. So when our water stopped, we ran up and down the stairs trying to figure out if any combinations of turning those nozzles made any difference. It didn't really, and finally someone realized that there was this hidden water pump outside that had been turned off. We still don't know who turned it off and why, but we finally have water. Granted, it's freezing cold water, but at least we can bathe!

Okay, that's about all for now from this side of the world! I love you all and miss you all dearly!!!!

Yes, I know, it's been a month...

2007-10-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular belief, I do realize that I haven't updated in a month. I'll skip the apologies, because I'm in Indonesia and Indonesians just don't apologize for anything...When in Rome...

So I'm going to change a few things on the blog. Because I tend to get carried away with recounting every step of my life, I've decided not to tell you every detail or give you a laundry list of my activities.

Much like my friend and former roomie/partner-in-crime Amy (who is currently interning in China, for those of you who don't know) , I have decided to dedicate the rest of this blog to my thoughts on and observations of life in Indonesia. Don't worry, I will throw in lots of amusing anecdotes and plan on including many interesting stories.

For now, I will content myself with the following observations:

1. This country is the EPITOME of disorganization
- I come to teach at SMA5 each morning/afternoon not knowing if that day we actually have class or not. And what's worse is that the other teachers simply accept this, as this is the way it has been done for years and years. A familiar morning greeting among teachers is not "Good morning, how are you?" But "Ada kelas hari ini apa nggak?" (Is there class this morning or not?) And the most common response? "Gak tahu aku. Ayo tanya!" (How am I supposed to know? Let's go ask.) And the students are just as confused. No wonder Indonesian students are not very advanced...

2. Just because you're an English teacher in Indonesia, doesn't mean you can actually speak English.
- I once met a H.S. English teacher who got confused when I asked him "Where do you teach?" His response? "Yes, I am love teach Engrris language." (Inggris = English in Indonesian). Oy!
- There's a 12-grade English teacher here at my school who asks her students what words are in English. Not because she's testing them, but because she truly doesn't know the English translation. She has this ridiculously thick Javanese accent, and her students imitate this because they think it's correct. Oh my goodness...you can't make this stuff up...

3. This country might be obsessed with bathing, but somehow they all still smell!!
- Probably the second most common question in this country (right behind "Sudah makan?" - Have you already eaten?) is "Sudah mandi?" (Have you already taken a shower?). Indos bathe at least twice if not three times a day and yet everywhere you go, it smells like BO! Maybe it has something to do with the lack of deodorant. Or perhaps because by "shower" they mean pouring freezing cold water over your head with a bucket. Or maybe it's because it's freaking HOT in this country...

4. And I do mean HOT!
- In Indo, they have 2 seasons: dry and rainy. The rainy season just started, and it's about 95 degrees on average. By noon it's pushing 100. And let's keep in mind Air Conditioning is practically nonexistent in this (slowly) developing country. So although I might get to go home in the afternoon, it's too hot to actually relax or do anything but sit there, fanning yourself.

For those of you who don't know yet, I have moved houses. I'm living with 6 other students now, in a rented house. There are 3 Polish ppl (2 guys and a girl), 2 Chinese girls, a Javanese boy, and me. It's so crazy, but we love it. I much prefer this setup to my old host family's house - I can come and go as I please, no one is keeping tabs on me, and I feel more like a student now (which means I actually do more studying!). There are always people coming and going, and it reminds me of dorm life, but in a good way! We're all really good friends and we are constantly gabbing about something, watching movies together (on laptops, because it's too expensive to get a TV) and generally just enjoying each other's company. I'm learning a lot about Polish, Chinese and Javanese culture thanks to this experience. All in all, I'm really happy with the move. The only thing that sucks now is that I have to do A LOT of housework. We just recently bought a washing machine, so up until then we were doing our wash by hand. Let me tell you how much that sucks. I never thought it was so difficult to get soap out of clothes! I would wash 4 or 5 garments and it would take me 2 hours...blah! But it's okay because now we have our (semi) automatic washing machine. I'm not sure if we ever had machines like this in the US, but it's got two compartments - one for washing and rinsing, and one for the spin cycle. You have to put the water in yourself (we use a bucket and carry it from the tap), then add the soap. Wait 15 minutes. Then pull the drain out and let the water drain. Then make sure you put the drain pipe back in! Then add more water. Then wait another 15 minutes. Then drain again. Then put the drain back. Then add more water. Then wait another 15 minutes. Then drain again. Then put the drain back. Then remove the clothes and put them into the tiny spinner. Then wait a few seconds. Pull the clothes out. Put them on the clothesline and wait a bit for them to dry. If you're unlucky enough to put the clothes on the line and then have it rain on your almost-dry clothes, you should probably wash them again because the rain here is not clean. It's weird...

Okay. That's all for now. I hope you all forgive me for being such a bad blog updater :) I miss you all and love you!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! (I won't be celebrating this year, because this holiday doesn't exist here...)

Just a few funny notes from Indonesia...

2007-09-28T00:29:00.000-07:00

Okay I don't have much time to update (story of my life, right?), but I just wanted to share a few of my funnier moments in my quest to learn Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language).

While helping friends look for a place to stay for the year, I told the landlady that a "kamar kecil" (which literally means small room) would be big enough for each girl. I thought I was talking about small bedrooms, but then I realized that "kamar kecil" actually means bathroom. I forgot the "kamar yang kecil" (lit: room which is small)

I told the Headmaster of the high school I teach in that I was teaching the "Bahasa Asin" class. What I meant was "Bahasa Asing" (Foreign Language). Leaving off the last "g" meant I was teaching the "Salty Language" class.

The Polish kid in my class keeps forgetting that "j" is not pronounced like a "y" and vice versa. So when he says "Ya" it comes out "Ja" and when he says "saja" it comes out "saya". Okay, not too funny. The other day he read a sentence in Indonesian. He read "Dia baru makan saya" and the professor and I started cracking up. I couldn't stop laughing because I knew the sentence was supposed to read "Dia baru makan saja," or "He has just eaten" If you change "saja" to "saya" it becomes "I have just eaten him." I laughed for 10 minutes straight...

Ah, good times in Indonesia. I will update more later. I just wanted to give you all a laugh. Miss you all!!!

Jakarta, Foreigners, Universitas Negeri and much, much more!

2007-09-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! First of all, let me apologize for not having updated sooner. I guess I've just been incredibly busy with all of my craziness...

Thank you Robyn for the message! I am getting quite excited about this whole Vikki wedding thing...ordering dresses!! Haha...Mom, this is for you. So Vikki has picked out her dresses, and I need to order mine soon. However, I don't really feel safe placing an order on a public computer like this, so do you think it would be possible for me to pass along the info to you and have you order it? If my size changes at all over the year, it will change to be smaller, so we can always have it taken in when I get home in May.

Oh heck yes...bargain Tuesdays, baby. Bargain Tuesdays. We're totally hitting that up when I come home (okay, so we have to wait a while for that, but it's cool...). I MISS YOU, TOO!!!

Brickhouse...you make me schmile :)

So what in the world has Tori been up to? Eh bien, mes amis...in the past two weeks I have been all over Java. Saturday the 1st (I think...) I took the train from Malang to Jakarta, which took about 15 hours. It was really painful, too, because I took one look at the toilet on the train and decided that it would definitely be in my best interest to hold it the entire 15 hours. Like I said, painful...

So I finally arrived in Jakarta to attend orientation for this scholarship program I'm really here for. You know, the real reason I decided to come to Indonesia for a year. It turns out there are about 400 other students from all over the world (literally, all over the world) who got the scholarship as well, and we all met and got to know each other over 6 days in Jakarta. I had such a blast hanging out with all my new foreign friends - I got to speak all of my languages over those 6 days, so you know I loved it. I quickly figured out that I really need to review my Russian, but that's neither here nor there...

During orientation they housed us in a youth hostel that had no AC and broken fans. Let me just discuss how Jakarta is pretty much a sauna - 100F every day with 100% humidity. At night, it drops to about 95F and 100% humidity, so sleeping was really comfortable. I think I sweated (is that a word?) more that week than I ever have in my life, no joke! There were 23 other girls in my room, and most of them were from China. There was also one Japanese girl, one Korean girl and one Mexican girl in my room. I got to learn some Chinese, so that was fun! When I arrived, I was talking with some of the Chinese girls and as it turned out, two of them were headed to Malang to the exact same university as me! I was totally excited, and we spent the entire orientation together just hanging out and having fun, which was great. My other orientation buddies were from England, Lithuania, Poland, Greece, Japan, Madagascar, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Slovenia, and of course the US! I did find myself much more comfortable around the Asians, though, as seeing so many white people at once was kind of a shock for me...My new foreign friends as I like to call them are studying all over Indonesia, so we've all planned to travel to each others' cities and meet up over the year. The 2 Chinese girls who are here in Malang with me (Lily and Hindy are their English names, their Chinese names are Tien Ya Li and Wenjun Xu...good luck pronouncing them!) and I have already made plans to go to Bandung, Yogyakarta and Solo during our 2-week break in October to visit friends and cute Polish and Japanese boys.

During orientation we did a lot of fun things, like visit the Pusat Bahasa (National Language Center), Taman Safari (a zoo set up like a safari, much like the one in Malang), a tea garden, and we also had a lot of good information sessions. We also had an amazing opening ceremony with lots of traditional dancing and music from all over Indonesia and the rest of the world and lots of silliness all around. I mean, most of orientation was incredibly disorganized and there was much confusion, but itulah Indonesia (that's Indonesia), and nothing really surprises me here anymore.

So on the last night of orientation, everyone was really sad. It's only been a week since I last saw everyone, and I already miss them! The 30 or so of us coming to Malang (5 different universities in Malang are hosting foreign scholarship recipients) all piled into a bus on Thursday night at 11pm, and we didn't arrive until Friday night at 11pm! Traffic was so awful and we even got stuck in one traffic jam for 4 hours! It was ridiculous, but we finally made it to Malang, physically and mentally exhausted and with some really crabby Polish kids, but we were all safe and sound and that was the important thing!

Upon arriving in Malang, the 7 of us studying together at Universitas Negeri Malang (UM for short) got into a car together and our supervisor (Pak Suyono) took us to McDonald's for some fried chicken and rice which we ate with our hands (so much fun! it's quite funny seeing people who have never been to Indonesia before try to eat rice with their hands!!). Octa picked me up from McD's and we decided that Lily and Hindy should come stay with us for a few days while we tried to find a place for them to stay permanently for the year. The other scholarship recipients - Laszlo from Hungary, Robert from Poland, Shige from Japan and Sydney from South Africa (all boys) - are all currently being housed in the student dorms on campus while they are looking for a place to stay in the city by themselves or with a host family.

So after having the girls in the house one night, my host fam decided that it would be great for them to stay for the entire year. I cannot believe their generosity!! I mean, I have already taken Amelia's room, so when she comes home for the weekend she sleeps with her parents in their room. Now Octa has given up his room to Lily and Hindy, so he either sleeps in the living room or in his parents bedroom every night. This family is crazy nice...I love them! And of course I am ecstatic to have Lily and Hindy staying with me. It's great having them around to talk to. They speak excellent English and they've also already studied Bahasa for 2 years back in China, so that's fun, too. It's funny, though, they know a lot about the grammar and they have a much more extensive vocabulary than me, but sometimes I have to translate for them when Indos speak because they're not quite accustomed to hearing Bahasa fired at them at such a rapid pace. But we're all learning, so that's good!

So we started our classes on Monday. We took a placement test and they divided us into two classes - higher and lower. They placed me in the higher, but I asked to be put with the beginners because I want to learn the grammar from zero. I've never formally studied the language, and that's how I learn best. Our teachers said I can move to the more advanced any time I want, but for now I'm quite content with my class. I mean, it's a bit boring, but I want to have a complete knowledge of the language without any gaps so I am patient!

My teacher's name is Pak Eric, and he is really nice. He's young and he speaks good English, so we all get along with him quite well. There are only 3 of us in my class - me, Robert and Sydney. Now Robert and Sydney have never studied the language at all (as in, can't even say good morning, my name is...), so it's a bit slow but that's okay. We're having a lot of fun!

Let's see...apa lagi (what else)? Oh, today is the first day of Ramadhan. For those of you who don't know, Ramadhan is the month during which all Muslims fast. Meaning from 4am until 6pm they do not eat, drink or smoke (there are other forbidden activities, like chewing gum, but these are the main 3). What does this mean for me? Well, being in the most populous Muslim country in the world means that most restaurants and food shops are closed during the day. Those restos that remain open have curtains, so it feels kind of weird. No one is allowed to eat or drink in public. Okay, well you are allowed, but it's extremely extremely rude and offensive if you do. So even if you are not Muslim, you are kind of on a mini fast yourself. Granted, you can just go inside a house or a room where there are no Muslims and eat and drink, so it's really not that big of a deal. It's kind of a neat cultural experience now, but we'll see how I feel after a month of this!! Tidak apa-apa, though (it's no problem).

Okay I think that is all for now. I miss you all and love you lots and lots!!! Please feel free to send me comments! I love reading them :)

Merdeka!!

2007-08-29T05:04:00.000-07:00

For those of you who speak French, no that is not profanity, but in fact it means "Independence!" and that's what Indos say to each other (with much enthusiasm, of course) on August 17th, which happens to be their Independence Day.

A quick history note: Indonesia once belonged to the Dutch (for a really, really long time), and then during WWII the Japanese came in and put all the Dutch people in internment camps and took over the country. On August 17, 1945 Indonesia was able to declare their independence officially from the Dutch, but really it was from the Japanese. So this year Indonesia celebrated their 62nd year as a free country, and I got to take part in the celebration.

I was really excited to finally get to see Indonesian Independence Day, but actually I was quite disappointed. Indos are really into ceremonies, and boy do they do it up wrong for August 17th (Tujuhbelas Agustus, as they say in Bahasa). Each school (public and private) and government institution has a huge ceremony that lasts about 2-3 hours, where everyone stands out in the hot hot sun (saluting the flag for much of the ceremony) and watches the students march around like military officers, raising the flag and just generally engaging in much pomp and circumstance. I took part in my school's ceremony, which I thought was an honor. Not so much. I was hot, sweaty, bored, and my shoulder hurt from saluting.

But anyway, after the ceremony, the students played really weird games together that involved them painting their faces like cats and running around with plastic bottles tied to their hips. I didn't try to understand. And then the teachers went to the teachers room and just ate a lot of really spicy food. I've really grown to like spicy food, but I definitely paid for it later!

Another strange custom around the time of Independence Day is the "Jalan Sehat" (literally translated it means "Healthy Walk"). Tell me this isn't weird - each neighborhood has its own Jalan Sehat where everyone wears red and white (colors of the Indo flag), and walks around together at 6am in the morning on the Sunday after the 17th. Then after that there is an array of activities, and depending on your neighborhood such activities might include a fashion show with many small children, a drawing contest, an jazzercize (how do you spell that?) session, and really bad singing by an awful dangdut singer. Dangdut is this awful fusion of Indian (as in, from India) music and Indonesian music. It's horrendous. And the dancing is so scandalous that you can only watch dangdut on TV after 10pm. So strange...So you know I took part in my neighborhood's Jalan Sehat. It was weird, but fun in a very wrong way...

So that was Independence Day. The only other truly exciting thing that has happened to me was that yesterday was my birthday!! Woohoo!! I'm 22 now...getting so old...Haha but I had an excellent day, relaxing with Amellia (who decided to take off work just to hang out with me!) and Octa. We went and played pool with some of Octa's friends, went bowling, went shopping a bit, and ate some Nasi Pecel (amazing traditional food, probably the most easily found food in Indonesia...it consists of rice and veggies and these little friend peanut crispy cracker-like things that are simply scrumptious...and mucho cheapo!!). Then in the late afternoon, some of my former students surprised me at my house with cake and presents. They were so cute!! THEN I went to sleep for a couple of hours, and in that time my host family totally set up a surprise party for me and when I woke up and came out of my room, a lot of my friends and all my host family was there and it was really cute. Of course, I looked like a zombie, but hey - it's my party and I'll look like a zombie if I want to! I had an excellent birthday...it was perfect!!

So nothing really exciting is happening other than that. On Saturday I leave for Jakarta to go to Orientation for my academic program. My uni starts in the 2nd week of September if I'm not mistaken, so I'm really getting pumped up for that!!

Okay then. I will update later. I miss you all lots and lots and I love you more than life itself!!

TGIF

2007-08-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness I have been waiting for Friday for ages!! I'm kind of surprised I actually made it through this week, to be honest with you...

Every day this week I had at least 2 teaching gigs at at least 2 different places in the city. Each day I woke up at around 4:30am to go walking with a friend, then I would come home and get a shower and run out the door again to go teach at SMA5 for 2.5 hours. After walking to school, walking home, and getting another shower because I was disgusting, I would run out the door and catch a minibus to go to the middle of the city to SMA4 to teach for 2.5 hours. Then I would hop back on the minibus and be home by 3:00 pm, exhausted and feeling gross.

Then on Wednesday I had promised to teach the little neighborhood kids again. What I had forgotten about was that last time there were two of us (Ainsley and myself) to handle about 25 kids. Yea...this time I was alone and there were 32 little kids, all between the ages of 4-9!!!! If I never have to dance the chicken dance again, I will die a happy person!

Needless to say I've been sleeping like a rock this past week...granted, I only sleep like a rock for about 6 hours a night, but that's better than nothing!!

It's been a wild ride this week - trying to memorize my students names and grading papers and making appointments all over the place. At SMA 4 I had 2 classes with 39 students each, and at SMA 5 I've got 4 classes - one with 34, two with 29, and one with 22. Luckily the gig at SMA 4 is over and I can...relax?

Except not. This is actually kind of exciting news - I just got a call from Bu Yudy, a woman I met at Ma Chung University (the uni where Prido goes and where Brandon wants to take classes Spring Semester). She wants to talk to me about teaching there. Professor Tori...haha, sounds like fun to me!! We'll see how it goes, though. We're going to sit down and talk logistics on Sunday, so I'll keep you updated.

I've got exciting news - I don't have to go to Singapore anymore! I met with an Immigration Officer this week, and he's going to extend my Visa for me. Once I get going at uni, I can talk to the Dean and get sponsored for a Student Visa. I'm SO happy! I'll save loads of money, too, so that's good.

I've also finally made it back to church this week for English Fellowship & the weekly radio show. Last week I was MIA from both for different reasons. So when I finally made it back, everyone was really glad to see me. I feel like such a nerd, hanging out at church, but I've made some really good friends there, so I'm happy.

Okay, I think that's about all I've got for you. This is probably how most of my entries will be from now on - fairly boring and uneventful. Now that I'm finally settling down into a good routine without other "bules" (white people) to distract me and get me into trouble, my life is much less hectic. Of course, my schedule is absolutely packed, but that's okay!

I love you all and miss you all lots and lots!! Thanks for the messages, everyone! Oh, Aunt Becki and Uncle Larry, if you read this at all, congratulations on getting an exchange student. That's really exciting!!! If you want to give her my e-mail address, please do. Tell her that I did the same thing as her in high school, so if she needs someone to talk to she can e-mail me! Muchas gracias!! Later gators.

Quick update

2007-08-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!! Just a quick little update. I'm here at Matos with my host family and wanted to check in...

This past weekend has been a blast. On Friday evening I went out to dinner with a former student, Juwita, and her family. They were really fun and she had a little 7-year-old brother named Iwan who was absolutely adorable!! He asked me to come play computer games with him one day. How cute!!!

Then yesterday (Saturday), I went to visit SMA 4 (Public High School #4). One of the host mothers works is an English teacher there and she said she set up a meeting with the headmaster so that I could introduce myself and talk about the possibility of it being an LE school next summer. There was some major miscommunication because when I got there, the headmaster was not there and so I met with 2 English teachers there. Then they asked me when I could start teaching. Say what?! Yea...so I said I could help them out for this week while they are short one English teacher, but after that I won't be able to. Incredible. A miscomunicasi, we called it. I'd say!!

Anyway, after that early morning (7am) meeting, Prido came to pick me up and take me to his house in the village. It was such a great time!! We hung out with his family, I got to meet his uncle and some cousins, and his entire village. They told me I was the very first foreigner to ever come to their village. Isn't that crazy?! His family was really proud to have me there, and they asked me to stay the night!! Unfortunately I couldn't because I had some appointments today, but they said next time I have to sleep there. Funny, funny. So we went around to a lot of places - a few elementary schools (where I met headmasters and teachers who called me beautiful and generous, and tons of students who all one by one took my hand and put it to their cheek as a sign of respect...needless to say I was blown away by how nice these people were!), an old man's house where he teaches gamelan lessons to children (where I got to see how the gamelan drums were made...all hand made, and it takes like a month to make a single drum!!), and all around the village. You should have seen this village - it was seriously the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It's up in the mountains, so there are breathtaking terraced rice fields everywhere and gorgeous green mountains rising up every once in a while. Incredible. I can't wait to go back!!!

When I got back home in the evening, Octa and I went to youth group at church together. It was kind of a cool feeling, because I saw many people I knew and got to talk to them, so I didn't really feel like a foreigner. It felt like home!!

All throughout church our stomachs were growling, so we went to get some grub afterwards and then met up with the rest of the family at their cousin's house. She just had a baby about a week ago, so we had to go see her. She was so small! Oh my goodness they said she weighed about 5 pounds when she was born, and she wasn't even premature! Her name is Mei. So cute!!

So today early this morning I woke up at 5:00 am to go walking with Juwita (my former student) and her sister. We walked for about 1.5 hours and then decided it was too hot to continue. So instead of going to church again, I decided my time would be better spent catching up on my sleep. And I didn't wake up until 11am, which is absolutely unheard of!! Luckily my family was still at church and Octa was still asleep, so I didn't feel bad since no one knew!!

Okay that's about it. Mom, to answer your question - I am going to be teaching at SMA 5 for the year that I am here. I guess I kind of forgot to mention that here, but because I don't update very often I kind of forget what I say and what I don't say...The good thing is that they will be paying me Rp 1.000.000 per month under the table so I don't get in trouble with my Visa, so at least I won't be strapped for cash while I'm here! And tell Tasha congratulations for me! I'm so happy for her. And Landon is an adorable name!!

I hope everyone is healthy and happy and doing well. I miss you all and love you lots and lots!! Later!

It's been a while...

2007-08-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

First of all, let me apologize for not writing more often. I think it's more realistic for me to update every 1.5 or 2 weeks instead of a few times a week. Time just absolutely flies here and it is not easy to get out to an Internet cafe. I realize this might be disappointing for those of you trying to live vicariously through my awesome life in Indonesia (*cough* *cough*), but what can I say? I just have so many demands on my time... ;-) I hope you realize I'm just kidding!!

So let's see what has been going on in my life. All the volunteers are now gone, and I thought I would feel more lonely than I do, but I have more than enough to keep me busy!! We said goodbye to the last two - Ainsely (my sister!) on Tuesday, and then Brandon last night. I miss Ainsley A LOT. It was weird - you wouldn't think that a 21-year-old world traveller would be afraid of going to sleep alone, but the first night I had to sleep in our bedroom by myself was kind of rough. It took me a while to go to sleep, I'm not going to lie! Oh, well. I've gotten used to it now, but it's still kind of sad. Our room is much cleaner now that only one person is living there, though!!

We've been having some issues with Brandon. His last day teaching he went on a date with one of his students. I'm guessing he did that because technically he wasn't her teacher anymore and technically LE couldn't do anything about it. If he had done that during the session, I could have kicked him out of Indonesia. I mean, I'm nice, so I probably wouldn't have done that, but you know...So anyway he has this new love interest, and he got really serious about her really fast and it kind of alarmed all of us. Especially his host family. You would not believe how he has changed - it's almost like a complete 180. He went from being really polite and attentive to everyone to completely distracted and kind of insensitive and impolite. It's very strange. His host family voiced their concerns to me and I didn't really know what to do. They call him "Mr. Thumb" nowadays because of how he texts her all the time, and he even had the cojones (however you spell that) to ask his host father to drive him and his new girlfriend on their date. If anyone is at all familiar with Asian culture, you know what an insult that was to his host father, a Chinese Indonesian who is a manager for one of the biggest cigarette companies in this country, and who is certainly NOT a common driver. Amy, I'm sure you'll appreciate how he stepped way over the line there.

Anyway, he's gone now. He might be coming back in January to study at Ma Chung University, an International Uni here in Malang where all the classes are taught in English (same uni as Prido). Prido actually took us all on a tour of his school, and he introduced Brandon to some important people and now Brandon is almost all set to study there for a semester! Craziness...Oh, the area near the school is beautiful - there's a spectacular view of the city from there, and it's a well-known spot for teenagers to go parking there at night. Do people even say "parking" anymore? I don't even know...anyway, the other night apparently Brandon and his new gf went there and got in trouble by the security guards. Brandon's host sisters were appalled that they would go there, because in their words, "Good Indonesian girls don't go there!" Yea...good times.

Speaking of my Indonesian lover (just kidding!!!), to answer your question, Amy - no, he has not made a move yet. I got the low-down on proper Indonesian dating rituals from some friends, and let me just say that things are supposed to move really slowly here. Like whoa. I guess only time will tell. His mother and father keep inviting me to their house, so I'm going there tomorrow morning to hang out in their village. Should be lots of fun!!

I finished teaching at Kosayu last week, and it was really sad. My students had a big farewell party for me. It was really cute, though, because they planned all of these really cute activities. So I walked into my class and it was empty, which is rare. The clock struck 12:00 noon and I had no students, which never happens! I waited for about 5 minutes when finally one of my students walked in and said, "We have a game for you. You must find all of your students using my clues. Then when you find them, you must complete the task they have for you." The scavenger hunt for my students was lots of fun, and I completely humiliated myself in the process. Some highlights - I had to sing a song (but not in English, and not in Indonesian...I resorted to Italian), I had to imitate 10 animals (10 animals is a lot to think of! I was reduced to imitating a snake for my 10th animal for lack of a better idea, which of course resulted in my front side getting completely dirty and dusty...it was worth it, though!), I had to play a game of chess (which I lost in promptly 5 minutes. That tends to happen when you don't actually know the rules), and I had to speak 5 full sentences in Indonesian (which of course resulted in my asking my students how to say many words). Overall it was great fun, then when we all went back to the classroom, my remaining students threw balloons and yelled "Surprise!" as I walked through the door. It was adorable. During the party the kids gave me lots of gifts (totally unnecessary, but totally cute!) and we had lots of fun eating Dunkin Donuts and nasi goreng (fried rice - really healthy meal we had, eh?!)

So after a 3-day break (barely enough to catch up on my sleep!), I started teaching at SMA 5 (Public High School Number 5). I teach on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 6:30 - 8:00, Fridays from 7:15 - 10:00, then 13:00 - 14:30. I have 4 classes plus I am the English Conversation Club Advisor. I've got two 10th grade classes (SBI - International Relations class), and two 11th grade classes (one mixed class for students with any major, and one Linguistics class). High School students here esentially choose a major - at SMA 5 they have to choose from: Science, Social Studies, Linguistics, or International Relations. My students are absolutely brilliant! And it is going to be such a pleasure teaching them this year. I'm really excited to actually spend a significant amount of time with some students and really help them improve their English speaking skills. It's going to be a good time - a few of my students have already taken a liking to me and keep texting me, which is fine with me. The more practice they get and the more contact they have with me, the better! It's only going to help them.

Okay well I think that's about it. I just had the strangest feeling. I'm sitting here on the Internet, completely immersed in what I'm doing - checking my blog and Facebook and writing a recommendation for someone. All of my business is in English and this cafe is extremely quiet. All of a sudden I just heard someone yell outside in Indonesian and I realized that I had just forgotten that I was in Indonesia for a few moments. Weirdest feeling ever...

Thanks for all the comments, guys! Keep them coming! Kathy, I was so excited to hear from you!!! Don't you miss Matos?! Haha...yea. Oh, and yes. I totally remember that guy from Inggil with the lazy eye. Believe me, Bu Dewi keeps trying to have me call him. Uh huh...

Alrighty I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to dinner with one of my former students and her family tonight. Yay!!!

Oh! By the way...I finally got my hands on a copy of Harry Potter. If anyone tells me anything about it before I finish it, I will kill you in May when I come home!!

Miss you all and love you more than words can express!! Later gators.

Ahhh!!

2007-07-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

Hello my lovelies!!

I am so sorry I haven't written in over a week. I know, I know...I really need to work on that!

So let's see...let me start with how much I love getting all those comments! Erica and Brittan, I was SO GLAD to hear from you!!! And yes, Brittan darling, I do miss you. More than life itself...Oh, and Erica. Everything is going BEY-OND amazingly well ;-) Except for that I miss you...

Tara!! OMG you're a published photographer. I just showed everyone here with me at this Internet cafe your picture. They all say you're very talented. Oh my goodness I'm so proud of you!!!

Amy - DON'T say anything about HP7. I haven't even gotten the chance to purchase it yet...Actually I haven't really gotten the chance to do much of anything recently. I'm really jealous that you're already finished with it!!

Here's the highlight reel of my last 10 days in Indonesia...

Teaching has been going great. Except for the part where I finish teaching this Saturday and I'm really upset about that. My kids asked me today how long I was staying in Malang, and when I said until the end of May 2008 they freaked out. They were like, "Oh, we hope you will come to visit us often!" And I just wanted to die they were so cute! I'm really going to miss them.

Saturday we had a big farewell dinner with all the volunteers and 2 host families (mine & Brandon's). It was really great - we ate at this big resto called "Inggil." They've got live music there every night, so of course they asked the Americans to grace them with a (few) song(s). Good times, great country. It was really sad, though, because it was the last time all 6 of us were going to be together :( We had an awesome time just laughing and being together.

On Sunday we went to the big Klenteng parade. It was really cool - lots of Buddhist Gods being paraded around, big Chinese dragons and just a general good time. There was a small incident with an old man exposing himself to one of the volunteers, but we got through it...

After the parade we headed out to Tumpang, a village outside of Malang, where we met an older gentleman who is a professor at one of the best universities in Indonesia. He's got lots of traditional things at his house - old puppets (wayang kulit AND wayang orang...I realize that means nothing to most of you, but you know...), topeng-topeng (masks), videos of traditional music, a FULL gamelan and all kinds of old newspaper clippings and things written in old Javanese. It was awesome! Then he took us to Elizabeth (you remember that American woman who married a Javanese man & stayed in Indo?) Karen's house. She has a huge dance studio & full gamelan there set up for people to come and practice and play. And her house, which is absolutely gorgeous, was attached to it. Unfortunately she and her husband were in Jakarta for a movie shoot (yea, I know) but we did get to meet her two daughters. Her oldest was rehearsing, so we hung out with her youngest. Little Ndaru is 8 years old and boy oh boy is she a pistol! She is the most adorable thing I've ever seen, and everyone in our group was pretty much just smitten with her. She was cheeky and funny and really outgoing. I wanted to keep her. She took a liking to me, though, so I hope I can come back and hang out with them. She speaks perfect English, Indonesian, Javanese, and the Javanese equivalent of Old English. At 8 years old! Amaaaaaazing!

Okay so the only other noteworthy thing in the land of bug bites and boats (thank you, Lauren, for that alluring alliteration) is that last night we (me, Ainsley and Octa) went to the Peterpan concert in Malang. For those of you who know me well, you know my obsession with Peterpan (a popular Indonesian rock band) goes quite far. So needless to say I was SUPER excited about this concert. So we get there at 6:30. It was supposed to start at 7, but naturally everything runs on Indonesian time here, so the concert didn't start until 8. So in the meantime, we talked to these guys standing next to us. Turns out they were from East Timor and we asked them about all the conflict there and everything. For those of you who don't know, you should look up East Timor's contemporary history. There's some crazy stuff going on there. Anyway, the guys were brothers and they said that people get shot every day right outside their house. They said many of their friends have died, and the one guy's girlfriend was recently shot and killed because his father was a big shot in the main political party that just got reelected. Apparently the opposition party was not too happy about that, and started going after members of their family and those close to the family. Pure insanity. Needless to say I was absolutely enthralled with their story, but once the concert started East Timor was the least of my worries. It started getting really out of hand, and I was pretty sure Octa was going to have a heart attack he was so worried. Let me give you a mental picture - two white girls being encircled four Indonesian guys trying to protect them from the crazy surrounding mosh pitting Indonesians. It took quite a feat of strength to escape, but we finally did and made it to the outside of the audience. Good thing, too, because it was much calmer out there. So we stood there and enjoyed our concert going experience. And made 3 good friends in the process. Plus, Peterpan was AWESOME!!! The lead singer is quite a cutie, too!! It was a really fun time!!

Okay well that's all for now. We're here at Matos (Malang Town Square) killing time before the Miss Matos 2007 competition starts. Tara, I bet you're really jealous!!!

Haha anyway I love and miss you all. Later gators.

Pasir Putih and much, much more

2007-07-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

Hello my lovelies! I am missing you all lots and lots, but I am ESPECIALLY missing those of you who continue to leave me comments. I really, really love reading the comments...even if it does make me miss you all even more!

Amy - umm yea it totally does sound like something your Uncle Tony would do. Blah. Can you imagine if we had lived with them last year? As for breaking up my stay, I'm not sure if I'll be able to. I have to go to Singapore soon here, so after I get my Visa and after I start classes I'll know more. And I would LOVE to meet up with you! Oh my goodness I miss you so much, even if I don't have "Could I interest you in some Chinese?" post-its in my room. I do, however, have lots of cecak-cecak (house lizards), which is like practically the same thing. It would be cool to meet up in Beijing or Hong Kong, whichever. Do I need a Visa for Hong Kong?

Mom - thanks so much for the comments. I'm already over the whole Ria thing. I've only seen her once since the whole thing went down, so yea. No worries.

On a much happier note, Happy Birthday Tammy!!

Okay, so here we go with a little update on my most recent activities...

This past weekend we all went to Pasir Putih, a lovely little beach about 3 hours away from Malang, in a little town called Situbondo. We left on Saturday afternoon after my class (yes, I teach on Saturdays...and I'm loving it!) and drove up in 2 cars. There were 13 of us sharing a little cottage. It was hilarious - my host sister and I shared a twin bed. And she's a kicker! Oh my goodness is she a violent sleeper. Amy and Alyse, I'm pretty sure she's worse than both of you put together! And boy do I have the bruises to prove it. It was fine, though.

So on Sunday we all woke up bright and early and played on the beach. We went out in a kayak, we did some fishing and went out on a big sailboat. It was lots of fun!! Then for lunch we headed out to Bondowoso, a little village near Pasir Putih where my host family has some extended family. We ate lunch and chatted a bit about the possibility of extending LE Indonesia all the way out to Bondowoso, so that was good. It was lots of fun.

After watching the beautiful sunset over the beach on Sunday evening, we all piled back into the cars and headed back home. The journey was kind of long and by the time we got back home at 10:30pm, I still hadn't planned my lesson for the next day. So I stayed up until a little past midnight lesson planning. It was rough when the alarm went off at 6am the next morning, let me tell you!

So I've just been teaching all this week, enjoying my students and having fun with them. Ainsley has now started teaching with me, so we split up the class into 8th grade and 9th grade. I took the 9th graders and Ainsley took the 8th graders because she's much better with younger students. So now I've only got like 10 students - which is great because the kids will get more one-on-one attention and probably get more out of the class.

(This part is for you specifically, Mom...) So on Monday I went to Klentheng with my short gay dancing crush. Ainsley was really sick with some stomach thing, so just I went with Prido. And I got to meet his Mom, which was so cute. She's adorable - she's probably like 4'10". She invited me to come to their home and go to her class (she's a 2nd grade teacher), so I'm really excited about that! The gamelan was, of course, lots of fun - I played for about an hour and after playing this one song that required a ridiculous amount of concentration I had to bow out. My brain was absolutely fried, so Prido and I walked a bit to go get some "terang bulan" which literally means "bright month," but it's just this really yummy Indonesian pastry. So after that, he took me home and guess what. I figured out that he's NOT gay! Woohoo!! He made a comment about driving his motorcycle slow so that he could look at girls and stargaze. Fabulous! Ah, he's so cute...

Anyway. Tonight we are going to Brandon's host parents 19th wedding anniversary party. All the volunteers are going to be there and all kinds of random Chinese people we don't know, which is of course going to be awesome!

Then this Sunday after church we are going to go meet my idol. Just kidding! There's this American woman who lives in a village near Malang. She's married to an Indonesian guy and she has adorable mixed children. But she is a famous traditional singer here. She speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Java (Javanese), which is too difficult for most Indonesians to speak. And she sings in Javanese...she's incredible! And she's super famous here, but I'm going to get to meet her on Sunday. I'm so excited!!!

Okay I think that's all I've got for you now. I love you all and miss you all like crazy!!! Later!!

Waitwait...one last thing. There is this really sketchy, very large Indonesian man sitting next to me. At first I thought he was a woman, but no no. He smells kind of like a gas station bathroom and he just let out this really loud, really obscene sigh. Perhaps that's my cue to leave...

I'm a celebrity!!!

2007-07-05T23:16:00.000-07:00

Yea, and I'm not kidding at all...

I'm pretty sure I forgot to write about my newspaper appearance last week. Remember that Malang Post reporter who came to talk to me at the school last week? Well, our picture and a nice little write up made it to Page 3 of the city newspaper! How cool is that?! I'm in an Indonesian newspaper!

Later in the day on the 4th, my host sister got a text message asking if I could be a guest speaker on a radio show. Random and cryptic, yes. But cool nonetheless. We decided it would be best if we brought three bules (boo-lay = white foreigner, we get called that all the time!) instead of one, so you should have seen it. We were all sitting here in this Internet cafe, and Amelia was texting people and calling people left and right to try and organize everything. She has jokingly started calling herself "bule manager" because of our celebrity in this town. So the next thing we know, we were at this radio station being interviewed about American Independence Day (i.e. what do we do to celebrate, who we gained independence from, etc. etc.). It was a lot of fun, actually.

Then the following evening (last night, Thursday) I went to church and did ANOTHER radio show. This one was at the church, so it was all geared toward the Gospel and whatnot. It was a lot of fun, though - we talked about what it meant to be a Superman or Superwoman, and if that was a good thing or a bad thing. We pretty much came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a Superman or Superwoman here on Earth; that in fact it's a matter of a Superteam. No one does good work alone, because our strength comes from the Lord. And also it's important and necessary that we recognize that we, as humans, are sinful beings and the only way to become part of a "Superteam" is to admit to our sins and let Jesus into our hearts. I do apologize for getting all Jesus-y on you there, but I thought it was a cool topic. Of course the discussion was all in English, and there were callers who asked questions during the broadcast - all in English! The church offers the weekly show as an opportunity to have fellowship while working on linguistic skills. It's a pretty cool deal and I met some really cool people, so I'll probably go back next week.

Bad news on my Visa. I called Jakarta yesterday, and they told me that they cannot do anything with the Visa I currently have. In other words, I have to leave the country and have a new Visa processed wherever I choose to go. They suggested Singapore, which wouldn't be so bad because it would be inexpensive to get to, and my host brother might go with me...I guess we will see what happens!!

Thanks for all of the comments! Grandma Nay Nay, I'm sorry your post didn't show up. That is so strange...maybe next time. I hope you are having fun on your cruise!!!

Amy, thank you for making fun of me for my crush on the short, gay dancing man. I really do realize the hilarity of it all :) I'm so excited for you learning how to dance! You'll have to teach me one day, because I actually do look like Elaine from Seinfeld. I don't have much time left, but tell Christie that I said CONGRATULATIONS! I am SO HAPPY for her. She deserves this, and I think she really needs it, too. I hope you get to go with her. That would be AMAZING!!

Okay, so the post above this should have been published on July 6th, but as soon as I went to publish it, the power in this internet cafe went out. Luckily Blogger saves the drafts automatically. Phew!

Okay, so now for this weekend's antics...

This past weekend, we went to Mount Bromo, the active volcano near Malang. The entire trip was a disaster right from the start. First of all, nothing was organized. We had a really nice surprise party for Amelia (my host sister) right before we were supposed to leave, but the party and the festivities were completely ruined by the mess of a trip this was. So nothing was organized. Usually if we do a big group trip (volunteers + host families + friends), Amelia and I organize it. However, this time it was organized by another host family, and it was really rough. No one knew where we were leaving from, no one knew what time we were leaving, no one knew anything really. Not even the family organizing the trip could give us a straight answer.

So we ended up leaving 2 hours late, and almost missed the sunrise at the volcano because of it. Luckily there was no traffic or construction that late, so we got there right on time. So after seeing the sunrise (which was beautiful, but completely ruined because of all of this mess), we hopped back in our 3 cars and headed down to actually climb the volcano. Well, the kid driving our car (David, Ria's boyfriend, was our driver. Ria is one of the host sisters - they are two important characters in this saga) got lost because he decided he did not want to follow everyone else. No, no. We took the "faster" way and got lost for two hours, finally ending up not by the volcano, but at the road leading back to Malang. So without consulting us, David just kept driving home and didn't turn back around to go back to the volcano. I mean, it's probably the decision I would have made had I been in his shoes, but he didn't even ask us or tell us. So the other 2 cars got to see the volcano and climb it. We did not. It was fine with me because I had seen it twice, but I felt bad for Ainsley, because she made the trip and didn't get to climb the volcano. She was so looking forward to it. Blah.

So the next part of the story is the most bothersome. The main person organizing the trip, Ria (remember from before?), told Amelia (my host sister) that everyone needed to pay 100,000 rupiahs. That's roughly $12. Now usually this wouldn't sound like a lot of money to pay for food and gas for the trip, but in Indonesia Rp100,000 is spent like $50. So yes, it was a lot of money! But we didn't really think twice about it until after the trip was over. There were 21 of us who went, and if each of us had paid Rp100,000 it would have added up to 2,100,000 rupiahs. That's like $250, which is unheard of in Indonesia.

So I talked to Amelia and Ainsley about it, and we figured out that Ria had made only the bule (the white people) pay. I was LIVID. What gives her the right to make the volunteers pay for everyone? I think not. Oh, I was so incredibly mad. And I only got more upset because Ria's mother (Bu Tina) called Amelia the next day and told her that Rp100,000 isn't a big deal for us, so it's okay that they made us pay that much. Oh. My. God. That's simply taking advantage of us, and that is not okay with me. I mean, it's a delicate situation for many reasons. Firstly, I understand that they give so much to us as host families, and every once in a while we don't mind picking up the dinner tab or something. That's fine. But sneaking around our backs like that? So not cool. Secondly, Ria's family has close ties to my host family - they go to the same church and have the same group of friends and frequent the same places. And this whole situation has made my host family look differently at theirs, which kind of causes problems for them. It's really just one big mess...

Amelia said that this is the last year Ria's family gets a volunteer. I feel bad, but at the same time I am so incredibly upset with them that I can hardly contain myself. I mean - they made money off of us! Blah. I went and talked to the English teacher at church (Bu Francine) about the situation because I needed someone to talk to, and she helped calm me down and realize that I need to let my host family deal with it because they know Indonesian culture and I don't want to cause any more problems for them. That just wouldn't be fair. So I will just pray for Ria's family and hope that they come around.

Okay so on a happier note, yesterday Ainsley and I hung out with Prido and his dad and the whole gamelan/dancing crew. It was SO COOL last night, though, because they actually sat us in their gamelan and taught us how to play! We played for like 2 hours straight with them, and they asked us to be in their performance later this month! Klenteng (the Buddhist temple where they practice) is celebrating its anniversary (I don't know how many years) on July 21st, and it's going to be a huge party. The entire city is invited, and they are serving a free dinner for anyone who shows up. There's going to be Chinese dancing, Javanese gamelan, traditional dancing from all over Indonesia, and all kinds of other things. Oh my goodness...so funny. There was a guy from Quebec who randomly showed up at the practice, so we chatted it up en francais a little bit. It was great fun.

Also - yesterday and today and all this week I am teaching at SMP Kosayu, a private Catholic Junior High School here. Dan, one of the volunteers, was supposed to be teaching there, but there was a huge misunderstanding on many ends which led Dan's parents to book him a flight 3 weeks early without realizing it. So he is gone - he's now in China with his Dad, and I am not pleased. It has really caused a lot of problems for LE, but luckily I'm here without a teaching position, so I am taking over this week. Then next week Ainsley will take over because she will be finished teaching at her current school. Blah - so many problems.

So needless to say I am absolutely exhausted. For the past 3 nights I have not gotten much sleep at all, and I am seriously fading fast. I'm pretty sure I'll be going to bed tonight at like 7pm, no joke. I'm going to pass out as soon as I get home, but right after teaching today I went to some Indo friends' house and we are now in Matos (Malang Town Square - the big shopping mall everyone goes to here), waiting to go watch Transformers in an hour. I may fall asleep in the movie...

I was going to write something else, but I can't remember it. I'm a little bit fried right now. But of course I am still having a blast!! I just need my bed...haha.

Okay well I love you all and I miss you like whoa!!!! I'll catch you on the flip side.

4th of July, Indonesian Style

2007-07-04T00:43:00.000-07:00

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 :)

Good times, great country...

2007-06-28T23:44:00.000-07:00

Hello again! I loved reading all of your comments. Ames, I'm thoroughly enjoying the books you send me :) jkjk I hope everything works out. By direct manager do you mean Halley?

Mom and Aunt Becki and Uncle Larry, you're making me miss home with your comments!! I miss you guys!! Have fun on July 4th...I'll be thinking of you!!

So...this week has been lots of fun, but extremely tiring. I'm finally getting to the point where I feel normal. I thought I was over my jet lag fairly early, but it really does take a toll on you for a good couple of weeks. Getting used to the food and the climate again is kind of a challenge, but at this point I'm good to go!

On Tuesday all the volunteers and I went around to the different schools they'll be teaching in. It was great fun - my host mom, bro and sis showed us around and helped us meet the principals and teachers of each of the schools. We are in 2 junior highs - one private, one public and 2 high schools - one private and one public. It was really great to get to see where they will all be teaching. The public junior high is for poor children, and they were the most excited to have the program there!

On Wednesday, some of the volunteers went to Bu Bambang's house (one of the host fams), and together with a bunch of ladies from their church we prepared over 500 lunches. Then we went around and distributed them to an orphanage, a nursing home and a school for orphans. It was really an eye-opening experience, and I really wanted to stay and help at the orphanage. I'm thinking I might go give some free English lessons there on the weekends.

After the philanthropic adventure, we headed out to Batu (a nearby city) and hung out with some host sisters and their friends at a big waterfall called Coban Rondo. It was amazingly beautiful, even though I'd already been there twice. It was lots of fun, and we got to hang out with cool Indonesians our age, which was nice. Of course, we decided it would be a good idea to get pictures right next to the waterfall, which left us soaked and freezing, but it was worth it!

On Thursday Ainsley and I met up with one of my friends from last year who does traditional dancing at a Museum, and he and his dad showed us some steps. It was too difficult for me, because I am incredibly uncoordinated. But I tried, and that's all that matters!! While we were there, we were accosted (spelling?) by a group of Junior High students on a field trip, and it was insane. I felt like a celebrity trying to dodge the paparazzi!! Rido (my friend) invited us to go to a nearby city on Monday with him and his dad to see traditional music and dancing. It's going to be great because I've never seen an entire gamelan playing together!

Later that evening, lots of Amelia's friends came over to the house and we sat outside and chatted with them. One of them did some magic for us, and it was really amazing. I was thoroughly impressed - Kyle, you should learn some tricks from this kid!!

Then also last night we went out and bought me a hair straightener (desperately needed) and an Indonesian sim card. So now I've got an Indonesian cell phone number! If anyone wants to call me, the number is +6281803898094. Remember that I am 11 hours ahead of you, though! I usually wake up around 7 am and I'm in bed by 10pm.

Okay well I've got to get going. Some friends are picking me up, and we're going to go do some karaoke and billiards. Good times in Indonesia!!

I love and miss you all!!! Muah! :)

Orientasi

2007-06-25T01:25:00.000-07:00

Hello from the other side of the world! I apologize for not having updated sooner, but the Internet in Surabaya was impossibly slow...I tried for 25 minutes to access my blog to no avail, so I figured I'd just give up.

Orientation in Surabaya was lots of fun - we stayed in a great hostel, the hostel owner was incredibly helpful, and we met so many great friends. All of the volunteers are wonderful. We've got Liz, Brandon, Lia, Dan, Teresa, and Ainsley. They've all got such different personalities and hobbies, but I think we've managed to assemble a really great group.

Nothing too exciting happened during orientation. There was a French girl, Nora, and a Belgian guy, Uness, who were both staying at our same hostel and I became great friends with them. I felt like for a while I was in a French-speaking country because our hostel was flooded with French speakers (plus two of the volunteers speak French). It was fantastic!

A guy about our age, Antok, lived across the street from the hostel, and we did lots of things with him. He and his dad took us around Surabaya to show us the sights. We went to this beautiful turquoise mosque downtown, and were able to go up into one of the towers to look down upon the entire city. Of course, we could really only see a tiny bit of it because of all the pollution! Some of the volunteers were adventurous enough to head out to this little island near Surabaya, called Palau Madura, where there is a completely different culture than Javanese culture. In fact, they have one of the last remaining matriarchal societies in the entire world. Unfortunately I had to settle for pictures of the island, as I had to stay behind and prepare our trip to Malang.

So that's about all that happened in Surabaya. Yesterday (Sunday) morning we headed to Malang via private car. They call these things "Travels" and basically a driver comes and picks you up at whatever address you give them, and they will drop you off at whatever address you want in whatever city the car is headed for. The only downside is that if you are traveling alone, it could take a while for you to arrive at your destination because they put as many people as seats in these cars, and each person gets picked up and dropped off at a different location. Lucky for us we had 7 people and TONS of luggage, so we filled up an entire minibus!

On our way to Malang, we drove by the horrendous mud flows that are occurring in Sidoarjo, a city right next to Surabaya. It's unbelievable what has happened there - last year in late May-early June, an oil company found oil in Sidoarjo. Well, instead of getting the right people in there to survey the land, and instead of using the proper drills for the terrain, they just started drilling. And lo and behold, they hit something (and it certainly wasn't oil), and all of a sudden there were all these mini geysers all over the place. Think of Old Faithful times a thousand. So it's completely soaked the ground and made everything muddy - and the mud is flowing and flooding whole areas. So far over 10,000 people have been displaced. The train no longer runs from SUB to Malang, the roads are unusable, and experts say it may not stop for another 30 years (and that's being optimistic!). They've tried to stop it, but they just can't seem to. Most people think by the time the mud stops, Surabaya will no longer exist. Apparently this happened in Brazil, and it stopped after 40+ years - that is, after an entire city disappeared. Crazy stuff.

So anyway. Now we are in Malang. Once we all arrived at my host family's house, some of the HFs came and picked up their volunteers, and others of us went to the mall to catch some lunch, and then my HF took the remaining volunteers to their HF houses. The craziest thing happened when we were in the mall - we were walking around the food court trying to figure out what to eat, and we saw 3 foreigners sitting at a table eating - a light-skinned guy, a white guy, and a black guy - just hanging out. I was shocked, and so were they. They stared at us, we stared at them. It was really quite a comical moment. It's like whenever I see foreigners here I'm just automatically drawn to them, and prompted to talk to them (naturally) and find out why in the world they are in Malang, Indonesia. Turns out they were soccer players for Arema (the Malang soccer team - one of the biggest and best in Indonesia). We sat and chatted with them for a bit, and found out Darik is Moroccan, James is Australian, and Rafael was from somewhere in Africa and didn't speak a bit of English. Once again, I found myself speaking French with Darik, which felt really weird...I didn't realize there were so many Francophones in Indonesia!! It was fun, plus Darik and James were quite cute ;p

So now I am with my host family, and it is amazing. I feel like I've just picked up right where I left off with them. I am just so incredibly happy to be here with all of these people. Our program is creating a lot of interest, as well, in the area schools. My host sister (our LE Indo Country Coordinator) worked her bum off this year trying to get the buzz going in the schools. And whoa! Did it ever work! We're in 4 schools - in one school there are 177 students, another 134, another 103, and another 70. There are only 6 volunteers...they are going to be teaching A LOT! But I'm really excited because this means that Amelia (my host sister) and I can work over this summer to expand the program and set things up for next year and perhaps next year we could bring 20 volunteers! That's my dream, at least...

We just met some Mormon missionaries in this Internet cafe, and they invited us to come to their church on Sundays if we wanted. They also said they could help us out with our Bahasa because they all speak it really well. So I might take them up on that offer...it might be nice to be able to have service on Sunday in English! I told you - drawn to foreigners like moths to a flame!

Okay well that's all I'll update today. Please leave me comments!!! I want to know what you are all up to, and since I have limited Internet time I don't have time to wander all over the Internet e-mailing and Facebooking.

Miss you all!!!

Here we go again...

2007-06-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Just in case you didn't get enough of my crazy Southeast Asian adventures last summer, I'm back for more! I just thought keeping an online record of my experiences would help me stay connected to you all back home in the glorious US of A. Instead of sending me e-mails, please feel free to leave comments on here, and I will respond to them if I have the time! My Warnet time will be limited, precious, and quite costly.

So just in case you were not aware, I'm going to be spending the next 12 months in beautiful Malang, Indonesia!! I take off on June 16th, and during the first six weeks of my stay I will be directing that weird volunteer teaching program you've heard me talk about for the past two years. Then I will have about a month off to just hang with my Indonesians and perhaps go sightseeing around Java just a tad. Then in September I'm off to do the Darmasiswa Scholarship Program, which is offered by the Indonesian government every year to a select number of international students to invite them to come study Bahasa Indonesia (the language of Indonesia), traditional dance, traditional arts, and so on and so forth. It's really neat because not only does this scholarship cover tuition at pretty much any university in Indonesia, but it also gives me a living stipend each month of about $100 (which is one million rupiah...gotta love that exchange rate!).

So basically I will be spending the next year of my life immersed in Indonesian language and culture, and you all know how upset I am about that ;p

Start checking for updates about twice a week starting June 19th (the day after I arrive in Indonesia)...

Love you all!