Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her first leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.
So leaf subsides to leaf,
And Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.

*This poem may have some minor errors, as I'm posting it from memory. After hearing it 12 times this past week, however, I think I've gotten the gist.

Aauughhhh

First frustration-themed (and extremely whiny) post from Indonesia. Hopefully not first of many.

This post is inspired by my efforts to buy two whole things:

1. a MacBook connector thingy to hook my computer up to a projector, 
2. and a mattress/bedding so that my Fellow friend Jen can crash in my room this weekend. 

It is SO DIFFICULT to get these things! Whereas in the States I wouldn't have strained a muscle accomplishing these two tasks, here they require careful planning (and lots of stressing out, in my case).  And a slightly pulled muscle. 

I really want a projector connector ASAP because I am making endless photocopies for my huge classes, and if I just had a projector hookup, I could save myself a lot of paper and time by projecting worksheets on the wall. However, there are no Apple stores near my house. I have to take a taxi to one of the two malls in Surabaya that has an Apple store, which will require at least a couple hours, which means that I probably won't have time to make the trip during the week, because I have lesson planning to do until 3 or 4pm every day, and it gets dark at 6pm, so it's just riskier in general to take a taxi at that time. Plus I'm tired from working all day. So task #1 has yet to be accomplished. 

As for the mattress, I wanted to borrow my friend Alissa's folding mat, since she doesn't need it and she lives about 20 minutes walk from me. But it's too big to carry! So I need a taxi to pick it up. But I lack the language skills to guide a taxi to her house, wait for me while I pick up the mattress, and then take me back. And no one is free to take me to her house this week. So, I had to walk to the "hypermarket" (read: Wal-Mart-style store) that is about 10 minutes away and buy my own foldable mat. I then had to lug the mat and bedding back to my room. Hence the slightly pulled muscle. 

Throughout all of this, I must also endure countless "Hello Mr!"s,  "What's your name?"s, and  "I love you!"s along the way. I know most of these people mean well, but if only they could realize that they are not the only ones who choose to yell something at me! Usually I am pretty zen about the mild harassment, but when I'm trying to lug stuff home in the dark, it just adds to my stress. 

In conclusion, I've been a little frustrated by my inability to ACCOMPLISH STUFF in Surabaya. But I think I will get over it. Actually, I think I'll have to get over it. It's just a matter of time. And settling in. 

Photos: The first three weeks

Finally! The post you've been waiting for. It took me approximately three hours to upload, but I have finally gotten most of my favorite pics from the past four weeks up here. 

So let's start with my second night in Indonesia, when I was still at my site in Surabaya, and Bu Wahju, my counterpart, invited me to dinner at her house with a lot of her family: 

Bu Wahju is sitting to the right of me. Her parents are on either side of us, and her brother and her adorable daughter, Dinda, are on the far left. There were actually about 10 other family members in attendance that night, all in town at the tail end of the celebration of Idul Fitri. 

This is a picture of the main hall on campus, and the opening remarks by the rector of my school. All of the staff was gathered here as a post-Idul Fitri gathering, kind of a "welcome back" luncheon. I was also asked to sing in front everyone at this event. I chose to sing "California, Here I Come" (the old song, not the O.C. theme), which went over... all right. No one knew it. They all wanted me to sing some other California song that I didn't know. I later found out that singing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" gets 'em every time. Now I know.

My first time drinking avocado juice (a standard juice here)! It's mixed with chocolate syrup and milk and lots and lots of sugar. Pretty good. But I think I still prefer it in guacamole. 

Onto Bandung, for the in-country orientation. I've already posted a picture of my amazing room, so I am just posting this view from my window. 

Our first meal together in Bandung. Traditional Sundanese food. We ordered two of a lot of stuff and had more food than we could possibly consume. It all came to $5 each--as I've previously noted. Sorry, can't get over how affordable food was there.

My first time riding in an angkot (tiny bus, standard mode of public transportation all over Indonesia). We chartered this one to take all of us to a tea house 30 minutes away. 

Some more angkot people. 

On our way to Kawah Putih (the white crater), I couldn't get over the horse-drawn...buggies? mixed in among the motor bikes and cars and buses. 

Me at Kawah Putih! It was pretty cool. I think the color of the water is my favorite part. And I kind of like the sulfur smell. 

More traditional Sundanese food! We stopped here on the way back from the crater. You can see some kind of greens (I forgot what), a quail egg, tempe, tofu, some fish (yes, broke my vegetarianism [again] for the fish), and rice. 

We also stopped to pick strawberries. Apparently Bandung is known for its strawberry fields (cue Beatles song). 

For Tabitha's 30th birthday, we had dinner at this bar overlooking the city. 

After dinner, we got martabak. I had been looking forward to this ever since arriving in Indonesia. It's a Dutch dessert (as you can probably guess from its name) that's essentially a huge pancake with a crapload of butter smeared in the middle and bananas and chocolate and whatever else you desire to put  in the middle. It's SO greasy. I could only eat one quarter piece without feeling like I was gonna puke. 

We did some outreach in the local schools. Adam, Jackie, and I got assigned to a middle school in Bandung, where we got to introduce ourselves to several classes and have the students ask us questions. We also did a presentation for the teachers on project-based learning, but those pictures aren't as cool. 

Adorable 7th-graders. 

That's our RELO (our boss, essentially) singing California Dreamin' at a local bar. The bar had a couple paid singers, but they let us sing a couple songs, probably since we were essentially the only ones in the bar. Hilariously, however, they always turned the microphones WAY down whenever we came up to do a song! 

JAKARTA! Corny shot of me looking out the window of my hotel room. I had to do it to show how awesome it was--floor to ceiling windows on two whole walls, on the 45th floor! 

Another view of the sunset from my room. 

Expensive-yet-worth-it American food at a local mall in Jakarta (everything is in a mall in that city). And as usual, the difficulties of counting out the cash at the end of the meal. So many thousand-, ten-thousand-, and hundred-thousand-dollar bills! 

My room at night. I slept with the curtains open every night. SO AWESOME. 

A group of us decided to take public transit (what a hot, sweaty adventure) to Kota Tua, or literally, "old city." This was the colonial area of Jakarta. We got drinks to cool off at Cafe Batavia. 

Another shot from the Wayang (puppet) museum, where there were lots of cool life-size (or larger) puppets.

We tried to find the harbor, only to get really, really, lost in winding alleys of streets. But hey, at least we saw the less-touristy side of Jakarta, right? It was actually a lot of fun just wandering around. 

Last day in Jakarta: we graduated from our language classes! Woo hoo! My beginning- level teacher, Mbak Niken, is on the far left. She was super sweet and patient with us. 

Illegal DVDs purchased on my last morning in Jakarta--mixed in with some that past Fellows just gave me--here's looking at you, Fame.  Yeah, I feel semi-guilty for purchasing these. (Sorry, Dad!) But they will help me survive all that alone time in the coming months. 

I still have a couple photos to post, but they are from this weekend, so I wanted to separate them a bit. This past week was without photos, because, you guessed it--I actually started my job! Taught and lesson-planned like crazy Monday through Friday. I diligently took photos of each of the 230+ students, so I can try to study them and learn their names, at least by the time of the midterm. I hope. Wish me luck in the coming weeks! 

Back in the Baya

So I still fail at being able to upload pictures from the two weeks of orientation, because I don't have internet in my room (yet! Still hopeful!!). However, I do have several pictures I took on my phone that I was able to upload.

Our second-to-last Bahasa Indonesia lesson with Mbak Niken (Miss Niken). It was held in these crazy "pods" in the hotel we were staying at. Seemed like a cool place to have class at first, but then it was just kind of a pain. 

We went to the Wayang Museum in the Colonial area of Jakarta, called Kota Tua ("old town"). Pretty cool. And only 20 cents for admission! Also, sorry for not figuring out how to rotate the pics. 

So, funny story. On the way back from Jakarta to get to our sites, Jen and I missed our flight. Despite getting there 1 hour early and waiting in the waiting area way ahead of time. We kept checking the monitor and didn't notice any kind of "boarding" notice, and not many people seemed to be getting up. However, just to be safe, we asked a security guard if we should be boarding. He told us no, and took us to another waiting area. We sat there for about 20 minutes, frustrated at the delay. Suddenly he came rushing over to us again, telling us "take off, take off." So we somehow missed the flight. It was ridiculous. Thankfully, the coordinators at the RELO office were able to get us on a last-minute flight a couple hours later. And the security guard more than made up for his mistake by helping us to make sure we got to our other flight on time! 

A couple plus-sides to missing the first flight:

1. Having time to buy Krispy Kreme donuts (the only place in Indonesia where you can get 'em).

Getting to fly executive class! Wooooo! Sadly, the flight was only 1 1/2 hours, but we still enjoyed it..

And now I am happy to be back in Surabaya, moved into my new place (hooray! I finally got to unpack!), and teaching. Which is, after all, why I came here in the first place! I actually had my first class today--Cross-Cultural Understanding--and I think it went well. I have to say, I think my time spent teaching might be the most comfortable I've felt in all of my time in Surabaya so far. I'm still figuring out the syllabus/course schedule, and it's gonna be a lot of work, I think. But hey, I don't have much else to do right now! (There will be sightseeing, though, never fear. Just not in the first couple weeks, probably.) 

OK. Hope to post more pics soon. 

Stuck in a macet with Jackie

That's Bahasa Indonesian for traffic jam.

A few recent pictures stolen from FB

One of the Fellows in our program has a really good camera, and he has posted some nice shots from our orientation so far. Below are a few of the ones I liked.

 We had a talent show before the ETAs left. Captured in this moment is an interpretive modern dance to an acoustic version of R. Kelly's Ignition. 

EVERYONE (18 people) playing the "adult" version of Apples to Apples, called Cards Against Humanity. Quite disturbing and politically incorrect, but hilarious, of course. 

 Creepy machete-cutting performance. See previous post for explanation. 

Everyone at a bar overlooking the city. We went there to celebrate Tabitha's 30th birthday (she's the one in the tiara). 

Me and Bryan enjoying the view. Notice the batik print on his shirt--all the Fellows are obsessed with batik (although the print takes a lot of different forms; this is just one style). Expect to see me in lots of batik. 

Adventures in Fakebook

I was prompted to write this post after viewing my false "Fakebook" account again (first time since the 48 friend requests! Now down to only 14 today!). All of the posts from my future students refer to me as "Mom." I don't know how they got it into their head that they should be calling me that.

"Mom" pronounced with an Indonesian accent doesn't even sound like Ma'am. I'm so happy I already can correct their English without even having met them yet! The wonders of social networking.

Currently, I am still in Bandung until Thursday. Things remain pretty great here. We had the day off on Sunday, so the husband of one of the fellows (who has free time to walk around the city while we're all at meetings) chartered a bus for 12 hours to drive us three hours to a white crater lake near the peak of a mountain called Kawah Putih (White Crater). It was really cool--people commented that it felt like you were either on the set of Star Wars or some land from Lord of the Rings. Greenish-white sand everywhere, and this boiling, white, sulfurous lake in the middle of it all. It actually reminded me a little of Blue Lagoon in Iceland for anyone who's been there. Although I'd never go in that boiling water because 1. it's too hot and 2. apparently you're recommended to spend only15 minutes at the lake, as breathing in the sulfurous steam is bad for your lungs.

After we'd gone to see the crater, we went to a delicious lunch (sitting on the floor, of course, with a really low table) where we got way too much food and nevertheless spent about $5.50 each (I'm getting so used to this! Dangerous!). Then we picked more than a kilo of strawberries--apparently Bandung is famous for strawberries--and headed back to the hotel. We had actually hoped to visit a tea plantation on the way home, but our driver (whom, again, we were paying for 12 hours of driving, and who had only been driving for about 6 hours at that point!) was insistent that there was too much traffic and it would take too long. While we were discussing whether or not we wanted to go to go to the plantation, the driver took it upon himself to turn the bus around and start driving back towards the hotel. So we gave up and accepted the decision, apparently made for us, not to go to the tea plantation.

Still, it was a fun trip, and it was wonderful to get out of the city. I'd post photos from all the stuff I've been doing recently, but I didn't bring the cord to upload pictures from my camera. So I'll post them as soon as I can, once I get back to Surabaya in mid-September.

One other semi-crazy experience for a group of us happened a couple nights ago. We rented an angkot (cheap, tiny bus) to drive 10 of us to this beautiful restaurant, Dago Teahouse, located at the top of a hill overlooking the city. We had another amazing dinner sitting outside in the quiet (Yes! Finally peace from the roaring motorcycles) and relaxing. After the dinner, we were told there was some kind of traditional show going on, potentially involving machetes and people being put in trance-like states. Tabitha, who is a renewing Fellow and therefore has some experience with Indonesia already, was a little unsure; she said that those things can be kind of creepy. The people who practice that stuff are sometimes into doing self-mutilation (to show how they don't feel any pain while they're meditation or things like that).
In any case, we decided to give it a look. On the stage, there were about 10 men sitting in the back, chanting and drumming. A couple other men were kind of wandering around on the stage, not really doing much. One of the guys sat down and started meditating, and after about a minute, he got up and was given a machete, which he started rubbing vigorously on his bare shins and arms. He didn't draw any blood, but it was still kind of disturbing. Then he was given a green coconut, and he started ripping it apart with his teeth, and then after he had eaten most of it, he started drinking huge amounts of water (apparently when you are filled with the "spirit," one of the effects is you get really really thirsty). While this was happening, a woman in the audience started freaking out, because she apparently had also become possessed by the spirit. People jumped up and carried her (kicking and screaming) away to a room inside the building.
By that point, I was pretty much finished with the whole experience, as were a couple other people. Too weird and creepy for me! So we hitched a ride back in a taxi, as Jess (another renewing person) told us that the people we'd seen were comparable in a way to Java's Amish people--the performers are part of a sect that totally cuts themselves off from the rest of society, and refuses to use modern technology. They also practice animism, the oldest "religion" of Indonesia. In conclusion, I'm glad I got to see a performance by locals, but I hope that in the future, I can avoid the more disturbing sides of traditional practices and beliefs. Perhaps a traditional ballet in Yogyakarta?