It’s been almost a month since the last time I wrote
anything here. I guess I got wrapped up in day-to-day activities and didn’t
really give them importance, so I skipped writing about them. However, it is
time to catch up and try to remember what has happened this past month. These
are just highlights, since my memory is already blurry.
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| Abby and I spend the afternoon in Senggigi. |
Having people around you who share similar experiences
definitely helps create bonds. In the past month I have developed a closer
relationship with Abby and Hiram, the two Americans that work at nearby
schools. I’m usually not very talkative, but we get together at least once a
week and talk about our frustrations and joys. Most of the time I just listen,
but I know that they are there for me whenever I feel like talking. We also
sort of westernized our time here a little bit by doing things like going to
the movies, eating out at restaurants in Senggigi once in a while, and getting
together to have some beer or wine after a long week. Those things you take
from granted in the United States definitely feel like a privilege here. Sometimes I even feel guilty and must remind myself that this is not something I do all the time.
I have also spent more quality time with my neighbors. A
couple of weeks ago, Galih, Agus, and Yuga, my three musician friends, put
together a performance at their school. I invited Abby, Hiram, and Indah, my Bahasa
Indonesia teacher, to go with me. It was an interesting night of music, dance,
theater, and art. During one of the performances a guy in the crowd began screaming
and everyone ran away thinking he was possessed. I just sat there and watched
him with curiosity. The audience relaxed after realizing that it was actually
part of the performance, and then the guy got up and did a strange ritual that
ended with him breaking a ceramic pot on his head. Oh, artists!
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| Galih and Agus perform at LaluArt. |
A few days later, Galih and Agust came to play music at a
Halloween party that my conversation club students and I put together. Hiram
and Abby came with some of their students to the party, and even though there
were a couple of issues with water scarcity (even ghosts need water!) and lack
of volunteers for some activities, students had fun wearing costumes, taking
pictures, and listening to live music. Galih and Agus rocked the house! For
most of the students, this was their very first Halloween party. I tried to
adapt the festivities to the culture of Indonesia, and got some traditional
rice treats handmade by a local woman in the shape of eyeballs, pumpkins, skulls,
etc. We also had a watermelon carving table, where students made tropical jack-o’-lanterns.
Another first for most.
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| Conversation Club students get ready for Halloween |
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| Watermelon jack-o'-lanterns carved by students. We also had watermelon juice. |
To thank the guys for playing at the party I invited them to
have dinner with me. That afternoon the power went out, as it often happens
here, but I lit some candles and got busy in the kitchen. When I was cooking,
two other neighbors, Sri and Ratna, came over and helped me chop vegetables and
stir the pot, so I invited them to stay too. The six of us had a feast at my
place, and Yuga brought his guitar and played some music at candlelight. It was
a wonderful night! I really appreciate my neighbors, and they all have been
incredibly kind and generous to me. I was sad to hear that the guys are moving
to a bigger and cheaper place soon. I’m going to miss them!
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| Traditional rice treats change shape during Halloween. |
But not everything has been easy this past month. I actually
had some of the roughest weeks since I got to Indonesia, and there were times
when I felt like I have no reason to be here at all. Mira, my counterpart, was
often busy or gone, and my immigration documents were almost not done on time—now
they are being processed and will hopefully be ready soon. RELO Jenn and her
assistant, Dian, came from Jakarta to try to strengthen things at the
university. It is a mystery to us how things get done here and why it is that I
don’t have a real schedule when I specifically came here to teach. There is a
lack of communication and an organizational void that seems to be ignored by
Indonesians, and if you ask questions they think that you are being too
American and tell you that you just need to relax. Mira resigned her position
as my counterpart, so I got a new person, Pak Jaswadi, to help me with my job.
It is a fresh start, and hopefully things will run smoothly from here on, but
we will see what happens. I’m trying to do what I can to stay calm and help my
students as much as possible. I just planned a series of workshops that will
start in a couple of weeks, and this time I got more support from people in the
university probably due to the visit of my boss. I need to try to stay
motivated, but sometimes it gets difficult.
To wrap things up, one of the craters around Mount Rinjani
began erupting about a week ago. Last week Mataram was dusty and there were
ashes floating in the air. A couple of people told me that I need to wear
glasses and a face mask to go outside, since the particles in the air could cause
respiratory problems and irritate the eyes. I could feel the ashes on my skin
and my teeth, even though we are not really that close to Rinjani. Then, the
rain came and settled the dust a little. The sky is overcast and many flights
have been cancelled, but life goes on. Things just seem to get more and more interesting
each day.
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| Volcanic eruption look. |
