There's something about Barby's.

Please pardon the ever-more-random post topics. This is what happens when it's easier for me to post things through my phone than through a computer.

Anyway, I have recently discovered my favorite Indonesian bakery thus far. Despite the fact that I doubt Barby is an actual name, I am a fan. Fluffy, substantial bread (albeit white--that's really the only kind of bread sold in Indonesia) and authentic chocolate chip cookies. And that's all I've had the chance to try so far! Maybe the picture sucked me in too; it's oddly reminiscent of a Maurice Sendak character. Or maybe it's the catchy slogan. Stay tuned for more delicious Barby discoveries in the future.

Trying on batiks

Attempting to dig out the best patterns. We're gonna have them made into skirts.

Bamboo Rafting in Borneo!

Unfortunately, I don't have as many pictures as I'd like. But here are the highlights from my camera and Deirdre's (stolen from her post!).

OK, as as some of you may have seen from various Facebook posts, about nine of the English Language Fellows took part in a self-organized, non-work-related bamboo rafting trip in Borneo (Southern Kalimantan, in the town of Loksado, to be precise) last weekend. It was a really great (dare I say epic?) weekend. Things went pretty much as smoothly as one could hope for on a trip like this.

First, on Thursday afternoon, Jen (the Fellow closest to me, who lives on the island of Madura about one hour away) and I took a taxi to the Surabaya airport. Where our flight was--of course--delayed. We killed time by drinking (gasp!) a beer! Our first beer since the orientation in Bandung. It was good. But I couldn't help feeling a little sinful. So few people drink alcohol in Indonesia due to their religion.

Bintang and Heineken!

 We reached Jon (the Fellow who suggested and organized most of the trip) by about 9pm that night, in his town of Banjarmassin. We also met up with about six other Fellows who'd already arrived. It was so great to see them again! We stayed up way late for us (midnight!) catching up. Then we crashed until 5am, which is when we got up to go to...

 The floating market! Only about 20 minutes drive from Jon's place, the market is actually kind of in decline. There aren't nearly as many sellers as there used to be. But it's still a really cool way to wake up and eat breakfast.

 We rented a motorboat for $15 and took us out through the river (where we saw lots of people bathing themselves and washing dishes; we were essentially sailing through their back yard) and out into a bay area, where we killed the motor and bought Soto Banjar (the local specialty soup; it's like really good chicken noodle soup) and delicious fried. things.

Soto Banjar and es teh manis (sweet iced tea).

Buying fruit.

Chowing down inside the boat.

Iris used this stick with a pin on it to spear donuts and other delights from the boat outside. We ate so many fried things!!

Glorious fried sweets captured in the morning sun. We tried all of them.

 After the floating market, we stopped at the local mosque, which is apparently the oldest mosque in the region. It was very pretty inside.

Shot of the mosque from outside.

The rest of that day was mostly spent driving in two vans out of Banjarmassin and into the mountains of Loksado, where we would stay for two nights for the rafting and other wilderness excitement. After about a 5-hour drive to Loksado (stopping for lunch along the way), we eventually arrived, after some confusion which I won't go into here, at a kind of lodge where we would sleep 2 or 3 to a room. We set down our stuff, and went to swim in a local pool/hot springs across from our cabin. We had assumed it wouldn't be very crowded, because we were in a fairly small, quiet town. But when we got there, it was packed with all the neighborhood kids! Suffice it to say, we were not able to wear our bathing suits in the water. That would have virtually been like swimming naked. So we all kept our clothes on and just jumped in the water. That night we also built a small fire outside the cabin and Jon and Esteban (the self-proclaimed "Borneo Brothers") brought out a drum and a guitar to play some songs that people had requested in the weeks beforehand, and have a sing-along. It was a lot of fun. Hits included songs by: Adele, Tom Petty, Paul Simon*, Elton John, the Dixie Chicks, and Sublime.

*I definitely typed that name as "Neil" Simon first and had to look it up. Shows you what a big fan I am. : /

The next day the real adventures began. We left the cabin at 7am, and were met by 15 "ojek" or motorcycle drivers from the area. Everyone jumped on the back of a bike. The drivers would be taking us up to a waterfall in the area.

The first leg of the ride was easy--paved roads!

 

We took a break here. Pretty, no?

One of many rickety bridges.

 The second leg of the journey (the long one, about one hour long) was much more death-defying. Or at least it felt that way to me. We essentially road motorcycles along a hiking path. And over really rickety bridges. And big rocks in the road. Needless to say, I held on to my seat for dear life, and my arms were pretty sore the next day from the strain. But I survived! We all survived! Although one girl's motorcycle did tip over. But she was OK. So now I can tell my mom about it.

Posing on a less-rickety bridge.

I guess now is also a good time to note that we had matching shirts made for this trip. Yes. We are that cool.

We are all on the backs of ojeks here, although you can't see them that well.

 

We finally reached the waterfall, and it was pretty great. Our guides told us that we had to wear our clothes in the water, so that the spirits of the waterfall wouldn't be angry. But apparently that rule didn't apply to the men. (Not fair, spirits!)  In any case, it was a lot of the fun. The water was cold but refreshing. And there was no one else there (except for us and the 15 ojek drivers that took us there, haha)! 

From left: Esteban, me, Deirdre, Autumn, Jackie, Iris, and Tabitha

Finally, after we took the motorcycles all the way back, we had lunch and then got to go bamboo rafting! The funny thing is, we almost didn't get to go bamboo rafting, because the water was so low in the river; there hadn't been rain for a quite a while. So we barely had enough water to do it. I could see the rafting being quite thrilling if there had been some more water. As it was, we had a very sedate, peaceful trip down the river. And we didn't have to do anything. Each raft held two people, and a guide stood at the front, using a stick to maneuver the raft around rocks. Deirdre and I shared a raft, and our guide's name was Satri. He didn't speak any English (and both of us still have really rough Bahasa Indonesia skills), but he was friendly and seemed to genuinely enjoy his job of getting us down the river, so we had a lot of fun joking around with him. Plus, he made sure we were (almost) always in first place the whole way down the river. #1!!

Beautiful views.

People behind us getting stuck on rocks. (A common occurrence due to the low water level.)

Our guide, Satri.

 So, that's most of the trip. After the rafting, we spent the evening back at the cabin, pretty exhausted. We sang campfire songs again. Sadly on Saturday night and most of Sunday, I was feeling pretty under the weather.  I think it was the Deet spray; everyone was using 100% Deet bug spray to keep off the copious mosqitoes. Unfortunately, I don't think my body can handle that many chemicals! Thankfully on Sunday night, after I'd stopped using the spray for a whole day, I felt much better. Just in time to start giving midterms on Monday morning!

Borneo pics and story coming soon.

But until then, please look at how sweet my boyfriend is.

Feeling very American right now.

Despite the fact that I ate those fries with a fork.

Sort-of Recent Photos

OK, tons of pictures headed your way! The first few go back about a month, so bear with me.

I was asked to give a speech for about 80 incoming freshman in the English Letters department of my university. They had a kind of "camp" for the weekend, and I came up for Saturday morning. I spoke about my experience as a freshman in the U.S. (you can see my PowerPoint of a typical dorm room up on the wall). I think they understood...some of it.

Rapt students. Yes, I AM that riveting.

After the presentation, we drove to a hot springs area (sadly, I don't remember the name of it!) and walked up a really steep hill. You can see Bu Wahju in the background on the right, Pak Milal on the right, and a student who was catching a ride with us, Ovi, in the foreground.

Posing in NATURE (said in Robert Goulet's voice).

I stopped on the way back to buy roasted corn from these ladies.

Flash forward to the following weekend.We met Steve (a Fulbright Researcher) and his wife Sakti for dinner. Very nice people. Sorry I don't have a picture of them yet. But they took us to this cool park, Taman Bungkun (I think?), where everybody hangs on Friday night.

Saturday night: dinner at Mango Terrace for Nina's (the girl on the left in the center) birthday! This was a gathering of Fellows and ETAs. Really nice to catch up a little.

After the birthday dinner, Jen and I went to see a traditional East Javanese music and dance performance, in which Steve was playing. These are some of the musicians. 

These ladies danced and sang. And had gorgeous clothing (which you can't really see here, unfortunately). 

Sakti, Jen, and me enjoying the show.

We took a free bus tour on Sunday, and saw these girls practicing traditional dance at one of the cultural centers in Surabaya. 

On Monday night, Steve and Sakti invited me out again (they're so nice!) to see a Ludruk, or traditional performance, similar to the one we saw on Saturday. Except this one was a live performance for the radio station RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia). It was really cool to just sit in the back and quietly watch the performers.

Then I got "kidnapped" to come to this pesantren (Muslim boarding school)! This is a cute calf I saw walking around the premises in the morning. 

Cute students at the pesantren. 

Then we went to the zoo on Sunday! Despite the fact that the Surabaya Zoo was apparently written up as the worst zoo in the world, where apparently the animals die at an alarming rate. But it's the biggest zoo in Indonesia! So a couple of exchange students and I went. It wasn't quite as bad as I expected. Although the chained-down elephants made me cry. I did not photograph those. 

Apparently there is a fish whose Indonesian name is Grace Kelly? I was really confused by that. But at least it's a classy-looking fish.

Cotton candy (purchased for 50 cents and tasting pretty different from American CC) and Komodo dragons! Could there be any better ending to the day? 

When did I suddenly get so busy?

Disclaimer: This post is REALLY long. Prepare yourself. Or just give up now. Also--I have not posted photos yet of the events described herein. But I will. I promise. 
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It seems like the first two weeks of teaching at IAIN Sunan Ampel were quiet. I taught my classes, lesson-planned a lot (I tried to make up a schedule for the whole semester for each of  my four classes), and came home and watched bootleg DVDs until 10pm.

But then last week, another Fellow, Jen, came to visit. We did a LOT. On Friday, we met the Public Affairs Officer and the director of the Information Resource Center at the Consulate. Then, from there, we met with the regional director of the Peace Corps. Then, we went to TP (Tunjungan Plaza, the biggest and oldest mall in Surabaya) to grab some quick sushi before rushing to an actual dinner with a Fulbright researcher (who is studying East Javanese traditional music! So cool!) from Michigan and his wife. More networking possibilities!

Saturday was a little less crazy. We had planned to visit the American Corner (an American cultural center) at a local university, but found out it was closed for repairs. So we went to TP and shopped some more before meeting up with a colleague of Jen's to shop some MORE at a different mall and then look at potential motorcycles to buy for her small town of Kamal. As a side note: I would never, ever, get a motorcycle in Surabaya because the traffic is crazy. Then, that night, we met up with the Fulbright researcher, Steve, and his wife, Sakti, again. Steve was playing gamelan in a performance in the village, and there were dancers and singers and comedians and even kind of a beauty pageant! It was really great to finally get to see something "cultural," but it went on pretty much all night, so we couldn't stay for the whole thing. We stayed from 10pm until about 12:30am, and by then, I could barely keep my eyes open.

On Sunday, we (gasp!) went back to TP and got lunch. Sushi, to be precise. Then we went to House of Sampoerna (a cultural center that is actually an old cigarette factory, which still functions today) to take the free bus tour of the city. The tour was OK--despite the guide speaking in English half the time, we didn't really catch what he said. And the bus didn't slow down at all for historical sites, such as the hotel where an Indonesian climbed the flagpole and ripped the bottom stripe off of the Dutch flag, thus declaring independence from the Dutch and creating the Indonesian flag. Pretty cool story right?

So anyway, the tour was short and fairly forgettable. But it was free, so we got our money's worth! Maybe I can find another tour sometime that discusses things in greater depth. Or if all else fails, just read a history book.

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So that was the weekend. This past week has suddenly gotten crazy too. Monday night, I went to a ludruk performance with Steve and Sakti. Ludruk is a type of traditional East Javanese musical performance with includes singers, dancers, and musicians. Because this was a live radio broadcast, there was of course no dancing, but the singers and some comedians performed between musical numbers. It was a lot of fun to just sit back and get a kind of private performance. Wednesday night, I attempted to live-stream a teacher-training webinar that steams out of Washington, D.C. About 30 future English teachers and current English teachers showed up. No luck streaming the video. After attempting to connect to the live stream for about 2 hours, my fears that the school's internet was just too slow were confirmed. But I had a backup plan, thankfully, which did not require internet. I used a CD of teacher training videos we'd received at orientation to guide the meeting. It was a little haphazard, since I hadn't really known how much to plan for, but I think it went OK. I asked the attendees if they'd like to make this a regular event for the next five weeks, and they seemed into the idea. So I'll be hosting another one next Wednesday.

Then Thursday, I had a meeting with the Sastra Inggris (English Letters) department, in which they asked all of the teachers, including me, to re-write the curriculum for our classes. They handed me a sample curriculum description, and it was approximately 20 pages long. For one course!! All in Bahasa Indonesia, too, by the way! I asked whether my curriculum description had to be that long, and they said no. Phew. The director of the program also asked me to review their next edition of the department's journal publication. Sure, why not? And then they asked me if I would publish an article in it, and submit the article by the end of the month. Sure, why not?

Then, the dean of the department stopped by and asked if I would be willing to come visit his pesantren (Muslim boarding school) that he owns sometime. I said, sure, why not? And tried to schedule a date when I would be free, sometime later in October. He seemed to agree with the date, but then a few minutes later, my counterpart came over and said, "He wants you to come today. Can you leave in two hours? And come back on Saturday?" It was Thursday. I was not too excited about the prospect of giving up half of my weekend visiting a school and essentially working, so I managed to get him to agree to just stay overnight Thursday. So I rushed back to my room, packed my bags, and took the 3-hour trip out to Nganjuk with another female English teacher from my department, Mbak Meria (Miss Meria). She came along as a translator and kind of intermediary, and I'm really glad she came, because I would have been really confused without her, and she was really kind and spoke a lot of English with me the whole trip.

When we reached the school at about 6pm (we'd stopped for dinner on the way), I met with just the girls from the school, and attempted to get them to talk to me. They were really shy (ages 11-14), but I did eventually get them to sing me an arabic song, in exchange for singing "My Heart Will Go On" for them. Yes! Titanic! A success, this time!

Then we met with all of the students (about 50 or more) at the mosque, which was kind of odd, because I sat at the front, facing the girls and boys, who were separated from each other by a curtain. Because the meeting was held in a mosque, the girls and boys couldn't look at each other. Then I was asked to speak about Muslims in America. I didn't have a whole lot to say about this--I spent about 5 minutes max explaining what I knew, and then we invited the students to ask questions. They were all very shy, again, so there were a lot of long silences. But I did get a few good questions about the American school system and how it differs from the Indonesian school system. I then tried to ask them questions about their school. Then we kind of ran out of things to talk about...so the dean asked me to just "tell a love story." Haha. He said he just wanted me to speak so that the students could hear a native speaker. So I told them the story of how Ari and I met. Which I think went over OK. Indonesian students in general seem to be really excited to hear I have a boyfriend, so they generally are really interested in that kind of story. I'm not sure if the explanation of how we met on a cruise ship really translated clearly, but...they got the gist.

So after that talk, Meria and I went to sleep, sharing a bed in one of the rooms of the Dean's house. We then woke up at 6 to eat breakfast, bathe (my first authentic Indonesian bath!), and walk around the premises a little. Nganjuk is a really tiny town, so it was quite rustic. The people living nearby seemed to be farmers, with lots of cows (I couldn't resist pictures of the cows!) and ducks and chickens and goats. Then I met with the teachers of the school (about 8 of them, not of all of whom were English teachers), and gave a short talk about "The newest teaching methodology in America." I chose to focus on Communicative Language Teaching (for any teachers who care who are reading my blog). I think it went over fairly well, although the teachers took some convincing (did I actually convince anyone?) that this type of methodology could work in their classrooms. Then we jumped in the car and took the 3-hour trip home. Phew! Again!

That was yesterday. Today, I had another busy day recording my voice for a TOEFL-like listening test that another school is putting together. Well, originally the plan had been to record my voice. Then they decided the day before that they wanted to FILM me too. So I had to look presentable! (Although they didn't give me any guidelines about how to dress.) I chose to wear a batik--can't go wrong with batik--and hair pulled back. Oh yes, and that morning I went jogging, got really sweaty and red in the face, and came home to find that the water and electricity had been turned off, for who knew how long. So I was unable to shower between jogging and being filmed for this project! Just a little deodorant and scented lotion to cover it up....

So I got picked up at 9am, and the first stop we made was to buy me fruit! I told them they weren't allowed to pay me (part of the Fellowship agreement), so they offered to buy me lots of fruit instead, since I mentioned that I was really into all the cool new fruits in Indonesia. I picked out durian (yes, durian), guava, soursop, starfruit, mango, and a couple other fruits I don't even know the name of. Then we went to the school and recorded me standing in front of a blue screen pretending to give lectures on all sorts of random topics, including: Linux, types of lighting in photography, managerial accounting, the island of Bukanon (? Can't remember the actual name), and how steel is made. As you may be able to tell, the content skewed towards the...technical. I definitely guessed on the pronunciation of a few words.

We managed to finish all of the lectures in one day (there were 10 of them! Each one about 3 - 4 minutes long), and as another gift to me, the director offered to buy me a batik shirt for me to wear for the next recording session (I have one more to do, with dialogues this time). So they drove me to this awesome batik store that I hadn't discovered yet, and I got to enjoy the pleasure of shopping for a batik with two Indonesian men hovering nearby politely waiting for you to pick something. I managed to narrow it down fairly quickly, though, and picked out an elegant olive green one.

Then they brought me home, where I was pleased to discover that my power and my water were back on. Hooray!

Which catches me up to today. Yikes, that was a long post. And now I'm late to go see Wayang Kulit, a shadow puppet show! Thankfully, those shows also continue until the sun comes up, so if I get there a little after it's started, I don't think it's a big deal. And I won't be staying for the whole performance--I get to actually sleep in tomorrow!