The week ain't over yet

But it's been a pretty great one so far.

Starting Monday night, November 5, all of the English Language Fellows converged on my little (OK, not so little) town of Surabaya to attend the 59th Annual TEFLIN Conference (TEFLIN = Teaching English as a Foreign Language INdonesia). We were all required to do a presentation, and to just generally show State Department support for the conference.

Although the purpose for the ELF gathering is professional, we have been having a blast hanging out together again, for the first time since Bandung back in August. We all get to stay at the Sheraton, which is a pretty freakin' awesome hotel (central air conditioning? Water pressure in the shower? King size bed??), and the Sheraton happens to be connected to the largest mall in Surabaya, Tunjungan Plaza, so we can all easily go out and get dinner together and socialize and just generally bask in the glow of spending time with other cool Americans.

On the first night, everyone came out to this sushi restaurant. It got a little rowdy.

Imitating how our students always pose.

We ordered one round of Bintang beers for everyone, and then the restaurant was sold out. As I have probably mentioned before, pretty much no one drinks alcohol in Indonesia. So we probably drank a week's supply of beer in one round! 

We also got to attend the "election party" at the Consulate in Surabaya. What better way to watch the results come in? They had a coffee barista on hand to make lots of fancy coffee drinks, cake, and some speakers spoke briefly about the electoral college and the history behind the donkey and elephant mascots.

 I got interviewed by some local news reporters. They initially began to interview Jessica, another Fellow, but she grabbed me and kindly pushed me in front of them, while she not-so-sneakily backed away and left the room. But I didn't really mind; I still kind of have some fun being interviewed (I don't doubt it gets old after a while--this is Jessica's second year in the country). The reporters asked me about Obama's and Romney's stances on foreign policy and the economy, and which candidate I preferred and why. I tried to give them super-super-simplified explanations. Which are about the only explanations I could provide anyway. 

Talking with some local university students while waiting for the coffee barista to make our cappuccinos. 

Me, Jackie and Jess posing with some local students and Consulate employees. 

It's been good times. But it's also been some work. On Wednesday afternoon, after making sure that Obama really was going to be our president for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!! I had to go straight to the conference to present a workshop on poetry (thankfully I was able to recycle my NYS TESOL presentation from last year). I think it went pretty well. The number of attendees was small because the workshop was held so late in the day (4:50pm), but the people who attended seemed to really want to be there to learn.

Anna (another Fellow who presented after me) introduces me. 

Monitoring attendees as they write haiku. 

I also had to organize my first official teacher-training workshop at my university, IAIN Sunan Ampel, for Friday (today). Four Fellows, including me, came out to my school to present on communicative teaching and project-based learning. We spoke to about 35 elementary, middle school, and high school English teachers from the community. We might have overwhelmed some with a little too much information packed into 2 hours, but I think most of the attendees got something out of it, or at least were pushed to reflect on their teaching style and how it might be improved or adapted.

Anna talks about the importance of  showing, not telling.

After our workshop. Gotta allow lots of time for photos! 

After our presentation, we were all starving, so I took the Fellows to a popular tourist destination (and pretty decent restaurant), called House of Sampoerna. It's an old cigarette factory. You can actually still watch the workers through a glass wall as they're rolling and cutting cigarettes. You can also pose inside of a "kaki lima" (food stall) as if you're selling cigarettes. That's my favorite part. Great for kids!

And that takes me up until now.  Because all I did after coming back from House of Sampoerna this afternoon was take a 3-hour nap. The best nap in recent memory. And then I had a bowl of tofu for dinner at the mall. 

I only have one more full day to spend with all the other Fellows, so I have to make it count! I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye, again since we won't ever all be together like this again. Thankfully, a decent-sized group of us are meeting up in Jogjakarta for Thanksgiving weekend. But I think we're all doing our best to enjoy our time together now, while we have it.

Wow, that last sentence could apply to life in general. Deep thoughts. And that is all for now.

Sempu Island

Last weekend (November 3rd and 4th),  I had the opportunity to join an English professor on a trip to a very remote village to carry out a teacher training workshop. It was a workshop on "classroom English." Apparently, the Indonesian government encourages all teachers in high schools (not just English teachers) to speak English in class as much as possible. This is a difficult task to achieve for a lot of more rural, poorer areas, because there just isn't that much English spoken out in those areas.
All in all, the plan for the training sounded pretty sweet: Saturday morning, drive out to a remote village near Malang, assist with a training, and then drive a little further to this tourist destination, Sempu Island, to stay the night and enjoy the beach the next day before coming home on Sunday night.

So, I invited Jen along--my fellow Fellow who is thankfully always up for anything! (Why this characteristic is important will become clearer later on in this post.) After about a 7-hour drive, with lots of stops to pick up food and get tents, etc., we reached the school.

 Introductions. Aliv, the trip coordinator, is sitting on the far left. The school headmaster is the one speaking.

 Just happy to be here! 

 About 20 teachers attended the workshop. Most of them spoke almost no English (only two were actual English teachers). 

"Performing" a role play (I just read my lines): I am the teacher, Jen is the student. 

The workshop finished later than expected, since it had taken us longer than expected to drive out there. Consequently, our trip to Sempu Island was delayed, and we didn't reach the boat that would take us to the island until it was almost dark out. Aliv asked me and Jen, "Is it OK if we reach the island at night?" Of course! No problem! we said. Little did we know, once we reached the island after a 20-minute motorboat ride, we would have to hike 1+ hours in the dark, over rocky, volcanic terrain and lots of roots to trip us up. Plus, it was freakin' humid. And Jen and I had flats on. We had been told that there would be camping, but that was it. 

However, it wasn't like we were gonna turn back now. We trooped through it--dripping sweat and fogging up our glasses and slipping around in our shoes.

 On the shore, waiting for the boat to take us across to the island.

 Pretty view from the boat trip. 

 On the boat, blissfully unaware of the hike that awaited us in 20 minutes. 

 Inadequate hiking shoes. 

At the end of the hike. Need I say more? 

So we survived it. The guys set up the tents, we ate top ramen for dinner over a tiny little propane camping fire (there is no fresh water or electricity or pretty much anything on the island--you have to pack everything in). And then we pretty much went to bed. Just on the floor of the tents. Apparently Indonesians don't use sleeping backs or pillows or mats when they go camping. This was something of a downer to discover, as well. But I still managed to get a pretty decent sleep.

And the next morning, we woke up to this:

 The tide was out, so people were climbing around on the coral. Live coral! Although it kind of grossed me out because I think it was the kind of coral called brain coral. Slimy and brainy looking. But cool! 

 Beautiful warm but not too warm water. 

 There was this neat hole where the water from the ocean came in during high tide. 

Hooray! (I went swimming in these clothes, and got to see one really cool fish--it was bright, electric blue, with electric yellow fins, and kind of a boxy shape. Anyone know what it might have been?)

We also saw monkeys in the trees right above us, thankfully not tame enough to come down and try to steal our food, but still really cute and fairly close. We spent most of the morning just lounging around, swimming in the water and finishing up the Top Ramen for lunch. (Yum. Just kidding.) Then we packed up and hiked out--it took us a little less than 2 hours coming back. I'd thought it might be faster coming back, because we had light this time, but it was so hot, we had to make lots of pit stops to hydrate and catch our breath. 

The guys traveling with us kept saying, "Es" and "Es degan," which means ice, and iced coconut juice respectively. We stayed focus on the delicious juice we could get once we got back to land. 

 Beautiful boat ride back during daytime.

 Es degan! Everyone refilled their cup once or twice. One of the guys had four glasses of it! 

 Delicious, fresh coconut juice served out of the back of a truck. 

Cheers! A pretty awesome weekend had by all. 

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.