If it ends with martabak, it's OK.

Last Friday, January 11, as a favor for a friend of a friend, I went out to visit a pesantren (Muslim boarding school) in Lamongan, which is about two hours outside of Surabaya. While I wasn't especially looking forward to this trip because I knew it would take all day (I was doing two presentations, one for the students and one for the teachers), I figured it would be a good chance to explore a little outside of Surabaya. And in fact, the trip turned out better than I expected.

First of all, I got to try some local specialties: ental (the seed-looking things) and jemblek. The ental apparently comes from a palm, and it is peeled and eaten like a kind of gelatinous, flavorless fruit. I only had one bite. That was enough.

Ental and jemblek

Legen

 Then I got to drink legen, which is apparently made from the juice of the flower (?) of the same type of palm as ental. It was interesting--super sweet, and borderline alcoholic. Apparently if you let it ferment for a few days more, it becomes alcoholic.

Here I am, holding jemblek. As you can see, it's wrapped in palm leaf, which you have to unwrap to eat what's inside. What inside is...a brown, gelatinous, sweet goo. I was able to eat about three healthy bites before putting it down. I watched as local teachers wolfed down the sweet in seconds.

At this point, I'm sorry to say that I am less than impressed by Indonesian desserts. They are generally weirdly sweet, and almost always gelatinous. My favorite dessert so far is brem cake, and even that is made from something fermented. What gives?

Anyway, back to the story at hand. I had some local treats, and then ate lunch, which consisted mainly of seafood, since Lamongan is on the coast.

The black stuff is squid, there's some obvious fish in there (which is apparently a type of fish that's very common in the area), and the yellow stuff is shrimp mixed with coconut milk and...other stuff. It was all quite good! Had some difficulty with the bones of the fish, but I think I managed it alright.

Then, after lunch I got to meet some of the star students. These three girls were apparently the best in English from their class, and they were amazingly cute and sweet. At first they were shy, but after about ten minutes we were talking about music, classes, and marriage traditions. Ha.

Then came the actual presentation itself. Apparently the director of the school decided that I should only speak to the girls, since I'm a girl. Okay. Can't argue with that! Or can I?

Anyway, let me just say, that I have never felt this much like a rock star. I came on stage to this group of approximately 100 girls:

Who literally started screaming and shrieking as soon as they saw me. When I did the presentation, I asked for volunteers (NO ONE wanted to volunteer, argh), but when I walked into the audience to look for someone, they all started reaching out for me to shake their hands. So I started shaking their hands, and they all started screaming again. Whaa?? Is this how Justin Bieber feels at his concerts?

At the end, there was (as always) a question-and-answer period, and one group of girls in the front really wanted me to sing Adele's song "Someone Like You." This song is probably the most popular song in Indonesia right now. And somehow I still haven't learned it! So I kept saying no, sorry, until finally I decided I could attempt the chorus. So yes, I sang a, uh, passable, cover of Adele for this group, not to mention all the other random people who had gathered on the sidelines. Good times. At least it wasn't the Titanic song, I guess.

My last moment as a rock star occurred at the end, when I was almost attacked by girls who wanted to stand next to me for a photo. They were pushing and shoving each other, and I was getting jostled and squeezed, and almost fell over! Man, when the teacher who coordinated this told me that his students would be excited to meet a "Native Speaker," he wasn't kidding. I just hope made enough of an impression on a few of these adorable kids to push them to continue studying English and hopefully travel abroad someday.

On our drive back to Surabaya (a full eight hours after leaving it), we stopped for a quick photo shoot with the Java Sea. I've now been to the Java Sea (and I didn't even know it existed until I went there)!

Post Script: Before they dropped me off at my room, my hosts took me by a martabak stand to buy both one regular martabak (like an omelette--it's like an omelette, with egg and green onions in the middle) AND one sweet martabak (I had one of these in Bandung at the beginning of my stay; it's like a crepe on steroids). All for MEEEEEE.

Maybe the best part about doing presentations

at local schools is the swag you get after you finish, called oleh-oleh in Indonesian.

Yesterday (Saturday) I did a presentation about cross-cultural understanding at a local university for their English club. The students were super-sweet (I prefer working with students more than professors and department heads, who can be kind of...jaded with the whole process of working with guest speakers), and each class did a presentation on some aspect of Indonesian culture, to teach me about their culture in return. I had to choose the winning class, and my favorite was a group that re-enacted and explained traditional games. These included marbles, "dakon," which is a game I've definitely seen in other cultures, and my favorite, snail races! I definitely enjoyed the students' reenactment of snail races, including all the yelling and cheering for their favorite snail (which was represented as a rock in this case).

Anyway, I digress. At the end of the seminar, the students called me up and gave me not one, not two, but THREE gifts for my whole 45-minute presentation. I was so honored!

Those are the gifts, still wrapped and on the floor of my room. I didn't take a picture of them after unwrapping them, sorry. The bag contained some little tchotchkes (fan, coin purse), the bigger package contained some batik fabric (Score! I can hopefully have a tailor make it into something) and the smaller wrapped package had two XL t-shirts (they know Americans run big) sporting phrases from their English Club, including one that I really love, saying "YOU WANNA BE BETTER THAN BEFORE UPDATE YOUR SKILLS NOW." 

I totally agree.

A few more pics stolen from Facebook

For those people who read my blog but don't read Facebook. I know you're out there!

First, from waaaayyy back in October: 

The Banjarmassin bamboo rafting group.

Me on a bamboo raft. I was able to stand for about 10 seconds before losing my balance. 

The sight that greeted us on our morning going up to the waterfalls. All the local men showing up outside our door with their motorcycles. Which one to choose?

 At Access Camp, November 15 - 18

Tabitha and I unintentionally dressed as twins. A lot of people couldn't tell us apart that day.

Emceeing the counselor talent show.

Singing "I Will Survive" with different words (courtesy of Jon and Deirdre) for the talent show.

 Jakarta Police School Native Speaker Day--Whodunnit? Game

I was the CSI Reporter. As such, I got to be in the room with the body and explain the gory details of the stabbing. (They weren't so gory or very detailed, actually.)

Police officers checking out the body.

Jon gets (surprise!) arrested.

Adam also gets arrested, but tries to get away (he's a quick thinker!).

 Jogjakarta--November 22 - 25

The ladies at Prambanan temple: Liz, Iris, me, Deirdre, Holly, Christen, Jen, Autumn

Partying at Bintang (Indonesian for "star"), the reggae bar. Deirdre, me, Holly, Iris, Christen, and Jon. 

So much ELF love on Thanksgiving.

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!