Orientation (and Evacuation) Part XIII

September 19, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XIII:

So then there was that time I was evacuated because the air pollution from the forest fires had reached “very unhealthy and hazardous levels.” Yep. I’ll catch you up on the smog and lack of exciting activities this week in another post (trust me, not much to tell except I’ve been reading a lot – finished Station Eleven and am half way through Missoula – books about the end of the world and sexual assault on college campuses… I think I need a happy book next – any suggestions?).

But I jumped ahead on the last post. Our seventeen hours of travel was due to the fact that we were coming back from two weeks of orientation with my fellow fulbrighters in Bandung!

Two weeks ago, I met Carlie at the airport and we headed back to Jakarta. Once there, we found the rest of our cohort settled in to an airport restaurant and it felt like the happiest of reunions! We had each been deposited in varying types of places in every corner of this country. No one could speak Indonesian and none of us had fully understood that our new role is half teacher, half pest killer. Needless to say, that was one of the funnest moments of this whole journey so far – as we shared stories of our new normal and laughed with each other about all the people we accidently offended by forgetting to only use our right hand, and never our left, and sitting with the bottom of our feet pointed at someone (both signs of disrespect). It was also a delight to see Ceacealia and Thasia, and later the rest of AMINEF, again. We were back in safe hands.

Once everyone had arrived, we loaded up a big bus and began the 3-ish hour journey to Bandung. Bandung is a large city of 2.5 million people and it was fascinating to see something so entirely different from my week in Palangkaraya. Then, we pulled into the Sheraton and the differences multiplied exponentially. Um, we got to stay at a beautiful 5-star hotel for two whole weeks. The staff waited on us hands and feet, always at our beck and call, and providing us with more food than I’ve ever been offered in my life. Incredible breakfast and lunch buffets every day, with both Western and Indonesian food, and then… outside the rooms where we had our sessions and Bahasa class, there was always a huge table, piled with beautifully crafted snacks and desserts. It was heaven. I’m also pretty certain I gained five pounds in the first two days, when I then decided I had to have some self-control, none of this food was going anywhere… I was here for two weeks.

Yes. This was breakfast everyday. It was amazing.

Yes. This was breakfast. It was amazing.

They had these little pods by the pool and they were the perfect place to chill in the evenings

I obviously spent my break times sitting here

For two weeks, we had session after session, covering everything from Indonesian faux pas, to teaching strategies, and of course, Bahasa.* On our first full day, we had to take a placement exam and were then divided into four classes. As the majority of us knew no Indonesian, there were three beginner levels, and one “post-beginner.” AMINEF had hired four Bahasa teachers from a language school in Jogja to teach us for the whole two weeks. I was lucky enough to get Moko as my teacher, who in my completely biased opinion, is by far the best and most fun teacher. Every day, my class of 7 had about 3-4 hours of Bahasa class and moved at a quick, but comfortable pace through greetings, introductions, basic objects, colors, basic questions, numbers, time, activities, shopping, days/weeks/months, food, places, positions, directions, transportation, imperatives, and adjectives. Needless to say, it was a very thorough introduction to Indonesian in just two weeks! *(Bahasa = “language”; Bahasa Indonesian is the correct term but I’ll refer to the language here as both “Bahasa” and “Indonesian”… sorry)

Bahasa class was absolutely my favorite part of every day. Moko is an incredible teacher and gave us unique tasks to practice and the funnest of games to play. We got to know the hotel staff quite well as in the middle of class, Moko would send us out to use our latest vocabulary of “Anda bangun jam berapa?” “What time do you get up in the morning?” on our nearest (unlucky?) interview subjects. They were quite amused by us everyday 🙂

C Squad on our last day of class 🙁

We also got to spend a lot of time outside the classroom with Moko and the other teachers. They came to karaoke with us, took us to the market to practice using Bahasa to bargain, and enjoyed a few meals with us. I love that in Indonesia, the relational divide between students and teachers is small – it’s perfectly normal to be friends on facebook with your teacher, to text them, to go to dinner with them, and to drink a little too much in front of them. We had a blast.

Just a 7 story market…

Karaoke and beverages with C Squad – what we affectionately named our class. Jared, Moko, Me, and Stephen.

I’m planning on continuing taking anguage classes from Wisma Bahasa through their one-on-one skype classes. I could keep working with Moko as my teacher and would get to continue learning the language in a structured sense, in addition to the practice I’ll get just by living here. I finally have a modem so have a semi-reliable internet connection to use skype… Really excited about the possibility of improving my Indonesian to the point where I can maybe actually understand what is going on around me!

The US Ambassador to Indonesia came to visit us one day. That was pretty cool.

And we got to practice teaching at a real public high school in Bandung. We each had a partner and taught for 45 minutes! It was a blast and the students loved it.

One night, one of the returners organized a futsal match for us against the hotel staff. Futsal = soccer and in this context, it was an like a small indoor soccer field and you play with a heavier soccer ball. Although we were absolutely destroyed by the hotel staff, we had a blast. We played six on the field at a time and had three groups of six trading off every five minutes or so throughout the hour we played. I’m not sure if we were all completely out of shape or whether it was the altitude, smoke (pollution + cigarette smoke from the 20 or so observers), or some combination of all of it but man… each of our five minutes of playing was exhausting!

We also had plenty of time to explore the city of Bandung and enjoy ourselves. We learned the angkot system (public transportation – vans that are kind of like buses?), bought batik (special patterned fabric that you can tailor into clothes), explored the market, went to bars, sang karaoke several times (why is that not a thing in the US? It’s SO much fun), and overall, had a fabulous time together.

Bandung batik that I’ll get tailored into clothes!

Dinner out in Bandung! Duck and rice and corn fritters and who knows what else!

Oh, and we climbed a mountain. Sunday was our free day and we had met an Indonesian couple who invited us to go hiking with them. A group of us left with them at 6am and we hiked 7.5 miles roundtrip – up a steeppppppp dirt road to the top of a mountain overlooking the valley and the city of Bandung. It was stunning. Then back down through the jungle and through a cave!!! It was a man-made cave from about 100 years ago, that the Dutch colonizers forced their native Indonesian slaves to build to hide from rebelling Indonesian forces. It had all these passageways and rooms and the remains of a wire tap communication system. And bats. It was 100% epic.

The landscape was absolutely breathtaking

Monkey selfies!

A jungle coffee shop!

Some of the sessions got a bit long and boring… and Chris decided to teach me how to do a Rubik’s cube. In two days, learning step by step, I mastered it! Then, came the fun of trying to do it as fast as I could! I got it down to 1 minute 59 seconds… I even found a (shitty) Rubik’s cube at the local hypermart (~mini walmart) so I can keep practicing. I could be a Rubik’s cube whiz by the end of this year with how much time I have on my hands.

The not so fun part of orientation came when I got sick 🙁 About a week into orientation, someone caught a cold and considering our close quarters, it passed around pretty quickly and by Monday of the second week, about half our group was feeling less than ideal. Luckily though, no one was too sick from stomach issues, which is what we had all expected to be dealing with – not to say no one had diahhrea. I’m quite certain we all did at one point or another, it just wasn’t too terrible.

For whatever reason, when I caught the cold, I caught the flu version of it. All day Monday and Tuesday I felt worse and worse, half the day sweating and hot, half the day freezing and shivering. By the last session on Tuesday I must have looked quite awful, for Ceacealia (one of the AMINEF staff, aka our mother/protecter) comes over to me and says, “Mackenzie, are you okay?!” I was not, clearly, and she offered to call a doctor, which, in my feverish state, I (foolishly?) declined on the premise that if I was worse tomorrow, she could call a doctor. I pushed through the end of the session before heading straight to bed. I slept fitfully from 6pm-6am and woke up having gained some stomach issues but lost the fever. I’ll chalk it up as a win.

It took most of the next day and on the advice of Ceacealia, lots of tea, orange slices, and watermelon, before I finally felt like myself again. By the end of orientation I felt fully recovered and glad that if I had to be sick, it happened in a five-star hotel with all my friends and under the watchful eye of aminef, and not by myself in the middle of Kalimantan. Knock on wood.

And now, I’m back in Palangkaraya. I’ve spent the entire week doing pretty much nothing. School was canceled from September 10th through the 17th and then extended again until the 25th because the smog is so terrible. This means I’m beem pretty much confined to my house with no means of transportation and hazardous levels of smoke outside (although my house is open air, so it’s not like staying inside is any better). Midway through my first morning back, I couldn’t believe how black my feet had gotten in just a few hours and so I figured I should sweep out my house. Well, that’s when I realized that a lovely dusting of ash descended on absolutely every inch of my house. The more I swept, the whiter my tile floors became but also the larger and blacker my dust pile became. Reality check.

And now, after a week of sitting here, we received a call from aminef today informing us that they are “temporarily evacuating” us to Benjarmasin until the level of air pollution recedes to less toxic levels. YAY! Because the airports are closed we are being driven to Benjarmasin, about 5 hours away in South Kalimantan. It’s supposed to be a large, bustling city and although it has some smog, it’s not nearly at the level that we have here. It’s also the home to Joel, a fellow ETA! We’ll be staying in a hotel during our Benjarmasin stay but we’ll get to hang out with Joel and his coteachers at his school. Pretty pumped about this extra vacation and the respite from the smog and its accompanying dreary, boring days.

The BEST Worst Day (Part XII)

September 16, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XII:

Hour seven of, hopefully, eight:

In twos and threes, fellow members of our cohort have departed for their sites throughout the day, and now, it’s just Carlie and I left… with only another hour to wait, if we’re lucky. We were on the road before 7am this morning, driving the three or so hours from Bandung to Jakarta, and now, ten hours after leaving the hotel, we’re SO close to being on our way home.

The one thing that stands in our way, however, is the lovely smog that has descended on Palangkaraya at state of emergency levels. It’s all over the news: flights have been canceled, school has been canceled… it’s terrible. The smoke comes from the illegal slash and burn deforestation to create room for palm oil fields – aka another example of Western capitalism destroying the environment and upending people’s lives. Here’s my favorite video illustrating this:

It’s one thing to read about it, another thing to see it in a funny awareness video, and a FAR different thing to be living it. It’s similar to when I was in Madagascar learning about forest conservation and how poverty is driving the local people to cut down the forests. But here, it’s the demand for palm oil (in everything from cooking oils to laundry detergent) that is driving the local people (hired by large corporations) to burn the forests to make way for palm oil fields. I’m still learning about all of this – but my understanding is that it’s either “burn the forests” time or it’s just made worse because it’s dry season. Either way, the smog has descended on Palangkaraya (and much of the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra) and we are stuck in the airport because the planes can’t land (which, knowing Indonesia’s air travel record (abysmal), I’m perfectly content being grounded for as long as need be!)

Going a little crazy!

Hour eight of a now indefinite period:

It’s 6:30pm and we were supposed to board at 6:15. They have stopped making announcements in English, the bilingual announcer must have gone home, so I’m trying desperately to pick apart the Indonesian announcement and listen for “enam, tujuh, delapan” (678, our flight number) or for “palangkaraya”. So far no word. I ask the flight agent in my broken bahasa, and she responds in broken English, “something wrong with the weather. We do not know.” Awesome. Oh, and they already canceled the previous flight to Palangkaraya… so our hopes of this one leaving are slim.

However, this last hour has been the most enjoyable hour yet of our airport stay. I had been flipping through my notes from the last two weeks of Bahasa class when the guy sitting next to me sees the Bahasa words and asks if I speak Indonesian. “Sedikit” (a little), I respond. We start chatting (in English at this point) about where we are from, that Carlie and I are teachers in Palangkaraya, etc… He invites us to his wedding in Bandung in a few weeks (damn the travel policy). Later, he asks me to practice my Indonesian with him. I jump on the opportunity. I absolutely loved my Bahasa classes in Bandung and feel like I learned so much – definitely enough to have a basic conversation, and here’s someone new I can practice with! He takes my notes, flips through them, and starts quizzing me on words. I nail every single one (thanks quizlet). By now, there’s about 15 people near us watching, laughing, and pointing at us. They, and my new friend Adi, are absolutely delighted. We break away from the notes and a natural conversation flows – I’m having a blast and I CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS!

Bahasa friend!

Hour nine:

After exchanging numbers, taking photos, and him helping us learn that yes, our flight has been delayed indefinitely, Adi has boarded his flight to Benjarmasin and we are back to entertaining ourselves. However, by now, a number of people have witnessed our “amazing” (in their words) Bahasa skills and two more people start to talk with us. Unlike Adi, they speak ZERO English. However, they are from Palangkaraya so we have “much” in common. I thought the guy said he went to SMA 5 (my school) but later learned, that it was the woman’s daughter who actually went to SMA 5. We discovered this after the woman throws her phone at Carlie excitedly and says, “talk! My son!” Ummm, okay?

Carlie chats with her (quickly realized she meant daughter, not son), and then passes the phone to me. She has very good English and explains that she is currently in University in East Java but graduated from SMA 5 a few years ago! We chat excitedly and exchange contact information so we can meet up when she is home on holiday. How fun! Who would have thought that would have come out of randomly talking to a stranger with no English in the airport!

More new friends!

Hour 10:

It’s 8pm now (flight was supposed to leave at 6:45pm), and there is sudden movement around us. Our new friends say, “time, it time!” and we jump up excitedly. Finally! We are however, slightly concerned by the decision as it’s now pitch black, we’re certain the smoke is still there, and we’re flying on one of the less than ideal airlines. (We later learn – after arriving in Palangkaraya – that Garuda Airlines, the best one, canceled all their flights but Lion air will “take the risk” so that they don’t have to pay for people to stay in a hotel. Oh, Indonesia…)

But I’m happy to be on my way again so we board the plane and settle in for the short 1 ½ flight. Then, I get lucky again. The guy next to me asks what I’m doing in Palangkaraya, and I tell him I’m a teacher at SMA 5. He says he graduated from there in 2001! We continue chatting and he learns that I know a little Indonesian. So he decides that he’ll speak only in English, so he can practice that, and I’ll speak only in Bahasa, so I can practice that. We have an absolutely delightful conversation for the entire plane ride, sharing life stories, drawing maps of what the school looked like then, and now, and all the while, writing new words for each other in our respective notebooks. It was so.much.fun. I used the basic words I know to have a full, and fruitful conversation – it was amazing! I had no idea I could say all that I did in Indonesian!

When we finally land, scarily, as we land WAY to fast because I’m pretty certain they couldn’t see the ground through all the smoke (jk, I know they have instruments for that, but actually it was terrifying), I exchange contact information with him and make plans to see him again soon. He’s a journalist for one of the newspapers here and wants to interview me for a story about Fulbright and teaching here 🙂 We walk onto the tarmac and holy shit, I’ve never experienced anything like it. You know the super foggy mornings, when buildings are hidden and the rays of light look huge through the fog? Imagine that, but it’s not fog, it’s SMOG. Everywhere. It’s this thick haze that has descended everywhere and you can’t take a deep breathe without inhaling a mouthful of smoke, and can hardly see 100 yards ahead.

We step into the small airport, push through the crowd to get our bags, and emerge to find our counterparts and co-teachers ready and waiting to welcome us home!

This earie, smoggy city at midnight

We stop for a midnight snack of grilled banana topped with honey and cheese (interesting combo) and grilled spicy corn and then, finally, 17 hours after leaving Bandung, I open the door to my house (which actually was already standing open, sketch?) and collapse onto my bed. I’m home <3

Welcome to SMAN 5! (Parts IV-VII)

August 30, 2015 by Mackenzie

I wrote these posts throughout the week – so here’s the day-by-day account of my first week in Palangkaraya!

Part IV:

Departing from our hotel was a bittersweet affair. I was thrilled to be headed to Palangkaraya and to finally see this place that I’ve been thinking about for months. But I also was sad (and freaked out) to say goodbye to Rizqi and the other AMINEF staff. They are our lifeline. And now I’m on another island, in the middle of a rainforest, completely overwhelmed, and all by myself.

A few hours after leaving the hotel, we were off to Palangkaraya. Now in my mind, who the hell is going there? Most Indonesians don’t even go to Kalimantan, let alone smack in the middle of the massive island. Carlie and I were definitely the only bule (foreigners/Caucasians) on the flight. And this was the first time I felt like I was actually getting stared at. I was conscious of every move on the plane.

An hour and a half later, we began the descent into Palangkaraya. Descending through the clouds, I could see the rainforest below. Then as we got lower, it felt like we were going through clouds again… but this time it was smoke. And the lower we got the more I realized I am way the heck out here. Like holy shit I am OUT HERE. It was dark from the smoke and that was only accentuated when we got out of the plane. You could tell instantly. It was hot, smoky, and humid. Ugh. But we made our way off the plane, onto the empty tarmac, and into the tiny airport. Our teachers were there waiting for us and it was a joy to finally meet them!

Smokey sunset

Smoke from the fires

Welcome to the middle of Kalimantan

The empty tarmac made me realize just how remote we are

But we made it!

We got our bags then I went outside and met the rest of the teachers. A group of nine had come to pick me up and they were so excited. A few speak pretty good English and they peppered me with questions, so random that I can’t even remember what they asked. “Do you like spicy food?” “You’ve been to Indonesia before, yeah?” “What’s your favorite sports?” “Are you Christian?”

My co-teachers and some of the administrative staff who came to pick me up at the airport!

We drove towards town and it became a little more of a city. It’s semi-populated and there are a few nice looking places. We stopped at a KFC for dinner. We ate fried chicken, rice, and some mashed potato ball-looking thing. Oh, and we ate with our hands… 😛

We took off again to the school and ten minutes or so later we arrived. We drove into the back and pulled up outside my house! It’s huge!!! I have a four bedroom, two bathroom house all to myself!

Home sweet home!

I have a Western toilet and a squat toilet. Currently I’ve used the squat toilet twice because the Western toilet is covered with ants. When we arrived, the teachers all began going around making sure all the lights worked, making my bed, making sure all was well… it was so sweet.

Then they all left and I begin to settle in. I unpacked a few things and then discovered thousands of ants everywhere. In certain corners, they are literally everywhere. I panicked but then realized for the most part they aren’t moving. So I began unpacking the essential things and I’ll unpack more once I get this ant situation under control.

Hundreds of ants… so not cool

Also, I have no toilet paper. I must remedy that tomorrow.

I needed to use the restroom again so since the Western toilet was still covered in ants I decided to use the squat toilet again. But coming back I discovered a massive cockroach crawling on my stuff. HOLY SHIT THAT’S SO NOT COOL. I ran into my room and shut the door. When I peeked out a little later it was gone. God help me. Why am I living alone? I put a pillow under the doorframe and hope that keeps him out. Ughhhhh.

Desperate times call for desperate measures…

Now it’s time for bed. Except I’m hungry. But my food is in the kitchen and I’d have to pass the cockroach. Not doing that.

Part V:

I tossed and turned all night because the AC was so good that I was freezing. And I was terrified of Mr. Cocky the Cockroach. And here I was thinking I’m in the hot, humid jungle so have no warm clothes! Luckily I remembered at about 3am that I have a sweatshirt so I threw that on. Thankfully. I later realized that I can turn the temperature on the AC up, so it’s not nearly as cold at night. Cha-ching.

At five thirty I hear the chanting begin. It sounds like the students are right outside my house and so I crawl out of bed and carefully open my bedroom door, scanning for evil Cocky. No sign of him so I creep over to the window and sure enough, about a hundred students are lined up outside my house chanting and doing military exercises. Emily (the previous ETA here) wasn’t kidding…

Suddenly, I hear knocking on my front door. Shit. It’s 5:30 in the morning! No one is supposed to get me until 9am! I wait until I hear a second knock then run to the door. Then realize I locked it and the key is in my bedroom. I race back to my room, grab the key and open the door to two smiling, cheery girls.

“Hello Miss!”

“Hello!” I reply.

“Ibu Tisia told us to take you to breakfast!”

“Um… Okay! Can you give me 5 minutes to get ready?”

I run back inside and frantically try and find something appropriate to wear. Yesterday, at the security briefing, Rizqi told us all about our individual schools and said to me, “you should be very conservative. High neck, sleeves…” Everything is still deep in my suitcase but I see the shirt Suzy gave me. It’s kind of batik printed and has a high neck but short sleeves. Oh well, that has to do. I throw the shirt on with my dirty black skirt that I wore for 36 hours on the plane, throw my contacts in, use the squat toilet and go back to the door where the girls are waiting for me.

I walk out and they say, “Miss, you are so beautiful!” “Miss, you are so tall!”

“What is your name?”

“Miss Mackenzie. And yours?”

“Olive” “Nadya”

“You are so tall. The other native speaker was like, chubby and short” (I don’t know where they got this from. She seemed tall and lanky to me haha).

“Where are you from?”

“America. Seattle”

“SEATTLE? I just went to Seattle!”

“WHAT?!”

We chat about their recent trip to Seattle as we walk towards the cafeteria. Nine now 12^th grade students got to go do an exchange program at North Seattle University (which, coincidently is about 15 minutes from my house) for two weeks this summer. It was so fun to hear about the things they did in Seattle – such a coincidence!

At the dining hall, there is a line of students chanting and marching inside. We cross through the grass and weave through students until we find a woman scooping meat onto bowls. Olive and Nadya find me a plate and get me food. Then we go into one of the dining rooms and they point me to my seat. They fill my plate with rice. Another student grabs me water. And we eat.

I ask their names. We talk a little but it is mostly quiet in the cafeteria. A few minutes later one of the older students goes to the front of the room and makes a speech. Students clap. Then everyone gets up to clear their plates. I follow suit and Olive and Nadya take my half eaten plate from me and go to wash it. A few boys introduce themselves to me. One is Simon, the boy who won the WORDS competition last year – more on that later.

Then they ask if I want to go to school with them or go back home. Going home to regroup sounds quite nice so they escort me there and here I sit, waiting for Ibu Tisia and whatever is next for today.

Part VI:

The area around my house suddenly comes alive with the sound of chanting, and shortly after, laughter. It’s lunchtime.

It’s been a quiet morning but now, the students are returning from their classes and its time for lunch. The school campus reminds me of how my college was designed. All the academic buildings are together surrounding a big field and off to the side, is the dormitory area. There are two large dorms for the boys and two for the girls. In the middle is a cafeteria with three large rooms. And to the side but between the dorms is my house, along with the houses of two other teachers and their families.

The asrama (dorm area) was alive with the sound of children at 5:30 this morning but after school began around 7am it’s been dead quiet. But suddenly, at 1:40pm, the children came marching back (literally) and once they got to the cafeteria, the chanting and marching turned to laughter and games. I was glad to see the students back. It can be lonely in my house and I’m not sure what the routine is yet. But seeing the students around me made me smile and know that pretty soon, I’ll feel comfortable joining them.

Part VII:

It’s the end of my second full day in Palangkaraya. I just came home from my first dinner with my students and gosh, I feel so full of joy, love, and excitement.

That’s not to say this isn’t easy. I’ve spent the majority of my last two days killing ants, sweating profusely, inhaling excessive amounts of smoke, getting bit my mosquitos, and wondering what I am supposed to do next. This morning I woke up at 5:20, wanting to be dressed and ready if the students knock on my door again. Blinking awake, I could hardly see across my room. The bright blue shower-curtain-like curtains looked extremely hazy and the light filtering in behind them was filled with particles.

I got up and opened my bedroom door to a mouthful of smog. This room is even worse than my bedroom. But my students might me coming so I fly around, eyes watering trying to get ready. My students don’t come until later, around 6am, but in the meantime I’d decided to try out the oatmeal I bought at the store last night. After I politely decline my students’ invitation, and tell them I will see them at school later, I stumble back into my room and fall on my bed in exhaustion and blinded. With the students gone, I realize I could go back to sleep… I close my eyes, but my eyes are still stinging and watering from the smog. Eventually, I get up and go to take my contacts out. That’s when I realize the purpose of the fan that’s been sitting in the corner… I quickly turn it on and blow the smog out of the room. My house is open to the air – between the top of the windows and the ceiling is open air with wood slats every few inches… so once I get the air moving, the smog slowly clears.

I crawl back in bed and sleep comes instantly.

But back to the good! My students are finding me on facebook and although I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing (I decided not to make a second facebook account for my students… I just didn’t want to deal with that – I later ended up making a second account :P), it’s an easy way to communicate with them. While living on campus is a bit odd, it makes socializing with my students very easy. Their dorm is literally about 50 yards away and they have offered multiple times to help me with anything. The other good thing about living on campus is that I have three free meals offered to me every day so I don’t have to worry about not having dinner plans with another teacher or not having any food to cook with.

I message one of the students and ask if I can join them for dinner and a few hours later, three girls are enthusiastically calling out, “Miss! Miss!” at my door. I grab my fork and spoon and run outside to meet them and they excitedly bring me to the front of their dorm where the other students are waiting to be called to dinner. Some are lined up in military rows, others are lazing about. We laugh and ask questions of each other and I can absolutely see my purpose here. I am the native speaker that they don’t have access to. They can learn grammar and vocabulary all they want but knowing how to pronounce words, and having the confidence to speak English only comes with speaking with a native speaker.

It’s my third time eating in the cafeteria, and by now I know what to expect. We go to the middle building to get our plate with a small piece of chicken on it, then we go to one of the dining halls where there are large pots of rice, which we add to our plate. We sit and wait for one of the older students to say something and then we eat. Only a few minutes later, the head student is back, commands something again and everyone is up and clearing their plates. Extra food is scooped into a bucket, plates and cups are stacked in a large container, and forks and spoons are washed briefly then carried back to the dorm.

One of the girls walks me the short distance back to my house and when we get there, I tell her “wait!” and run inside. I grab a tootsie roll from my stash in the fridge and bring it to her outside saying, “Oleh Oleh for you! Now go study hard!”

She smiles huge and gives me a big hug. Then she runs off to her dorm to study and I go inside, close my curtains, put my spoon and fork away, and crawl in my bed feeling quite happy and loved.

This Just Got Real

June 15, 2015 by Mackenzie

I received my site placement last week. In about three months I’ll be settling in to my new home in Palangkaraya! Where in the world is that, you ask? Yeah, me too.

Because Indonesia is 12 hours ahead (of US central time), most emails from AMINEF (the organization in charge of our grants) arrive in the middle of the night and are a fun surprise to wake up to in the mornings. There had been some rumblings between the other Fulbrighters that we would receive our placements soon but I was still shocked when I refreshed my email and saw an email from AMINEF with the subject heading, Palangkaraya. (And yes, I have a horrible habit of checking my email first thing in the morning… before I’m even out of bed. That will change soon, as I don’t believe I will have much internet access in my new home!)

I quickly scanned the email, flew out of bed to find my laptop, and searched Palangkaraya. While I’ve been to Indonesia before, Palangkaraya didn’t ring a bell and I couldn’t have guessed where it was. Well, it’s smack in the middle of Borneo (also known as Kalimantan in Indonesia), the third largest island in the world (Madagascar is fourth for reference). Borneo is divided among three countries, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. Almost 3/4 of the island is Indonesian and is divided into five Indonesian provinces. My city, Palangkaraya, is the capitol of one of these five provinces, Central Kalimantan. From what I can tell (from trusty ol’ Wikipedia), Kalimantan is a jungle island and I’m going to be smack in the middle of it (kinda, actual more on the southern end of the island, just north of Banjarmasin).

It’s a bit different than what I’d expected, considering I had applied to a country of 17,000 islands. My placement is about as far away from water (besides a river) as you can possibly get in Indonesia, which I find fairly amusing.

Having been to Madagascar and traveling through a lot of that island/jungle/rainforest country, I can picture what my new home will be like… I think. Honestly, I have no idea but google maps and random youtube videos that I’ve found have been great and I can piece together those, with my prior experience in Indonesia and Madagascar. I should probably stop doing this as I’m probably widely off with my expectations (both high and low!) but I can’t help myself trying to imagine what this journey will look like.

I was also given my school placement – but as neat as it is to know, it doesn’t really mean anything to me at the moment. None of it really does but I’m sure after our pre-departure orientation in DC next week, I’ll know a lot more! At least I’m hoping so…

With ten weeks to go, I figured its probably time I start learning Indonesian. Realizing that I will be living in a fairly remote city, I don’t expect many people to speak English, so if there’s little else I can do to prepare in the meantime, I can at least start learning some Indonesian so I’m a little more comfortable when I arrive. Thus, I’ve brought out the flashcards and purchased two Indonesian language books and I’ll see how much I can teach myself!

Lastly, and this one is for my grandparents… Wash U sends a daily (weekly in the summer) news bulletin out to the whole campus community. And yours truly got a shoutout this week – here’s the article.

Selamat jalan, teman saya! (Goodbye, my friends!)

(Thanks google images for the pictures… I’ll have my own soon enough!)

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Mackenzie

A Look Back