Sara and Lee . com

The Indonesians (and particularly the Javanese) are very much a community oriented people.  Unlike Americans, everything in Indonesia must be shared and fair.  This plays into many aspects of life.  Most recently it played into my quest to get a teaching schedule.

Before actually starting, I was told by the VIA Indonesia program director and the VIA field coordinator that I would be helping with listening in many classes as well have a class of my own suited to students with strong aptitudes and/or interests in learning English.  I don’t know if my current situation could be any farther.
While trying to sit down and arrange my schedule, the principle and English teachers thought it would be best to share me equally with all the students at the school.  Problem is there are nearly 1000 of them.  I tried to push back and say that this would not allow anyone to learn effectively.  That did not go over well.  It was more important to share; it also is not fair to say some students are much better than others.
Already weary from other cultural difficulties, I have given up that battle for now.  I am now on a 2 week rotation.  One week is junior high, the next is senior high.  Over a two week span I cycle through each and every English class in the school.  I am still at a loss for what the best way to go about lesson planning should be.
On the bright side, my colleagues at the pesantren may just be making it tough to begin with.  A couple days after setting the schedule, they said there might be room to adjust after Ramadan (which starts in a week or so).

More as news develops.

Sara has already talked about the variety of noises one hears at night here in Indonesia. In other houses we have stayed at in Yogya and Jakarta, we often hear food vendors and chickens. Usually the chickens are a block away. Rooster crows are usually muffled by at least a street of space. While staying at our friends Sierra’s place, we giggled about the retarded rooster, confusedly crowing at midnight. We found it quite endearing.
That attitude has changed at our new place. The new house is in more of a kampung (village) — whatever that means, there are rice paddies, crops, and chickens nestled into just about any neighborhood here. Now we have the most retarded of roosters, nestling on the roof of the house across the street. This rooster crows almost hourly from between 12am and 6am. Not only that, it doesn’t even crow properly. It is probably the most retarded cock-a-doodle do I’ve ever heard.

If we were in the US we would probably not hear the rooster because houses are built with insulation. Actually, if we were in the US we would not see or hear this rooster because most people who raise chickens live on land well spread apart from one another. Even if Americans raised chickens in close proximity like they seem to do here, the loud, annoying one would be killed and eaten so that everyone could get a good night’s rest. Unfortunately, we do not have any of the aforementioned luxuries here.

We are rapidly adapting to the typical Indonesian noises. We’ve learned to sleep through the daily 5:00am call to prayer. We’ve become accustomed to the early horns of a breakfast vendor. We can sleep through more muffled rooster crows. But this rooster is winning the war on our nightly sleep. Sara tried wearing earplugs last night. It did not help. I slept through an earthquake a few weeks ago, but this rooster wakes me up every time. Indonesians must be the most dead of sleepers.
For those of you in the US reading this in the comforts of your home, think of this haiku as you fall asleep tonight:

Retarded rooster
Always crowing through the night
Shut-up, I can’t sleep

I will need to update this with pictures I’ve taken by myself, but for now the one above will have to do. Imagine a bus (I guess you should call it a mini-mini-van) like the one above, but yellow, and FULL.

During VIA orientation back in April, we did a mini-bus simulation. This consisted of spacing two picnic benches about two feet apart, cramming all the Indonesia volunteers on and in between the benches, and swaying to and fro like one would in a bus.

Since arriving in Yogya all of my bus rides had been nowhere nearly as crowded as this. I’ve had to stand at times, and I’ve mooshed into seats, but it was comfortable compared to the mini-bus simulation. Now that I have actually started working all that has changed.

The Pesantren (Muslim Boarding school). Is about 13 kilometers out of town. Consequently, I take two less frequent microlets/angkot/mini-buses to get to work each day. The daily commute should take a little over an hour if you factor in walking and waiting. This doesn’t seem to happen. Because, I work during normal school hours and because I live a bit north, I am in competition with all the junior high students trying to get to their schools at some unknown location along my first bus route. By the time the bus arrives it is packed.

On the best of days, I have room to sit. On a better day, I get to have half a butt cheek on the bench. Lately, by the time the bus arrives for me it is already full — full meaning all the benches are taken, and people hanging out the side. Yesterday I was one of three guys hanging out the side. Today, the first two buses were too full to accomodate even this. The latter of the two had people crammed in the tiny little aisle way, and five kids hanging out the side. I passed on that one and chose to be late for class.

I think I will need to either get a bicycle or a motorbike – but the craziness involved in both of those is best reserved for another blog post.

This, in a nutshell (or maybe a timeline, whatever), was my first day of work at CD Bethesda. It’s very different from Intel (except in dress code….jeans and tshirts reign supreme here too), but I think I am going to like it a lot nonetheless. No offense, cubicle world, but now I have an office! Ha ha haaaaa….oh yeah, and I share it with 3 other people. It’s air conditioned and has fast internet….but we’ll get to that later. Here was my schedule sort of

11AM the day before — I text message my supervisor asking when/if I should come to work the next day and what I should bring.

9PM the day before — I get a message indicating that I should come in at 9AM the next day. Which is what I was planning on doing anyway thankfully.

7:50AM on day of work — depart on foot from our friend Sierra’s house, aka our temporary residence while she and her roommate are in Vietnam.

8:02AM — arrive at major street with buses, having heard “hello mister” several times on the street already today.

8:10AM — No buses are coming! Panic! Or rather, in the US I would have panicked. My first day of work and I am due there at 9 and there are no buses! Here, I was calm. And laughing. Time is a bit more…..relative. I was confident that nobody would care if I was late, even on my first day.

8:11AM — the A3 bus comes to save the day. It is large and slow, but as I haven’t seen any of the more agile bus-vans, I will take it.

8:15AM — we have not gone far (driving slowly, trolling for more passengers no doubt) and are passed by the D-something van-bus. I made a bad choice obviously

8:42AM — bus finally gets to where I get off. Now is the time for my ~15 minute walk to work. Thus, I get to work at 8:56AM. This is probably a greater crime than being late, this earliness, but I go in anyway. At Intel on my first day I would walk into the lobby and a manager would be there to meet me. At CD, not so much….I wander upstairs and ask if my supervisor is in yet. It appears that she is….great! She and one of my other office-mates are in the office eating little wrapped up breakfast bundles from nearby warungs (food stalls). My desk has a small pile of Sierra’s mail on it and nothing else. I say my good mornings and sit.

9:07AM — I am told where the tea is, if I would like some. I would! If for nothing else than to have something to do.

9:10AM — Don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here sipping tea! OK, I should try to look busy like the others are. I know, I will message Lee to let him know I am here and have nothing to do.

9:12AM — That didn’t take long. At this point, my two coworkers ask about my background. Upon hearing that it is in computer engineering, they are happy. Apparently, of the three computers in the office, one works, one cannot do internet anymore, and one can receive but not send email. So much for using the fast internet Oh, if I only had actual practical computer skills! I mention that since Lee and I are sharing a laptop, it might be nice if I could have a laptop to use at CD during the day. Sierra (predecessor) had suggested this to me weeks ago. This was met with “hmmm, well, our laptops are broken. We will be getting some new ones. hmmmmm”. I gleaned nothing definite from this.
9:30AM — nobody seems concerned that I am doing nothing, so I find an old powerpoint presentation in Indonesian and start translating it to English, just to try to teach myself new words.

9:45 — ok, I feel bad. I offer to try to look at one of the computers and see if I can fix it. I know I can’t. I text lee to see if he has ideas. He doesn’t, especially because he’s not there. But at least I feel like I’m trying to do something.

10AM — My supervisor says something about having her supervisor take me around to meet people. Regrettably her supervisor is not available.

10:30AM — Her supervisor becomes available and I go around meeting many people. I forget many names, but not Suparman, I was hoping to meet someone of that name. I am offered traditional cold medicine as my nose is running. My kingdom for a kleenex! How embarrassing to meet people with a running nose. It does not make remembering names any easier when you are concentrating on your own nose. Each time I meet someone, it is announced that I am a computer expert and perhaps could teach them how to use computers or fix their computers. I finally manage to say that actually, my work was in microprocessor design with “Intel Pentium”. If I just say Intel I get blank stares, but the Pentium part really seems to perk people up. This mention of microprocessors translates to “oh, so you worked with spare parts. You know how to change them! And you can recognize when parts are fake!” Sorry to squash your enthusiasm, but no, no, unfortunately no. I have no such practical skills. Sigh.

11:30AM — lunch with the females of the office. A tradition! It was a lot of fun, though I did not venture to try the chicken feet or head today. Mungkin nanti! (possibly later).

1 PM — back in office. I am given a book to read about CD Bethesda, written in the late 80s. It is actually a very good book, though very obviously translated from Indonesian, sometimes a tad awkwardly. For the record, CD Bethesda is a Christian organization, though they serve everyone. They work to develop good health practices in communities, sort of using a holistic approach. They are awesome! (says me, clearly an expert after just one day) Their approach to religion, at least on paper, is one that I can agree with. Maybe someday I will post an excerpt that I particularly liked from the book…..maybe.

During my reading, many people came in and out of the office to work at various desks, sort of like musical desks. Very musical in fact, as they played music on the computers employing the computers’ own speakers rather than headphones. They also sang along frequently (and well!) to passages from the songs, which were mostly in English. It was great, though it sort of made me snicker to think of people doing that in the US. Apparently this singing and music is common, as I have asked people from two different NGOs in town if they have observed this and the answers were both yes.

2PM — I am asked to revise the editing I did before (see prev. post) as new information has come in. In order to do this, I must use my supervisor’s computer. She says that she asked around about a computer for me and that it should be possible. That is all the resolution I have on this for now. I actually consider this to be a great amount of progress!

3:30PM — Done editing! I get the feeling people thought I would be faster at this, but of course they don’t say so because that would be rude.

4PM — People start leaving for the day. My coworkers ask me how I am getting home. I answer bus and they express concern. They all ride motorbikes. Consensus is that I should too. My Indonesian is not good enough to explain that a) I got into an accident just a few months ago in the parking lot for pete’s sake or b) In the US I often get nervous just passing a semi truck on I25. No, I think traffic is crazy enough here that I would die within a day of starting driving.

4:30PM — I have been reading my CD book for an hour since editing. The room is starting to get a little dim. My supervisor’s computer, the only one in the office that works, gets a virus. Suddenly I am sort of worried about the files I loaded onto my memory stick after editing….My supervisor suggests that as buses stop running around 5PM, I should leave. I agree, even though most of the others are still there. As I am leaving one of my other coworkers asks if my husband is coming to pick me up on a motorbike. Unfortunately no, I am taking the bus. “Be careful” she says. To residents of Jogja, the risk of pick pockets on the bus is much greater than the risk to life and limb that a motorbike might cause

5:20PM — I arrive back in Sierra’s neighborhood after a fun bus ride where I got to talk to Ignatius, a very nice older gentleman who was riding the bus with his wife heading home north of town. His english was excellent, though once he found out that I could speak a few Indonesian words, he started talking to me in very fast Indonesian. All I caught was the words for “tree”, “eat”, “drink”, “tasty”, “traditional” and “cassava”. I smiled and nodded a lot. He also asked where my ancestors were from, and I said that some were from Germany. This seemed to disappoint him a little, and he kept asking if they were from England because, as he put it, “when I looked at you, I think maybe you are from the country of princess Di”. I think this is a compliment, and I didn’t want to disappoint, so I “admitted” that perhaps on my father’s side of the family, they were from England. Yes, in fact, this was surely the case — mother’s side from Germany, father’s side from England. This made him very happy and excited, and he proceeded to very animatedly tell his wife all about it. Sometimes it’s not about accuracy, it’s about harmony. Actually, more times than not here I think.

5:25PM — I arrive back at house, floating on the natural high that can only be brought on by correctly guessing what someone on the street a block away asked you and giving an intelligible multi-sentence answer. A good ending to a good day……

VIA told us about this during orientation in April. They rehashed it over and over again during training in Chiang Mai. Indonesians are going to yell at you when you walk down the street. It’s not malicious, or at least it doesn’t appear to be. But wherever you go, expect to here one of the following. “Bule!” (pronounced boo-lay) or “Hello Mister.” For some reason Indonesians find it hilarious to yell this out anytime someone with light skin walks by. Everyday I wonder what it would be like if Americans yelled “Hello foreigner!” or “Hello Danielsan” to everyone with dark skin.

The majority of the time this bantering has come from children, but it’s also been men, and even old ladies. Sometimes that will follow up with some other English they’ve learned like “What’s up?” or “What you doing?” For the most part I’ve been trying to reply with simple Indonesian expressions. Today I asked back “Apa kabar?” meaing what’s up. One kid was floored that a bule could say anything in Indonesian.

The yelling is not limited to the streets. Just an hour ago I was in the food court of a mall. The clerks behind the A&W stand were trying to hawk their fine fast food. It’s really just the pace of life, and I look forward to giving wittier responses as my bahasa Indonesia improves.