Janessa Dieleman - Indonesian Travels

The last blog.

2009-07-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
Here i am coming to you from Akron, in the United States of America. I cant believe this year has come to a end and this will be my last blog. I will be coming home to the wonderful country of Canada in 3 days! We left our assignments on wednesday of last week and had a couple days in Salatiga de-breifing with some of the SALTers that went to america from Indonesia and saying our last goodbyes. And then on saturday we left Indonesia to embark on a 45 hour journy to Akron. We flew from Samurang to Jakarta to Hongkong to L.A. to Atlanta to Philidelphia and lost our bags on the way ( we already got them back, we only had to live 1 day without them ) It was a good trip, our last time with just us SALTers from Indonesia. Now I'm in Akron for a re-entry program for the rest of this week. Its been interesting so far, there are 50 young people from America and Canada who have lived a year all around the entire world. So its been very good to talk with them about there expirences. So I'm sure i'll be telling you all alot more about it when i get home, but i just wanted to say thanks for your prayers and support this year. It has ment alot to me. God Bless you for this one last time.

2009-07-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, it is July 9th today, 11 months ago I got on a plane and flew away from Canada. And in 15 days I will get on a plane and fly home to Canada. I can hardly believe the year is already gone. Its gone slowly at times but flew at others. I am spending my last week here in Pundong and then I have a week of re-entry retreat in Akron Pennsylvania before I come home. I am actually leaving my little village in less then a week. I have been spending my time going around and visiting all my friends and giving them there going away gifts, pictures of us together. It’s a strange feeling because I know it’s the last time I will see a lot of them ( for a couple years anyways, who knows if I’ll come back ) but its hard to feel sad because it doesn’t feel real yet. I don’t know when it’ll hit me but I’m sure it will.

I finished up all my teaching and home industries at the end of June. It was a funny feeling not having to prepare any more lessons. Last week all of us SALTers went on a little retreat together. We took a ferry 6 hours off the northern coast to a group of teny tiny islands. And spend a couple days snorkeling in the Java sea. It was beautiful. A couple of the days we went with a fisherman and he dropped us off on a deserted island and then we swam and saw fish and then he would come to the island and cook us lunch of freshly caught fish. Fish that was around a hour old, let me say I think that fish was the best tasting fish I’v ever eaten. It was wonderful . The first time we were there, we swam with sharks. Now this wasn’t a tourist destination where they have special sharks you can swim with and pay. We just went to a fish farm and asked if we could get in the water with some of the sharks they were raising to sell. They said sure so it was a pretty exciting adventure. It was a really nice couple days that we could spend with eachother before leaving. The MCC team here became like family. I still am amazed some times when I think about how we all have such different personalities but being in a different country and culture together has sure made us into lasting friends. ( I think I will cry quite a bit when I say goodbye to them all )

So I’m at a lose as what to say, I’m just getting ready to go home, organizing all my things, worrying how I’m going to get all my stuff into 2 bags, visiting many people ( my bottom is actually quite sore because I basically biked all day yesterday, and today will be about the same ) and beginning to worry about what it will be like coming back into western culture after a year out of it. I cant wait to see you all and thank you so much for your support and prayers this year. ( I will post one more blog after this when I’m safe and sound in Akron ) I cant wait to see you all.

2009-06-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello, I hope I find you well on this lovely June day. As I write this it is June the 18th, I will be leaving Indonesia on a jet plane exactly one month from today. I can hardly believe that there is only one month left. Also next week is my last week of teaching, starting in July Ill be using my time to say good bye to friends and to get ready to go home. So only a week and half of work left. This week I have been telling people, “next week will be that last time.. “ and it always makes me a little sad to say that. Last Thursday a little girl came up to me after class and said, “I’m going to stay with my grandma for a couple week so I wont be coming to class I just wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t think that I forgot about your class” It was so sweet and then I had to say that I would be leaving before she came back and it was my first goodbye and I almost had a few tears in my eyes. So though I am looking forward to coming home, being with my family again, and with friends, it is a little bitter sweet.

So in getting ready to go home I have been making “Kanang Kanang” for everyone here, that is a gift to remember me by. So all last week I spent every afternoon biking all over Pundong getting pictures with people. My Kanang Kanang will be pictures of them throughout this year and picture with me. I printed all 122 pictures on the weekend and this week I’v been making little albums for people. Its really fun and I’m excited to give them out. My host mother was looking through all the photos and I was telling her little things about them and when she was finished you could tell she didn’t want to ask but she was wondering where all the pictures of her were. Haha. I had hid them before so she would be surprised, so I casually said “ you have to wait for your pictures Ibu, its going to be a surprise” and she was laughing and saying I was mean for teasing her like that. It was great fun.

Every Tuesday night we always have Bible study, last Tuesday afternoon my host parents went away to visit with some friends and said they would be home in time for Bible study, at around ten to seven they weren’t back yet so I decided to bike to my favorite families house and ask if I could follow them on my bike, cause I wasn’t sure who’s house the Bible study was at. I got there and they fed me, and chatted with me, and gave me a ride on the motorbike to the Bible study. It was so lovely that they were so immediately ready to take care of me. And when we were eating the mother told me not to forget her, and I said I never could and that she cant forget me either, and she said you are like my family I wont forget you. Well let me tell you that almost brought me to tears again. So the overall conclusion is that God has blessed me so greatly with so many wonderful friends, classes, workplaces, and co-workers. And though I’m so happy to go home I think I’ll be crying quite a bit when I go home, and that last week of good byes. Not looking forward to it.

Did I ever tell you that I have been bribing my students with stickers. A wonderful friend from church back home sent me some stickers in the mail, and I started taking them to class and saying “ if you answer three questions you get a sticker” or “write down these ten words and you can have a sticker” well the kids love it. When I brought the stickers to TK the kindergarten class I teach the kids went crazy. I think I almost lost my voice that morning. I say they have to color their pictures and then they can pick a sticker, I had to clarify after the first week because they colored their pictures so fast class was done in about ten minutes. When I went to Jogia last weekend I bought some Spider man stickers and I think they’ll go over well in my class this afternoon ( my class of 6 grade 1 and 2 boys, who I love, and who never sit in there seats they are always jumping around and when I give them a paper to fill in they sprawl all over the room and are silent until they are finished, they work so hard on those, I know favorites aren’t aloud but there is something about little boys I love, no idea why ;) )

Next week my fellow SALTer is coming to visit me in Pundong for a couple days to fallow me around and see what its like here. So that will be fun, and then for a week at the end of june and beginning of july all of us SALTers here are going to go on a snorkeling trip for a couple days. We are going to a bunch of little islands off the coast of Java. This will be our last little meeting and time together here in Indonesia. So this last month will be very full and busy and I’m sure will fly by like this year did. Im looking forward to seeing you all so very soon. God bless you!

2009-05-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well hello, I feel like its been a long time since I’v written, and guess its been about 4 weeks, I bit longer than usual. But I have a good excuse, MCC gives you 10 vacation days and I took mine all at once and had a wonderful vacation. But Ill get to that. First I want to say that I can not believe that it is almost june. Where has all this time gone. Just wanted to say that. So ill start off with my grandparents visit on the first week of may. They were on a tour of China and Indonesia with The Back to God Hour. They were in the city around half an hour drive from me for two days. So we had a short but wonderful visit. It was really fun to show them my life here and have them see it first hand. Pictures cant do it justice ( and now they herd my Indonesian language skills and can relate my efficiency skills ). I took them around to see my home industries and stop by a couple of my friends house. We of course ran out of time and by the afternoon I was rushing everyone through to try and make it so that they could meet everyone, we made it. Though our last stop was at the ceramic shop I work at and as we came there son climbed a coconut tree and cut us down some fresh coconut but we were so late to meet my friend in Jogia that I asked if we could take the coconut home. My grandparents were flying to Bali the next day and couldn’t carry 3 coconuts back to the hotel let alone on the plane. So we gave them to our driver.  that night we went to a traditional Indonesian dance with my host parents from Salatiga ( I stayed with them during language study ) I was quite impressed and thought the dancing was wonderful. I stayed that night at the hotel with my grandparents and it was a nice little treat to stay in a fancy hotel and the breakfast the next morning was wonderful!! But it was such a blessing to see them and visit with them. It made me a little home sick but nothing to serious ;)

Then a couple days later I left for my two week vacation. I started out in Papua. It’s a island that is connected to Papua New Guinea ( I think that is spelled right ). A fellow SALTer lives there so I decided to get another look at a different culture inside of the Indonesian culture. Papua is not as populated as Java and is filled a lot of forests and undeveloped land. It was incredibly beautiful. We spent the week traveling around my friends area, as my friend interviewed women on Papuan birth traditions. It was a excellent way to spend the week. We went one morning to a island that could only be reached by boat and was on a huge fresh water lake. I think it is in the top 5 most beautiful sites I have ever seen. The water was so blue and clear and the clouds so white and the hills and trees so green and the sky a totally different brilliant blue. One thing I’v come to realize since coming here is God is a beautiful God. It was wonderful. Another morning we went to a village that was built entirely over the water. All the houses on stilts. After lunch we were asking where to put some of our garbage and the ladies pointed to a hole in the floor and pointed. It was almost physically difficult to throw the garbage down there. I think it is so ingrained in us not to litter that when I was told by the home owner to feel free to throw the garbage in the water it was difficult. It was also a lovely time to visit with my friend. She has her own little apartment and doesn’t live with a host family. So one of the highlights was eating her American cooking. On the day coming back from the village over the water we bought some fresh squid that was caught I think an hour before. And my friend experimented cooking it, I say my friend because I cant cook much of anything. It was pretty good . It was really interesting to see some of the differences in the culture. For example everyone in Java shakes hands all the time. When you come into a room, when you leave the room, even if you’ve known the person your entire life you shake hand in greeting. In Papue they don’t really do that. I kept feeling like people were slighting me. And then I realized oh I guess they don’t do that here. Shows some of the things I’m going to have to get used to when I come home eh. They also cook their friend bananas differently and don’t drink jasmine tea, which I have been drinking for the last 9 months and I realized I will miss it horribly when I go home. But it was all a wonderful experience!

From Papua I flew to Bali and met up with some friends there. Now Bali is a island which is next to Java and it the vacation center of Indonesia. It is full of beaches and resorts and hotels and many many Australians. And actually a equal number of Americans. So again one of the highlights was food, lots of American food, pizza hut, hamburgers, pasta. ( But I fond myself craving Indonesian food and everyday for lunch we ate Indonesian  ). I also learned how to surf. Which was a ton of fun! The one things you have to be good at in Bali is bargaining, nothing has price tags. So the first day on the beach a group of gentlemen that rented surf boards and gave lessons approached us with a price. We held out all day and by the end of the day they had come down to our price. But I have found I’m not that great at bargaining. I’m good if its something I don’t really wont, I think the salesperson can sense that. But I was trying to buy a dress one night and the lady selling it to me could tell I really wanted it, my friend was beside me and he was very tired of being ripped off and his attitude and the fact that he kept pulling me away saying it wasn’t worth it helped me get the dress at the price I wanted. But if he was at my side I think I wouldn’t have gotten that price. For the second half of the week we all headed to the next island over. It took us quite I bit to get there, we firs took a car to the harbour, then took 4 hour ferry to Lombok, the next island over, and then traveled to the north of Lombok by car and then took a little motor bout to paradise on earth. We said on a little island called Gili. It was so tiny it took my around 40 minutes to jog around it one morning. And had white sand beaches and the highlight were was snorkeling. It was my first snorkeling experience and it was great. The coral and the fish, I felt like I was in Finding Nemo. I spent hours everyday snorkeling until my lips were swollen from the salt water. It was beautiful there, another tribute to how great our God is. And what a good God he is to give us this beautiful world to live in. I took a bus home to Pundong which was another interesting experience. It was a 16 hour ride, we left at 3 in the afternoon and I arrived in pundong at 7 am. So I actually was able to sleep most of the time. They woke us up at 11 at night and we stopped for supper and then back on the bus and to sleep again. After that wonderful vacation I had a wonderful sense of home coming to Pundong. It was so nice to be home, and see the rice fields, chat with my host mother, go to Bible study and see everyone from my church. Its nice to go away but its always nice to come back home.

So I’v been spending this week getting back into teaching and helping with home industries and bring everyone their Oleh-Oleh, which is a huge part of Indonesian culture. Everytime you go away you must bring gifts for everyone. Its difficult for me because I see so many different people at different locations and it gets quite expensive to bring gifts for everyone. But I picked up a big bag of sea weed, ( that you can eat and is quite tasty ) and I separated them into different little bags for everyone. Smart and thrifty I say . I actually only have approximately 6 week left here in Pundong. I wont be coming home till the end of july but we have a week of re-entry program at the head offices of MCC and some meeting and trips here in Indonesia. The little time left is defiantly giving me a different outlook on life here. Now I’m looking at everything and thinking how I will miss it when I go to my home. And I’m also getting very very excited about coming home and seeing you all! Well I wont let it get a month again before I write again. I hope you are all doing wonderful! And I’m praying for you all. God bless.

2009-05-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello Hello again, and now it is the lovely month of May, already. Whenever I think of back home I always imagine its so cold and wish for alittle bit of the cold, but now its getting warm over there and I cant wish for a bit of your cold because its not there. Actually I decided that four seasons might actually be best ( slightly biased I know ) but at home when its winter I like it.. then when I get tired of it, it becomes spring and then when I’m ready for hot weather it becomes hot. Haha. Its good that I was born in Canada, and now I can appreciate it to the fullest. So this month has been really full and busy. Last weekend I went up to Salatiga and helped chaperon the grade eight class trip of my country reps youngest son. It made me feel like I was back in grade eight. It was a wonderful feeling. We went camping on the side of a mountain. There was lots of swimming in freezing cold water, zip lining ( which is attaching yourself to a cable and zooming across a gorge ) and eating, we had a certain amount of money we could spend and as leaders we decided a good way to spend some of was to have breakfast, first lunch and then second lunch, it was good food.

I’v been meaning for a couple weeks now to tell you about how it is to teaching TK, which is kindergarten. So I teach TK one morning a week for an hour to about 20 kids. I think it might be my least favorite class to teach, the children are adorable but are very very naughty. I think I prefer grade 2 or 3 where they can take notes and its easier for me to explain games and stuff. The kindergarten kids wont sit still long enough to teach a game. I usually teach them a couple words and then get them to color pictures of the object I taught them. Then we can review the different color names as well. We also sing ‘head and shoulders knees and toes’ and ‘old macdonald has a farm’ ( which by the way I found out I taught them the words wrong because I forgot how they went, but I’m to embarrassed to tell you what I taught them ). The little girls are usually pretty content to color but there are maybe four boys who fight and wrestle probably for the whole hour. The teachers don’t really do much to stop them so I usually just yell my teaching instructions and try to ignore them. It is an interesting experience let me tell you. But the TK school is right near to my house so I always get to hear the little kids yelling out ‘mbak jelita’ which is Miss Janessa, in Indonesian whenever I walk by.

So my grandparents are coming to visit me on Monday. I am very very excited to be able to show them all around my little world here. I have plans to take them around to all my home industries and to meet some of my favorite families ( I know favorites aren’t aloud but I do have them ) My host parents have to be away at a conference the whole day so I’m hoping we can squeeze an hour of so of a visit with them in. Ill tell you more about the visit after the even occurs ;) Our ministers wife had been studying in Japan for the last four year and came home last week. She is one of those people that you immediately know will be a kindred spirit. She speaks very good English and is very sweat we got along very good on our first meeting and I’m looking forward to getting to know her better.

Well I’m sorry it is a rather short blog today, I’m wrestling with the printer here trying to get it to work so I can print out some lesson worksheets, its not going to swell. So I best get back to that. It might be awhile before I can write again since on may 10th I’m going to be visiting a fellow SALTer on a different island and then the next week heading over to another island for alittle vacation with a couple of SALTers and friends. I will let you know all about it when I return. Hope you are all doing well and God bless you.

Just a little note to add onto the end, I had a very interesting experience yesterday. My Friday morning home industry was canceled so I decided to go for a morning jog. My jog was successful, the night before there was a lot of heavy wind so I had to brush a couple tree branches out of the way but other then that it was lovely. As I was nearing the end of my run my eyes started to hurt a little and feel as though they were swelling up. I biked the ten minute bike ride home from my running bath and by the time I looked in the mirror my eyes were both swollen rather large. It looked like big water blisters around my eyes. I was quite freaked out, so I took a bath and when my host mother say me she got quite worried and got me to ride my bike to my friends house to see if they could take me to the doctor, by then I was quite afraid myself. While being the wonderful people that they are my friends were ready within a matter of 5 minutes to take me to the doctor, but after trying to get an appointment and finding a hospital with a doctor that specializes in treating skin problems, the swelling started going down. So it was quite dramatic there for about an hour. We figured out that on my run I had ran into some bamboo branches and if you didn’t know ( I was unaware of this ) bamboo is highly infectious and if touches your skin makes it quite itchy and if gets in your eyes, as I found out causes them to swell quite a bit. It was a interesting experience when it was over, I was slightly panicked in the moment but I had some cream left over from when my eyes were swollen from my allergy to mangos. So they are back to normal size and health now, that is my eyes I mean. So it was an interesting Friday morning

Spring is here.. for you all.

2009-04-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

Hello Hello Hello, How does this wonderful month of April find you all? I hope it finds you well, the wonderful cold weather you all like to complain about is probably letting up and the flowers are coming out and the air is warming up and you can all get out and take some lovely walks ( that’s a maybe and depends on personality I suppose ). This month is finding me very well, well today it is finding me very well I have just lived through my first stomach flu in Indonesia, but the other day I was not so well, quick sick indeed. Actually this was not the first stomach sickness I have had here, I think one of the first weeks I was here I got sick but that was eight months ago soo…. Ill just count this as the first in my little village of Pundong. So on Saturday night my host parents left to go to neighboring city and I had made previous plans and also wanted to see what Easter is like here in Pudong, So this was the Saturday before Easter Sunday. I went to sleep at a regular hour for me ( unthinkingable hour for a Saturday night at home ) and woke up a couple hours later with quite a fever and stomach pain ( and alittle vomiting ill spare you the details on that ). Never the less I figured I would be able to get through it, as I have suffered far worse pain ( haha ) The problem was that if I didn’t show up for Easter morning Sunday service the entire church would think I was skipping church. ( they all knew I was home alone and would be coming to church for Easter ). So my dilemma was let everyone think I was skipping church, or text someone and let them know I wasn’t feeling good and chance that they not all decide to come over try to fix a mild stomach flu with 5 different kinds of medicine and try and get me to eat rice. Well I decided to text my friend because I would never hear the end of it if I skipped church. The result of this text made me feel very loved and cared for and also special, but was not necessarily the nicest thing to happen when you feel sick. I made it till around 12 noon before people started stopping by. If I was sleeping they would just come right in and wake me up and of course, they all.. tried to get me to eat rice, which is a very difficult thing after you vomited an hour before. They all also tried to get to the root of the problem, which in Indonesia is usually one of two things, either you have eaten to much spicy food ( though this does not stop there eating spicy food even though every time they get sick this is the cause, according to them ) or the wind has entered you. Let me say that again ‘the wind has entered you’ so they women would come in.. feel my forehead and face and say to each other ‘angin masuk’ direct translation ‘wind enter’ and then I would mention the day before I had eaten a lot of hot food and they would look at eachother and shake there heads. It was really quite great to watch this in all of them. ( I don’t know how the wind enters you or how it leaves I just know this is what is always said ) That evening though I was still feeling pretty bad so I got two of my favorite ladies to bring me to the doctor. This is where I began to feel like this sickness was a blessing. They picked me up and we put all three of us on a motorcycle (me in the middle so I wouldn’t fall off I guess ) and went to the doctor where these women tried to spend the equivalent of a friend spending a 100 dollars on medicine for you at home. ( this with how much they make and the money exchange and wow I’m become quite an economist ) I explained my organization will pay for my medical expenses and they were ok with that. Then they took me home, heated water so I could have a hot bath, asked what I wanted to eat, and went to the store and bought it when there wasn’t all the ingredience in the house. Got there two daughters to stay in the house with me until my host parents came home. Asked me if I missed my mom. And were altogether wonderful to me. This is bringing tears to my eyes again as I write this. I told them that God has given me a family here in Pundong and not only one mother but two. I just feel like they went above and beyond in taking care of me and I just felt like was God was giving me a wonderful gift in being sick because I got to see fully the wonderful people he has placed around me. My host parents came home that night after I went to sleep ( oh oh not before another 6 or 7 people stopped by together to wake me up and give me some apples. I had mentioned in passing when someone was trying to feed me rice how I wouldn’t mind eating an apple or some fruit. So I got up and made myself eat an apple because they were so kind to bring them to me ) My host mother went into full cooking form trying out all kinds of different things so that I would eat. She cooked all my favorite foods and special food they eat when their sick and even offered to buy me my favorite snack, which I turned down because it is bread fried in a ton of butter with chocolate and sweeten condensed milk melted in the middle, and I didn’t think that would be the best thing to eat getting over the flu. She was wonderful as well. So I slept for two days getting rested up ( maybe alittle more then usual but my host mother didn’t want me working so I gave in a slept, not that hard actually ;) ) So overall it was a great experience that I wouldn’t want to repeat. 

So other then that.. I had a wonderful week visiting my friend in here placement. We live in totally different environments so it was good to see what she is experiencing. She lives in the big city with a wealthy family. Her host mother is an English teacher so she has a translator right in the house. She teaches at a high school that is working towards teaching all subjects in English so the kids that go there and the teachers are all almost all fluent in English. So that’s a little sketch of her life here. Haha. She is always almost always in air conditioning. Lucky girl. But living in a different culture is the same whether you are in a little village or in the big city and she is having a great experience here as well. Her parents came to visit her over the Easter holidays and she spent a day down here with me so they could see what the village life in Indonesia is like. That was really fun to show off my little village and also gave me some great ideas for when my grandparents come down to visits me at the beginning of May!!! Yay. Did I mention that before, well they are going to China and taking a little trip through Indonesia as well and can spend a couple days with me. I’m very excited about it.

So I’m sure you are all curious about Indonesian Christian celebration of Easter. I wish I could tell you all about it. I did go to a Good Friday service so they have those the same as us. But unfortunately my sickness fell on Easter Sunday so I missed the big day. People that came to visit me kept mentioning that everyone was at church all day eating food. So… I don’t know what went along with that. But that was my Easter. Ill ask some of my friends in other placements how there’s was and see if I cant get an idea of what its like. I do know it is not a big family holiday like at home. But I’m sure it was lovely.

So I havnt been doing much teaching this week because I was recovering and the week before I was with my friend in her placement. So its been pretty busy. But this week Ill be settling down to my work and teaching. Which reminds me I have to go teach my grade 1 boys in half an hour. Gotta go work up a nice sweat in the 15 minute bike ride over there. So I hope you are all doing well and I’ll try to write again soon! God bless you and see you soon!

Just a note.

2009-04-01T03:48:00.000-07:00

Today on the way home from teaching i stopped at my store ( the one i always go to ) and was chatting with the owner and mentioned i needed to buy some more water. ( because my host parents were gone and i ran out at home, they came home this morning though ) and the owner of my store said " oh you dont need to buy water, i saw your host mother buying a large jug across the road at that store" and I thought.. well there are some perks to living in a small town were everyone knows eachother. ( I didnt know the store owner knew my name much less who i was living with ) But it made me feel like i belong. so thats my little story for today.

Hello friends.

2009-03-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I’m coming to you on a Sunday afternoon at the end of March, where did March go. I wont go into how time is flying again. So its pretty hot here, still, but I think I figured something out, its always really really hot in the internet café when I first come in and then it gets cooler and cooler, I think they turn on the air condition when I come in. Which is really nice of them, but makes me have conflicting thoughts because of the unfairness of it for everyone else. So this is right at the beginning of my blog but since it came up I’m going to jump into it. Lately I’v been noticing the different treatment I get because I’m a foreigner. I’m going on almost 6 months in my little village and I am still a huge spectacle wherever I go. Last Sunday morning I went for a morning walk with a friend of mine here ( did I mention that this walk started at 5 in the morning, getting up at 4:45 is required and the road for FULL of people on the only holiday of the week they have, and this is fun, I cant quite wrap my mind around it ) and I don’t think I can go with her again. It was crazy, every 2 seconds someone was yelling at me, thinking I didn’t understand or staring at me, or trying to take my picture. It was highly uncomfortable and I was pretty upset after 40 minutes of this nonstop. The people are really great here and I met and became friends with many wonderful people. But I think I will be a spectacle here until I leave. We SALTers have lots of discussion trying to understand this but mostly I’v decided to enjoy being a celebrity for another 4 months and then I’m looking forward to the moment I sink into oblivion when I land in the LA airport ( our first stop in the west on the way home ) ( oh and if anyone has any experience in a different culture like this I’d love to hear what you think )

So the other day after teaching one of my classes I let two of my students draw on the white board I use for teaching. They were in grade 2 and kindergarten. I thought it was very interesting what they drew, first the little boy drew a picture of mountains, and a sun in the corner of the picture with clouds, flowers and birds, the thing about it is that it reminded me so much of the pictures I myself used to draw when I was around his age, I used to draw my sun in the corner of the page and fluffy clouds and I used to draw my birds exactly like this little boy ( like big m’s in the sky ) and I was really wondering what teaches a kids that grows up in Canada and a kid that grows up in Indonesia to draw the same m birds. ( I used to draw my mountains with snow on the top, his didn’t have snow because of course we are in a lovely heat filled tropical land ) I then told him he should draw a picture of the ocean, this was interesting because he drew these big arcs that kinda looked like mini mountains, and I wondered why and then I realized the only ocean he had ever seen was the beach around 20 minutes from here with huge waves all the time ( and a killer undertow ) so that’s how he drew his ocean. Then I told the little girl to draw her house, and she drew a regular square house and then made a cross on the roof because most of houses here have this bamboo thatch for a roof. So I was just looking at how similar people are all over the world and noticing the little differences that make us interesting.

So another other day I was writing a letter to my lovely cousin on the front porch of my house here and enjoying the slight breeze outside because my fan inside wasn’t working because the power was off ( for unknown reasons ). And up pulled a father of one of my students. He is a teacher himself and earlier in the week he had text me and asked me to write for him a advertisement in English. I had forgotten about it ( oh people here like to get me to do there homework for them, I usually try to guild them along instead of out and out doing it, but sometimes its easier to just do it myself, haha, though I usually try not to do that ) So I asked him if he could wait and what he wanted it to be about, he said a hotel, that was named ‘hotel Janessa’, I said “ you realize your students will think of it as a hotel for the dead”, as Janessa means corpse. But he thought it was a funny idea so we went with that, and I quickly wrote up a lovely little dity about a hotel in Pundong surrounded by rice fields and I though the result was pretty great. Then I surprised myself by being able to explain the whole thing to the father in Indonesian. Sometimes I think I cant speak the language at all and then other times I surprise even myself.

This last week I’v been at my home here in Indonesia alone with the dog. My host parents have gone on a trip to visit friend in a different city and I felt I couldn’t take anymore time off because I’v been gone a lot lately. So its been me and the dog. Its been really crazy week actually. I’v been having my meals at the home of one of our church members. ( it’s a novelty for them so they are full on with the “eat more” “take some more” “don’t stop eating until you feel slightly sick” ;) haha not really the last one ) That has been really nice, they are a wonderful family. On Wednesday I joined a political rally of some sort. A friend called and asked if I was free and wanted to ‘go around the city’ with him for the day. So I said yes thinking it would be some sorta sightseeing adventure. But we met a group of around 30 people all put on purple shirts and got some purple flags and road around the city. I tried to figure out what we were representing, it didn’t get much further then it was a Christian party. But it was a really fun and great experience. I was dead after and quite sunburnt. It was a nice day. Then on Friday we went to Solo, a near by city to go to a wedding of a friend of mine. ( I actually new the bride, in Indonesia you invite everyone you know to the wedding, so there weddings are usually 500-700 people, it means you go to a ton of weddings and you usually don’t know the people getting married, you might know there sister, or parents or friend, but you usually don’t know them ) I didn’t get much sleep and on the way home yesterday it started pouring rain. So we got on our rain jackets and drove on. My fingers and toes were prunes by the time it stopped pouring an hour later. Other then being cold ( which was kinda nice ) I was thinking this is pretty fun, not the kinda fun you want for everyday life but the kinda good experience kinda fun. 

Teaching has been going good lately as well. I had some classes cancel but then two new ones showed up. Two different classes of grade 9/10 girls. They are a lot of fun and hilarious. I’m basically sticking to making conversation with them and playing games to do this. Last week I got them to interview eachother and then indroduce there partners. They did great but it was pretty funny because with 10 girls, somehow they all gave exactly the same answers, ‘what do you like about the village you live in?’ They all picked up ‘it has beautiful sunsets’ so that’s what they all liked about there village, some of em varied it with ‘it has beautiful sunrises’. But I think its wonderful that they enjoy it and are having fun to the technical stuff I’v decided to pass by ( and they usually know more about past perfect, present past perfect, tenses, I think there are 12 different tenses, who knew. )

So things are going well here, I’m going to be visiting my friend next week, in her city to see what her SALT experience is like. We’ll be climbing Merapi, the volcano, (that I climbed around Christmas time ) again. So that will be enjoyable. I hope things are going well for you and Ill be seeing you all soon. God bless.

2009-03-12T23:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, How are you today, I am very hot, the rainy season is over, and you can really tell, yesterday I layed on my bed with a fan directly on my and sweated, defiantly looking forward to the next 4 months. And just so you know this is my second attempt at this, yesterday I got almost finished the entire blog and then the power flashed on and off and I of course was not saving as I went. But maybe this one will turn out better, or.. I cant really think of another way to spin this positively. So ill get right to it, I want to start with a funny/interesting story that perfectly demonstrates the part of Indonesian culture where people constantly tell me and I suppose eachother what they think we want to hear, other then how things actually are, or the truth. Example, when I was here for about a month in Salatiga doing my language study we, all seven SALTers, went on a bike ride with an Indonesian friend. It was mostly up hill so after the first half hour we asked how much longer to see if we should just go home because we were all alittle tired already, our friend responded that, oh its just a bit longer, so we keep going (it was a loop so we figured wed start down soon) after about another 20 minutes we ask again, how much longer, and get the reply, only 2 more hills, we are happy to by almost done, and around half another hour later we are on our way down the hill. Funny story from the other day, we had retreat on March 1-7 and I headed there with a American family that lives in the next city over, we were heading to Bandugan, a little village in the mountains and we thought maybe it would be 3 to 4 hours to get there. As we were starting out we asked our driver how long he thought it would take, his answer was aiming to please us, he predicted 1 hour. We looked at eachother and just laughed. In my opinion I think I would be more upset when it took 4 hours compared to the 1 hour I was told then being told from the beginning it would take 4 hours. But I suppose different culture different ideas. 

So retreat was a very enjoyable time, we spend it as a said before in a little village in the mountains which was wonderfully chilly! It was great to take out the one sweater I brought along and where it for the first time. It was also great to be in community again with the entire team, around thirty people in all. Highlight of the trip would have to be the final night talent show which included a dance put on by 5 of us SALTers to a Backstreet boys song, a couple of great skits ( one where I had to pretend to throw up for around 10 minutes on and off ) and ending with some karaoke. After us SALTers went back to our country reps house and had some relaxing time for a couple days. It was a nice week and its also nice to back here in Pundong. Though after being cold for a week, the heat hits pretty hard.

I’v decided to give you a day in the life of Jelita (if you’ve forgotten that is my Indonesian name, because Janessa means, corpse/dead body, in the Indonesian language ). So this day was last Monday, just a regular Monday morning. Get up at 5:30 for singing (slightly off key ), reading the bible and prayer. Then have a lovely time walking the lovely dog, catch the sarcasm. The dog has actually grown on my more then I ever thought possible, but he is still a trial to walk, he like to go very fast and attack anything that is slightly smaller then him, not sheep, he is very afraid of sheep, to my great amusement. Then eat some rice for breakfreast, and then head out to the Monday morning home industry, which is making one of my favorite foods, emping. So at first this was very difficult because you had to heat the beans/nut to the right temperature with no real guild, and then take the meat out of the bean/nut with a rock, by smashing, and then pound the meat into a chip shaped chip. Its pretty tiring but I enjoy it for one morning a week. Things were further complicated recently when instead of have a gas fire to cook your bean/nuts over, probably for economical reasons, the changed to cooking the bean/nuts over a open fire, so everyone has their own little fire to cook over. I am not a person blessed with being able to keep a fire going, my fire has to be re-lighted by one of the women I work with a couple times a morning. But this Monday morning was horrible! For some reason my fire was smoking the entire time, so I ended up spending the morning with tears running down my cheeks and trying to breath anywhere other then the smoke pouring out of my fire. The women thought this was all quite funny and I agree that maybe watching could be slightly humorous. I on the other hand was getting more and more irritated that the fire wouldn’t stop smoking, so I tried just turning my back to it and working away from the fire and only facing it when I needed to get my beans/nuts out or put them back in. that helped, but I have never felt so wonderfully fresh as when I was biking away from there with no smoke in my eyes. After going for a run on my lovely path and then home to try and wash the smell of smoke from my hair I headed out to teach to one of my favorite classes. I will try to lay the setting out for you. Me and about seven kids from kindergarten to grade 4 sit around me on the straw woven mats that are very popular here and account for the calluses in interesting places on my feet. Joining us on the woven mat is the older sister of the house and he 3 friends, who enjoy listening in on our lesson and shouting out the answers.. all the time.  Also in the one room home is the mother getting her hair dyed by her sister. They also enjoy listening to the lesson but don’t join in that often ;) Around half way through the lesson the neighbor comes in with here 1 year old baby, so we all stop and coo for a bit until the baby starts crying because I have gotten to close and something about me scares her. So we take up class again where we are learning about fruit, when I ask them what there favorite fruit is most of them reply grapes. Now I’m not sure if grapes are just really popular or they all just like to be the same, anyways I have a lot of grape lovers. After class I get a midday meal of rice (at 3 in the afternoon) and the older sister and her friend start watching a Indonesian horror film, they invite me to join but since Indonesian horror films are even worse the Indonesian soap operas and because I already promised some of my student to go biking after class I decline and head out into the sunshine for a little bike ride. When I get home I take my evening Mandi (bath) and then read for a bit and then after a supper of rice me and my host mother watch our lovely show Melati untuk Mavel(soap opera), and have a lovely time at it. I’m still pretty lost, my host mother tries to explain but she gets pretty excited so its difficult to understand because she almost doubles in speed. ( last night everyone was shocked when one of the guys fudged some numbers at work, so we got a close up on around 6 peoples faces as they received the news, and after 10 minutes of that the show ended, it’s a great show ) After that I usually head to bed, ( 8, 8:30) and sleep for usually 9 lovely hours. ( though I feel justified in this because I wake at 5:30 and the heat here tired you out pretty fast ) so there you go, a day in the life of me. I picked a regular day, but one that at the end of I thought, well that was an interesting day, I should write about it. Because we all know that we want alittle bit of a story. Hope you enjoyed.

Well I’m off to teach my grade one class after this, ( it’s a Thursday afternoon, and I’m writing this on the computer at the MDS shelter, which is literally a shelter but cozy, as cozy as your can get in 90 degree weather ) right now I will join the MDS team for lunch ( they work with Mennonite disaster services and live in a shelter across from my church, about 10 people age 20-30, they are great friends of mine ) So thanks for reading and hopefully you’ll hear from me soon. God bless.

Some pictures..

2009-03-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures that i have loaded up for you but I'm not sure what order they will come out in, but you are all smart and should be able to figure it out. First is some rice harvesting, there is a pictures of some of the villagers in Pundong cutting it in the field and then a misleading picture of me looking like I'm helping while I just tried whacking it a couple times for the picture. Then there are two pictures of the process of making Gapluk, me and some of my friends taking the skin off the coconut with a kinda device like a potato pealer, then there is me sorting all the colourful gapluk into there boxes. Then the process of making emping, which you will hear a lovely story about in the next blog, me smashing the nut/bean and then some of my friends working and you can see the fire and the low seats. and then to finish, (maybe ) is me with some of my students on a bike ride we took all around the village. Hope you like em.

2009-02-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

Well hello again. How does the fine month of February find you all. It finds me nicely tanned ( on my arms, neck and top 2 inches of my knees because that is the only place the sun hits when I am biking ), and actually getting used to the heat here. Maybe because its been kinda cool lately because of the rainy season, or because I’m actually getting used to it, I choose to believe the latter, and after the rainy season is done, in a couple weeks, ill be regretting that I ever claimed I was used to the heat. I spent last week in Surabaya, the second largest city in Central Java, and around a 6-8 hour train ride away. On the way there we rode in the business class, which was a littler wider of seats, and came to be important later, only stopped at the larger train stations. On the way home, I had a truly cultural experience. We rode in the economy class, which added 3 hours on to our trip and did not stop at only the larger train stations. It indeed stopped at nearly every one. And along with all the stops came many sellers of many different wares. Actually almost any wares you can think of, I was offered cutlery, snacks, full course meals, books to learn English, plastic toys, clothes and even entertainment from people carrying around a sound system and a microphone ( which was I think to disguise that they could not sing and were using a recording ). I even got a song dedicated to the ‘boleh’ foreigner, and after I was serenaded he asked me how my hair came to be gold. So the highlight of the trip I would say was the train ride to and from.

So these last couple weeks I’ve been writing down funny things I can think of from my classes and helping in home industries around Pundong. Well I’ll start with an assignment I have been giving a lot of my older students. I will ask them to write down one of the funniest things that has ever happened to them and then share it with the class. This has been highly successful and provided me with quite a bit of enjoyment. : ) I will tell you some of my favorite stories, they were very funny in the moment when being told, maybe some of the humor will be lost in my retelling, I’m not sure. This is from one of the MDS team who live in a shelter across from the church. This is his story “ When I was sleeping two weeks ago I didn’t know what happened to me because I was sleeping far away from my friend when we went to sleep but when I woke up at 1:00 am I see my friend has woken up too but our positions were closer then before. And me and my friend were surprised so we laughed together.” His friends story was short and to the point “ when I am fishing I see people fall in to the river so that they are soaking wet.” These stories have defiantly come to show me that a different culture can have a different sense of humor. Those two I just told you about I happen to find funny, but sometimes I fail to see the joke, I especially remember this with my language teaching when I was living in Salatiga, he would always be telling us jokes and none of us really ever got them, we got pretty good at pretending we did though : ). With some of my younger classes I play pictionary, and I feel as though I’ve told this to you before but I just cant remember, one of the little grade oners after telling him to draw a picture of a monkey he drew a human behaving like a monkey. That brought lots of laughter. Lately I’v been playing a game to help learn pronunciation that has to do with clapping and saying something to the extent of “ I am a lion, I see a bear” or “ I have a banana, I want a mango” and we usually have a lot of fun with that.
The other day I was working at one of my home industries where we make tempe ( a little soybean cake, that is delicious ) and it was just me and the owners mother who is probably anywhere from 70 to 85 years old. The conversation came to a halt after awhile since she had a hard time understanding my Indonesian ( my fault for having poor grammar and pronunciation skills ) anyways I noticed she was working slower and slower until I realized that she was sleeping while sitting up. She would be folding the wrappings of banana leaves around the soybeans and then slowly she would stop and then jerk awake after a couple seconds, I suggested she take a break, but she just laughed and said she was fine. We were both laughing together after awhile, she continued working like that for about an hour and then when she suggested I have an early lunch I agreed so that she could sleep after I left. A couple Thursdays ago I was supposed to be teaching kindergarten but they had a teachers meeting, so as I was walking home I passed the place were I help in the ceramic shop. The wife and daughter were about to go to the market and they invited me along. I had been to the market before but for some reason this Thursday is was about triple the size ( I asked why, and there wasn’t a reason, and I think every couple days it’s a large market, but not on consecutive days from what I could understand ) It was a really nice time walking through the market, me in my good cloths for teaching and Ibu ( the word for Mrs. And can be used alone when you forget someone’s last name, or first name, or any of there names ) ( it is also the word for mother, interesting side note ) what I was saying.. Ibu had no shoes on and was walking to the market and all around in her bare feet, I asked her if her feet were sore but she said no, no problem. The best part of the trip was we stopped at a music stall, where they sell lots of pirated music cds, the daughter is always playing great Indonesian music as we work and I had told her the week before that I enjoyed her music a lot. So we stop and they start getting the salesman to play different cds and find which one is my favorite songs, I’m just listening saying “yes I like that one, yes that ones nice to” and then all of sudden she is buying the cd and I have a sneaky feeling its for me. And I start to feel a little bad because last week work at the ceramic shop was really slow and Ibu had told me that they weren’t getting orders and there was a leak in the roof but she said they couldn’t fix it because they had no money left. And then here we are a couple days later and they are spending their money to buy me a cd of music. And I just remember thinking, I cant accept this, I cant have them spend the money on me, and then just as quickly I realized I had to take it, had to accept the gift they were giving me. It touched me so much that they would remember something I said I liked and then buy a gift for me, having so little themselves. It was a blessing and made me remember that even if sometimes I’m at a loss at what to do, and feel like I should be doing more here, I’m building great relationships with the people of this community, Christian and nonchristian and someone else is in control of my schedule other then me.

Well I’m trying to think of the other things I had to say, but I’m coming upon the 3 hour mark of being on this computer. Not long for some of you I know, but for me who hasn’t been on this long in a long long time I feel the need to get away. ( I spent a lot of time creating a crossword puzzle for learning vegetables and had to do it a couple times over before it actually made sense ). Oh exciting thing, I found a lovely dirt path along the river that has virtually no people on it for jogging. It is so nice after 6 months of not. ( except that I sweat buckets ) but it made me very happy. So I hope you are all doing good and on Wednesday I hit the 6 month point of being in Indonesia, half way done already. Thanks so much for reading and Ill catch you next time ; ) God bless.

2009-01-31T00:42:00.000-08:00

Well here we are, the last day of the first month of the year 2009. (though when I post this is will say its Friday instead of Saturday because of the time difference way over here on the other side of the world) Well I hope January brought you all joy and excitement that will continue throughout this year. January was a busy and full month for me. ( I keep pondering the passage of time, I have said before how I noticed that the lifestyles of people here are much different then back home. I don’t think one week has passed where I have actually attended everything that was written into my schedule. Peoples favorite pastime is to lay out on there front porches in the shade and chat with there neighbors and friends. Riding my bike through the village in the morning, afternoon or evening I am sure to see people of all ages taking a rest. There is not much of a rush for anything, if it doesn’t happen to today, it’ll happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month. So with that being said somehow time seems to be flying by, and every time I come to write again it is already November, Christmas, or the end of January. ) I know I keep talking about it but it is something that is puzzling me.

Well I started out the month slowly, I was at first told that my students only got one day off for Christmas holidays, Christmas day itself, but through some language barrier or miscommunication I found that they do indeed get 2 to 3 weeks off. So it took quite awhile for classes to start up again. They are now back into a regular pattern ( or as regular as usual ). At the beginning of the month my friend and fellow SALTer came and stayed with me in Pundong for around 5 days. It was so much fun to be able to show her everything I do here, and of course slip a couple bike rides to the beach and some swimming as well. And then of course the exciting trip to Malaysia. I headed over to Salatiga a day early so I could slip in a little chat to my family over Skype and visit to our country reps lovely home ( which I am allergic to by the way, a couple hours after I get there my nose starts running and I start sneezing and my asthma starts to bother me, its, I realized because their home is full of things, bookshelves, pictures on the walls, little side tables to hold lamps, and stuff like that, things that dust can settle on, and seeing as I’m allergic to dust this is the reason for my suffering, and I’m also very allergic to my home in Canada as well, but since coming to Pundong my asthma is all but gone and this I also realized is because of the lack of dust, because of the lack of things for the dust to settle on, maybe this is the sign that I am not meant to live in a house full of things, God has given me a body that need simplicity and fresh country air) So we were in Malaysia for 2 days and everything with processing our new visa’s went smoothly ( other then on our first visit me losing my security pass and having to run all over the Indonesian embassy retracing my footsteps to find it so I wouldn’t have to pay the 50,000 RP fine ( which is around 5 dollars Canadian ) though I didn’t find it, and they let me off of the fine for unknown reasons J ) Though the city we were in was beautiful, and reminded me of Toronto with all the new and modern building, the highlight of the trip would be after the busy day of sightseeing all gather with the 7 of us in one of our hotel rooms and just chatting ( and eating some homemade cookies someone somehow got a hold of ) oh and the other lovely highlight would be the incredible food we got to eat. We actually didn’t eat any Malaysian food, but we did hit up some great Thai, Indian, middle eastern, and almost best of all some good old delivery pizza from Pizza Hut. It was a good trip full of getting up at 4:30 in the morning and staying awake as long as possible to savor being together.
When I got home from Malaysia, the same day my host father left for a big city in the East of central Java ( I forget the name, but I don’t think you’ll all mind ) He is out visiting friends so for the past week and the next week. it has just been me and my host mother ( and of course the dog ) It has been a lot of fun, me and my host mother are becoming closer then before which is really nice. What I feel is really bring us together is watching an Indonesian soap opera together ( however that is spelled ) In Indonesia they are called a ‘sinetron’ and they have got to be about the worst acting I ever saw, full of slow motion shots of people falling, or being hit by a car, or a taxi driver crying so hard he falls to the ground because someone has given him a 20 dollar tip. ( AND I’m not kidding about that last one ) But me and my host mother have a favorite one and we watch it together every night at 7. She tries to explain the twisted love tangles to me ( I don’t get the whole thing yet but I’m getting there ) and we laugh together at the funny parts, she at the joke and me at the lack of.. well of any actual humor in the jokes. But its nice to spend time together over something we both enjoy.

Well that about sums it up, I feel like I should saying more about the actual teaching and helping in the home industries but to be honest they are pretty regular and though enjoyable not the best story material. Next time I’ll try and remember some more of the funny things that happen in class ( because they do happen, I just have a short memory ) So, so long and have a great next couple of week, you will all be in my prayers and God bless you.

2009-01-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! I hope the year 2009 has found you all well and good. It is finding me well and good. This month seems to have flown by, I say that quite often don’t I. I have now experienced my Indonesian Christmas and it was different and lovely. So I started everything off with a little visit to Salatiga, the city where I had my six weeks of language study. I feel like Salatiga is my little home away from home, everytime I go there I feel like ahhh this is home again. All 7 of us SALTers were together there for around 4 days. We stayed at our country reps house and had a Christmas tree, Christmas movies, hot chocolate, and one of our SALTers actually made home made eggnog! We had an afternoon of decorating sugar cookies and I think they were about the best sugar Christmas cookies I have ever had! We also had big Christmas dinner with all the MCCers here in Indonesia, which with all the kids numbered around 35 people, so it was like a normal big squishing too many people into a house, Christmas dinner. And did I mention mashed potatoes, chicken, stuffing, and lovely bread were all there as well! We had a gift exchange and lots of lovely other food, the food was a big part of the whole event. I then went to spend a couple days with an MCC family that lives in Yogyakarta, and we did Christmas shopping in the big mall that is as big as any mall back home, though no Christmas music playing. At there house I got to use there computer and skyp to my family! With a webcam! So we were almost face to face! It was really great. For those that don’t know Skyp is talking on line with a microphone and camera so you can talk and see eachother with only a slight delay. It was so nice to see everyone and talk to them and hear how there voices are all changing, well some of the boys anyways. And even to see our kitchen in the background was a huge highlight. That was my lovely gift from my parents, to see them. And that was my lovely little Americanized Christmas away from home.

I returned to Pundong on Christmas eve. I got a friend of mine to pick me up on his motor cycle and that of course meant we had to stop by some of his families house and an invitation to go to a Christmas eve service. So I got to do some decorating with tinsel and a tiny Christmas tree and then go to his Christmas eve service, is was at a very charismatic church and had some great singing and candles, though not very many actual Christmas song, but I made up for that on the back of the motor cycle on the way home. The service ended with Santa Clause coming in and everyone singing Santa Clause Is Coming To Town. Which I thought was a very interesting way to end the evening, but it is defiantly a tradition here to include Santa Clause in the Christian Christmases. I think in Canada Christmas is mostly a family event, while here in Indonesia Christmas is largely a church event. On Christmas day we went to two different Christmas services and I gave my host parents and sister gifts, but they didn’t exchange gift with each other as that is not there tradition, and just the regular amount of food. Our church had our big important Christmas services on December 30, I think most of the churches rotate the day they have there biggest services so that you can go to as many church services as possible. So the days leading up to December 30 were filled with a lot of singing practice. I sang a duet with my host sister, in English and in Indonesian. I am not a public singer, I enjoy singing while say I’m riding my bike, or in the car, or here on the back of a motor cycle. So before I went on I was so nervous, I was sitting with some of the ladies from the church and they asked me if I was sad because I was sitting so quietly before the service started, and we all know that’s not normal, and I said I was nervous and they were so great in encouraging me. Lately I have felt like I am becoming part of the church here and I love being able to have the friendships I now have with many of the church members. The singing itself went ok, I think, but I forgot most of the words to the Indonesian part of the song, I had them in my hand on a little piece of paper but I forgot to look at my hand. But I think it went well. The service went very well and since everyone here loves getting there pictures taken my camera is quite full. I was invited to quite a few other Christmas services also, and those were all very nice as well. So that about sums up my Indonesian Christmas.

In Indonesia they have two different New Years. On Desember 28 is the Islamic New Years and on December 31 is the regular national new years. So for the Islamic New Years I was invited to climb Merapi, a slightly active volcano here in Indonesia. I was invited by my friends friend on Christmas eve but I didn’t think id be able to make it because on the 28th I had a wedding to go to, but at the last minute I didn’t have a ride to the wedding and around 5.30 I found myself with a full evening so I text my friend and by 6 he was on his way to pick my up. So on very little sleep the night before and a busy day behind me I started what should have been a 6 hour climb, up and down, but turned out to be a 16 hour climb, with me getting about 45 minutes sleep in 40 hours. We had a group of 12 people all together, and that might have accounted for the extended climbing time, or the fact that Indonesian people generally enjoy many breaks, and naps along the way, or the fact that around 3 in the morning it started pouring rain and by then we were high enough up that we were freezing. All could have been the reason, but overall I had an incredible time because the group was so much fun. Some of the guys brought costumes along to dress up for the pictures when we reached the summit, which I found quite funny. And when we reached the top the clouds were gone and we had sunshine, which caused me one of the worst sunburns iv ever had, and also a beautifully, incredible view. So though my legs hurt for 3 days after whenever they moved it was all worth it. For the regular New Years I went out for dinner with a friend and then watched movies and the big cities fireworks on the TV. Pretty regular for New Years for me.

So this last month has been full and busy and I hardly had time to miss home, though of course I did, I do pride myself with the fact that I only cried twice though, once when I was reading my lovely hand written letters from home and when I had to say goodbye to my family over the computer. But I feel that God has hugely blessed my Christmas here and given me many friends and temporary family to allow me to enjoy Christmas. This week I’m back to teaching and getting into the regular swing of things. Though on January 18th us SALTers have to head out of the country to renew our visas. So we will be going to Malaysia for two nights I think. That will be an exciting trip I think. Oh and if you couldn’t tell I didn’t use any parenthesis in this little blog because I cant figure out how to do it with the keyboard Im using to write this, so were Id usually use parenthesis I have to just use commas. Hope you are all doing well and since the next month will probably fly by again, talk to you soon.

2008-12-23T02:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, so ill try to give captions to all of these, first ( i think sometimes they go on in a differnt order then i thought ) is a picture of me and my two host sisters in Batik dresses on our way to a wedding and we are posing in front of our house. the second picture is when we went to the beach and got caught in the rain, and were rescued by a lady from the church, next is me and three girls from the youth group at the beach before the rain started. Then we have me on a bike ride with a couple of my high school students. then two beautiful pictures of the area i get to ride my bike through everyday. Then me in front of my house. Then we have swimming in the ocean with the MDS team and riding in the back of the truck on the way over to the beach. Last and not least is my host sister and me and some friends from the MDS team at a parade. I hope you enjoy.

Pictures of teaching English.

2008-12-23T02:07:00.000-08:00

So here are a couple pictures of one or two of my classes. The first is my little pre-school class. then we have some little boys in grade one that i teach up in a mountian village. Then one of my favorite classes of grade one boys who are such hard workers. and last me teaching some of my older students at the beach.

2008-12-12T22:33:00.000-08:00

Here we are again, and it is December, I can just imagine what it looks like at home right now. Snow everywhere, Christmas lights on most of the houses, church services full of Christmas music and oh the yummy food. Well to be honest I am trying to think of home and Christmas as little as possible this month to help me not get to homesick. Its not as difficult as I thought it might be, firstly being in a climate that doesn’t really have seasons helps, when I’m so hot I cant imagine ever being cold again and it makes me want to faint thinking about a nice fire or wearing a sweater or long pants, its hard to imagine Christmas going on at home. Also I am quite busy, teaching and helping in home industries, going on long bike rides around the breathtaking village and everyone is always wanting to take me one place or another. So alas I have not yet fallen into despair. J I am heading to Salatiga for a week on the 18th of December. Ill return to Pundong on Christmas eve. We’ll be having a Christmas party, decorating Christmas cookies and listening to Christmas music. It will be everyone part of the MCC team so it will be a little like an western Christmas. ( oh and I’m going to try and put up some pictures of me teaching and working here ). And then when I return I’ll have an Indonesian Christmas, which I’m not yet quite sure what it will be like. I know that I’ll probably be back to teaching on boxing day because the muslim schools only take one day off and most of my students fall into that category. But I do know that for the Christmas program at church I will be singing a duet, me singing a duet in church. First in English and then in Indonesian with my host sister. Hopefully it will turn out for the better.

These last two weeks have been pretty quite, well busy, but just the regular teaching and making food. Teaching is actually going very well, I’m really starting to enjoy myself. A lot of classes are filled with laughter and its a lot of fun. They enjoy making fun of my attempts to speak Indonesian and if it’s the right group I can laugh at them in return. I teach some adults English on Thursday nights and they are one of my favorite classes. One man drives a Becak, which is a bicycle with a seat for 2 or 3 people on the front ( difficult to explain ) so he wants to learn English to speak with his customers, and he is by far the most enthusiastic student I have. He listens with rapt attention and as soon as I have finished with one concepts he says “next next, what is next” it is quite funny and he also always asks “why are you laughing?” So I looked up the word intense in the dictionary and told him that it described him, he thought that was pretty funny. My other favorite class is a group of girls I teach on Friday afternoon, they are all around 15 or 16 years old and they just have a good sense of humor. They have made lots of plans to take me around the area on my day off. Then we have a group of boys that are 6 and 7 years old, they show up every week with their little note books and copy every word I write on the white board, the other week we were playing a little game of pictionary with animals to guess what that animal was in English and one little boy comes up and starts drawing and I was trying to figure out what animal it was until he finished and I realized he had drawn a picture of his favorite cartoon charter from TV. I really wish I had brought my camera that week because it was a great picture. So class is usually pretty good. Some of my classes were canceled or joined together but every time that happens someone else comes and asks for me to teach so my schedule is remaining quite full.

All last week it was very very hot, it’s the rainy season but there was no rain. All week bright sun and cloudless skies. So this week of course is making it up for it and on Monday I wore a sweater for the first time since coming here. Its been raining everyday almost all day. Which is making for a slow week for me because a lot of my classes have been canceled. Which actually turned out to be good because I got a little cold on Tuesday and a nasty cough to go with it. So because things got cancelled I got to sleep almost all day Wednesday which helped me recover. So I’m almost all up to good health now. This slow week also gave me a lot of reading time. So I polished off a couple of books. Thankfully the MCC office in Salatiga has a very good selection of books so I can restock when I go there for Christmas.

On Thursday my host sister came home for the weekend. She lives in Jakarta the capital of Indonesia. She came home for an early Christmas celebration and also because one of her good friends got married. It has been very fun to have her home (lots of extra good food in buy me cloths) then they had to decide if I should wear it with jeans, or without, or her honor) so last night we got all dolled up and went to her friends wedding, just us three girls, my host sisters and me. Since iv never had sisters getting ready was an interesting experience. First they bought me a batik dress, its very nice (people usually don’t black jeans, or leggings, should I wear my hair like that. It was pretty funny. But she is very nice and its been a lot of fun to have her home.

So all around things are going well, I’m very much looking forward to my time in Salatiga coming up and then experiencing an Indonesian Christmas. I hope you all have a great holiday and enjoy that cold weather for me.

Time passing by.

2008-11-29T00:59:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone, Here we find ourselves another two weeks have flown by. ( I think that is a good thing ). Things here have really settled down and my weekly schedule is flowing smoothing on. Well as smoothly as thing flow here in the village of Pundong. One of the differences I am beginning to find between our two cultures is that here in Pundong things are flexible. The word for flexible in Bahasa Indonesian is the same as in English, flexible. I repeat at the end of every day “oh things were flexible today”. I think I actually mentioned before how things happen when I don’t plan them and I have to be ready to go anywhere when its announced that in 10 minutes we are going to a wedding reception. Now I am finding that even when I have my schedule all written out quite often things like English class are flexible as well. One day I was thinking it over and one of the main reasons for not having class is that fact that its raining. In Canada we don’t have school when its snowing really bad and the roads are dangerous but I think that if we went to say Alberta then it would take a lot more snow to cancel school. People from Alberta probably go to school everyday in the kind of weather that we cancel school for. And here in Indonesia everyone rides a motor bike so they have to cancel things when its raining because other wise you get soaked. So I’m learning pretty good to sit back and relax when things don’t go according to plan. I wonder if when I come back home will this stick with me and will I be willing to ride things out or will I want ( because I’m able ) to be in complete control of everything around me. Haha I guess only time will tell.

This very morning an interesting thing happened to me. Every morning I begin my day around 6 with family devotions and then I walk the dog. Now I have never claimed to be a big animal lover and Mopi ( my host families dog ) is an interesting type of dog, actually probably pretty normal for a dog but my experience is limited I enjoy my morning walks a lot, I walk through the village and everyone says hello and invites me in for breakfast, then I walk on this little path surrounded by palm trees and rice fields which is very beautiful. Well this morning, actually first dogs in Indonesian are slightly more violent then they are back in Canada or maybe its my limited experience again but I don’t think I have ever seen a dog attack another dog they way they do here. I have perfected my morning walk so as not to pass by any dogs that Mopi might attack. So this morning we are walking and we pass this one spot where maybe once every three weeks there is a dog. And this morning there was a dog. I’m about 30 feet away and I see the dog and I turn right around and start walking very fast in the other direction, but I’m not fast enough and the dog comes running after us. And Mopi is pulling on the leash trying to get to the other dog they are growling and then they begin to bite each other and I’m terrified so I drop the leash and run screaming away. Which of course attracts all the people living right around where we are. Now these dogs are not just growling, they are trying to eat and kill each other. So after about two minutes of fighting they stop and smell each other and the stupid dog walks away and mopi walks toward me like “alright I’m done I just wanted to flight a little:” Its happened a couple times but this was the first time they were fighting so bad I dropped the leash. But apparently its not a big deal because everyone was laughing.

Oh oh oh last Sunday I had my first experience swimming in the Indonesian ocean! I loved it. I went to the beach with some friends and the waves at this beach are huge so big that you aren’t allowed to swim there ( actually I think two weeks before this 3 tourist almost drowned there so it is really quite dangerous ) There are people that are wadding in a little not far but enough to catch some of the waves coming in. So a couple of us went swimming in our clothes. I don’t think my cloths have ever been so full of sand. I am actually still trying to get the sand out of the shorts I was wearing, there is sand in places that I didn’t even know where in my shorts. But even though we only went a little way in the waves were pushing us around like I have never experienced at a beach before. Even when you were about 5 feet from the edge of the water the waves could pull you back and then push you around. It was a lot of fun, my eyes were so sore from all the salt in them. ( and so you don’t worry we only went about 10 feet in altogether and my friends were very concerned with safety and kept telling me not to go to far ) I went back alone ( I didn’t go swimming ) by bike when I had a free morning, it took about 40 minutes to get there and then I walked around and tried to climb this rock hill but I didn’t get very far because it was covered in this plant that stung when you touched it. But I like the beach here in Indonesia very much.

So I have been keeping busy here, filling my time with teaching, making food, and making new friends. I cant believe that it is almost December already and I keep thinking about how on December first they start playing Christmas songs on the radio. But I suppose more on Christmas later. Well I’m off, I’m going to learn how to drive a motor bike, iv been asking for someone to teach me since coming here and I finally convinced some to J. Thank you for all your prayers and Ill be praying for you as well. God Bless.

About life in Pundong.

2008-11-14T22:23:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, time is going so fast I cant figure out if its been 2 or 3 weeks since I wrote, I’m writing this from a computer in the MDS housing, I don’t think I have explained what they are, they are a branch of MCC and there about 15-18 young people living across from church here. (They have provided me with ready made friends which is great). I just finished teaching them English for the last two hours. (that is my longest class that I teach here) but they are a lot of fun so its alright that I have to fill two hours of time for them. (they work building relationships with people in the community) Alrighty, so last Saturday I went back to Salatiga for team meetings with all the people that live in Indonesia and work with MCC here. It was a very great refreshing time ( in more ways then one, they had a swimming pool at the retreat center we went to so I swam as much as a possible could, I have developed an even deeper love of swimming since coming here because its one of the only times I am completely not sweating! ) but also refreshing to see everyone again after the first 3 weeks in our assignments.

Well I now know what I will be doing here in full detail. Let me tell you about it, since you probably want to know. Four mornings a week I help in different home industries, these are people from the church here but also people from the community, actually I think three are families from the community and only one goes to my church here. So I help make Tempe ( I wrap soybeans in little packages which people take home and fry, tempe is quite tasty ), gapluk, (this was really fun to help with, it is a little sugary ball of coconut and palm sugar. You start off with cutting open the fresh coconut, they tried to get me to do that but after hitting with all my might and then spilling the coconut milk everywhere they decided I would do a different job, so we shred the coconut meat into what looks like coconut you can buy at the store in Canada ( but tastes a whole lot better) and then they cook it up and make different flavors and then we package it ) then I help with making emping-emping ( which is smashing a little bean into what looks like a circular potato chip and then leaving to dry in the sun, I think anyways I actually start that on Monday ) and then last but not least ceramics, which is my favorite i get to play with clay. They make moulds of different pottery things and then I get to shave off the access that the moulds leave on the finished product. Its great fun!

Then the rest of the time I’m teaching English. I am teaching much more then I thought I would be, but it is good. I’m going to be teaching around 14 classes every week. The longest is two hours long and the rest are for 1 hour. I teach privately so I go to different peoples homes and teach one of their children and his friends and then one of their older children and all of their friends, for example. But I am teaching every single age, I teach little kindergarten children, and then elementary, high school, MDS team which are 20 – 30 years of age and then I’m even teaching some people from the neighborhood that are taxi drivers and such. So it’s a full plate of work, In Salatiga I got a couple different books to help me teach but I still don’t have a straight forward lesson plan to follow. But I am planning on making one for myself and then a lot of my classes are around the same age so ill just teach the same lesson a couple times. I have found that I really enjoy teaching and I also enjoy preparing ( surprisingly), I think some of the grammar I’m going to have to relearn when I teach it but its all pretty basic so I think I can remember. So far its been a lot of fun, the students enjoy correcting my bad pronunciation of Indonesian words and they all have been learning English since they were pretty small so some of my classes are just filling in the missing grammar. I was teaching one of my younger classes, eight boys around the ages of 6,7, and 8. I was teaching them some of the different animals and I asked them what animals they already knew and they knew, pig, tiger, and the last one I could not understand they were saying “chamel” so I got them to draw I picture for me on the itty bitty white board I take with me from house to house. It was camel but in Bahasa Indonesian ‘c’ is pronounced ‘ch’ so after that I took up the idea of drawing animals and getting them to guess what animal it was and then I would tell them the name in English. One little boy came up and drew a picture of a cartoon boy, from there favorite computer game, and I think it’s a show on tv, it was a very great picture and we all got a little laugh out of it. So teaching has been a lot of fun. ( I think I keep saying that, “Its been fun” “its a lot of fun” not sure why )

Everything is falling into place and I now have my duties and schedule figured out. I am still learning to be flexible though, I think I said before things move at a different pace here, for example I went to one of my home industries to start working at 8:30 in the morning but they hadn’t eaten breakfast and things weren’t ready so I got to hang out and chat with them for over an hour until things were ready to go. It takes some getting used to but it is a very relaxed way of living. I am still facing some little difficulties working it all out and there is still the language barrier. I also had quite a bad allergic reaction to something and for about a week my eyes were quite red and swollen but we got it all figured out and got medicine and my eyes are now back to normal. I’m learning to turn to God in everything I’m doing, every happiness and every frustration and He is being very faithful. The words to the song Blessed be your name have becoming my motto. “every blessing your pour down ill turn back to praise, when the darkness closes in Lord still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Well that’s it for now, Ill be writing again in two weeks and by then ill probably have some great stories to tell. God Bless.

Just a nice little short one.

2008-11-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone, I hope everyone is doing well. I have now been staying in Pundong for 2 weeks. Two very good weeks. As you know I was in the not-know before coming here, but now I am in the know. I have a very full schedule, so full in fact that im a little concerned on how I am going to be able to do it. These last two weeks I have been busy with working out my schedule. Things here in the village of Pundong move a little slower then in the city, so for the first week me and my host father or mother went visiting to all the families in the community and church that wanted to have English classes for there kids or for me to help in home industries. The second week was actual very similar to the first. Tomorrow is the first day of work for me, and I am going to be teaching 4 different classes in English. My other tasks include making things like Emping-Emping (made from some sort of bean), Tempe (made from soy beans) and Gapluk (and a sweat snack made from sugar and rice four). (all common food here in Indonesia)(I’m sure ill know more about what’s in them after I’v helped make them). After that I am teaching English! This has so far been my biggest challenge. I actually don’t have any curriculum to go on so I am writing the lessons myself. I taught my first class on Friday to a group of eleven year old girls and then Saturday morning to people on the MDS team which are all older then me. They both went very well after a lot of me worrying and praying. Next weekend I’m going back to Salatiga for team meetings and hopefully I can pick up some curriculum to help me teach with so I am not coming up with everything from my memory of grade 7 grammar. I don’t have much time today so Ill write a more detailed explanation of how life is in Pundong as soon as a can. Thanks everyone for following my blog and for your prayers!

Very random pictures.

2008-10-17T02:20:00.000-07:00

First is the beach in Pati. Second is a group of boys who very much wanted their pictures taken, you can see someone holding up a camera in the corner. Then is a picture of us seven in Yogyakarta at McDonalds having McFlurries. Then we have a picture of some batik and last is a picture of a local man resting beside his selling stand.

Some more pictures of life in Salatiga.

2008-10-17T01:39:00.000-07:00

First picture, me and Mark at a Warung in Salatiga having some Cop Cay Mie. Second is the first day of Idul Fitri, in the city square in Salatige. Then is a beautiful sunset from the my host house. Then is my host brother off to catch a rat that was in the kitchen, the bag is filled with play-dough bombs. and last is a picture i took when I was stuck in a rainshower and this sidewalk is usally not a downward flowing river.

2008-10-13T06:29:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone, Sorry I haven’t posted for awhile. Time seems to be flying by. I can’t believe it’s already the middle of October. I think today is Thanksgiving over there in Canada, so you all are probably getting together with family and eating turkey and pie. I talked to my parents this morning along with a couple family members that were all over for thanksgiving dinner, it was great to be able to talk to them all. Even though we had to stop and call back a couple times, the phone situation has been a little frustrating for me. My parents have been calling me on my cell phone but a lot of the time the connection has been pretty bad and usually the phone cuts off a coupe times. We are looking for a better way but I have a feeling that me deciding to live half way around the world is the biggest part of that problem.
This Wednesday is my last language class, Sunday, October 19th I head out to Pundong full time. I’m both excited and nervous, I still don’t have a very clear idea of what I will specifically be doing. But I’m sure I will have a very good idea of what Ill be doing after about two weeks of doing it, so Ill just be waiting until then and praying that Gods plan will work out and I know His will. These six weeks here in Salatiga have been such a good start to the year. I have grown so close to my host family and have made great friendships with all the MCC workers here. There is a lot of laughter and fun going on wherever we go. I realized the other day that I am having a tri cultural experience. As two of our seven SALTers are from Africa we are not only learning the Indonesian culture, but many discussions have centered around the difference between America (Canada and the US ) and Africa. I’m defiantly looking forward to the times we all get to be together again the up coming year.
All seven of us spent to the weekend in Yogyakarta staying with one of the MCC families who live there, they are actually from Toronto. Yogyakarta is one of the biggest cities in Central Java, we got to see a lot of interesting sights. We went to the Indonesian Sultans palace which was very cool because a lot materials used to build the palace and decorations are gifts from the Dutch. I got some good pictures of some of that blue porcelain paintings that are in my house and a lot of your houses (if you are my Dutch family members and are reading this). Another highlight was seeing how the handmade Indonesian Batik (pronounced Ba-teak) is created. I don’t think I have mentioned it before but everyone here wears batik, shirts , skirts, dresses, shorts made from this beautiful patterned material. Ill put up some pictures, but it is hand made and involves drawing a pattern on a pieces of material in pencil and outlining it with dye and then dyeing the material multiple times to create an overlay of different colors. Hard to explain properly, Ill put up some pictures so you’ll get a little bit of an idea of what it looks like. Last but not least we went to Borobudur, which is a Hindu temple that was built a couple thousand years ago, until last year it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But last year they (whoever changes the seven wonders of the world that have been written for over a hundred year) to a temple in Peru ( maybe Ill go there next ). But it was still very great even though it is no longer a wonder of the world. Its made of volcanic rock so its pretty much black, being mostly young people us seven SALTers didn’t think to bring sunscreen or hats so we were all nice and rosy the next day. I think the most surprising part of sightseeing at the temple was that I now know what it feels like to be a celebrity. We were at the top of the temple and a couple of us climbed a little higher up to get a picture and then one Indonesian man asked if he could take a picture of us, we said ok, and then all of a sudden there were about 5 or 6 camera on us and people began asking us to pose with them. It took us a good 20 minutes to get away from all the people around us. We were fallowed by people asking if they could take our picture or just taking our pictures. We started walking with our hands over our faces so we wouldn’t end up in some unexpected picture. It was funny, but a tiny bit exhausting after awhile. But overall a great experience at Borobudur
So that about sums up all the exciting bits from the last couple weeks. Oh I actually just remembered it is now the rainy season here, which is great because it means that around 3, 4, or 5 the sky get dark and it pours rain, almost everyday, so it pretty humid all day and then the sky opens up and breaks the humidity. On Thursday last week I was biking to class and I got stuck in the downpour. I pulled over and got under an over hang and sat there for half and hour while it rained so hard there was a river probably 6 or 7 inches deep running by me. It was a great experience, I had to sit in class for two hours waiting for my pants to dry which was a little uncomfortable but they dried 15 minutes before class was over and I had to bike home again. :) Well next time I write I will be coming to you from Pundong, Central Java, and I’m sure I will have some interesting stories to tell. Until then I will be enjoying my last couple days in the cool ( as in not sweating buckets hot) city of Salatiga.

Mountian climbing pictures.

2008-09-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

The first picture is of course Merbabu in all her glory. We climbed to the smallest peak first and then along the ridge to the highest peak. The second picture is the view from the top. Then there is are four of us girls, very happy as the sun was raising. Beside that is me.

And here is us sleeping on the sumit of the mountain, we were cold so we all got out our sleeping bags and snuggled up together and slept for an hour before we headed down the mountain.

The last two weeks.

2008-09-23T06:01:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone, I hope I this little note finds you all good and doing well. It finds me very good and doing very well. Language class is going pretty good I would say. My lists of vocabulary words have grown quite long and I feel like there could not possible be any different connections to make between anything familiar to me in English to all the new Indonesian words I’m trying to remember. ( for example Kapal, is like Napal and there are boats in Napal and Kapal = Boat) One of my greatest struggles in learning Indonesian by far is my messy writing and incorrect spelling. I cannot even say how many times I have tried to say something in Indonesian and the person I am talking to doesn’t have a clue what I’m saying because the word I have memorized for “difficult” does not exist. I have had a couple moments of frustration ( maybe more than a couple ) but our teacher is still great and I still sometimes cant believe I’m actually learning another language.
So the weekend before last I broke a previous vow and climbed a mountain. As I said in the last post I thought I would hate it and ask myself every step of the way ‘why in the world am I doing this?’ BUT it was one of the greatest experiences I have had in Indonesia, dare I say in life. Let me tell you about it. :) We started are climb of Merbabu (the mountains name) at 5 Saturday afternoon, and ended at 12 noon the next day, the whole adventure took 19 hours. We climbed through the night with flashlights, so that we would be able to see the sunrise. We climbed a total of 9 and a half hours and slept I think 5 or 6. My legs hurt for 3 days after, every time I would walk up stairs or down my legs would be in quite a lot of pain. But every single part of the climb and descent was worth it, seeing the sun rise after half running up the last half hour (thinking we were going to miss it) was one of the most beautiful things. I don’t know how anyone could climb a mountain and see the incredible beauty God has created and not believe in I Him. I’m trying to find words to explain it but I cant, so Ill do the next best thing, other then getting you all to fly here and climb Merbabu Ill put some pictures up, since I took over a hundred. But if anyone ever asks you to climb a mountain, I would say do it.
Last weekend we went to see the ocean. For two of the SALTers from Zimbabwe it was there first slighting of the ocean. We went to vist a MCC church partner, he lives in a little fishing village of course on the ocean. He took us through the village to the fishing pier and by the time we were finished our walk there were about 40 children fallowing us (and I actually don’t think that is an exaggeration). They would jump in front of us when we were taking pictures, trying to get in them. I have quite a few pictures of a fishing boat and a few kids as well. They followed us to the house and sat on the front porch with us, well some of them did the rest rode there bikes up and down the driveway while we took pictures of them, stopping to go back a look at what they looked like in the pictures. They were beautiful children. We then went to our host fish ponds. He raised fish in these acre long ponds. We got to watch him throw his net to catch the fish and then we grilled them skin, bones and all over the fire, they were very good.
These last couple weeks feel like they’ve been flying by. Living in the city has been very interesting and other then remembering hundreds of vocabulary words, pretty relaxing. I am looking forward to going back to Pundong and living entirely surrounded by the Indonesian language, and starting my work there. I am also a little nervous, of leaving the 7 other SALTers on the team, the Indonesian country reps (who are very great) and going just me and God to Pundong, but there I have reassured myself, me and God are going together. Thanks for thinking of me and reading my blog and for all your prayers.

Pictures of Salitiga where I am spending my 6 weeks of language study.

2008-09-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

First picture of my friend at the fruit market. Second of the main street in Salitiga. Then of all the motor bikes parked on the main street. Last of some of us in our language class.

Pictures of Pundong where I will spend the rest of the year.

2008-09-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

First picture is of an Indonesian style home. The second is my host mother, she is the one in front. Next is me washing dishes in my home in Pundong and last is an Indonesian women outside my front door in Pundong.

Some Pictures of my time here so far.

2008-09-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

The first picture is of all seven SALTers at a temple in the mountains. The second picture is of a meal we had of rabit and rice.
The last picture is at a fish restaurant where we ate the fish with our fingers right off the bones. It was delicious.

September 9th, 2008

2008-09-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

• Hello again everyone. Here I am writing from Salitiga, where I am staying until the end of October, to begin my study of Bahasa Indonesiaaya. I am staying with a different host family for these six weeks then I will be staying with for the rest of the year in Pundong. They live in a nice big house with Internet, clear tv channels, and I sleep on a pillow top bed. They have two children that are 6 and 9. The 9 year old speaks almost perfect English so we are able to talk together (hopefully soon more in Indonesian). I have language class five days a week. Classes run from 7:30-9:30 in the morning with all seven of us SALTers, and then I study for 2 hours until lunch and then we have private class with 2 or 3 of us. Our teacher is a great teacher, he has been teaching SALTers for the last four years I think. We learn vocabulary words, he speaks to us in Indonesian and we have to interpret and repeat back to him He is very patient and has a great sense of humor so class is a lot of fun. All seven of us SALTers have been provided with a bikes, helmets and bike locks. So these bikes our are means of transportation around Salitiga. Since more then half of the population drives motor cycles, we on our bikes drive right in the thick of traffic along with all the motor cycles and cars. It is a very exciting experience that I really like (except for all the car fumes). You have to motion with your hands which way you want to turn and if you happen to be fallowing an Indonesian they will go right into a speeding on coming line of traffic and expect everyone to stop for them (We from the west are a little more timid). On Sundays the service is at either six in the morning or 9,my family goes to the 6 am service, which is a new experience for me also. This Sunday, one of the other SALTers host brothers invited us all to go on a bike ride around the city. Five of us decided to go thinking we would be going on a nice, maybe half an hour ride. Well.. we ending up riding up a mountain for two hours and down for half an hour. The down part was enjoyable, but I probably didn’t have the best attitude when our guilds kept telling us ‘just one or two more hills and then we’ll start down’, when an hour later we actually started our descent). But the views were very beautiful and I think it will help me prepare for climbing the highest mountain in Indonesia (I believe) which I will, as it stands now, be climbing this Saturday. I feel as though I must climb this mountain because how many opportunities like this come along. But I know deep down that I will probably not enjoy myself. (Ill let you know how it goes).The last thing I want to mention is that they have heavenly fruits here. I have always said that I like all fruit except pineapple, but let me tell you I have never tasted anything as delicious as Indonesian, fresh, straight from the market pineapple. I almost made my tongue bleed the first night I was here because I ate so many of them. It is also mango season so I eat a whole mango every couple days, they are incredible (my host family has made a couple comments on my great love of fruit) Well that’s my update for the last couple weeks. Bye and God Bless.

My Name.

2008-08-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before my name means 'corpse' in Indonesian, so I have changed it to Jelita, which is a common Indonesian name. (some workers for MCC chose it for me). I have become very good at answering to it already because it is one of the few words i recognize when people are talking away in a language i don't understand.

2008-08-25T00:34:00.001-07:00

Well here i am again. It is going very well here, and everyday it seems i get to experience something new. it has been very relaxing here so far actually, the family im living with is retired so.. wait ill give you alittle showing of how my days have mostly been here so far. people in Indonesia get up very early and go to bed early. by early i mean around 4:30, 5 every morning, even though the couple im staying with is retired they still get up at this time. so we get up, have family devotions, and then basically whatever we feel like doing, there is nothing really that needs doing. so this morning i took there dog for an hour long walk throughout the village. i dont think its a normal Indonesian practice to walk the dog, so i get alot of stares, actually the stares are probably from the fact that my skin is white and my hair is blond (though my host sister did tell me that everyone at church kept saying i had very dark skin for an American, i tried to tell her it was just my tan), but if you just smile at people, their faces break into very beautiful smiles, so as long as i smile at them i dont mind all the staring (except the young boys yelling things i dont understand, i do mind ). so then we have breakfast, (of rice, we have rice breakfast, lunch, and supper, they love rice, and i dont mind it so far, but you might want to keep that in your prayers ). I also take alot of naps here, i take one before lunch, in the afternoon and then i usually am in bed by 8 or 9. so im getting alot of sleep. the whole year will not be like this unfortunately ;) These six days are just to settle in, and get to know the village and the people in it. On Saturday i got to go to an Indonesian funeral. It was very interesting, my host mother and father were very insisted that i take my camera along and took every opportunity to get me to take a picture, that was a little uncomfortable since it was a funeral, but the people seemed happy that i was taking pictures, they also insisteted that i take a pictures with the body, which i was quite scared of, but it was covered they just got me to stand by it. But overall it was very much like a Canadian funeral. It continues to be very beautiful here, and I've begun to notice little things about the culture and lifestyles here. one thing is the colours people like to paint there houses, they like bright bright bright colours. inside and outside there houses, the brightest greens, yellows and oranges that you can imagine. but they like to wear browns and dark yellows. Well my Internet time is almost up so ill end here. on Wednesday i head to Salitiga to study the Indonesian language for 6 weeks and then i am back here the Pundong. God has blessed me so much since coming here, i feel so comfortable in my host families house and the church members and all the people i have met so far are so very nice. I am so thankful to be here and am having the time of my life.

From Pundong, my host family.

2008-08-22T01:28:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
I have safely arrived in Indonesia. It took 43 hours of traveling to get here, and here i am. We didnt run into any troubles in our travels we got here safely and in good time. The first couple days we spend in a hotel up in the mountains, to sleep, get over jet lag, and have a couple crash courses in indonesian. (which i am doing alright in) It was very relaxing and our team has become very close. I'm writing from an Internet cafe about a 2 minute walk from where my host family is. I have come here for a 6 day visit and then i will be heading to Salitiga for 6 weeks of language classes. My host family is very nice, there is a lack of communication but we are doing alright, there daughter has come home from school for the weekend and she speaks understandable English. There house is in the middle of some rice fields and surrounded by mountains and palm trees, its is so beautiful here i can believe it most of the time. I am doing very well here so far, I ask for your continued prayers, I need as I'm trying to learn the language and am missing my home. God Bless.

First Post

2008-08-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, This is my first experience with a blog so I hope you will enjoy hearing about my year in Indonesia, which is of course the reason that I am having a first experience with a blog.

Right now I am on my last day of orientation in Akron Pennsylvania. I have been here since August 9th and tomorrow at 6:22 PM I am beginning a three day journey to Pundong, Indonesia. It has been a very good week of Orientation, there are around 50 people in the SALT program and 50 people here in a program called IVEP, they are from around the world and are serving in Canada and the U.S. for the year. I spent the week rooming with a girl that is coming with me to Indonesia and two girl that are from Indonesia, which was a very helpful idea of MCC. I have learned a couple words in Indonesia, the most interesting of them is that my name, Janessa, means corpse in Indonesian. The girls I have met here from Indonesia have advised me to go by a different name while I am there. They have asked us alot of questions about Canada and the U.S. and in return we get to find out all sorts of interesting things about Indonesia. Everyday we have been in different sessions to help prepare us for living in a different culture. As I told some of you, but not all, I was appointed to be on the worship team for the week of orientation. Since I have never been on a worship team before and would not count myself as a highly musical person I was a bit worried. At the end of the week I can honestly say that I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The next time I but a post on here I will be blogging from Indonesia and I am sure will have some interesting stories to tell. Until then, God Bless you all.