PG: Paula Greenspan Plays Globally

Going to Gili

2012-01-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! It's between January 1 and Chinese New Year so I'm safe to say that for both holidays, I think. I don't usually make New Years resolutions but I do intend to update my blog a little more often this year ... we'll see how I do at that.

For the Christmas / New Years holiday week, I went to the island of Gili Trawangan (a very small island near Lombok) with my friend and co-worker Emma. It was truly relaxing and lovely. We enjoyed a large variety of foods, laid on the beach, snorkeled, and rented bikes to ride around the island (about a 9 km ride). Although the island is tiny, it's full of restaurants and bars. It has sandy beaches all around with good snorkeling just off the beaches where you can see corals, fish, turtles, rays, and more. There are no motorized vehicles on the island - just foot traffic mixed with bicycles and horse carts.

One of our loveliest evenings was spent watching the sunset from over on the western side of the island.

I especially enjoyed the subsequent appearance of some small fairies who were casting their magical spells of joy on the appreciative crowd as they watched the post-sunset bonfire and fire show.

For the final two days, we avoided the massive crowds and went to Lombok to attend a great New Years eve party at an Indonesian friend's house. It featured fireworks, noisemakers, dancing, swimming, conversation, and more delicious food.

I returned refreshed and ready for a wonderful year ... I know that my adventures will continue, and I hope that yours are also wonderful. Happy New Year / Selamat Tahun Baru!

Taking in Thailand

2011-10-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

In late August / early September, my friend Emma and I went to Thailand for 2 weeks holiday, coinciding with the end of Ramadan and the week of Lebaron. (Yes, I know - that was almost 2 months ago and I'm VERY delinquent at keeping up my blog. But hush and don't distract me! I'll try to add some posts soon about some of the other things I've done while I wasn't posting much.)

We arrived in Bangkok and spent the evening enjoying a change of food and some street shopping in the touristy area where we stayed. The following day, we did a bit of sightseeing including a truly huge Buddha statue, a gemstone workshop, and the Grand Palace. We used a "tuk-tuk" for our sightseeing - a small 3-wheeled vehicle with a motorcycle engine. The tuk-tuk driver got rewards for taking us to some tourist shopping spots - that was okay for the first spot but by the 3rd place which wasn't of real interest we were getting fed up. Our final destination, the Palace, was incredible and well worth visiting so it was all worthwhile.

That evening, we jumped onto an overnight bus to the north. The bus journey was quite an adventure in itself. We began by hiking several blocks, collecting people from different hotels and tourist agencies along the way. When we arrived at a very muddy park, we then waited for about 45 minutes. The bus finally got there and we all piled on board and took off, only to be stopped in traffic for about an hour. Eventually we got through the traffic and thought we were making fine progress. Emma and I had both fallen asleep when we were awoken by a loud bang, and then the bus pulled over. We had blown a tire. After quite a bit of negotiation on the phone and no updates in English for the confused and concerned tourists on board, we resumed our drive - apparently they decided that the double-wheels provided enough support and we didn't need to replace the tire. Okay - back to sleep. As we pulled into the outskirts of Chiang Mai, our intermediate destination, the bus stalled! Fortunately, the driver was able to restart it after a few minutes and we arrived safely at the bus terminal. We got a connection to our minibus and settled into another ride through mountains and beautiful forests, winding up in Pai around mid-day.

Pai is a lovely little town in the mountains, and it's filled with charming restaurants and shops. We met an American friend of a friend there who's opening an admirable school and we were fascinated to learn about her efforts. She steered us to the lovely Ing Doi Guesthouse which was friendly, clean and picturesque, and she joined us the following day for an elephant riding adventure at Thom's Elephant Camp.

After a couple of days in Pai, we went back to Chiang Mai. Emma had previously spent several months there so she was a good tour guide. We continued to enjoy lots of great food and shopping and massage there. We also toured some temples and took a class in cooking Thai food. The temples were lovely, serene and filled with reminders of peace and beauty. Well, except for the throngs of tourists like us, of course. But even with tourists, somehow they managed to leave space for quiet little experiences of meditation and wonder. The cooking class was both delicious and fun, and we left with our own copies of recipe books featuring the dishes we'd made. We stayed in Pai through Sunday so that we could experience the Sunday Market - a street market full of clothing, jewelry, knickknacks, food, performances, and more. Of course, attending a market is just asking to spend money and we both spent more than we'd intended but did manage to keep it in check enough to cram it all into our small traveling bags.

We caught the bus back to Bangkok again and amusingly rode on the exact bus which had stalled and had the flat tire! We were positive because not only did it have the same paintings on the outside, we rode in the same seats with the same broken tray table and other signs. Other than another slow start, we had no problems this time and successfully transferred to a mini-bus to head down south toward the coast. Just 3 hours out of Bangkok, we reached a ferry to the island Koh Samet.

Koh Samet was lovely. The beaches were clean and the water was warm. There were fire shows on the beaches in the evenings, good and affordable massages available in the shade, and a minimum of vendors hawking tourist junk along the sand. We were able to find very good food and drink right on the beach, and could choose between quieter spots and loud music. Our guesthouse, TubTim was in a nice, quiet area. We didn't do a lot of tourist activities but we did take some short walks and also a half-day boat trip with snorkeling and a visit to a fish farm. The snorkeling was nice but not as good as we've done in Indonesia. Perhaps another time we'll try windsurfing or other sports but this time we were lazy.

Overall, I recommend Thailand for anyone wanting to travel. Here are some of the reasons:

There are a lot of foreign tourists so it's pretty easy to find English-speakers.
It's generally quite a cheap place to travel. It was affordable for Emma and I on our Indonesian salaries, and (aside from the air travel to get there of course) would be very cheap for anyone from America or Europe. For example, a nice meal there might cost about 60-200 baht which is about $2-$7 and our rooms ranged from 300-1000 baht per night which is about $10-$32.
Thailand is mostly Buddhist and the culture is very accepting and easy-going, so the people are respectful and tolerant of tourists with different ways. They appreciate your respect for their traditions but don't wish to impose their views on you.
There are a great variety of activities for all tastes. In addition to the beautiful scenery and the other things I described, there are museums, rafting and trekking, traditional dancing, Thai boxing, and much more.
The food is delicious! There are a lot of curries and spicy-hot salads, but they also have stir-fries and mild dishes, and like Indonesia there are lots of wonderful fresh fruits. Plus it's easy to find decent western food - burgers and sandwiches, pasta, etc. We enjoyed the availability of some of our favorites that we can't find in Sidoarjo!
Good massages are cheap and readily available also. I tried out a variety of massages (Thai, Oil, Foot, Back & Shoulder) as well as using the Doctor Fish a couple of times. There was just one place which was too hard and left me a bit bruised - the rest were all lovely!

Some travel tips if you do go to Thailand:

Don't drink the water. Like many other places in the world, tap water isn't necessarily safe, especially if your stomach isn't adjusted to the local bacteria.
If you're not from SE Asia, carry some pocket tissues or toilet paper and remember to throw your paper in the bin. Don't flush it.
Wear sunscreen and/or a hat. I've been living near the equator for over a year but I still got a bit burnt on the beach.
Carry a sarong. You'll need to cover your legs and shoulders before going into temples if you're wearing shorts or a camisole top.
Enjoy it and send me a photo!

Around and About

2011-04-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Since the trips to Singapore and Kalimantan that I described in my previous blog entry, I've had many travels so I'll share some highlights from several trips.

Christmas on Madura
At the beginning of my Christmas-New Years week off, I took a car trip with friends to the east end of the nearby island Madura. We visited a couple of beaches and also visited a historic mosque and kraton (palace) in the town of Sumenep. I especially enjoyed the delicately needled "shrimp tamarack" trees by the coast which are unique to that area and to Japan. You can see more photos from this trip at this link on Facebook (even if you don't have a Facebook id).

New Years in Bandung
At the end of that week I travelled by bus to Bandung, a city in West Java. I left my town, Sidoarjo, on Thursday morning and arrived in Bandung on Friday morning, and returned on Sunday evening/Monday morning. I travelled with my friend Nisa and her friend Zhara. Once we got to Bandung, Zhara's 2 cousins took charge of us and were excellent hosts. They took us around to tourist spots, bought our meals, and waited patiently for us. They even enlisted a friend so there were enough motorscooters for all 3 of us. The trip included a volcano with 12 active craters, a hot springs, a wander through a tea plantation, and my first taste of delicious rabbit sate (sate kelinci). Again, you can see more photos from this trip on Facebook at this link.

February on Flores
For the first week of February 2011, I visited the island of Flores with my friend and co-worker John. We were based in the small port town of Labuan Bajo but hired a boat for 3 days and 2 nights of snorkeling and other adventures including visiting the islands of Komodo and Rinca where the Komodo Dragons live, and swimming alongside manta rays in an area where they come to feed. Unfortunately, I don't have an underwater camera so I have no photos to share of my favorite parts of the trip: the incredibly beautiful coral reefs and the immense and graceful mantas. I also took an inland journey with a car and driver to the town of Medun. I packed a lot into the 2-day land trip including the site where the Flores Hobbit was found, some traditional spiderweb ricefields, a cave with interesting stalactites and stalagmites and cave insects, traditional houses, a mountain jungle hike to a waterfall, and some shopping in a traditional market. On the way home, we had an enjoyable half-day layover in Bali. I also managed to lose both my cell phone and my glasses on this trip - I hope that there are some monkeys and dolphins enjoying their new toys!Click here for the rest of my photos from that trip.

Dance Party!
In mid-February, I organized an EF "Life Club" event - an extra-curricular, just-for-fun chance for the students to practice English outside a traditional classroom setting. We held a Saturday afternoon Dance Party with lots of traditional American line and party dances including the Macarena, the Limbo, the Chicken Dance, Cotton-Eyed Joe, the Hokey Pokey, and the Bunny Hop. It had a bigger enrollment than I'd expected and everyone seemed to have fun. I had a blast!

After this
My Sidoarjo contract ended in late February and I decided to sign up for another year in the same school. My next blog entry, in a week or two, will share some photos from my "contract break" trip back to America, and from the wedding I attended just before leaving.

Singing in the Singapore Rain and Doing the Borneo Bop

2011-04-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Yikes! I have been lazy about blogging for a long time. I guess you can tell that my life has been busy. The following blog was written in mid-December 2010 and has been sitting as a draft waiting to be published. I'll publish this one now and follow up with another in a week or two, summarizing my subsequent travels.

I took 2 big trips in November: one to Singapore and one to Kalimantan (in English, we usually call it Borneo like the Malaysians do).

Singapore:
I went to Singapore for a 4-day weekend to meet my friend Rose. It was a great trip although our time together was a bit brief because she was also taking classes, and because we missed each other on the last day. But at the last minute, some friends of a friend very generously offered me a bed in their spare room so I also got to meet some new friends and enjoy their lovely family and hospitality, as well as their generous help getting around the city.

Singapore is beautiful and a great tourist destination. It's modern, clean, safe, orderly, and filled with flowers and greenery. People line up nicely, obey traffic rules, speak English well, throw their litter in bins, and don't burn garbage. They have a very easy to use bus and subway/train system which is modern, fast, inexpensive, reliable, and convenient. I don't think I waited more than 15 or 20 minutes for a bus, or more than 10 minutes for a train.

The flip side is that there are a lot of rules about everything from jaywalking to chewing gum to where you can carry smelly fruit (durian). And they're serious - they cane people regularly, and they execute violent criminals and even first-time drug offenders. It's also quite expensive.

There are lots of shops and restaurants of every type. If you want something, you can probably find it in Singapore (for a price). Since there's litle industry in Singapore, most things are imported, and the exchange rate for Indonsian Rupiah adds to the problem for me. I came home with a few small things and a couple of books in English but mostly I enjoyed window shopping and people watching.

Singapore has many tourist attractions and I didn't have time to visit them all. One day I visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens and especially enjoyed the section of original rain forest / jungle, the ginger garden, and the orchid garden.

On another day, I went to a Chinese and Japanese garden which included a very interesting turtle and tortoise museum.

Banjarmasin, Baby!

My friend Chris and I took a Monday off and went for a 3-day weekend on the island of Kalimantan as it's called in Indonesian. It's the largest island in Indonesia and actually doesn't belong completely to Indonesia - a big part of it belongs to Malaysia and another small corner is Brunei Darussalam. We went to the city of Banjarmasin, largely because we could get cheap air tickets there.

We walked around the city and saw all the guidebook "points of interest" on Saturday, including a night market and a mosque that appeared to have fallen off a Star Trek set. Banjarmasin is on a river delta so it's surrounded and interwoven with rivers and canals, and it was interesting to see the houses built right over the water on stilts.

On Sunday morning, around sunrise, we took a boat to see the floating market where buyers and sellers of produce meet on the river in little wooden canoes to trade. We had breakfast pancakes cooked right in a canoe for us and they were delicous! Then after a rest, we took another boat trip to Pulau Kembang (Flower Island) to feed some monkeys (macaques). That evening, we went to the cinema and saw the new Harry Potter film.

Monday, we took buses east to visit the Cempaca diamond mines. I was very surprised that we could just wander onto the grounds of the mine and walk around unescorted. It was a very casual seeming place. Workers were happy to show us how they were panning for the heavier rocks in the silt and even gave me a few little chunks of pyrite, aka fools gold. We had a snack of some tempeh and tea at a little stall on the grounds and then wandered off again.
Just a bit north of the mines, the town of Martapura has a big market where we did some shopping and got lunch. Although Martapura is known for its gem polishing and jewelry, I didn't buy any jewelry. I did get a piece of Kalimantan's special Batik Sasirangan, or tie dye batik which I later had made into a skirt.

After our shopping, we walked around a bit then caught a bus back to the airport.

Bye, Bye, Borneo. Until next time.

My Lovely Students!

2010-12-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

In this edition, I'd like to share a few tidbits about my students and some of the activities I've done recently with them.

Just a bit of background first: I teach 1 to 4 regular classes each day, Monday through Friday, with 6 to 16 students in each. Each of those classes meets twice per week for 80 minutes and I can be assigned up to 8 classes per week plus any extra duties like substituting for teachers who are ill or on holiday. We get a new schedule every 2 weeks although we usually stay with any particular group of students for 6 weeks at a time. The classes come in 3 flavors: High Flyers (ages 6-10), Trailblazers (ages 11-14), and Real English (ages 15-adult).

Halloween: Most western holidays come and go unnoticed here but on the Friday before Halloween, the EF teachers and staff dressed in costume and a few of our students also came in costume. For the younger students, we also had some special activities like coloring and costume contests, and trick or treating to other classrooms. All of the students seemed to know about Halloween already, unlike many of our holidays.

Special Business Student:
For several weeks, I taught a business student who had been laid off from a multinational corporation. She took daily 2-hour classes using a business curriculum and I was one of 3 teachers who shared the teaching rotation. It was interesting to teach one-on-one, and she was a dedicated student who followed up on assignments and improved noticeably during her intensive lessons. She was gracious enough to also arrange a group outing for us with her family. Due to some last minute changes, I was the only one who ended up going. We had a lovely dinner in Surabaya at the spot widely known as serving the best Rawon in town, and then went to an area called G-Walk for some further snacks and looking around. The photo is Rovien and I at "Rawon Setan" with her napping daughter.

Saturday Business Classes:
Besides the private lessons with Rovien, I've taught 3 business classes. Two were in Surabaya some months ago, and one is in mid-class as I write this. I especially enjoy teaching business students. They're more mature and it's easier for us to find common topics of interest & conversation. I find that they're typically more committed students since they understand how much the lessons cost and how important they can be to their careers. They often ask questions and help direct their own learning. Although they're more serious about learning, they still enjoy games and jokes. Also, I feel that my long career in a large multinational company has given me much to share with them.

I hung out with some of my Surabaya students at an EF party quite a while ago, and I recently went on a weekend outing with my current students to the Safari Park in Malang, with a stop on the way back at the Coca-cola bottling plant where one of them works. I've really enjoyed my trips outside class. Animals and parties are great but it was even better just to have a chance to chat with my students and share a bit more of our lives and cultures.

Young Students:
Although I do especially enjoy older students, I have many great younger ones also. I rarely remember to bring my camera to class but occasionally I grab it and take a few photos of a special activity or class. Here are a few favorite moments: young "High Flyers" doing Shopping and Bargaining, playing Hangman, final classes with some "Real English" classes, and Draw the Teacher (an exercise in naming body parts).

Postscript:
We've all been reminded of Indonesia's place in the "Ring of Fire" over the past month with the earthquake and tsunami west of Sumatra, the eruption of Mount Merapi near Jogjakarta where I visited in April, and just this week the increased activity levels from Mount Bromo which is just an hour or so away from me. I send wishes for healing to all those affected by the disasters but I assure my friends and family that I'm currently in no particular danger. Indonesia is thousands of miles across and none of these events has affected my daily life, nor is likely to. If Mount Bromo becomes more active, it's possible that we could catch a bit of dust cloud but it wouldn't be near enough to be a problem - just annoying.

Be well and remember those who are affected by these problems.

An Expedition to Madura: Bulls and Batik!

2010-11-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

In late October, I went to the island of Madura for the weekend with a mixed group of EF teachers and staff plus various friends - 3 carloads of us. Our main goal was to see the annual bull races but of course we did some other stuff along the way.

Lighthouse: We left on a Saturday afternoon and drove across the Suramadu bridge. After stopping for a lovely meal of Nasi Campur (rice with various mixed accompaniments) at Hamid's house, we went to a nearby lighthouse to climb up and admire the views. We wound our way up but I'm sad to report that after the 12th floor, the stairs turned to a ladder and I decided not to challenge my fear of heights that day. So I took a few photos from the windows there and let the others finish climbing to tell me what I'd missed out on. (They said it was worth the climb and that there were stairs again after that one ladder. Oh well.)

Down at the base, the dusk was falling and painting everything in ever changing shades which began as pastel blues and violets and slowly faded to indigo. The sound and scent of the sea was calming and serene.

As the group emerged, some of us took a few photos together before heading off into the night. Our drive was fairly long but we snacked, laughed, and napped our way toward the village of Pamekasan where we would spend the night.

STMJ: After arriving and getting everyone arranged in hotel rooms, a few of us wandered around looking for a late snack. We settled in an STMJ stand. STMJ stands for Susu Telur Madu dan Jahe (translated: Milk, Egg, Honey and Ginger). It's a traditional Indonesian drink which is served warm. It's delicious, tasting a bit like eggnog, and is reputed to warm you and give you energy. Although I have my doubts about the healthiness of lots of honey, sugar, and half-raw egg yolk, it made a tasty treat.

Batik Market:
In the morning, we had breakfast at street stands and watched a parade go by. I tried out the nasi pecel. It's one of my favorite light meals in Indonesia - rice with vegetables and a nice peanut sauce, usually with some other stuff like tempeh, crackers, and maybe a fried egg. I found the Maduran pecel was a bit sweeter and less spicy than what I usually eat in Sidoarjo.

On our way to the bull races, we stopped at the batik market. Those who know me may wonder whether I will now have to pay a fortune in shipping to get all my new fabric home! Yes, I did have some trouble keeping myself from buying a LOT of these beautiful handmade fabrics that are an Indonesian specialty but I managed to contain my enthusiasm a bit and come away with just 1 new batik blouse and a few pieces of batik fabric. I'm planning to have one of the fabric pieces (the one I'm holding in the photo) made into a shirt or dress once I find a pattern I like.

Bull Races: Finally we arrived at the arena for the bull races, or Karapan Sapi. This is a long-standing tradition in Madura.

Throughout the months of September and October, small local and regional races are held all over Madura. The winners of all these smaller races meet for a final championship competition in Pamekasan, which is what we were watching. The bulls are raced while they're still fairly young because larger animals are too heavy and slow. They're chosen carefully, fed on special diets, and trained several times per week. They race in pairs with a yoke and a small wooden platform dragging between them for the driver to perch on. During the racing, the bulls can be treated pretty roughly.

The field is about 100 meters long and it takes only 10-15 seconds for the bulls to run down it so there's a loooooong wait in the hot sun and then a short moment of excitement. During the race, the driver's perch looks bounces wildly up and down as the bulls careen down the field. It looks very dangerous. In addition to the driver's whipping, there are teams of young people chasing behind the bulls yelling and shaking cans full of rocks and nails to scare the bulls and make them run faster. At the end of the field, there are people milling about and trying to head off the bulls so they slow down and trot off the field rather than crashing through the end wall. I would not want to be one of them!

Because of our status as white people, we and our friends were allowed to go onto the racing field at the starting end and watch from there for a while. The bulls ran right past us on each side when they began the races.

Saying Goodbye: Here's a shot of our assembled group just after we ate a late Sunday lunch and then split into different cars going different directions to take people home. It was another great trip!

Slipping and Sliding on Sempu

2010-11-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

AKA My Day in the Mud

My plans for one weekend in early October were canceled at the last minute and I heard that some friends of a friend were getting together a group of people to go to a beach on Sempu Island so I joined the expedition along with my colleagues Chris and John.

We showed up at the train station at 10pm to meet our new friends with their chartered bus. By the time everyone arrived, it was around 11:30 or so when we got underway. It was a musical and friendly crew so they filled the journey with singing and chatter but I'm sorry to say that I dozed through most of the trip.

Beachhead and Ferry: We arrived at a beach around 4:30 or 5am and spread a big blanket on the sand to await the next leg of our journey. After some traditional Indonesian breakfast food (fried chicken and rice) and more wonderful singing (even some old songs that I knew and could join in on), it began to rain. We waited out the weather in the bus, or by strolling over to get a cup of coffee.

Finally it was time to catch a charming little wooden ferry over to Sempu Island. We jumped on board and motored across. We passed kayaks, fishing boats, mangroves, and other lovely scenic sights. The water was a lovely blue-green.

At arrival, a trailhead declared that it was a 3 km walk to the lagoon. That sounded like a nice little walk since I routinely go that far or further each morning. I couldn't have been more wrong! Due to that morning's rain and all the other unseasonable rains we've had lately, the trail was awash in mud. The thick, slippery mud swallowed my legs to the knee in places. The many hills were difficult to climb without sliding. We needed to seek carefully for a foothold, and grabbed onto tree branches and vines to steady ourselves.

And don't forget that this is a tropical jungle. There were huge insects: mosquitos of course, but also big flies and some anonymous things in the mud occasionally that bit my feet. And when I reached down to swat them, they bit my hand. Grrr.

Even during the hard walk, though, there were moments of astonishing and uplifting beauty. At one point as I was sitting on a log and resting, a huge butterfly was flitting around in a patch of sunlight nearby. It looked like it was as big as my hand. I also saw some orange mushrooms which were so brilliantly colored and shiny that they looked like plastic toys.

About halfway, I gave in to reality and begged someone else to carry my bag for me as I was wearing out. Even with that relief, it took four and a half hours to reach the lagoon. Covered in mud from head to toe, I emerged from the jungle looking like a reality show contestant.

The lagoon at the end of the trail was an astonishing and lovely reward for the hard journey. A little rocky area allowed occasional waves to splash in from the ocean but the rest was completely enclosed by land and shone like an aquamarine jewel in the sun. A white sandy beach gave plenty of soft sand to rest our weary bones.

Another small group of adventurers had beat us in but there was plenty of room and we enjoyed splashing in the sunwarmed waters, sunning, and snorkelling (John and I had just purchased masks, snorkels, and fins). Amazingly, others in my group had carried in complete supplies for a picnic: big pails of rice, charcoal and a grill, fish and tempeh for grilling, sambal (hot sauce), and watermelons. I was sooo grateful for their hard work as I enjoyed our delicious lunch.

It was Chris' birthday that day so he posed on the beach, using fingers to show his new age of 26. Happy birthday - this one should be hard to forget!

All too soon, Chris and I realized that it was time to head back. Already it was likely we'd be traveling in the dark. The journey back was more of the same - jungle survivor all the way with, of course, the added obstacle of waning light. To add to the ambience, monkeys were calling and rustling in the trees above us.

By the time I reached the end, I was stumbling and falling regularly since my legs barely held me up and I could barely see the path. I was exceedingly glad I'd left when I did - we were the first to leave but were passed on the way by most of the rest of the group. Five others were behind us and the last ones took hours more to get out of the jungle. There was a bit more rain as we awaited their safe arrival - thank goodness our cell phones worked so we could stay in touch and know they were still on their way!

Singing in the Rain?

2010-10-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a little collection of events across about a week's time - a week containing some pouring rains in the dry season, as well as karaoke session.

Shopping in Surabaya

After my acrobatics on the Balekambang beach, I needed to replace my camera. So I headed up to Surabaya in early October with Chris and John. My lovely student Rovien had helpfully provided the address of a couple of good camera shops and I was able to get exactly what I wanted at a good price: an updated version of my previous Sony camera which uses the same memory card and batteries. John bought a tripod and we wandered around town for a while - always interesting, and you can see a few photos here.

Pestilence, or at least bacterial illness
We ended up eating in the food court of the ITC mall. I got some delicious squid and broccoli at a Chinese place there. Although it tasted great, I was quite ill that night and the following day with classic food poisoning symptoms. (I won't go into the unpleasant details here. You're welcome.)

Fortunately, this time I knew about the magic of activated charcoal tablets and took them right away. It helped a lot and I was pretty well recovered within a day, although still a bit rumbly in the tummy for another few days.

I've resolved to be much more cautious about eating in mall food courts!

Singing A Sad Song
Some of the staff and teachers went for Karaoke together to wish goodbye and good luck to one of our staff members who left. Karaoke is always fun. In Indonesia, we get a private room for our groups, two microphones, and the ability to pass around the mouse and line up our own songs on the computer.

They've got songs in Indonesian and English, and they will bring refreshments to the room if you want.

Floods
That week, we had a couple days of heavy rain and our drainage system in Sidoarjo overloaded. Many streets were flooded. I went for a walk on Friday morning while it was still drizzling and discovered that it was really more of a wade. On Saturday morning, my housemate Bill and I went back out to observe and photograph. The waters had gone down a little but not much, and it was a great opportunity to try out my new camera.

We'd been told there was no beach in Sidoarjo but perhaps actually the tide was just out because this seemed quite a waterfront experience - Ha!

Happy Halloween to all who are reading this! I'm struggling to catch up with blogging my activities but I should soon be posting a few photos from my school's Halloween celebration, as well as sharing some more trips.

Going Bang at Balekambang

2010-10-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

Or: A Journey using Almost Every Possible Transportation on East Java

I spent a very interesting weekend in early October travelling to a beach on the southeast coast of Java. Our expedition began with 4 people planning to go but two stayed out late on Friday night and weren't able to get up for the 4:30am departure time. So John and I left without them. We walked to the train station and took the Ekonomi train south past Malang. It cost about 45 cents for a ticket with no guaranteed seat and, in fact, neither of us got a seat for most of the journey. I was able to perch on a big bag of rice in the aisle for quite a while (surprisingly comfortable) but then gave up my perch to a woman with a small child.

After disembarking from the train in the small town of Kepanjen, we strolled around for a while and then strolled in the direction that we thought we needed to go, seeking a small bus (bemo). When we found one, the driver and his assistant quizzed us carefully to understand exactly what we wanted and dropped us off neatly at a perfect spot - a corner full of guys with motorcycles for hire, or ojeks. The bemo was also pretty cheap - again less than a dollar for each of our fares.

(Photos are: Train, Beautiful scenery on the way, Cool grasshopper trying to hitch a ride with us, John on his ojek and oxen by the road (shot from ojek-back), and Paula with her ojek driver.)

We negotiated with the ojek drivers and settled on about five dollars each for passage which is rather steep comparitively but it turned out that they earned their money. The road was steep and twisty, winding through hills and valleys. And it was under construction in spots so it was full of potholes and various obstacles. Wheee!

We arrived at the beach of Balekambang around 11 am. There are some simple rooms for rent right on the beach - for Rp 100,000, you get a cot and a simple bathroom (this is code for wow, I hope I don't have to do anything in here!). Since we wanted to spend our time on the beach, this seemed okay.

Out my front door was a fabulous view of the beach and an intriguing small HIndu temple on a little island, connected to another island by a bridge which continues to the mainland. Without much delay, we jumped right into the water - it was crystal clear and lovely. There's a pretty narrow strip of beach before the reef area and the surf pounds in fairly close. Since I'm not an experienced ocean swimmer, I played it pretty cautious and stayed near shore. John had found a mask and snorkel in our laundry room at home and brought it along. He shared it with me and we took turns admiring the colorful fish, sea urchins, intricate corals, and abundant various sea life.

After a while of frolicking in the sea and warming in the sand, we walked down to the adjoining beach which was completely empty. There is another island there with a bridge but this bridge has large sections missing so it's not usable. John swam out to the island and explored around while I was snorkelling. While he snorkelled, I walked back for my camera and a shirt to keep off a bit of the sun. This beach area was just lovely and I hadn't taken many photos yet as I was too busy enjoying myself.

And, here comes the bang in the Balekambang! ... on my walk back along the beach edge, I passed over some large, flat rocks in the sand. They seemed innocuous and I continued without care until I slipped spectacularly, with my feet rising up until I was almost horizontal. I banged my shoulder a bit on the rocks and flung my camera into the water on the rocks. Yikes! Some nice guys were sitting in the sand right nearby and came rushing over to help me to my feet. They even had a bit of English to inquire whether I was okay. I was a little shakey and definitely embarassed but basically unharmed. My camera, though, was kaput. Ruined. Sigh - so much for taking pictures of the beautiful beach! You won't find any further photos in this blog entry - just words.

When it turned dark, we got some dinner at the small stands that line the beach and headed to bed for an early night. I don't recall whether it was at dinner or our earlier lunch but as I was looking at my ice tea, there was a small black thing floating in it. I didn't think much about it but scooped it out and kept drinking. When I looked again, there was another. Then another. And another. Etc. I'm still not positive whether they were insects drowning themselves in the tea or residue frozen into the ice and melting out onto the surface on the tea but as I laughed at the futility of scooping out speck after speck, I made a statement that will follow me through the rest of my time here: If you're that worried about what the black things floating in your tea are, perhaps you don't belong in Indonesia. In fact, this has spun into several conversational lists of great hilarity and may appear again as a future blog entry of some form ... who knows? I guess I passed that test though since I finished the tea, black specks and all. And, by the way, I had no ill effects - my stomach was fine all weekend.

Our expectations of a peaceful night sleeping to the crashing of the surf were soon to be shattered though. Around 8pm, loud music started up. Very loud. With a booming bass line. Then karaoke with offkey singing. After some early nap time, I found myself unable to sleep through it. John saw the light in my window and we wandered down the beach to find a snack or drink. As we passed the party, I saw guys dancing and having a wonderful time. A stream of busloads and carloads of people passed us, all bound for an exciting party weekend at the beach. It turned out that they were Malang soccer fans who have beach parties about once a month. I was very glad that they were having so much fun, although a little annoyed that their fun needed to be at the expense of my sleep.

Anyway, while John and I futilely attempted to wait out the music, we ordered some drinks and snacks. I just wanted a cup of hot tea, which seemed simple. Since tea in Indonesia normally comes VERY sweet and I was a bit groggy and in no mood for a mouthful of sugar, I ordered it "plain" or "tawar" which is my normal preference. It came sweet. I gave that cup to John and tried again, ordering it "tidak gula" or without sugar. The man nodded and smiled, and my next cup was just as sweet. John drank that one also. I was a little grumpy but still trying - I asked for "teh panas tidak manis" or hot tea, not sweet. The poor shopkeeper was flummoxed by me - I kept grimacing and giving away his lovingly prepared offerings and he didn't know how to make me happy. I think he honestly had no idea how to make tea without sweetener in it. He went into the back for a while and then came out and apologized that he was out of tea. I could do nothing but laugh and go without tea.

John and I each managed to get a nap in the wee hours of the morning although it sounds like I was more successful at it than he. Things finally quieted down to a lower volume around 3 in the morning, he said.

The following morning, we frolicked some more. Walking further past the quiet beach area with the island (which did have a few people on it that day), we found another smaller beach. The surf came in nearer and the beach was just beautiful. While I was snorkelling, John explored further and found another even more unspoiled and wilder! I wouldn't go out into the water at that one as it was too rough. John did but eventually we were discovered by a park ranger who asked me to wave John in. He lectured him a little about the treacherous currents and monitored to make sure we didn't ignore his warnings. It was about time for us to leave anyway to catch our scheduled ojeks at noon so we reluctantly left this lovely spot.

Wow, even with the difficulties, this was such a great weekend!

Postscripts
Thanks, John, for sharing your photos from the trip! Between us, at least I could give a small flavor of the beauty there. Also, thanks for your efforts planning & shepherding me through the travel.

A later conversation with some Indonesians suggested that perhaps the poor shopkeeper who couldn't give me unsweetened tea had actually brewed up a large batch of tea which was already sweetened. Apparently that's common. It would be impossible for him to take out the sweetener, of course, if that were the case. Less amusing, though.

Rafting in Probolinggo

2010-10-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

My friend Hendra organized a mid-September expedition to Probolinggo to go rafting and invited some of the teachers to join him. It ended up being me, Chris, Ryan, James, Hendra, and two of Hendra's other friends. Hendra drove his family's car with all of us piled in. It took about 5 hours driving to get to Probolinggo and find the headquarters of the Songa rafting company. Since a raft holds 6 and we were 7, we had to split into 2 groups. We were fitted out with lifejackets, helmets, and paddles. Then we loaded up into the back of a truck with our deflated rafts and rode up to the launch point. It was a steep and bumpy ride - not the most comfortable.

After arriving, we walked down to the river where they had already quickly inflated our rafts. After our guide gave us a few basic commands, we were off. The water was higher than usual in the dry season because of all of the unseasonable rain we've had, so it was a nice ride with some respectable white water. At a few questionable points, there were guys stationed to help the rafts navigate through into the safer channels. The trip was about 1.5 or 2 hours, including a brief stop for a snack, a few photo ops, and the chance to dive off a cliff into the river. I wimped out of the cliff jumping but had a grand old time rafting.

There was some amazing beautiful scenery around us and I was sorry that I hadn't taken my camera for fear of losing or ruining it. The jungle around us was lush and green. We saw a group of monkeys eating and playing on the river's edge. We passed by extensive groups of caves where the cliffs overhang the river, and they were filled with many bats. The cave roofs were covered in bats and many were flying freely about - possibly disturbed by our passage. Waterfalls poured over the fronts of many of these caves and we passed under a couple of them, drenching us. The smell of the bats was horrid when we were passing nearby - acrid enough to make our eyes sting. But they were so graceful and lovely gliding around in their dark alcoves curtained by the lacy white rivulets of water that I couldn't find them distasteful.

After the rafting, we went back to the Songa rafting company's headquarters to shower and change. We had a bit of lunch there, too.

On the way home, we made a brief stop at a beach we were passing. The tide was out and the beach was a big mud flat. We saw some people out gathering shellfish and some birds doing the same. We walked out along a boardwalk and enjoyed the sea breeze then up into the family recreation area with paddle boats, pony rides, and other amusements. They were preparing for a concert at the stage but we couldn't stay.

It was a lot of time spent driving for a short ride but it was a lot of fun, and nice to meet some new people. Thanks, Hendra!

Moping around in Modern Malaysia

2010-10-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

At each end of the Sri Lanka trip, we passed through and changed planes in Malaysia. On the return journey, we had about 7 hours there - just enough time to pass through customs, take a train into the city of Kuala Lumpur, and do a tiny bit of sightseeing.

Setting the Scene: Let me say early in this description that on the previous day, our last day in Sri Lanka, I had begun noticing several small wounds (probably insect bites) that were clearly infected - they each had small buildups of white pus and were rather sore. They seemed minor so I cleaned them out with soap & water and moved on. But they became increasingly tender, and I was tired and irritable all day during the travelling through airports and Malaysia. After getting home to Sidoarjo late at night, I went to bed with a significant fever. In the morning, I cleaned the areas out and applied antiseptic but entire areas of my arm, leg, and foot were red and swollen. I ended up on antibiotics for 5 days which solved the problem.

I know now that I was not at my best (to put it mildly) during that final day or two of the trip. I sniped at Chris and Ryan about minor things and was generally unpleasant. They were both been very kind about it (well, at least to my face - LOL)! So my experience of Malaysia was much less pleasant than it should have been, and please take any negative comments with a grain of salt.

KL Tower
Since Chris had previously visited Kuala Lumpur, he was able to make an informed recommendation on the possibilities so we went up KL Tower for a view of the city. KL is the tallest telecommunications tower in Southeast Asia and 6th tallest in the world, although Kuala Lumpur has also a pair of taller buildings - the Petronas Towers.

After going to the top and taking some photos of the skyline (ho hum), we went down and had a delightful meal. Then we were able to walk around a Malaysian Cultural Center (price included in what we paid to go up the tower). Unfortunately, we were in too much of a hurry to linger and fully appreciate the displays but I enjoyed that little bit that I had time to see. We also were able to just get a tiny taste of the rainforest preserve at the base of the tower - there's a free park there but it closes at 6pm and we were poking our heads in at 6:30. I guess I'll have to go back someday ...

General impressions:

Of course, this is all based on a very limited sample but Malaysia seemed quite nice - pretty clean, lots of signs in good English, and many people who spoke English quite well. They had a nice high speed bullet train into the city, good, well-labelled buses to link the airport and train, and modern, clean stations.

If I have a chance, I will try to drop by again. I'd love to travel outside the city and see a bit of the countryside, for example.

Humorous Ending
While we were waiting in a big line at the KL airport, I was very amused by the fact that we were standing under a sign that says "No Waiting" (that fuzzy one up above us). Yes, I know it probably means that cars aren't supposed to pull over and wait but I was laughing anyway.

May you find a laugh even if you're in pain!

Sri Lanka, Land of Dreams

2010-09-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

Wow! I went to Sri Lanka for my week-long Lebaron holiday on a complete whim. Two other teachers were already planning a trip and I jumped on board after my own plans had changed. So I had very little idea why it would be an interesting place to go or what we should do and I left most of the planning up to them. It was a lovely trip and leaves me with the option to return and make different choices if I'm able to return - elephants, nature preserves, temples, etc.

Holy Mountain

Our first destination, Sri Pada, is a mountain in the south central area of Sri Lanka. It's been venerated as a holy spot by many religions for over a thousand years. To Muslims and Christians it's known as Adam's Peak because it's said that the footprint in the stone at the top of the mountain marks the spot where Adam landed when hurled out from the Garden of Eden. Hindus say that footprint is from the god Shiva while Buddhists say it was the Buddha who left his footprint as a token of his visit. Whatever you believe or disbelieve, it's a popular and breathtaking spot with lots of history. The climb is long and arduous. It's all pavement and stairs, and the top part of the stairs is lit at night in the dry season so that pilgrims can ascend in the darkness and view the sunrise from the top. The footprint is encased in gold and jewels. Pilgrims may ring a bell at the top, one peal for each time they've made the climb.

We went during the wet season so there were very few others climbing the mountain and no lighting. We left at 2:30 am. Chris and Ryan reached the top about 4:30 which is about the time I turned back down from some unspecified point which I'd guess is about between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way up - before even hitting the most difficult part. At the time, I had no way to know how much further there was to go but I did know that I was unlikely to get very much higher up the mountain. I was pausing every few steps to rest again and having a bit of trouble with my asthma.

I enjoyed the effort very much and the climb down was full of completely beautiful and awe-inspiring scenery. I took my time exploring temples and appreciating the views on the way back. It's amazing how many things I passed in the dark with my flashlight and then discovered in the light of the descent. It was a meditative and special time to revel in the wonders of nature and the beauty of the Buddhist philosophies of tolerance and love. that were shared.

Galle

Galle is an undistinguished small city or large village on the southeast coast. It has an international cricket stadium and that's the main reason we went - one of our group is a big fan. It also has an old fort area partially remaining from colonial days and is near some beaches. I believe there are some more interesting things nearby but we didn't have time to explore anything really worthwhile. We did see a lovely sunset and wander about the streets soaking in the local atmosphere. It was nice although perhaps not really worth a full day of riding crowded and uncomfortable buses to reach it, followed by 2/3 day of train/bus to get back near the airport.

One highlight - Sri Lankan food is delicious and we had some of the best examples of it in Galle. They love curries so we ate curried fish, chicken, lentils, eggplant, jackfruit, green beans, and more. And of course, they have delightful flatbreads - we especially enjoyed finding stuffed breads containing lentils and vegetables for very cheap prices while we were travelling. For breakfast, their traditional "hoppers" are lacy pancakes made of palm sap. Eaten with fried eggs, lentils, and curry, they are a wonderful way to start the day. And as in Indonesia, fresh trophical fruits are abundant. With each breakfast, we got big plates of pineapple, watermelon, papaya, banana, and kiwi. Since they grow tea right there, we also got big pots of tea with most meals.

Travel

We used the local buses and trains for most of our travels. They were crowded and hot and slow but we got to see how the average Sri Lankan travels and even chat with some of them along the way. On our train journey, a lovely couple shared their lunch with us and we had quite a long conversation.

We also had a short ride or two in a tuk-tuk, a very cute 3-wheeled taxi with a little scooter engine. In the photos above, the tuk-tuk is parked in front of the post office where we mailed a couple of postcards. The guidebook said it's the oldest post office in Southeast Asia.

On our way home, we changed planes in Malaysia and had the opportunity to go into Kuala Lumpur for a few hours. I'll do a separate short blog with some photos of that.

Inspiration
From a peace pagoda on Sri Pada: Civilization is not electric lighting lamps nor airplanes. It is not producing bombs. Civilization is not to kill man, not to destruct things, not to make wars, but to respect each other. Most Venerable Nichidatsu Fujii

Some August-September stuff

2010-09-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

Yikes! My internet at home has been down more than it's been up for about a month. Unfortunately it was a very eventful month so I've missed out posting pictures and updates and I've got quite a backlog! With this post, I'll try to catch up some of the smaller happenings. Look for longer posts to come on my travel to Sri Lanka, rafting, etc.

I continue to walk regularly in the mornings and this first photo is a view I enjoyed through a little bridge out in the countryside near Sidoarjo. A couple of my colleagues have now gotten bicycles and are ranging further afield but I'm generally happy plodding along on foot and not messing with the crazy traffic here.

A daytrip to Malang

One Saturday morning in late August, several of us went to the train station and got economy seats for Malang. This cost 4,000 Rupiah which is roughly equivalent to 40 cents American. We hopped onto the 8:15 train then chatted and dozed for 2 hours or so, landing in Malang around 10:30 am.

After a refreshing cup of coffee near the train station, we wandered around the streets. Eventually we found a lovely little spot for lunch (although some of the guys thought the portions were a bit small).

After lunch we continued strolling the streets. Malang is hillier than Sidoarjo and we enjoyed the scenic views of hillsides and river. We also stopped in their alun alun, or city center park. Because it's partway up the slopes of Mount Bromo, it's a bit cooler there also and the air seems fresher.

Birthday

For my birthday in early September, I got to celebrate in several ways - always nice!

On that weekend, the teachers from the other house hosted a birthday barbecue for Jane and I whose birthdays are 2 days apart. We had all kinds of great food - cheese and crackers (brought from New York and quite delicious!), grilled kabobs, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, homemade potato salad, baguette with butter, and chocolate cake. And of course, various beverages. I was too busy enjoying it to take photos. :-)

At school the following week, we had a combined celebration for Jane, Edien, and I. We had pizza for all teachers and staff accompanied by various horseplay and laughter. It was lovely and it's nice that the school allots some funds to celebrate each employee's birthday and help us share and celebrate together.

Although it's not an Indonesian tradition to give birthday cards or gifts, some of my friends were so thoughtful and generous to adopt our traditions and give me some cards and gifts. That was unexpected and heart-warming.

And, of course, Facebook is one of the main ways I'm staying in touch with family and friends so many people sent their wishes there. It was wonderful to get online across the several days around my birthday and keep finding more and more good wishes.

Indonesian mail being what it is, I have just received a birthday card in the mail almost 3 weeks late. So the fun continues.

Thanks to everyone for making this a great birthday and a truly wonderful way to celebrate this exciting year!

Lebaron

Lebaron is one name for the holiday period following Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting which is one of the pillars of their faith. It's a time for special prayers, honoring family & ancestors, feasting, apologizing for all wrongs you've done over the past year, thanking servants and public servants for their work, etc.

We got one week of holiday time - Thursday Sept. 8 through Wednesday Sept. 15. On the last evening after our final classes, some of the foreign teachers spontaneously gathered in our kitchen to chat. It was a nice group and we had a good time.

On the following day, I made the rounds of most of the nearby security stations to distribute cans of cookies (aka biscuits) and bags of candy. Other traditional gifts are cigarettes and cash. We had collected in the office to give cash gifts for our office boys, parking attendants, and local security. And we collected from most teachers in the two houses toward a joint gift for our maid.

That evening, I left on a trip to Sri Lanka which will get a blog entry of its own! I'll just say that it was beautiful, and that I've now fully recovered.

Miscellaneous

I've agreed to begin teaching a couple of extra classes again. I'll be teaching one business class on Saturday mornings here in Sidoarjo, from 10am to 12pm on alternate Saturdays. The other weeks will be taught by my co-worker and friend Hamid who sits right next to me so we should have an easy time coordinating our lessons.

And this week I begin in a team of 3 teaching a daily one-on-one class on a rotating basis. We'll be meeting in the mornings for 2 hours. This is a very different format, more like tutoring, and I'm interested to see how it works out. The student is a woman who was laid off from an international company and is using some of her re-education payment to improve her English. We should have a lot in common and I look forward to lots of interesting conversations with her.

Signs of the Times

2010-09-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

I love to laugh and to share the fun with others so I've collected up a bunch of signs that have made me smile, chuckle, or even guffaw. I hope some of them tickle your funny bone, too.

Disclaimer: I mean no disrepect to people who made these signs! Some are funny to me just because of my different culture. And although some of them are funny because of their bad English, my Indonesian is even worse. I know that I make people laugh regularly at my terrible attempts to speak it. And I don't mind that - I'm comfortable with being laughed at, and I laugh at myself too.

Helpful Note: If the signs are too small and hard to read, click on the picture and you'll get a larger version.

1. Why are so many Doctors named Gigi?
This question occurred to me fairly quickly, as it does to many foreigners in Indonesia. It turns out that "gigi" means tooth - so a Dokter Gigi is a Tooth Doctor aka Dentist!

OK ... one mystery solved and a chuckle at myself and the ways that languages can trick us. I will be staying away from the local dentists though, as I've not heard very good things about the state of dentistry here. Barring an emergency, I'll keep brushing and flossing carefully and hold out for my favorite dentist in the USA, Dr. Ross who has his own blog.

Get More with Smart Way

I was almost doubled over laughing at this bookstore sign. A bookstore should be a good example of literacy, in my opinion, and I'd expect their market to be pretty literate. Obviously that would be an incorrect expectation on my part - at least in expecting that literacy to be in English. But then why not make the signs in Indonesian?

In general, I find it strange that so many signs are in English (and here are a couple more examples).

Especially in bookstores and supermarkets, the section or aisle signs are very commonly in English - directing you to the Philosophy, Science, Fiction, Cooking sections, or to Milk, Vegetables, etc. Ummm, most of the customers don't speak English so why not put the signs in a language they can understand? Book covers are the same way - the title and front blurbs are often direct copies of the English editions. The back cover is usually in Indonesian although occasionally it's also still in English. But the inside is all translated.

I once stopped by a food stall at a mall to get an iced tea. Their signs were in English but when I asked for it by that name (although "Ice Tea" is NOT that different from the Indonesian "Es Teh"), the clerk was completely flustered and flummoxed. Another patron said, "she doesn't speak English". Errr, well, I was pointing right at the menu - if it had said Es Teh, I would have pronounced it that way, or as close as I get with my American accent. LOL - I ended up with my iced tea but the signs were a bit more of a hindrance than a help.

On the other hand, I LOVE these warung (roadside food stall) signs - they're like little primers in learning Indonesian for me.

Cat Confusion

OK, puzzle over those for a while as I did. I came up with thoughts like: Oh my - do the cats do the baking in the oven, or are they baked?! And do they sell dog and cat mobiles - cute hanging sculptures with cats and dogs, and maybe even Bengal tigers? Then look again knowing that:

"Cat" means "Paint" in Indonesian and is pronounced "chat"
"Bengkel" means "Garage"
"Dodog" means "Body Work" but the English "Body" is also common as a synonym
"Oven" means "Oven"
"Mobil" means "Car"

And now you can guess that a Cat Oven is where paint is baked onto cars. And the Dodog Cat Mobil sign is for a body shop that also does painting.

Flummoxed Flaying Fooxes

A Flying Fox is a ride. We'd call it a Zip Line, I think. What I found most amusing about these two misspelled signs, though, is that they're at the SAME place. Apparently they have one employee who can spell FOX and another who can spell FLYING. But they don't talk to each other.

Hello Photo, I'm a person
Ok, it's a bit silly of me perhaps but this sign cracks me up. I've seen similar things elsewhere and they make me laugh, too, so it's not just an Indonesian or Asian thing.

And Finally
I've got more signs but this post has run on long enough. I'll post again sometime on this topic, but for now if you'd like to see more amusing signs and examples of strange English, check out these links:

Bali - Island of the Gods

2010-08-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I hit my 6-month anniversary of arriving in Indonesia during the same week that I finally went to Bali. It's the main destination for many tourists in Indonesia and everyone said I HAD to go there. After visiting, even just for a few days, I agree - it's amazing.

Last Tuesday was Indonesia's National Day - the anniversary of their independance. By taking just 1 day, Monday, as a holiday, I could have a 4-day weekend. I flew from Surabaya airport to Denpasar in Bali on Saturday morning and returned on Tuesday afternoon. I spent all of my time in the touristy beach town of Seminyak. I wandered the streets, walked the beaches, splashed in the surf, ate wonderful food, danced in the nightclubs, spent far too much money, and generally had a wondeful and relaxing time.

I managed to keep most of my on-the-beach time to the mornings and late afternoons and miraculously avoided sunburn. At all times of the day, the light was fantastic. Believe it or not, these pictures don't do it justice.

In addition to the beauty, the water is warm and the sand is very very fine and soft. The beaches are clean and lovely, and the air is fresh with gentle sea breezes all day and evening. Ahhhhhh.

Although I didn't stray out of the very tourist-filled Seminyak beach area, I did get away from the main roads and wander a few of the smaller streets. But large streets or small, there are little shrines and offerings everywhere. The Balinese do not relegate worship to a temple or distant relationship - it is present all around. They make offerings of gratitude to honor good spirits and appease evil ones. Not just once a week, or even once a day, but throughout the day. They believe that all of these spirits are manifestations of the one supreme spirit / god, and that we must work toward balance between different elements of life and afterlife.

Because there are so many tourists there, there's definitely an attitude that foreigners can afford to pay plenty and should be taken for everything possible. As someone who clearly looks and sounds the part of a foreigner, I was subject to that. Sometimes I managed to use the bit of Indonesian I've cobbled together and the truth story that I earn rupiah rather than dollars to avoid the worst of it, and other times I was taken for a bit of a ride. Overall I spent more than I'd hoped but probably less than I might have.

I hope to return again before I leave Indonesia, and to explore more of the island.

June-July Miscellany

2010-07-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't made any big trips in the past month or so (thus no new blog entry) but there are many small adventures that have come my way so, once again, I'll collect up a few photos and talk about some of the things I've been doing.

Walking around Sidoarjo

I still take walks almost every morning and I see many interesting things. Here's a sampling.
1. A small flower growing like a weed by the side of the road. Tropical countries are GREAT for having flowers all year round! I'm loving it.
2. I've learned that this raised shed for the sheep is probably to keep their feet clean so they don't get infections. I was quite puzzled when I first saw it!
3. Field workers harvesting rice
4. A parade of young people that we passed one morning. There were at least a dozen marching bands, etc. but I have no idea why - it wasn't a holiday that I'm aware.
5. A truck loaded with bamboo poles
6. A big fancy house, or perhaps a temple - I'm not sure.
7. Usually I walk with another teacher, Chris from Wales. Lately we've been joined often by a new teacher, John from Idaho who is also one of my housemates. Here are John and Chris on a typical edge-of-town pathway.
8. We often cross little bridges like this over streams or drainage ditches.
9. Part of a charming Chinese cemetary
10. Tree on my street with fruit
11. I was struck by whimsy at the swings in Alun Alun (city center park)
12. Orchid growing on a tree on my street - thanks, neighbors!
13. Kids playing on nearby soccer field (just ignore the sheep - they won't be in the way too much)
14. Burning garbage - no wonder the air is terrible!!!
15. A view of the mountains to the south
16. Alun alun is brightly lit and full of movement at night

Surabaya Zoo

My friend Nisa met me near the zoo and we went together. It's an older style zoo with lots of cages rather than 'habitat areas'. It's not terribly clean and some of the animals don't look very well-fed. But it does have some quite nice features like shady walkways, an area with stuffed animals native to Surabaya, a boat ride around some islands in the center where deer and monkeys live, and a nice observation tower to climb. I understand that it may be closed soon and another mall built there, which I think would be a shame. Surabaya has LOTS of malls and not much "green space".

Anyway, it was a fun day and I enjoyed seeing some animals I haven't seen in other zoos like komodo dragons. On our way out of the zoo, this guy pedalling a becak (pedicab) wanted us to take their picture. One of the girls was shy - very cute.

Pre-school Graduation

I met my friend Rena at her son's school one Sunday morning for their graduation ceremony. After the formal bestowing of certificates, each class did a performance. There was a lot of dancing and also some singing and reciting. The kids were darling, the costumes were great, and the performances were fun to watch. Eza was wearing blue - you can see him on the far right of the stage with his class, and sitting in the audience waiting for his turn with a big cheesy grin for the camera. And check out the ears on those silver and black elephant costumes!

After the performances, Rena introduced me to some friends and we all went to lunch together. Then we called Chris and John to see if they wanted to join us, picked them up, and went for a drive across Suramadu - the bridge between the islands of Java and Madura. It's only been open for about a year and is the longest bridge in Southeast Asia so people are excited and proud. We drove around Madura a little, had a light supper/snack, and then came back home. It was a nice day.

Teaching in English First Sidoarjo

2010-05-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

In blogs up to now, I've talked a lot about travelling but not much about how I spend my days at work.

My Typical Day

I am required to be in the office by 1pm but usually I get there between 11 and 12 to begin preparing lessons and doing any other chores like grading papers. I teach 14 to 18 class sessions per week (14-16 is typical) between 3pm and 9pm. We have a 10 or 20 minute break between classes. Since there are 20 class periods per week, we have a few free periods during the week that we can also use for grading, lesson plans, or chatting with our fellow teachers & staff.

And there's a Saturday morning business class and occasional opportunities to do some special game sessions with students outside class. On May 1, I began doing my first weekend classes in the neighboring city of Surabaya - one from 9:00 to 11:40 and another from noon to 2:40. I get overtime pay for that since it's a sixth day of teaching. I'll be doing 4 weeks of Saturday teaching, and probably alternating 2 weeks off and 2 on after that.

In addition to our scheduled classes, we can be called upon to substitute for another teacher who's on vacation or ill, do an extra tutoring session for a student who is behind (typically because they were ill/away), or do placement testing of new students. (I'm just learning to do placement testing.)

English First Sidoarjo

I work at English First Sidoarjo, aka EF. We're a private language school so most students taking our lessons are coming after school or work. They are usually taking English in school also.

A standard curriculum is provided by the English First company with standard tests so the classes advance fairly evenly. The important parts are the grammar and vocabulary points. We can teach right out of the book with suggested exercises, activities, CDs for listening, etc. but we're also encouraged to use our own strengths and experience to adapt it to the local culture and the strengths and weaknesses of the class we're teaching. The EF curriculum is international (EF has schools in many countries around the world) so some things work well in Indonesia and others don't.

The students are given access to computer games for drilling those same language points in a fun way. We take them to computer lab time for half a class twice every 6 weeks and they are encouraged to play the games from home or from the school computers outside of class. Most of them enjoy and look forward to the computer game times.

Courses last for 24 sessions and meet twice a week for 80 minutes per session. Their final grades come from quizzes & tests, evaluations of their speaking & writing abilities, and their computer activity scores.

The classrooms
Our classrooms are fairly crowded but nice. They're all air conditioned and renovated fairly recently. In fact, we're still building more.

We have a white board on 1 wall with a computer screen built into the wall next to it - we use the computers to record class attendance, to play audio recordings for listening exercises, to play DVDs if we're using video, etc.

There are chairs with desk arms around the outside of the room for the students. If the teacher prefers, she can have the students move them into rows. I usually leave them in a circle and move them if I want small groups to work together. That also leaves enough open space in the middle that students can move about for games.

There's a separate computer room with 8 computers that we schedule for the online games that I mentioned earlier. We take them there for half a class period approximately once every 3 weeks. If there are more than 8 students in the class (16 is the upper limit), they must share.

The Students

The students don't dress too much differently than students at home and most of them carry a bookbag with their coursebook, paper, pens & pencils, etc. They almost all have cell phones and occasionally I have to confiscate one if it's being used to text during class. A few kids come in their school uniforms if they haven't had a chance to change - almost all schools here have uniforms. Most students wear flipflops or sandals (it's quite hot here). Some of the girls (maybe 10-20%) wear jilbabs (headscarves) and modest ankle length skirts.

In behavior, they're generally somewhat similar to kids anywhere in the world - they're interested in friends, dating (if they've reached a certain age), food, fashion, sports, computer games, music, and similar topics.

Student Ages

Our classes fall into 4 categories - High Flyers, Trailblazers, Real English, and adult classes like Business English or Conversation.

The High Flyers are the youngest at ages 6-10. I haven't taught many of those classes yet. They're the most difficult in some ways because the kids aren't always well-behaved and they have shorter attention spans. An 80-minute class needs lots of quick changes of activities in it to keep them going. I'm waiting to have some more classes to pass judgement - the one class of High Flyers that I had was not fun but I'm told that it was a particularly unruly group.

Trailblazers are 11-15, so basically middle school ages. Most of my classes so far have been Trailblazers. Some teachers find them sarcastic and easily bored but I've enjoyed all of my Trailblazers classes. They're old enough to understand a few jokes, they enjoy games and competition, they have enough focus to do exercises, and they will engage in conversation a bit. Sometimes they're a bit reserved or hung up on girls & boys working together but we usually manage to overcome those obstacles. They usually think they're too cool for silly songs but enjoy them once we get going.

Real English are 15 and up. So they're mostly high school students with the occasional adult thrown in. I haven't had too many Real English classes yet but they've all been pretty good. By that point, the girls and boys usually enjoy working together but everyone still enjoys games. They like jokes and games but don't go for silly songs. There are some pretty high level Real English students who can engage in pretty fluent conversation and I'm looking forward to teaching some. So far, I've had low level classes but enjoyed them.

Saturday classes are older adults - mid-20s and up. I've just started teaching 2 Business English classes on Saturdays. It's a pleasure to include conversation periods in the classes and discuss topics like insurance or current events. Teenagers often either don't know, don't care, or are hesitant to express a dissenting opinion to an adult. Also, these students know exactly why English is important to them and how much they're paying to be there so there's a significantly different level of motivation. And if they're confused, they're not reluctant to ask questions.

Teaching Resources

I'm not suffering for teaching materials. Our teacher's room has several shelves of books with ideas for games & activities, copies of all the student & teacher books for each level, Indonesian/English dictionaries, materials like laminated posters & flashcards for vocabulary practice, old magazines for pictures, a few board & card games, etc. There's much more than I've been able to use so far.

All of the computers are networked and the data server has audio files (conversations to listen to) for each level, more materials for lessons like worksheets and puzzles, and some music CDs. And the computers have internet so we can surf the web to find resources online.

The school provides most of the necessary office supplies for us - paperclips, board markers, and so on. There are a few small things I needed to purchase myself - a correction pen (white-out), a pencil holder, a case for carrying markers, and so on. We've got a copier and a printer, too, of course.

My Colleagues

Any discussion of my work environment would be empty without saying how much I enjoy working with the other teachers and staff! There are 9 native English speakers from the USA, Canada, and UK (currently no Australians) and 7 local Indonesian teachers. We also have a great administrative and support staff who do EVERYTHING but teach - answer phones, maintain computers, register students, clean, fix the copy machines, take us to the bank, purchase office supplies, and much more.

All of the locals are incredibly friendly and helpful. There has never been a time when I asked for help and didn't receive it quickly and graciously. They go out of their way in matters large and small outside of work - helping me get a haircut or order lunch for the first times, giving me motorscooter rides to Surabaya, getting the internet set up in our home, etc.

Although the native speaking teachers come and go, with most of us staying for just 1 year, the local teachers and staff open their hearts to us, making friendships that outlast our time here. They invite us to sing Karaoke with them, have a meal with them, travel with them, etc.

Overall

Overall, I love teaching here!

I probably won't stay more than one year because I want to explore other countries but I definitely like this school and these people and I'll seriously consider the English First chain as I plan my next teaching move.

P.S. My colleague Chris, who likes to make videos, has done this walkthrough of the school if you want to see more.

P.P.S. Updated on June 3 to change the posting date - I finished this sometime in May but it was showing up as April.

Going Solo at Mount Bromo

2010-04-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

The Scenario

Through a random act of serendipity, my schedule gave me a full load of Tuesday-Thursday and Wednesday-Friday classes, leaving one Monday open with no teaching obligations - I wasn't on the schedule to substitute for someone on vacation, do a makeup or tutoring lesson, or do placement testing. I decided that it would be a crime to waste such a gift and I was meant to travel that weekend! I considered several destinations but decided on Mount Bromo in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park.

I took a train from Sidoarjo on Saturday morning to Probolingo. From there, I took a little bus up the mountain to my hotel, Yoschi's.

Saturday's Ramble
It was mid-afternoon when I arrived so I took a stroll to stretch my legs and get a feel for the landscape.

I'd seen on a map that it was about 4 or 5 km from Yoschi's to Cemoro Lawang, the village on the edge of the main crater. I walk daily and wondered if it was feasible for me to walk up to Cemoro Lawang in the morning. I quickly discovered that the road is VERY steep and it would not be a good idea to wear myself out before even starting the main walk to the volcano! (Also, I'd probably have needed to begin walking at midnight.)

So that was a useful conclusion. And in addition to some very lovely and interesting scenery, I also enjoyed a latte and a fried banana with chocolate at a beautiful eco-lodge about a kilometer up the road in Wanotoro village. They had a wonderful art gallery to browse and gorgeous views, although rather expensive prices for my teacher's pocketbook.

Sunday morning - Wow, what an adventure!

I arose at 3 am, threw some cold water over myself, and caught a ride on a jeep up toward Cemoro Lawang. After a few minutes of jolting along the steep, twisting road, the jeep's headlights flickered out! Our skillful driver calmly steered around sharp corners until we got to a village where he had a bit of light to tinker with things. He had it all working but it lasted only another few minutes. In the end, we relied on our own headlights off and on when they decided to work, and the lights of other jeeps and buses in front of us. I was grateful to arrive safely and rather glad to be getting off at Cemoro Lawang instead of taking that jeep all the way to the lookout!

I decided to take a horse out to Mount Bromo and then walk back rather than wearing myself out getting there so I negotiated a price for a ride and mounted, with the guide leading the horse. We started down the steep road toward the floor of the large surrounding crater. The road was slick from the previous night's rain and the horse slipped and ended up kneeling on the road with me standing over him! I dismounted, glad that it hadn't thrown me or fallen sideways but rather shaken and concerned for the horse. The guide checked it over and assured me it was fine but we all walked until we got down to the flat sandy surface of the Sand Sea! The remainder of the ride was fairly uneventful although I admit that I was a bit nervous about every subsequent stumble of the poor horse.

At the bottom of the "Two Hundred Steps" I parted ways with the horse and guide, wishing them safe journey. I'd wanted to walk back and this rather harrowing ride had cemented that plan.

At the top of the steps, I found loads of people waiting for the sun to rise. I chatted with a couple of young women from Scotland and France, four different school groups, and a nice young man from Jogja.

I was an exciting part of the trip for the schoolkids and am now ensconced in all their photo albums. I always smile at how easy it is for me to give back a small piece of friendship to the people whose home I'm visiting - they're so happy to find a foreigner willing to pass the time of day, let them practice their English, and take a photo or two. Meanwhile, they put up with my very bad Indonesian and guess what I'm trying to say, kindly teach me new words, and point me in the right direction when I don't even know I'm lost. I was sad to see some of the other tourists responding rudely to their requests - I've found that a pleasant 'no' is enough if I'm in a hurry or not in the mood.

Anyway, the sun slowly rose with a deep blue light - no brilliant shades of red or purple for us this morning but a lovely, lovely view! And it was a fascinating sight to look down at the billowing steam in the center of the volcano where we all stood!

Offerings

There weren't a load of people hawking tourist stuff here. There were a few people selling noodles, drinks, and other snacks, and there were a couple of men selling flowers to be thrown into the volcano as an offering.

There were quite a few offerings of rice left by the volcano lip, and there were also various areas scattered around the area where offerings were left. I noted several by the roadside at steep areas with sharp turns. These are apparently routine "tamping" offerings to ward off bad luck by the local Tengger people.

I was told that they are descended from exiles of a West Javan kingdom. Others at the time went to Bali and so the two peoples have close ties and share much culture and religion. They have some special traditions including an annual month-long ceremony which includes a large offering to Mount Bromo.

A Long Walk

From the top of Mount Bromo, I went back down the "Two Hundred Stairs". (I never counted to see if the title is right.) Then down to the temple where I was able to peek inside just a small portion. Passing the parking area & toilets, I marched across the Sand Sea, following a row of white pillars by the road.

Then up a steep road (still damp and a bit slippery) to the village of Cemoro Lawang. I didn't tarry long there but headed down the mountainside towards Yoschi's, rejecting many offers of assistance. The guys on motorcycles, especially, could not believe that I really wanted to walk slowly and enjoy the views rather take a ride from them for only about 2 dollars!

The roads are quite steep and I can understand why they were amazed. By the time I got back, my legs were protesting. I went to bed for a refreshing nap and got up for lunch!

It rained most of the afternoon so I had a quiet time reading and contemplating the beauty of the lovely gardens at my hotel. I was grateful that they had some nice shelters for sitting. A delicious dinner and early to bed to prepare for another early morning.

Sunrise, Day 2

Another 3 am rising and off I went, this time with a boxed breakfast from the hotel to fortify me. I had a jeep reserved to take me to 'Viewpoint Number 1' on Mount Penanjakan which is said to be the best place to see the sunrise from. We stopped in Cemoro Lawang and picked up 5 other tourists who were looking for a ride, then drove down across the Sea of Sands and up a very steep and tightly winding road. I was grateful that this jeep's lights were reliable and everything else was in working order.

It was still pitch dark when we arrived so I sat and ate my breakfast on one of the benches. The sky gradually lightened, giving us beautiful deep blue views of the entire group of volcanos with occasional subtle washes of color. There were no bright swashes of orange and vermilion on this morning either but it was completely lovely in a quiet and contemplative way.

There were some little coffee and snack shops here and people selling a few things - mainly warm hats, mufflers, gloves, etc. Our little group from the jeep stopped for coffee & tea before moving on.

Mount Bromo again
On our way down from the lookout, we drove back across the Sea of Sands and stopped for a quick climb up Mount Bromo for those in the jeep who hadn't done it yet. This time the temple was completely closed. And I visited the toilets for the first time. They were clean, had flushable western-style seats, AND had toilet paper! I was amused to note how surprised I was.

Every Good Thing Must End
After returning to the hotel, I had a bit of mid-morning breakfast - it was only about 9:30 am but I'd been awake since 3, remember? Packed up my stuff, took a few last photos of the garden and staff, and caught a little bus down the mountainside to Probolingo. Had a bite of lunch and took the 1:30 train (well, it arrived at 2:00 but who's counting) back to Sidoarjo, arriving around 3:30 in the afternoon.

This was my first trip away from Sidoarjo by myself, and I was glad to find that I felt perfectly safe and comfortable travelling alone. I will plan another trip for the next 3-day weekend I have at the end of May!

Savouring Sidoarjo's Specialities

2010-04-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

Sidoarjo Shrimp (not to mention fish and clams)
One Sunday morning in early April, Chris and I stopped by our friend Eko's home. He'd asked if we could come by but we didn't know why. It turned out that some of the friends he'd had since high school were coming over and they were all going out to a local shrimp farm for fishing and picnicking. They took us with them and we learned first-hand why Sidoarjo's city crest is a shrimp and fish - those were the main products at one time and are still an important part of the economy.

Eko owns the farm we were at. There's an elegant efficiency to the operation - the ponds of shrimp also contain clams and fish. He had them net a basketful of shrimp. They boiled the shrimp lightly and we ate them within minutes - talk about fresh! They were whole so we ripped off the heads, peeled, and ate them right up. I was told later that some people eat the whole shrimp and think it's healthier. No one there was doing that so I didn't know to try it. We brought home the rest of the basket of fresh shrimp and shared them with other teachers for dinner - the resulting shrimp faquitas were excellent also!

We used poles to catch the fish, with worms as bait. Chris showed off by catching two at once! The fish were served whole and barbecued and we picked the flesh off with our fingers. The clams were small but very tasty. Again, no sauce needed because they were so fresh - just pry open with your fingers and pluck the meat straight into your mouth.

There is nothing tastier than really fresh food. And Eko assured us that it's organic - no added chemicals, etc. It's a traditional farm (tambak) of the type used for thousands of years in Indonesia and hundreds of years in this region. I was interested to find Sidoarjo's sustainable, environmentally friendly shrimp farming mentioned as a model in this interesting article by Friends of the Earth!

Sidoarjo Batik
About a week after the fishing trip, one of my fellow teachers, Rena, took me to see where batik fabric is made in Sidoarjo. It turns out that there's quite a thriving industry of fabric producers here. Because batik is recognized as a cultural treasure by the government, there are signs and wall paintings marking the area. Indonesians come to see it, too, and schoolchildren are required to study the batik process.

Rena showed me the little shops where the local batik is sold. And then she took me to a big shop that sells all kinds of clothing - expensive silks to cheap cottons, traditional outfits for weddings and other celebrations, simple house dresses or pajamas, jilbabs (headscarves or veils for women), and so on. I'd walked past both the small cooperative batik shops and the big one before but we usually walk early in the morning before all the shops are open.

Kartini Day
On April 21, we celebrated Kartini Day. It's a national holiday on the birthday of Raden Ayu Kartini who lived in the late 19th century here on the island of Java. At the time, girls weren't usually allowed to go to school but her family allowed her to go to school until she was 12. Then she went into seclusion, as was traditional for wealthy girls of her age, but she continued to study on her own. Some of her letters were later published as a book, Letters of a Javanese Princess. (This link is for a free download of an abridged version which I plan to read myself.) She died in childbirth at the age of 25 so we'll never know what else Kartini could have done, but she was a vocal advocate for women's rights and is now known as 'the first girl who went to school'.

On Kartini Day, it's usual to dress in traditional Indonesian garb since that's what was worn during her life. At schools, especially, this is a common event. So I celebrated in 2 ways:

In the morning, I visited a kindergarten school to help my colleague Rena photograph her son Eza in the school's fashion show. It was great fun to see all the little 4-6 year olds dressed up in fancy clothing. Eza, of course, was one of the cutest! (He's sitting in the lower left of the mosaic above.) They sang the Indonesian National Anthem and a song about Kartini, and they all paraded out onto the stage and posed. Some were quite well-practiced and comfortable on stage but most needed to be encouraged to go out and stay long enough for us to enjoy their costumes! After the fashion show, the children took a bus ride around the neighborhood to wave and show off their costumes. In smaller villages, they might walk in a little parade.

At school, many of the teachers and staff dressed in traditional garb if they had it. Others of us wore batik.

Overall, it was a lovely day and I enjoyed this chance to get to know a bit more about Indonesian history and culture.

Trip to Jogja - Part 3: Natural Paradise

2010-04-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

This is the final installment about my Easter weekend trip. You can see the previous parts at: A Joyful and Inspiring Trip to Jogja - Part 1 and Trip to Jogja - Part 2, Ancient Culture!.

Climbing to Paradise

We drove to a parking area and climbed up 252 stairs to a viewpoint on top of Mount Suroloyo. The stairs and platform were built by a past Sultan as a meditation spot.

I was told that the English translation for this place is Paradise and I can see where they got the idea. It was truly lovely. We watched the clouds roll in below us as we climbed.

Kukup Beach
On our final day, we drove a couple of hours to Kukup Beach on the south coast of Java. It's just inside a coral reef where the waves break so it's too rough for swimming but we enjoyed the beautiful views, waded around and investigated tide pools to see mysterious creatures who retreated quickly if we stirred the waters, and listened to the surf.

We stayed there till sunset and watched the sky get silvery and even more beautiful than it had been before, although I scarcely believed that was possible!

(Note: I forgot my camera on the car seat so all the pictures here are from Iie and Chris who shared with me. Thanks!)

Foods
No description of area wonders would be complete without mentioning the wonderful foods we ate!

At the beach, we each had a fresh coconut. We paid 4000 Rp (about 40 cents) to have someone whack the top off with a machete and plunk in a chunk of ice and a couple of straws. After drinking the cool, refreshing coconut milk, we attacked the flesh with a spoon. Mmmmmm! Then on the way off the beach, I bought a bag of fried crabs and a bag of fried seaweed. These were freshly cooked and truly delicious. I made a pig of myself in the back seat because all of my fellow travellers either disliked seafood or were allergic to it. Our driver was the only one who enjoyed sharing some with me but he couldn't munch and drive safely on the steep winding mountain roads so he got a few at the beginning and then I gave him the remaining crabs at the end of the drive.

Gudeg (jackfruit stew or curry in a coconut milk sauce) is a local specialty of the Jogja area and not easily found elsewhere so we ate it for dinner twice while we were there. It's lovely. It's vegetarian except that it's then served with a choice of accompaniments - fried tofu, tempeh, boiled egg, chicken, beef, krecek (boiled and deep-fried cow hide which tastes much better than it sounds!), shrimp crackers, etc.

Bakpia are tiny little pastries filled with bean paste. They remind me a bit of little chinese cakes and are lovely. I brought back 4 boxes to share with friends in Sidoarjo.

In the adventurous eating category, I seized the opportunity to try chicken head and try re-try chicken feet. I've decided that although they're not bad, neither is special enough to bother with. (Although for 1,000 Rp or about 10 cents, I didn't mind trying them.)

And I enjoyed the take-away bag that I was given with a lunch drink (iced coconut milk) that I didn't finish with the meal. It's very common here to use a plastic bag instead of a cup for drinks. You can rubber-band the top closed, they actually sit on the ground better than I expected, and there's less bulky waste when you're done.

Returning Home

Alas, every journey has an end. Because it was a holiday weekend and we were too slow to make train reservations, we couldn't get onto a Sunday night train home. We took a morning train at 7:15 am, arriving in Surabaya around 12:30 and getting to the office about 1 pm. That gave us 2 hours to prepare for teaching at 3:00 pm. Fortunately, I had only 2 classes that day so I could prepare for the first one and teach it, then take my break time to prepare for the second! I think Chris and Iie had prepared some of their lessons the previous week.

Many of you on Facebook have already seen that I've added many pictures from my trip. Anyone can view them - here's a direct link to the photo album from that weekend.

Trip to Jogja - Part 2, Ancient Culture!

2010-04-10T07:12:00.001-07:00

This is the continuation of my previous blog entry (A Joyful and Inspiring Trip to Jogja - Part 1) and continues the saga of how I spent my Easter vacation 2010.

Dancing

The dancing we saw on Friday evening was the Ramayana Ballet, a Sendratari (storytelling) dance. The music is traditional gamalan music - the instruments are mostly all percussion, everything from small xylophone-like instruments to large gongs. There's singing/chanting and a small flute also. The dancers are elaborately costumed and use hand positions and movements to show emotions and personality characteristics. It tells part of the classic Ramayana story which is shared with most of southeast Asia but this particular dance was apparently written for tourists in 1961. Hmmm, that's a bit disappointing but the dancing was fabulous and the Indonesians I was with seem unaware of its recent origins and regard it as typical Indonesian dancing. Since it's based on other dances and puppet theater, I guess it's representative enough for me of Indonesian culture.

This story is about Prince Rama. It begins when a female demon sees Rama and falls in love with him. Rama wants nothing to do with the demon. Her brother demon Rawana is angry with Rama for hurting his sister and decides to kidnap Rama's wife, Sita. So Rawana sends a beautiful golden deer into the forest. Prince Rama is distracted and chases the deer, leaving Sita alone to be captured by Rawana. Sita refuses the attentions of the demon Rawana and lives in his harem for a while, protected by his niece. Meanwhile, Prince Rama and his brother try to find her. They speak to a bird who has seen her and has been injured by the demon. Then they join forces with a white monkey, Hanuman. The monkey finds Sita in Rawana's palace and fights the demon Rawana. He escapes and brings Prince Rama and reinforcements to finally defeat Rawana and free Sita. Then Prince Rama is unsure whether Sita has been true to him. She proves her faithfulness by entering a fire. When she's not burned, it shows that she's pure of heart and faithful so all ends well.

I enjoy folk stories and was very interested in this one. The dancing was just beautiful with stylized movements and elaborate costumes. The dancers were very athletic, especially the monkey Hanuman who climbed and jumped from the roof, vaulted over other characters heads, and jumped through fire. We were sent to this particular performance because they use real fire rather than cardboard pictures of flames, and because they feature children as part of the monkey tribe. The fire comes up several times in the story and is very dramatic. Of course I don't have a lot to compare it with but the whole thing was beautiful.

On our final morning, as I mentioned, we went back to the Kraton for some more music and dancing. This time we watched 4 pieces which were each excerpts from different full-length dances. Instead of raised stadium seating, we were arranged around 3 sides of an open-air performance space. There were straight chairs on 1 side but we sat on mats on the floor on one of the other 2 sides.

The 3rd side was filled with the gamalan players & singers. It was nice to be able to see and hear them more clearly without microphones.

Borobodur

Borobodur is the largest temple in the world. It dates from approximately the late 8th century or early 9th so it's about 12,000 years old. It has been forgotten and restored several times during its history.

Borobodur has hundreds of stone Buddhas and thousands of carved stone panels. Some of the panels tell the stories of Buddha's lives or give instructions on how to achieve enlightenment and ascend to heaven, and some are just decorative. I cannot fathom how much work and devotion went into creating this place! It's amazing and awe-inspiring.

Borobodur Temple is completely outdoors (which is fine in Indonesia where the temperature is always hot). There was once a tiny prayer room in the stupa (bell shape) on the very top with a golden Buddha statue but that's now closed off and the statue is no longer there. The whole Borobodur temple is designed to be like the sacred lotus with layers of petals / levels of the temple encircling the center bud.

As I walked around this sacred place, I circumnavigated one level clockwise for the prescribed 3 times in respect to the temple and its religious principles and the good spirits, and sent thoughts of peace and love out to all beings in the world. Then I pretty much just succumbed to the tourist mentality and enjoyed the incredible architecture, the wonderful views, the tradition of trying to touch the hand of a buddha in the top stupas, and the laughing company of my friends. But the simple joys of being in those moments as they happened are very Buddhist also, I think. In any case, I enjoyed it in many ways.

This site has a few more details and photos of Borobodur. It's a World Heritage Site too.

Prambanan

In the afternoon after visiting Borobodur, we went to Prambanan. Before we arrived, my travelling companions told me this story:

Once there were two neighboring kingdoms in Java. The king of one kingdom had a daughter - a very beautiful Javanese princess. The king of the other kingdom had a son, a handsome prince with supernatural powers. The two kingdoms were at war and the prince killed the princess' father during battle. But when he saw her, the prince fell in love with the princess and asked her to marry him. She rejected him but he persisted. She was a bit afraid of him so the princess set some conditions - she would marry the prince IF he could build a thousand temples in one night, complete with statues and decorations.

Remember that the prince had special powers. He began to meditate and communicate with demon spirits. He set them to work building the temples and they were progressing quickly. The princess could see that they would be finished well before dawn and she was in despair.

Suddenly she got an idea. She woke up all the women in the palace and ordered them to pound on the ground as if they were threshing and grinding rice. Since that's normally an activity done at dawn, the pounding woke up the roosters and they began to crow. The crowing of the roosters scared away all the demon spirits - they are vulnerable to sunlight and fled quickly to escape what they thought was the coming of the light.

The princess was very relieved to find out that only 999 temples had been completed!

The Prince was angry at the princess for her trickery. She had cheated him of a fair chance to meet her conditions. So he cursed the princess, turning her into a stone statue to complete the thousandth temple.

When we got to Prambanan, I understood the relevance of this story. There are 3 large central temples there surrounded by about a dozen smaller ones. And then that central complex is surrounded by many smaller temples (most in ruins now). And there are some sub-temples or stupas that are part of the larger ones. There are hundreds of temples that can be seen and more that are probably gone forever.

Prambanan is a complex of Hindu temples from the 9th century and was not as well-preserved as Borobodur. Most of the temples collapsed during a big earthquake in the 16th century. Some of it was restored beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the present. Sadly, there was another earthquake in 2006 that set back the restorations and many of the rebuilt temples are still closed. We were able to enter just 3 - the temples of Brahma, Vishnu, and Nandi the bull. In one, we could see flower petals from a recent worship ceremony, making me remember the beautiful Hindu worship services I've attended in the past with their many sensual elements - beautiful statues, chanting and singing and prayers, incense and fragrant oils, lovely flowers, delicious food offerings, and much more.

Unfortunately, we were not able to enter the main or central temple to Shiva. That is where the princess' statue can be seen, in a smaller sub-temple. We were there for sunset but the weather was uncooperative - the sky was overcast and we didn't see any dramatic color displays. Perhaps that was for the best - I focussed on the temple and the lovely natural light, and felt a strong sense of awe and wonder in this beautiful and graceful holy place. It was a lovely ending to a wonderful day steeped in reminders of the beauty of the world we inhabit and the many ways that we connect with the mystery and wonder of that world.

In Closing
I've a bit more to share about my Jogja trip but I'll do it in another installment. So for now, here's a site with more information on all these topics: Borobodur, Pramadan, and Ramayana Ballet (check out the navigation bar on the left).

May a bit of the peace and joy I felt at these ancient sites make its way to you also.

A Joyful and Inspiring Trip to Jogja - Part 1

2010-04-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

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Caption: Paula with a Guardian Statue at the Kraton

We had Friday off for Easter weekend so I went with 3 other teachers (Chris, Nisa, and Iie) to Jogja. Jogja and Djokja are nicknames for Yogyakarta (in Indonesian, it's spelled Djokjakarta), a city in the south part of Central Java. It was the capital of Indonesia for about 5 years during the war for independance. There are many ancient temples near there. And it's known as a center of traditional Indonesian arts and culture - music, dance, puppet theater, batik, etc.

Note: don't confuse it with Jakarta which is in the northwest corner of Java and has always been the capital of Indonesia, except for that brief transfer of government to Jogja.

We left by bus on Thursday night, arriving early Saturday morning. The "executive class" buses were full because of the holiday so we took a regular bus. Seating was similar to a school bus with vinyl seats. It was a noisy and bumpy ride. When the seats were filled, people stood or sat in the aisles. We were lucky that this bus was air conditioned - quite unusual for this price category. It was about a 7 hour bus trip, plus taxi rides and connection times making it a total of 9 hours or so. I was able to doze for much of it but not all of my companions were so lucky, so we were generally a tired and grubby group when we arrived on Friday morning.

Markets

On Friday morning, after a refreshing mandi, we walked around the markets which were just opening. They were amazing - full of beautiful batik clothing. Also lots of sandals, keychains, various types of souvenirs, and plenty of food. We dipped into the markets again at various times during our stay. I came away with a few gifts and a couple of comfortable dresses. It was great to have some Indonesian friends along. I got a better idea of bargaining, and also saw how different it is for them to bargain than for me - if it was clear that I was with them, the prices started 2 or 3 times as high and the vendors often wouldn't bargain at all! We tested this a couple of times and it held true - the presence of a foreigner inflates the price significantly!

Then we walked along Marlioboro, a famous street. Much of it is markets and street vendors but then there are old and official buildings like the Governer's Offices, some colonial period bank buildings, and a monument celebrating the repelling of Dutch invaders in 1949. Marlioboro ends at the city center - a large park which is just in front of ...

Kraton

Kraton means palace and this Kraton is the home of the Sultan of Yogyakarta! The sultanate has become something of an honorary position in these modern, democratic times but the Sultan of Yogyakarta tends to have enough wealth, popular support, and political connections to play an active role in the government also. The current Sultan (the 10th) is also the governor of Yogyakarta, an elected position. His father, the 9th Sultan, was Vice-President of Indonesia for a term under Suharto and then continued to serve as a Minister. He was quite popular and well-known both in and out of Indonesia, as this newspaper column with a story about the 9th Sultan shows.

We actually went to the Kraton twice, visiting different sections each time. On Friday, we toured the front part of the palace grounds which includes several areas used during ceremonies for visiting dignitaries.

We went back on Sunday morning to tour a different section which is entered through a different gate, with different tickets. The Sultan's home is in this area so it has more limited hours and his actual living quarters are open to the public only 3 times a year, on special holidays. There were museums here with artifacts from this Sultan (no pictures allowed) and his father. There was also a gamalan concert with traditional dancing - but more about that in the next section.

Focus on Batik

I've already mentioned the beautiful batik clothing & fabrics available at the markets. If you know me, you'll know that this is my weakness - I love fabrics!

Batik is a traditional art form in Indonesia, stretching back for hundreds of years. There were just a few colors available from plant dyes: brown, indigo blue, and the undyed white background. The traditional patterns had meanings and were worn by different people - royal patterns could not be worn by anyone outside the royal family, for example. Those traditions are no longer as rigid but are still generally respected - most Indonesians would not use a royal pattern for their own clothing although the other class distinctions might not be as well known. And modern batik includes a wider variety of colors (from chemicals) and patterns. Indonesian batik has been recognized as an Indonesian cultural heritage by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

My companions were very indulgent with me. I know that they weren't as interested in the process and history of batik as I was but when a batik art school was described to us, they agreed to go. We had already seen a woman in one of the stores working on some traditional batik fabric. The art school focused on batik paintings - lovely pictures of all types done on cotton and silk fabrics and stretched on simple wooden box frames. They had a student doing her painting where we could watch and ask questions. They had many batik paintings for viewing (or sale, of course). It was really lovely.

Stay Tuned
This blog entry is long enough so I'll save further stuff about the Jogja trip for another entry in a day or so. Look for it - Indonesian dancing, Borobodur Temple, and more! In the meantime, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday! Please don't forget to let me know how you're doing - by blog comment, email, Facebook, or whatever.

Hanging around Sidoarjo

2010-03-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

Again no big sightseeing trip to report but some random happenings and thoughts ...

Last Saturday I rode to Surabaya on my friend and fellow teacher Nisa's motorcycle. It's about a half hour ride and it was nice and cool to ride on the motorcycle. We went to the Royal Mall and did a little shopping and browsing. I got a very nice batik blouse which I've already worn to school.. Nisa kindly took the bemo (bus) back with me to Sidoarjo so I'd be sure to get on the right one and get off at the right place. Now I've done it and I am confident that I could get a bemo by myself to Surabaya!

In general, malls here are very similar to malls everywhere. We see a similar mixture of large and small clothing stores, electronics, jewelry & boutique shops, food courts, arcades, etc.There are some stores in common with Europe and the USA, like Starbucks, A&W, McDonalds and some of the clothing stores, while other stores are different. The malls host car shows and other special merchandising events as well as community events like talent shows, singing contests, or remote control car races.

On Sunday, Chris and I went over to visit the lovely family who took us with them to Mount Arjuno and Coban Pelangi (rainbow waterfall). They took us out to a warung (small cafe) for a delicious lunch of Rujak (well, I loved it although Chris wasn't as enthusiastic about that dish). They made the sauce to order for us by freshly grinding peanuts, various spices, chili peppers, etc. I got mine with 2 chilis which was just a little spicier than my current palate prefers but still quite delicious! The sauce was put over a generous serving of fried tofu, cubes of tempeh, slices of fresh cucumber, bean sprouts, jack fruit, and some other vegetables and fruits I didn't recognize. Mmmmm - that's the first time I've been served raw vegetables (bean sprouts and cucumber) since I've been here and it was soooo welcome. I was wondering whether I'd have stomach problems later but had none!

Sunday evening, a group of us watched Slumdog Millionaire on DVD. Our house has a huge collection of DVDs from the current and former teachers who've lived here.DVDs are very cheap here because they're all illegal copies. They're often poor quality, unfortunately. Slumdog fuzzed for a bit then skipped a big section in the middle. A couple of other movies we've watched had different problems. One seemed to be a production cut with some of the special effects not yet applied and drawings there instead. It was quite interesting, actually. Anyway, I really enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire. I'd been wanting to see it and had not done it yet.

Tuesday was a holiday here - Seclusion Day or Hindu New Year. It's a big holiday on Bali but not on Java, although some students told me that many mosques used the time for additional prayers. I didn't have plans to go anywhere so I went for a long morning walk with Chris, my usual walking partner. We had ridden in a bus to Lapindo (the mud volcano) before, and passed it in cars several times. So we THOUGHT we knew how to get there and wanted to see if we were right and if it was walkable distance. It was a cool, overcast morning (for here) although it turned sunny later.

We stopped to wander through the traditional market for about 15 minutes on the way out, just to view the interesting stalls which are a mixture of delights and horrors. I'd been there several times before but the interest hasn't worn off yet. I always see all kinds of things - vegetables, spices, fruits, meats and fish (dried and fresh), packaged snacks, cooked foods, coconut juice, pots & pans, woven baskets, clothing, shoes, handbags, and much more. But with an emphasis on the foods. Outside the market is an area where they bring live chickens and ducks, presumably to be turned into the products for sale inside. One major component of the marketplace that doesn't come through in pictures is the smell. It ranges from quite nice by stands of spices and fresh fruits to horribly bad near stands of durian fruit or meat. Peelings and other scraps are thrown onto the floor and trodden in to fester in the heat. Cats wander around eating scraps. Flies are abundant and the meat is not covered against them. Prices are much cheaper than at supermarkets or smaller individual stands throughout the city, and we saw people taking large quantities of goods away to resell at their stands. There's a big bus stop area right by the market. (I'll have to take some more pictures there on another trip. Each of the three times I've gone, I've been too distracted to snap many photos!)

While we are walking, we are always greeted by many people who are excited to see foreigners - a rare and exciting thing here. We feel like royalty or movie stars as everyone says hello, good morning, where are you going, where are you from, etc. We also hear people calling out to their friends to look. On this walk, we were surprised to have a motorcycle pull over and a young woman hop off. She came toward us with outstretched hands to greet us in very good English and ask us questions. Then she had her father take pictures with us, and she took his picture with us. It was really quite amusing. She wondered whether Chris was my son. I thought that was also very funny. To her credit, we do both have blue eyes and the ages would work, but I don't actually think we look much alike.

On our return walk, we also stopped for a cup of coffee at a roadside stand on the way back (coffee because we couldn't easily figure out how to order anything cold - they didn't have tea and our language skills weren't up to conversing about the juice choices), and detoured a little to take a shadier path for a while near home. We finished in about 4 hours. Later estimates from local teachers put the distance between 7km and 10km each way so it was a nice walk. I had taken some cash so we could get a bus or cab back but we didn't need to do that.

Whoo Hoo! We are Tim Jalan-Jalan (Walking Team or Team of the Roads)!

In random news this week, my house's water pump broke. It has been repaired numerous times in the recent past and apparently could not be fixed this time. We got a new one the following day. In the meantime, we learned that the water tap in the laundry room goes to a different water source (probably a well rather than city water). So we hauled buckets of water and put into the mandi tubs to be used for bathing and flushing, and also to the kitchen for dishwashing. Other than the work of carrying, it wan't that much different than normal. We can't drink the tap water here so we've got jugs of water in a dispenser which was still working fine. (My thanks go out to my housemates who did some of the water carrying, especially to Bill who carried ALL the water up to our shared second floor bathroom!)

I'm posting this on Saturday. I don't have big plans for travel this weekend either. I'm starting to fall into a routine at work and home. I'm beginning to think about a future blog to talk more about teaching, my school, my students, etc.

Be well.

Observations about Indonesia

2010-03-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

I've been here 3 weeks now. I didn't take a big trip this weekend but stayed around my home area of Sidoarjo. I've still been taking walks almost every day, and I went for 3 walks on Saturday and 1 on Sunday, expanding my borders to visit a 'night market' and a 'bird market'. I also shared a taxi with some other teachers to the neighboring city of Surabaya where we visited one of their shopping malls. Since I don't have a big trip to share about, I thought this might be a good time to describe some of my overall impressions of living in Indonesia before it all seems normal to me! To help me organize my thoughts, I put them into lists of likes and dislikes. Here goes ...

Like:

Waste: Little is wasted. We put our garbage into a bin in the street. People with bags and carts come around and pick through it, taking items that can be recycled or reused. Organic materials are burned and the ashes are used as fertilizer. It's common to see chairs made of old tires, ropes and nets woven from plastic bags, and other such ways to reuse materials. Energy isn't frittered away, either, or not as much as in many places. Washing machines and dryers are very rare - most clothing is handwashed and hung out to dry. There are many more scooters on the road than cars. There are also lots of bicycles and pedestrians and bicycle pedicabs (becaks). Space is often used well, too, with vegetable gardens, fruit trees, benches, and play areas tucked into street medians and vacant lots.
People: The people are friendly. In general, I've found Indonesians to be welcoming. As one of the few white people in Sidoarjo, I'm a strange sight when I walk down the street. I get lots of attention (staring and random remarks), especially when I wander into back alleys, but people are tolerant and point me to ways to continue my walk if I've run into a dead end or an apparent dead end. Although you could consider the staring rude, I'm sometimes staring at their houses, pets, etc. so I really can't complain. I may get a bit tired of it but it hasn't bothered me yet. Also, my fellow teachers and staff at school are wonderful! They're friendly and helpful. They like to get together to do things outside of school occasionally like Karaoke. And there's generally someone happy to answer questions and give advice about train schedules, bus logistics, cell phones, internet access, etc.
Crime: There's little violent crime here. There are neighbor security monitors who keep an eye on the comings and goings within the neighborhoods. I hear that it can be a bit intrusive sometimes but overall, I think it's good.
Greenery: Flowers and plants with lovely foliage are everywhere. I know this will change for the dry season when things will get brown but right now, it's lovely and green everywhere. There are flowers blooming all along the roadsides and gardens. Butterflies and dragonflies are abundant, too.
Fruit: There are many delicious tropical fruits available cheaply. I'm enjoying trying out lots of fruits that I've never seen or tasted. Almost all of it is wonderful so far!
Mandis: I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating. Indonesians bathe several times each day. The traditional method of bathing is to "mandi" or ladle water over oneself from a tub. It's quite refreshing, uses less water than a shower, and can be as extensive or cursory as the situation calls for. With the heat, I find that I definitely wash at least 3 times each day.
Beautiful scenery: Rice fields, volcanic mountains, palm trees, ancient temples, ... I'm sure there's much more to see. I've only skimmed the surface so far.
Cheap prices: Food, clothing, and almost everything else is cheap here. If things are grown or made in Indonesia, they're VERY cheap. And the exchange rate is such that most foreign money goes a long way.
Food: There are some delicious foods here. And, being an adventurous eater, I'm loving trying lots of new things. Many spices are cheap and there are some delicious sauces. Since I'm living on an island, the shrimp and fish are affordable and tasty. I'm hoping to encounter more seafood also. I've already mentioned the many tropical fruits.
Places to go: Although it's a bit difficult to travel quickly here, there are some fabulous places to visit and I'm anticipating going to Bali, Jogja (the nickname for Yogyakarta), the top of Mount Bromo, and other famous spots. I'd love to be able to travel to Komodo, Sumatra, and other islands also!
Language: Most Indonesians speak several languages. They use Indonesian (Bahasa in the local tongue) for business and formal situations but use a local/island language in day to day life. So I'm picking up a few words of Bahasa Indonesian but a lot of what's spoken here on the island of Java is Javanese. English is taught in schools so many people have at least a few words of it and there's a good market for private schools like the one I work for, which provides extra lessons focussing on fluency.
Family Ties: Family is very important to most Indonesians. They live together and support each other.

The flip side:

Poverty: Many of the people have a very low standard of living. They're crowded together in tiny houses without running water. Many people work hard at menial jobs for little money and count themselves lucky to have a job. Prices are so low because labor is so cheap. It's rare for people to have insurance of any sort (health, auto, life, whatever).
Pollution/Dirt: Yikes. There's a visible haze in the air around the bigger roads. In a typical morning walk of an hour, I usually pass 2 to 5 little trash fires putting out greasy black smoke. The streets are filthy. Garbage is placed in open containers on the street with easy access for rats, cats, bugs, and whatever other critters want to forage. Chickens and other animals run around the streets and leave their waste there. All that stuff washes into the storm drains during the huge daily rainstorms, and from there into the rivers. People also go to the bathroom into them and throw their trash directly in there. (I've witnessed both more than once.)
Corruption & inefficiency: Bribes may be required to do certain things, at least if you want to get them done in a reasonable amount of time. Customer service is a poorly understood concept. For example, if you want to buy something electronic, make sure to have them test it before you leave the store. Return policies are not generous (often 24 or 48 hours) and stuff is likely to be broken. It takes several weeks for mail to arrive here from overseas and it may be delayed for months or never get here (one teacher estimates that she's received 60% of the letters/packages sent to her). Packages are generally opened, stuff may be missing, and there are steep tariffs on the contents.
Availability of Education: Although school is compulsory until age 17 and schools are technically free, parents must pay quite a lot of money for school uniforms, books, and other supplies. Not all of them can afford it so they drop out when they must.
Food diversity: A lot of the food is fried. Although they do eat some fruits and vegetables, many meals contain primarily meat (chicken, seafood, or beef) with noodles and/or white rice. I'm enjoying trying lots of stuff but glad I have someone cooking my dinners 5 nights a week who includes plenty of vegetables at my request! And although we're on the sea, I rarely find any shellfish other than shrimp. Where's the lobster? The crab? The squid, oysters, ... ?
Mosquitos and other pests: Yikes! The mosquitos are fierce here. And they can carry dengue fever and malaria (although there is not malaria in this part of Java). If I'm outside at dusk, or mosquitos get trapped in my room at night, I get big itchy welts that swell up. Rats are very common. I see them whenever I'm out walking after dark, and occasionally during the day. Cockroaches / water beetles are also plentiful. Ants are pests in the kitchen and we need to be extra careful about crumbs or poorly sealed packages of food.
Weather: Hmmm, perhaps weather is a misnomer as there's not a lot of day-to-day or even seasonal change except for rainfall. It's hot and very humid here every day (highs of 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit and lows around 80 - in Celsius that's 32-35 degrees with lows around 27) with almost no breeze. In the rainy season, it rains hard almost every day for an hour or two, usually with thunder & lightning. In the dry season, it very rarely rains and everything turns brown. The sun is very strong and I need to be very careful about being out in it too long, and remember to drink a lot. So far, no sunburns or heat stroke for me although I definitely still notice the heat!

I've got a collection of more pictures from my walks and local trips here on facebook.

Photo Legend (click on pictures for larger views)

Bridge Walking - like the locals do, I'm crossing the river on the railroad tracks. Yes, Mom, I'm careful! And the train you see in front of me is parked, not oncoming.

Mosaic 1 (Likes):
1-3: Garbage guy proudly posing, tire chair, plastic bottle planter
4-6: EF Surabaya teachers & staff, Neighborhood Security guards sitting in the sun, Neighborhood traffic gate (these are often closed at night, or other times, to restrict through traffic)
7-9: Roadside Flowers & Butterflies, Banana Tree flower
10-12: Waterfall, Rice field, Sunrise

Mosaic 2 (Dislikes):
1-3: sidewalk in disrepair, pile of refuse in river, garbage dump by road
4-6: traffic, traffic, rice left out to cool/dry in a broken pan on the ground by the street
7-9: a bathroom (not even the worst I've seen), alleyway (also not bad), rickety footbridge over dirty canal

A weekend trip to the mountains

2010-02-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

Our school was closed on Friday last week for a holiday (Mouloud, Muhammad's Birthday) and I was able to travel on Saturday & Sunday with a fellow teacher Chris and a local family to visit some nearby mountains. It was a lovely weekend and I enjoyed the hospitality of my new friends!

We stayed at the family's vacation home part-way up Mount Arjuno. They own a hectare (about 2 1/2 acres) of land there with many fruit trees and other crops. We had beautiful views from the house, like the one at the top. They cooked many great foods for us. I especially enjoyed trying interesting fruits like dragonfruit and durian. I also loved the barbecued shrimp and fish, fresh boiled peanuts, and coconut milk.

On Sunday morning, we arose early and took a nice walk partway up the mountain and back. We saw lots of fruit trees, rice paddies, and other great sights. The view of the mountain was lovely.

Then we drove through the city of Malang to get to Mount Bromo where we visited a beautiful waterfall. The opposite of the morning, we first walked down and down and down then had to return uphill. It was well worth it - just beautiful!!

After leaving the waterfall area, we stopped at an apple orchard they own. We picked lots of vegetables and fruits to bring back. I loved getting my hands back into soil and connecting with the foods I eat. I also was fascinated to see some of the different crops - tapioca, ginger, coffee, etc. They're very efficient - the apples are interplanted with vegetables so no space is wasted. The family sent a big bag of apples and avocados home with Chris and I, so I'll be tasting those memories for a week or so. I already have plans to make the apples into apple crisp as I've got almost all the ingredients already - just need to pick up a little butter.

Mmmmmm ... until later!

Legend:
Photo 1: Sunrise looking toward Mount Bromo
Photo 2: The family at a little restaurant where we stopped for a snack

Photo 3: Foods - durian; dragonfruit; skewers of shrimp and fish to be grilled; platter of grilled shrimp & fish; fresh boiled peanuts from the garden; breakfast foods - popcorn, bananas, cereal, boiled peanuts, coffee & tea; dinner - rice, grilled seafood, fried mushrooms, noodles, pancakes, and more, all eaten with fingers; afternoon meal - rice, tofu, tempeh, fried chicken, green vegetable with grated fresh coconut, green beans, omelette; coffee beans and glasses of locally grown coffee - delicious even though I'm not usually a coffee drinker!

Photo 4: Mount Arjuno, and a durian tree in the foreground. Durian are big, spiky, and very stinky. I was glad none were overhanging the road!
Photo 5: The waterfall!

Photo 6: The orchard/farm - coffee bush; apples; big carrot; green onions and eggplants (or aubergines if you're from the UK); a little ginger plant; a big clump of ginger being harvested; harvesting a tapioca plant; a cow in the barn; scenic view back toward the village across the orchards

My weekend at the famous Sidoarjo Mud Pit

2010-02-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

For my second weekend in Sidoarjo, I joined up with some other teachers for a couple of short trips. On Saturday, we visited the Sidoarjo mud pit or mud volcano. When I was offered this job, I looked up Sidoarjo in a couple of different search engines. Almost all I found were news reports and sites about the mud like this or this. We took some local buses (bemos) to get there, and it took about 30 minutes.

In person, it's really just a big smelly area of mud with smoke coming up from the middle. The smell was sulphurous but not as bad as I'd expected. Because it's the rainy season, there was some standing water on top. There's an earthen dike built up around the mud, with grass and gravel on the slopes to contain erosion. There are various steps up the dike and a wide flat path on top. Not that exciting - I probably won't go back but I'm glad I went to see it in person. And I had fun riding the bemos for the first time.

Taman Safari Park

On Sunday I went with 4 other teachers to the Taman Safari Park. It's a bit over an hour drive southwest of Sidoarjo so we shared the cost of a car and driver. In the safari park, there were lots of animals just outside the car.

My favorites were the komodo dragons, like this one on the left, not because they're so spectacular but because Indonesia is the only country that has them and I was hoping to see some. I still would like to travel to Komodo or the other small island where the dragons live, and I hope to do that when we have a week-long holiday later in the year.

We also could pay a small fee to have our pictures taken with a few of the animals. I picked the snow tiger as you can see by the photo on the right. Afterwards I thought that I should have chosen the orangutans as they were the only lively animals available for photos. The big cats (snow tiger, tiger, and lion) were all very sluggish and we deduced they were probably drugged for the safety of the tourists. I doubt that's really enjoyable or healthy for them.

I've got about 40 more safari pictures in my Facebook album and you can view them whether or not you have Facebook - just click this link.

On the way to and from the safari park, the scenery was great. I enjoyed passing rice fields and other local scenes. On the way home, we stopped at a ruined temple where we took some pictures while investigating. We also stopped at a little fruit market where I bought some fresh avocados. I've eaten one so far and it was very good. My camera batteries were failing so I don't have pictures of the fruit stand or the little place we ate lunch but I'm sure I'll encounter similar sights for photographing eventually.

Legends:
Mud Flow Legend:
1. A bemo on the road
2. Inside of an empty bemo - lots of people crowd into this space sometimes
3. Part of the embankment containing the mud
4. A warning sign which says, roughly: Be careful. Dangerous! 1. Gas is poisonous in the center 2. The embankment is slippery and there's a danger of landslides 3. Hot mud 4. Heavy machinery enters this area
5. The steam
6. Me by the mud
7. My mud-braving fellow teachers: Natalie, Ryan, and Chris. Also a woman who wanted to sell us DVDs of the disaster
8. Heading down the stairs
9. A final view of a lower part of the embankment

Temple Legend:
1,2,3. Rice Fields by the roadside
4,5. The temple
6. View from on top the temple
7,8,9. Me, and the other teachers who went with me - Chris, Natalie, Ryan, and Iie

Indonesia: Trip, Arrival, and first impressions

2010-02-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

I left Poughkeepsie, NY, USA on Wednesday, Feb 10 in a snowstorm they were calling "the blizzard of 2010". The Newark airport was already closed and shortly after I started driving, LaGuardia airport closed and all domestic flights were cancelled from JFK. My flight, of course, was international. I allowed LOTS of extra time for driving. You may notice in the picture that I got my hair cut short the day before leaving. I thought short hair would be cooler and easier to take care of in the tropics.

The roads were really not too bad - snowplows were cycling around regularly and keeping them pretty clear, and there was almost no traffic. It's a good thing I was familiar with the directions as many signs were unreadable due to snow blowing and sticking onto them, covering the words. Our plane boarded on time but left about 3 hours late - they spent quite a while de-icing it and then had to plow in front of the wheels as too much snow had accumulated for the plane to be pulled out of its parking spot. Here's a photo of it several hours earlier, from the gate where I was waiting. Notice the swirling white cloud of snow.

It was snowing lightly in Frankfurt, Germany when the plane stopped there for refueling. So we didn't make up much time and I landed several hours late in Singapore. My original schedule had me just transferring planes there with about 45 minutes between flights. Here's my airplane in sunny, hot Singapore. What a contrast!

I arrived safely in Sidoarjo on the evening of Friday, Feb 12 in a big rainstorm, tired but happy. My suitcases were still in Singapore because of the switch in my connecting flights. They arrived safely to me around 8 pm Saturday. I was VERY happy to see them as I felt quite grubby by then!

The house is spartan but clean. It reminds me of living in a college dorm - simple furnishings, small shared kitchen, small shared bathrooms. We do have a western toilet but there's no shower. Instead we have an Indonesian bathtub or mandi - a square basin of water with a ladle. There's a drain in the floor and we pour water over ourselves - a little for hand washing, or a lot for more extensive cleaning & hair washing. It's simple and very refreshing in this heat & humidity! It's customary to use it for bathing often, perhaps 4 to 6 times per day, and I find that I do. My bedroom is also small - just space for a bed, wardrobe, desk, and nightstand, along with a stand fan. Our windows have screens so it isn't too buggy inside, and the geckos wander around and help clean up. I was out on the patio for a while at dusk on Saturday and there were lots of mosquitos so my legs and feet are covered in bites. I'll learn.

(Note - actually I've learned that mandi is a verb meaning to bathe, and Indonesians call the tub of water a bathtub. But all the foreign teachers seem to call it a mandi to distinguish it from western bathtubs. We never put any part of ourselves into the tub here.)

1: Front view
2: The bathroom (mandi tub on the left)
3: The kitchen
4: My bedroom (taken from the bed). Wardrobe & desk are to the right.
5: The living room where we can watch TV & movies
6: The front patio

I have 3 teacher housemates plus the live-in maid. Natalie and Bill are both from Canada, have been here about 7 months and this is their first time as EFL teachers. Andre is from California and has been here just over a month but has taught in a couple of other places (Korea and Singapore). He teaches some classes in Surabaya as well as here in Sidoarjo. They've all been very welcoming and have taken time to answer questions, show me the way to the local shopping areas, etc. Muji, the maid, is very pleasant and hard working.

There are more foreign teachers living in another house, and a number of Indonesian teachers and staff. Everyone is pleasant and helpful, and it's going to be a fun place to work. I already have definite plans for this weekend and tentative plans for next weekend, so stay tuned!

Supermarkets and other shops are fascinating and probably will provide material for a whole blog entry, or even several. There are lots of fruits I don't recognize, and other things I do like mangos, star fruit, papaya, and bananas. Browsing through the aisles gives a great education, too. For example, many food products are proudly labelled Local or Made in Indonesia so I get an idea of what grows here. Many things are available right in the neighborhood without walking to the supermarkets. Street vendors push or cycle carts along the streets regularly with cooked food, fruits & vegetables, and jugs of potable water. I've also seen carts with house plants, clothing, furniture, and other items. Mixed right in with the houses are little shops of all kinds - laundries, snacks, telephone access (wartel), groceries, etc. At first I thought there were lots of clothing stores also. There are a few but most of the clothing I see hanging along the streets is laundry. Only very rich people have washers and dryers - most wash by hand and hang things out to dry. If they don't have a covered patio, they must run out and bring it in when the rains come. It rains very hard almost every day but the rain only lasts an hour or two.

It's about a 15 minute walk from the house to school. The streets are often flooded during the rainy season (now) so we have to wade. Most teachers leave dry shoes at school and wear flipflops to walk in. If we're tired or hot or it's pouring rain, we can find a bechek and ride in a little carriage pulled by a bicycle. I haven't tried it yet but for about 7,000 rupiah (about 75 cents), I'm sure I will. I've also been taking walks around the neighborhood once or twice a day.

Here's a little photo montage of neighborhood scenes from my first few days.

I'm in Indonesia

2010-02-12T22:42:00.000-08:00

I'll take some time to get pictures online and write something within the next week or so but I just wanted to let everyone know that I made it safely (albeit with some unexpected twists that turned out to contain some unexpected blessings).

Be well and have a Happy Valentine's Day!!

Packing and Counting Down

2010-01-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

I'm in the last few days before leaving Wisconsin where I've been staying with parents & sister. I've been skiing and snowshoeing and walking and generally savoring the quiet beauty of the snowy woods and lakes here.

On skis, Mom and I have been going out on the frozen lake a lot, and have increased our trips up to about a mile and a half to circumnavigate the nearby island. Sister Sally and I have taken our skis to several local trails. We generally stick to the "easy" parts, although today we got onto an intermediate loop by accident. After polishing a bit of it with the seat of our pants, we reconnoitered and moved to the easy trail which was a beautiful "Pine Loop" flatly meandering through a stand of tall white pines.

On showshoes, I've done just a couple of very short trips - one through the woods and one across the bay of the lake. I find snowshoeing to be more work still, but I haven't done as much of it.

I'm in the throes of packing up my suitcases. I'll be renting a car and driving out to Poughkeepsie, NY to visit family & friends there before flying out on February 10. Weather permitting, I'll leave here on Monday, January 25 and arrive in Poughkeepsie in 2-3 days.

I've said goodbye to the weekly "Hand and Foot" card group I've been playing with and sent them the link to this blog. (Hi ladies, I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for all your hospitality and good wishes.)

I've gotten all the paperwork together for my visa and the last piece arrived today. So I'll put the application into the mail tomorrow and it should be done and waiting for me when I get to Poughkeepsie. I've also completed my Hepatitus A & B shots - the only vaccinations I needed since I've already had updated Tetanus, Yellow Fever, etc. a few years ago for a trip to Ecuador.

While I'm in Poughkeepsie, I hope to visit with my son Trevor and lots of my friends. I'm thrilled that there will be a Contra dance and an English Country dance on the Saturdays while I'm there. And I'd like to check out the new Railroad Bridge walking path/park. Of course, I have a list of "useful" stuff to do like visit the dentist, my accountant, my bank, etc.

So, onward - I hope you've enjoyed this mishmash of news. Look for an update from Indonesia after I've been there a week or two and started getting settled!

Photo Key:
1: Blue Moon (New Years Eve 2009 - I went skiing in the moonlight!)
2: Pease Road (where we walk)
3: Snow on the bushes (behind the cabin where I've been staying)
4: Sun through the trees (on the Drummond ski trail)
5-8: Snowshoeing on the lake
9: Hairy woodpecker on our suet feeder
10: A little pine by the ski trail
11: Crescent moon in the night sky
12: A big pine by the ski trail
13: Sally leads the way on the ski trail
14: Mom on skis, on the lake
15: My family's traditional winter photo opportunity with the plastic snowman
16: My wish for you!

Winter Sports in Wisconsin

2009-12-29T11:21:00.000-08:00

Imagine it: Your short, plump middle-aged protagonist suits up in layers and layers of clothing, laces on stiff boots, and lumbers out into the snowy landscape. Perching awkwardly upon one leg, she steps onto a long, slim board with the other and attempts to secure her boot into the bindings. The board slips back and forth wildly on the slippery snow and 15 minutes pass, punctuated by mutterings of frustration which grow increasingly vehement. Then as she puts her weight onto the ski, it slides out from under her and she is posed horizontally in the air for a fraction of a second. The next thing you know, she is groaning and wondering how the ground can be so hard when it's covered with 6 inches of "soft" snow. As her sister retrieves the errant ski from about 50 feet across the yard, our protagonist laughs and struggles to her feet for another valiant cartoon-like attempt at skiing.

Oh, yes, that was a real scene, enacted right here in my yard.

My parents gave me cross country skis for Christmas (an early gift so I could start on the snow we had a few weeks ago, since I'll be leaving before the winter ends). I'm a complete novice at cross-country skiing and I'm not particularly graceful or coordinated by nature. So I'm providing a great deal of amusement to my patient sister Sally and to myself as I lose my balance in wonderfully comic ways. If anyone has a video camera and wishes to submit things to some comic home videos TV contest, just follow me around for a while. But hurry because I'm getting the hang of it. I'm not especially wonderful at it but I'm rarely so spectacularly silly either. (And, by the way, my thanks to Mom and Dad for the skis, and to sister Sally who has broken trails, coached me, and refrained from poking fun at me.)

We get plenty of snow here. As I write this on Boxing Day (December 26), it has been snowing off and on for 3 days. So far, we've gotten about 16 inches of snow and it's still coming down. I've been trying to get out skiing at least briefly every couple of days. Sometimes I just go around our cabin lawn 4 or 5 times. I've also ventured down the snowy roadside past Mom & Dad's house and along an old unused roadway for a half mile or so. Soon I think I'll be up to trying some other venues and perhaps even a short groomed trail.

Ice Fishing

Sally has been ice fishing for a week or so and I've tagged along to learn a bit about it. The hardest part is drilling the initial holes in the ice with the hand auger. It takes a lot of word to turn the auger, scraping off a thin layer of ice with each turn and going through 5-6 inches of ice to reach the water. My part is usually scooping out the ice shavings which build up, although I've tried my hand at the turning also. Since the auger handle is just above eye-level for me, I have a hard time getting good leverage and weight on it. I end up expending a lot of wasted energy turning with little to show for it.

Once a hole is drilled, we set a "tip-up" - a simple mechanical contraption for holding the line and showing a flag when a fish bites. We bait the hooks with minnows and hope to catch a Northern Pike.

We also have one hole in shallower water where we "jig" for pan-fish like crappies or bluegills. (Yes, crappies are really a fish. We pronounce it "crop-pees" and they're good tasting, not "crappy" at all.) When jigging, we take a short rod and use a little lure with a small white worm called a waxy. We sit or stand and jiggle the bait up and down. My patience is limited so I usually only stay a short time to do that, if at all.

Every day, Sally changes the water that the bait minnows are kept in, preferably with lake water not tap water. Also she must chisel out the holes to keep them from freezing shut. Well, actually, they freeze anyway every day but the ice isn't so thick there. So unless it's been very cold, they can be chiseled out and re-widened rather than re-drilled with the auger. One important tip we've been reminded of: mark your holes with something tall. When it snows, the holes are covered and it's very difficult to find them on the flat, featureless ice without a landmark. I'm sure it would've been material for another humorous video to watch us out shoveling places on the ice where we thought the holes might be after a heavy snow. We had winding little trails and splotches all over.

Walking, Shoveling, and other such amusements

Since Mom hasn't felt up to skiing and my skill with it is just developing, we've continued walking together. We typically walk along the road and enjoy the snow covered trees, animal tracks in the snow, sounds of woodpeckers, and other woodland sights and sounds. We go 1 or 2 miles, most days, depending on the weather and timing.

Snow shoveling may not sound like a winter sport. In fact, most of us wouldn't choose to do it if we didn't have to. But it's a lot of good exercise as I can attest when I come in all flushed and aching from the driveway. And there are occasional other benefits - today I noticed that the dense snow left by the snowplow was so heavy that a little hole in it reflected a beautiful intense blue light, a lighter version of what I saw from a glacier once. It was lovely! (And a good excuse for taking a short break to admire it.)

We don't make a snowman every time it snows but we plan to take advantage of one good snow to make some snowmen and snow angels. We're expecting one of my cousins from Illinois to visit with her family in a few days so I expect we'll also go sledding with them. And my sister has used the snowshoes but I haven't done that yet. I'll definitely give it a try again as it's been many years since I did that, too.

And my experimentation with photography has lots of lovely material to work with after a fresh snow - the delicate and intricate patterns of dark bare twigs highlighted with white, green pine branches dripping with bright snow, and similar lovely sights.

After-sports treats

It's wonderful to come in from the cold and enjoy a warm cup of cocoa or hot cider. I've been introduced to the local tradition of a "Peppermint Patty" - hot chocolate with a dose of peppermint schnapps. Very nice. I've shared spiked mulled cider with some Applejack I brought with me from the East Coast. And Dad has promised to make some hot buttered rum soon. Christmas cookies taste even more delicious with an appetite honed by fresh air and exercise. And we've got some wonderful fruitcakes given us from different sources in very different styles but all delicious. Mmmmm! I'll have to be careful or I'll offset the benefits of this exercise I'm getting.

Indoors

Okay, it may sound like I'm some kind of athletic wonder from my previous writing. In reality, I tend to sit inside with a book as often as I get out. I love to read! And since I've heard there will be less selection of English language books in Indonesia, and at premium prices, I treated myself to a new toy to take with me - a Kindle electronic book reader from Amazon. I've been thinking about it for a while and finally decided to do it. The availability of Barnes & Nobles' new Nook (which was already sold out when I decided to buy) has nudged the Kindle prices down to where I couldn't resist.

If you don't like to read, you can skip this commercial. But if you do, read on. So far, I love my Kindle. It's much easier to read than a computer screen. It can shop for & download books right over the cell phone network at no extra charge (although that won't be true in Indonesia - there, I'll have to pay $2 per book or hook it to my computer to transfer files for free). Right now, since I don't have access to the internet without going to the library or tying up my parents' phone with slow dialup service, it's wonderful to be able to get "online" to the book listings with my Kindle. It seems to get better reception than my cell phone. There are lots of old classic books available for free. I've read a lot of them but there are enough others I'll enjoy to stretch my paid reading and repay the expense of the Kindle. Most popular books are available in Kindle format directly from Amazon and cost the same or a bit less than the printed version. It has enough memory to hold more than 1,000 books of average size, and I could put audio books and background music on it (although they're larger and will eat up more of the memory).

I love the Kindle's design and packaging. The buttons are large and easy to use, including the little keyboard. The main buttons are arranged so that you can hold the Kindle upright or sideways, and change the print to math. It arrived in a plain cardboard box, and inside it was nestled into a simple, molded cardboard holder. It had no shrinkwrap, no hard plastic clamshell, no crumbly clinging foam cushioning to fill my garbage can. It was all easy to open and easy to recycle. The plug is elegant - it looks like a simple, slightly longer than average, US standard wall plug. But if you look closely at it, the part with the prongs comes off and reveals a USB cable which I can use to charge the Kindle right from my computer. And that connection works anywhere in the world. Since I'll already be taking my laptop and a universal plug for it, I won't have to worry about converting another plug.

Of course the Kindle has a few disadvantages also - nothing's perfect, right? Not all books are available in the electronic format it uses. I can't buy used books for it and save money that way. And I can't share my Kindle books with friends & family. A kindle book is licensed only to the purchaser. So my Bookcrossing hobby doesn't work with Kindle books. As the books build up, I see that it would be nice to be able to sort them in more ways - scrolling through a list of 10 titles at a time is quite tedious with the 471 items currently residing on there! I wish I could divide them into folders or shelves somehow.

Overall, I'm loving it and I'm looking forward to carrying just my Kindle on board the plane instead of a whole stack of books to last me through the 24-hour flight to Indonesia!

I wish everyone a Blessed Solstice, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a Wonderful New Year!

Photo Key (collage)
1: Using the ice auger
2: Closer view of the auger
3: Scooping out the ice shavings
4: The tip-up
5: Out on the ice
6: Snow on a balsam branch
7: Sunset on the frozen lake
8: Grasses in the snow
9: Snowy pines
10: Paula on her cross country skis
11: Sally jigging
12: Shoveling
13: Putting on the skis
14: Christmas cookies
15: Another sunset shot
16: Grasses in sparkling snow
And, of course, my kindle

A New Direction

2009-12-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

Woo-hoo! I'm in the process of accepting an offer to teach English in Indonesia, beginning in February. This means that I'll get to spend Christmas with my family in Wisconsin, stop in New York to visit my family & friends there for a week or two in January, and then head out to the tropics while there's still snow on the ground back home. I've got about a month to get together my paperwork, make travel arrangements, and pack.

So ... Indonesia. I was surprised to learn that it's the 4th most populous country in the world, coming behind China, India, and the USA. It's made up of islands - many, many, many of them. Depending on which source you believe, there are either 17,508 or 18,110 - or perhaps something in between. About 6,000 of those are inhabited. Five of them are large and contain most of the population. The rest contain rainforest, volcanoes, etc. I'll be on Java, the "world's most populous island". I'm writing this from the wilderness of Barnes, Wisconsin where there are fewer than 10 people per square mile. Java has a population density of more than 2,400 people per square mile. So I'll be going through several types of culture shock, I expect.

This week we jumped into winter with a blizzard which dumped up to 20 inches of snow followed by frigid temperatures. We got away with just 8 inches of snow here but it was 10 below zero this morning, not counting the breeze. Yowch - I'll be looking forward to the tropics. Indonesia is right on the equator so it's about 78F to 85F all year round. And very humid. I'll be packing lots of sunscreen and a big floppy hat along with my swimsuit. And perhaps wishing that I could have just a whiff of this cold air, on demand.

The official Indonesian motto is an inspiring "Unity in Diversity". Indonesia is a pretty new country, with their first free election in 1955 and their first direct presidential election in 2002, so I'll forgive them if the "Unity" part is not always completely evident - they're getting better. And they've certainly got "Diversity" covered. There are around 300 regional ethnic groups and that sounds to be a stronger identity for most than "Indonesian". The government is secular. Although Muslims are between 80% and 90% of the population, 5 other religions are officially recognized (Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) and we'll get official holidays from the different religions.

My school is in Sidoarjo, a suburb of Surabaya. When I looked for information on Sidoarjo, the main news item I found was about a bubbling mud volcano. Charming, right? But I'm assured that it's not near the school and the teachers' house. Oh, yes, I'll be provided with my own bedroom in a shared house with 2 or 3 other foreign teachers from the school. The school pays the electricity and most other expenses for the house including the salary for a "housemaid". Mmmm, I hope I don't get spoiled by that. Cleaning house is at the bottom of my favorites list.

My school is part of a franchise called English First. Many of the students are high school or university students although there are also a growing number of classes of younger children and a few adult classes in business English. Most classes are, therefore, held in the afternoon/evening so I'll probably be working from 2pm to 9pm most days with mornings free. English First has their own curriculum which I can supplement with my own experiences from my CELTA training and personal background. Each class lasts about 6 weeks, so things rotate often.

Indonesia's currency isn't worth much in the USA so I won't be building up my savings much but I'll have plenty to live on and do a bit of travelling around Indonesia. And the year-long contract includes my plane travel over and back, the cost and help with paperwork for the work visa, my lodging as I mentioned, and medical insurance.

OK, this is all theoretical so far - gathered from reading (especially from the Wikipedia article on Indonesia and the TravelWiki article on Indonesia) and from what my school contacts have told me. So I probably won't post a lot more about Indonesia until I actually get there - it would all be 2nd hand and you intelligent folks can Google as well as I can. I'll be happy to answer questions if I know the answers - just post your questions here or email me. I'll keep making blog entries now and then so stay tuned ...

Whoopee!! Hang onto your hats - we're off on an adventure!

Counting my Blessings

2009-12-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Mom and I went out for a walk last night after supper. The moon was almost full and was shining so brightly that we cast shadows as we walked. It dipped in and out of the clouds creating auras of lovely, subtle colors – silvers and taupes and midnight blues. A great horned owl hooted softly in the distance. As we climbed the steep hill of the driveway, the cold air chilled our lungs and made us puff a bit and we mentioned how much easier it is to climb the hill since we've been taking walks frequently. A breeze rattled the dry grasses and leaves. Our feet crunched on the gravel by the road when we stepped off the pavement to give way to a passing car.

As we walked, I reflected on how grateful I was to enjoy the beauty of this walk. I was primed to be grateful because this past week, along with most Americans, we celebrated one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. We shared a traditional and delicious meal with roast poultry (we had chicken instead of turkey because our family won some chickens in a raffle this fall), dressing, potatoes & gravy, 2 kinds of cranberry sauce, carrots, pickles, olives, spiced cucumber rings (I need to get that recipe from Aunt Beth!), blueberry pie, and more. As dinner began, we practiced one of my favorite traditions – each person shared some items they were thankful for.

In our culture, we often overlook this simple virtue of gratitude. I like it so well that I gave a Sunday church service this past summer about it, and I'm going to borrow a few thoughts from that service to share here.

There are three aspects to gratitude that I will focus on: the scientific, the religious or spiritual, and the practical.

Science:
In the past 8-10 years, psychologists and other social scientists have been focusing much more on positives like what makes people happier rather than just on ways to cure illnesses and problems. A number of studies have shown that people who take time out to be grateful reap several benefits, including:

they're happier
they get fewer illnesses (colds, headaches, etc)
they exercise more
they get more sleep
they're more likely to help others, and to be helped

One hypothesis is that when we experience positive emotions like gratitude, we get a chemical called dopamine released in our brain.. The dopamine activates parts of the brain that specialize in complex thinking and conflict resolution. Since we think better and relate better to others, this can be the beginning of a positive feedback loop – when we're being more cooperative and solving problems better, we're more likely to feel good about what we've done, releasing more dopamine.

Religious & Spiritual:
From long before scientists joined the bandwagon, gratitude has been part of many, perhaps all, religions.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all place high value on gratitude, thanking the creator during prayers at meals and bedtime and gatherings, or at set intervals throughout the day. The saying, “count your blessings” comes from this tradition, as does this Thanksgiving holiday. Meister Eckhart, a medieval monk, once said, “If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Buddhists teach that everything and everyone is connected, and so we all owe gratitude to others. This gratitude may be described as our awareness that our lives are supported by our environment, which includes other people, and our desire to respond in kind to such support. Those who are ungrateful or feel burdened by others’ kindness fail to see the interconnectedness of all lives.

Native Americans value gratitude also. The Iroquois Constitution opened with a statement of thanks and it is an integral part of many ceremonies and rituals.

Writers and poets and philosophers have praised gratitude as a virtue for centuries. Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

Practical:
Scientists estimate that half of our happiness is genetic, 10% is based on circumstances, and 40% is up to us. In order to be more grateful, and more happy, we need to train ourselves into good habits. We can do this by practicing.

What should you do when you really don’t feel grateful? Give yourself time. None of us can feel grateful ALL the time. But do keep trying to find some things to notice and be grateful for in a small way – a pretty sunset or a good song or finding a quarter on the sidewalk.

As you read this, take a moment now and think of 3 things you're grateful for. They can be big items or trivial ones. Write them down. Yes, really write them – find a napkin or piece of scrap paper, or open MS Notepad and type them, or whatever. I'll wait.

...

...

(Did you really write them down? Indulge me. I'll explain why.)

...

...

In general, studies show that it's important to express our gratitude. It's more effective to keep a journal or tell someone about your gratitude than just to think about it. Some studies show that it's not helpful to repeat the exact same activities too frequently. They seem to lose their power. What are some practices we could try? Here are a few gleaned from my reading and thinking:

Keep a gratitude journal and write in it daily or weekly
Write thank-you letters or emails, or just say thank-you to those who've helped us or given us joy
Take a gratitude walk where you make a point of noticing all the wonderful things you pass
Pass on your good fortune to others - give a gift, volunteer for a charity, let someone get into traffic, ...
Just before bed, think about something that you enjoyed or appreciated that day
Start a daily or weekly (or irregular) mealtime practice of sharing things you're thankful for
When you think about something you don't especially like, try to think of 2 things that you also like about it
Post a short list of things you're grateful for on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, your blog, or whatever other networking site you use

In closing, I had best take my own advice and share a few things that come to my mind right now to be grateful for:

Freedom of the press, and free access to uncensored media
Effective asthma medications that allow me to breathe deeply & fully and go about my life rarely noticing that I have asthma
Chocolate (particularly the chocolate-covered dried cherries I just ate)
A cup of hot tea
A good book which makes me laugh and learn things, in turn (most recently “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson)
Libraries which provided that book for me to read as well as internet access to post this, all free!
My sister who did the dishes last night without being asked, even though it was my turn

If anyone wants to share their own list as a response, I'd enjoy reading them. Or let me know what other ways you have of practicing gratitude.

Thanks for reading!
Paula

Notes:
1. References: Rather than trying to individually footnote the sources for all my statements, here's a little online bibliography of some articles I read about gratitude:

Gratitude and Happiness in Wikipedia,
The New Science of Being Thankful from Readers Digest,
Want to Be Happier? Be More Grateful from Science Daily,
Better Mood from Gratitude from PsyBlog,
The Meaning of Being Grateful from Canada.com,
The Science of Being Grateful from ReligionLink.com,
Attitude of Gratitude from Life-With-Confidence.com,
ImSoThankful

2. Pictures from today's gratitude list: my sister Sally, my cup of tea, and the books I returned to the library today

Bears, Cranberries, and other miscellania

2009-10-29T13:15:00.001-07:00

It's hard to believe but the autumn leaves have mostly come and gone here and we've had a few light snowfalls already. Here are some random bits of news and fun from my life over the past few weeks ...

Bear-ly Exciting

There are 3 towns nearby with grocery stores; they're all 22 miles from us. When we do "go into town", the Hayward Marketplace is one of the places we shop. Apparently, the local wildlife also enjoys it, as a bear visited the store recently and made national news as a human interest story. We had relatives coming into town that weekend. They stopped there to pick up some groceries but apparently they left before the bear arrived. They were disappointed to miss the excitement but they enjoyed seeing deer in the back yard while they were here.

Here are links to videos of the bear: news report and a shorter Youtube video 2

Cranberries

On our way into town last week, we passed by a cranberry bog while the berries were being harvested so we stopped to buy some fresh ones. I took a few pictures. I also picked up a brochure on the way out, published by the Wisconsin Cranberry Growers Association. It contained a few recipes and some interesting facts. For example:

Cranberries are native to North America.
The state of Wisconsin produces more than half of the world supply of cranberries, and it is officially Wisconsin's state fruit. Massachusetts, Oregon, New Jersey, and Washington are the other top producers.
Cranberries are not actually grown in water or "boggy" areas. The woody vines are grown on dry land, then the area is flooded for harvesting because the berries float and are easier to gather that way. The "bogs" may be kept flooded through the winter to protect the cranberry plants from freezing, then drained in the spring.
Most of the cranberries that are harvested are processed fairly soon into juice, canned cranberry sauce, or dried cranberries ("craisins"). If you see fresh or frozen whole cranberries in the store, they were taken before the floated berries. That method is slower and more expensive but yields berries with less bruising.
According to Wikipedia's Cranberry entry, cranberries have lots of antioxidants and are rich in fiber, vitamin C, and manganese. (They're also fairly high in vitamin K which isn't so great for my dad who takes Coumadin because it thins the blood).
Only about 1/10th of the cranberry marsh land is used for growing the berries. The rest is "support land" which is needed to provide an adequate water supply. Since it's not cultivated, it also provides a great habitat for plants and animals, including many endangered species.

We tried a new recipe recently with cranberries, from the brochure. We chose it partly because it also used a cabbage from Dad's garden.

Crimson Slaw

1/2 red cabbage, shredded
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
6 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp red wine
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp ground mustard
1 6 oz pkg dried cranberries

Mix cabbage, onion, and cranberries in a large bowl. Combine other ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour over salad & mix. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Princess Pine

I've been helping my sister pick Princess Pine to make holiday wreaths from. As a result, I am noticing muscles in my legs and back which are stretched by the stooping and squatting. It's good exercise, and pleasant to be out in the woods listening to the birds and having a reason to notice the small plants close to the ground. Princess Pine is a kind of club moss which looks a bit like tiny pine trees. It's fairly slow-growing so we're careful to pick just a bit of what's there so she can return each year without running out.

Chequamagon Forest

We're more or less surrounded by national forest land, and the closest forests are part of the Chequamagon-Nicolet reserve. I recently learned that Chequamagon is an old Indian word for "Land with No Cell Phone Towers". It may be a joke but until today, the only cell phone I found that works here required me to walk 1/4 mile to a hilltop and stand in the middle of a small road. A couple days ago, I made some calls from the hilltop and had to dodge a school bus, a UPS van, and several pickup trucks. Then I walked back home and had a cup of hot tea to warm up.

Today, my big excitement is that a new cell tower was turned on and I can actually make & receive calls from home. Yay!!

Fun & Smiles

A friend recently forwarded me a great video about changing people's behavior by making things fun. I'm a great lover of fun and think we can't have too much of it, so for your viewing pleasure, you can find that video and a couple of others here: The Fun Theory Site
Disclaimers: This is an advertising gimmick by Volkswagen. And I'm not sure the results would hold up once the novelty wears off - but anything that brings a smile to me and others has some value.

And my dentist (OK, former dentist since I've left Poughkeepsie) occasionally posts some good stuff in his blog about smiles & fun. I really enjoyed the video he posted here and the quotes here.

House News

Hooray!!! The closing for my house sale is scheduled for next week on Wednesday. Getting rid of that responsibility brings me another step closer to moving on. Now I just need to get a teaching job. I sent in a couple applications again today so stay tuned ...

Happy Halloween to everyone!

Photo Notes (Central photo, then clockwise from upper left corner)

Another lovely sunrise on our bay of the Upper Eau Claire lake
A carved bear at the pizza parlor
My family visits the pizza parlor
Cranberries floating & ready for gathering
Sorting cranberries between bog & shipping
A pretty fungus
Red oak leaves
Princess Pine
Wetlands along the Portage Trail
Princess Pine
Another pretty fungus (can you tell I like them?)
Partridge berry
Freshly harvested cranberries

Life in Rural, Northern Wisconsin

2009-10-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

First, some news updates:

Some buyers have signed a contract on my house. The intended closing date is Oct. 31 if all continues to stay on plan so Halloween and Samhain will have extra special meaning for me this year! I loved that house and I hope it gives many happy years to those who come after me.

Still no job offers yet. I continue to trek over to the library in a nearby town (usually Drummond but sometimes Iron River) once or twice a week to get internet access and look for interesting positions. If I'm going to get a public school job in Korea, it looks like it would begin in February/March of 2010. I'm also looking at Vietnam and other countries. There are SO many interesting places in the world to consider.

Wisconsin Life

It's beautiful in the "north woods" of Wisconsin where I'm spending time with my parents and sister. The fall colors are lovely right now!

Life here is quite rural and it's interesting to adjust from a suburban lifestyle
to the idea that "going to town" happens only once each week or two. I've done some fun and interesting stuff over the past month or so since I put up a blog entry. For example:

My family likes to collect rocks so we took one day and drove up to a Lake Superior beach to look for agates and other pretty rocks. We brought back bucketfuls. We'll probably sort through them and put some in the rock tumbler to polish, although our track record on followthrough is spotty. My grandfather used to have this as a major hobby and this trip to the "Little Girls Point" beach is an annual family tradition. Grandpa made jewelry. The rest of us often just admire the rocks. We'll see ...
I went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to spend a weekend with my cousin PJ who has a vacation home there, right on the edge of the Porcupine Mountains. My "kissing cousin" Julie went also and the 3 of us had a great time. We hiked around to various waterfalls, relaxed in PJ's sauna, drank margaritas, played with the dogs on the edge of Lake Superior, and generally had a good time.
I've been playing cards weekly with Mom & sister Sally's card club. They play a variant of Canasta called Hand and Foot. It's a nice group of women, and I'm enjoying
getting to know them. We play at the local town hall, which also functions as a community center.
I went with my family to local events like a "Turkey Shoot" and "Bingo" afternoon at the VFW, sat with my sister at a boat landing to check outgoing boats for invasive weeds as part of a Conservation program, etc.
I swam in the lake every few days until late September. The weather was nseasonably warm, with daytime temperatures getting into the 70s most days. It has become more seasonable now, so the swimming is over for this year.
I've taken some walks also. It's almost hard to remember to go walk in the woods since they're all around us. There's a lot of wildlife around. I hear the coyotes and loons regularly, and see the loons swimming on the lake. There are deer all over and we see them in the yard daily, along with squirrels, chipmunks, wild turkeys, skunk, etc. We've seen footprints from an ermine (mink) and a fox on the beach. There have been sightings of a bobcat and wolves nearby. Bear are pretty common. Mom and Sally saw one last week but I missed it. We had a nice big Walking Stick on the
side of the garage one morning.
I've been taking some classes, mostly through a local college's continuing education program.
- I went to one class where we made some greeting cards. Mom and Sally were signed up for it but Sally didn't feel good that evening so I took her place and gave her most of the cards.
- I went to a lecture & slideshow on native frogs of Wisconsin. The lecturer brought quite a few frogs in jars and delegated some kids there to bring them around and show us up close. It was nicely done.
- I attended a program on making a birchbark canoe. I'm not likely to make my own canoe any time soon but it was very interesting to hear about, and the man brought the beautiful canoe he'd made for us to look at.
- I'm halfway through weekly classes for local hiking and folk dancing. They're really things I already enjoy, but the classes give opportunities to find other people in the community doing those things. This week, the hike was past a waterfall called Morgan Falls and up a little promontory to a beautiful overlook called St. Peter's Dome. The timing was great because the colors were just astounding.
- And my whole family is signed up for a class on history of this area. It begins next week. Since Dad was born here 81 years ago, he's been witness to a lot of the history himself and always has a story about things. It will be fun to see what he thinks of this class.

Notes on the photos:

Waterfall in the Porcupine Mountains
Upper Eau Claire Lake at sunset
View from St. Peters Dome
Mom & I swimming
Oyster mushrooms by the trail
Rock picking on Little Girl's Point
Leaf on a stream in the Porkies
Leopard Frog on the driveway
Trophies at a local bar
Wild asters
Birchbark canoe
Rowan berries
Pease Bay on Upper Eau Claire Lake
Beaver Tree
Walking Stick
Indian Pipes by the garage
Cloud formation in Drummond
Deer in the back yard
Harebell at Third Rock
Sunrise over our bay

Driving from East to Middle America

2009-09-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

Key (click picture for larger view) 1: A send-off from the Pub Quiz gang 2: An offer to help drive 3: Traffic 4: Farm 5: Farm 6: Corn 7: Rest Area 8: Little truck by the big ones 9: Tractor 10: Goldenrod 11: Rock outcropping 12: Scenic Overlook 13: Wildflower (Aster) 14: Porcupine 15: Wild Blackberries 16: Paula at overlook

In some ways the drive from New York to Wisconsin was a chore and in other ways it was a delight. I'm not used to driving a truck, even a small one, and it took me a while to start getting comfortable with it. I was glad that I had driven it around town for a couple of days before leaving as it gave me a chance to get used to how it handled before hitting the open road. As I travelled though, and saw all the really big trucks on the road or parked by them at rest stops, I realized how truly small my little U-Haul was!

By the time I finished loading up (much thanks to friends who helped me on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning!) and stopped at the Post Office to drop off change of address forms, it was about noon on Wednesday before I left. The weather was slightly overcast - perfect for driving. I spent all day getting across Pennsylvania, making it to eastern Ohio in the evening and stopping there. Pennsylvania is largely wooded and mountainous with lots of beautiful views. Unfortunately I didn't think of taking any pictures that day, but it's much like the New York area that I'm used to.

On Thursday, I stopped in southern Michigan for lunch with a friend and her very cute 3-month old baby Lucas. It was a lovely break from the road and I really enjoyed talking with them. Ohio, Indiana, and the southern parts of Michigan and Wisconsin are farm country - lots and lots of corn fields and relatively flat compared to the east - mostly gently rolling hills. There was a lot of road construction around Chicago and quite a bit of rain, so I spent most of the afternoon slowly making my way through that. I stopped for the night in southeastern Wisconsin.

On Friday, I made a point of stopping frequently and enjoying the end of the drive. At one rest area near the town of Black River Falls, there was a walking path up to an overlook. I walked up and was able to watch 2 porcupines in a tree right by the path. While I was there, they each climbed down and waddled off. What a treat to get a closeup view of these spiny forest creatures. Their natural defenses make them pretty fearless and they didn't seem to mind an audience.

I arrived at my parents' house on Friday afternoon. We unloaded my truck into their garage on Saturday morning and returned it. I'm enjoying my time with them and my sister, although it's a bit of a struggle to balance the things I should be doing (finishing up paperwork for my house sale, applying for jobs, final sorting of a few boxes of things to be stored) with the impulses to laze around for a while, to spend time with family, to re-aquaint myself with this beautiful rural area, etc. It doesn't help that the tools I'm used to aren't easily available - my cell phone doesn't work anywhere around here (it stopped working at least 50 miles before I got here) and I have to drive around to a bar/country store or a library to get high speed internet access. My parents graciously let me check email from their computer on dial-up, and make calls, but I don't like to tie up their phone all day.

I have finally gotten what seems to be a solid offer on my house so hopefully things will proceed well and I'll get it sold quickly. Wish me luck on that and the continuing job search!

Goodbye, New York

2009-08-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

Paperwork & arrangements

Over the past few weeks, I've been packing and doing paperwork. Just in case any of my friends and relatives are considering travelling, here are some of the things I've found helpful.

An international driver's permit can be gotten from any AAA office and will serve as a second internationally-recognized form of identification besides your passport, even if you don't drive there. I went to Danbury, CT and got my permit in in about 15 minutes. They're only good for 12 months but can be gotten or renewed by mail.

I needed passport pictures for that and for other paperwork and I was pleased to learn that instead of paying $12 for some ugly mug shots, I could use a free online service (epassportphotos.com) to convert a photo from my digital camera into the required format and pay 69 cents to print a sheet of 5 photos at my local camera store.

Whenever you're travelling, it's best to check the CDC - Center for Disease Control to find out if you need any immunizations. As it turns out, I needed none for South Korea. The only things strongly recommended were things I already had from a trip to Ecuador several years ago.

There's an international convention called Apostille for notarizing documents, and documents submitted for Visas must first be taken to get the Apostille seal. In NY, we go to Albany or New York City for this. I've got all the documents I need and will be going to NYC by train on Monday to take care of it.

Money - Hooray for the modern convenience of the internet! I signed up for secure online access to my bank accounts and mortgage and I've arranged for as many bills as possible to be sent electronically including my credit cards. I'm counting on being able to get internet access either in my home or through the school, a library, or an internet cafe. It's wonderful knowing that I'll be able to keep communicating with my friends and family readily through email, Facebook, blog, instant messenger, etc.

I suppose most people have heard of Skype by now, but it's a way to make phone calls for free or cheap on the computer. I haven't downloaded it yet but I'll be picking up a headset and getting it installed on my computer soon.

I've also forwarded the mail, looked into getting a certificate saying I pay taxes in the USA, turned off the phone, arranged for the lawn to be mowed, blah, blah, blah - no major insights to share in those areas. And I've probably forgotten to do something! But I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Tooth Emergency

During this time I also had to visit my dentist (who has a
blog of his own). I had a bad toothache and I was panicked because it was in the same area that I'd had a root canal and crown re-done about 4 months ago, and I didn't want to imagine either the expense or the delay that might be involved. I had a swelling in my jaw and it was quite sensitive.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a simple infection under the gum! Dr. Ross took care of it in short order. Thanks, Dr. Ross! The winds of fortune are still behind me - all obstacles are being overcome.

Party

OK, it's not all been paperwork. I'm still reluctantly saying goodbye to friends (and there are several people I've not called or replied to - it's not that I don't care, it's that there's less time than I need!). Also, my 50th birthday is coming up in a few weeks and I'll be gone by then.

So I threw myself a little party in my empty house. Through the magic of friendship, with about 3 days notice, I was able to round up about 40 people who brought food & beverages & chairs & instruments & CD player. We ate & drank, danced (thanks to the wonderful friends who played and called!), talked, and laughed. And they helped clean up too, so that I was ready the following day for my real estate agent to host an open house here.

There's a special magic that lingers still in the air after a gathering of friends. Thanks to all of you who came and filled my house and my heart with love!

Switching Rides

I've now done more paperwork and officially given away my car (although I now need to visit the DMV and turn in my plates). Unfortunately, none of the truck rental places will let me take a van to Wisconsin even though it would be sufficient for the amount of stuff I've got. For distance moving, the smallest thing seems to be a 10-foot truck. I picked it up on Friday evening and I used it to take some stuff to the dump on Saturday morning.

On Wednesday morning, I'll drive off to Wisconsin with the remainder of my stuff loaded up. (If I remember, I'll take a picture of the loaded truck and post it.) I should arrive at Mom & Dad's place on Friday evening.

My house remains on the market, and my lawyer has a power of attorney for me so he can sell it in my absence. My real estate agent and a couple of friends will look in on it occasionally.

Peace through Travel?

2009-08-05T09:17:00.000-07:00

Many of the reasons I enjoy travel are purely personal - I love exploring new places. I like the discovery of delicious foods I've never tried. I like adventure. I get a chance to step outside my home culture which challenges my assumptions and helps me learn and grow.

But a side benefit to travel is in encouraging more people to recognize common kinships and form bonds outside of our insular little communities. I'd love to think, by living in another country and making friends there, I might help one person think, "Oh, I know an American and they are not all superficial, money-hungry people like the movie stars we see. They are real people, each with their own interests and strengths and weaknesses, like we are."

I have a long history of being involved in international exchange programs. When I was a child, my family lived in England for a year through an exchange program for teachers. My father taught in Birmingham while a teacher from there went to my hometown in Illinois. Over the years, my family also hosted international university students in an annual 10-day program at Thanksgiving and had a 6-month exchange student from Brasil.

Just over a year ago, I had a high school student from China (Hi, Lize!) live with me for most of a school year through the YFU (Youth for Understanding exchange program. And immediately after he left, I hosted Cristina from Barcelona, Spain for a month through the Global Friendships program. I've found these to be great ways to meet new people, make friendships, and get to know more about the world. I encourage everyone to consider opening their home to an exchange student. I'd be happy to give you local contacts in and around Poughkeepsie for either program.

And I welcome any friends or family who would like to visit me overseas. Once I'm there, I'll know whether I have bed or floor space for guests, or whether I need to find a nearby hotel, and I'll have a better idea about recommended sights. But I already know that I'll miss you all and be thrilled to receive visitors!

Some related stuff:

Let's Get Global is an interesting program that's just starting up. Rather than working with high school students, it focuses on students taking a "gap year" between high school and college.

A friend who works in the travel industry is involved in the IIPT - International Institute for Peace through Travel where they say their goals include "international understanding and cooperation, an improved quality of environment, the preservation of heritage, and through these initiatives, helping to bring about a peaceful and sustainable world." That's a tall order but a wonderful goal, and I think they will have an impact.

Living Earth Television finds nonfiction programs made by local television producers and independents all over the world, and translates them for broadcast to an international audience. They say, "through these programs, we can learn about people like ourselves in cultures and environments that may be dramatically different - helping us to see and appreciate both the richness and beauty of human cultures, but also the basic shared humanity that underlies them all." I didn't realize it at the time but I watched several of their programs about China last summer before the Summer Olympics.

I'll end the peace theme with this touching video which I find very moving:

May there be Peace on Earth.

P.S. A few notes on my current status ...

I have FINISHED my CELTA class! Woohoo!

The morning after I finished, I went on a short camping trip in Vermont's Green Mountains. It was really beautiful there and the air was very green and fresh. It was a real tonic after commuting to the city.

I'm home now and have a long to-do list which I'm working through. There's paperwork like arranging for mail to be forwarded, phone service to end, etc. There's packing to be done. I have a few more items to get out of my garage. And many goodbyes to be said. Probably a final farewell party, too. And, of course, starting to send my resume to schools/recruiters.

The CELTA Class

2009-07-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Wow! I'm 3/4 done with my
CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) which I'm getting at
Teaching House in lower Manhattan.

This class is really intense. I admit that when I heard it was "just" 4 weeks, I thought it would be moderately easy and somewhat valuable. Maybe I would learn a few tips for teaching but I'd basically be learning on the job. I more or less expected that they accepted almost anyone with money in their hand, and rubberstamped their certificates at the end. Not so!

I'm very impressed with the professionalism and effectiveness of the instructors in this program. They demonstrate and communicate a broad range of information about students' learning styles, well-researched and effective teaching techniques, language theory, and professional behavior. They model good techniques, give excellent and constructive feedback, and have high standards. There's a strong emphasis on integrated learning and making things relevant to the students.

Our CELTA class is small, just 18 students with 3 instructors. We spend time each day in a classroom teaching English to students who've paid for us to teach them. To keep things clear from here on if I talk about Teaching Students I mean my colleagues and me - those of us learning to become teachers. If I mention English Students, I mean those brave adults who've paid (a bargain price) to come to 2-hour English classes daily. The English Students are mostly people who live in or near NY although there are several people on summer vacations in one of the classes. They come from many countries across Europe, Asia, South America, etc. and have a wide range of occupations, education levels, etc.

Our first day we, the Teaching Students, observed one of our instructors teach the English Students and then debriefed with a discussion about classroom techniques and choices she'd made. That evening, we studied a detailed lesson plan and we each gave a short English lesson the following day. We continue to teach based on assigned material but we're responsible for more and more of the lesson planning as the course progresses until we work up to this final week in which we each do two 1-hour lessons that we have planned entirely ourselves. After each lesson we get peer and instructor feedback. And we must pay attention to our classmates and give them our comments, as well as fill out self-evaluations.

In the afternoon we have classes of our own to attend. We cover structure and planning of lessons, techniques for classroom management, correction techniques, and much more.

We have a LOT of homework. Each time we teach, we must turn in detailed lesson plans with research and documentation. We don't need to know everything but we do need to know how to look it up ahead of time and absorb it. I'm dredging up a lot of English grammar information that's buried in my brain from 7th grade or so. And 7th grade was, errrm, several decades ago for me. (cough)

In addition to the detailed lesson plans, we have four papers to write. The first was analyzing a student's learning style and problem areas. The next dealt with some grammar topics. The third was about teaching communication skills (fluency in reading, writing, speaking, writing). And the final paper, due on Monday, asks us to do some self-evaluation of our strong and weak point and how we might address those after we leave class.

Although my brain feels full and I feel a bit stressed, I really do feel that I'm learning a lot and it's well worth it.

The train commute is another piece of this experience for me. It's about 2 1/2 to 3 hours door to door between driving, parking, train, subway and walking. I leave home before 6 am and return between 7 and 8 pm. This makes a pretty long day.

In other news, my house went on the market this week so please send good thoughts that I'll find a buyer quickly!

The Last Dances

2009-06-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

As I pack up and get ready, I'm noticing as I come to the "last time" for many of my regular activities. It's a bittersweet experience. I will dearly miss them but I do like the way that my departure shows me how precious are many of the routine things that I've taken for granted. I'm planning to attend an English Country Dance in a few days, and it will be one of my last dances here.

I've always loved to dance. Over the past 7 or 8 years, I've enjoyed learning Contra Dance and several other forms of folk dancing including English Country Dance and Sacred Circle Dance. I've been active for the past couple of years in the Hudson Valley Dance group that organizes Contra and Swing dances around here. And I've done a few assorted other dance-related things like Swing Dances and some brief lessons in Belly dancing and Hip Hop dance. I've learned that whatever else is happening in my life, dancing fills me with joy.

I'm sure that South Korea and other places have some forms of dance that I'll find and enjoy but I'll miss my regular dances and the friends I've made through them. So here are a few memories of American dances. Feel free to skip over the videos if you're not interested in dancing.

Contra dancing has been my mainstay. It's energetic and upbeat, and it's a really great workout! I'm in the crowd contra dancing in the video above of the 2009 Memorial Day Dawn Dance in Brattleboro, Vermont. (If you're looking for me, I'm the very short, plump woman in a long, purple dress. Beginning about 2:20, I enter from the left doing a chain. At about 3:00, I do some swinging. Then I can be seen off & on until the end.) The Dawn Dance is a lot of fun! It runs every Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend, Sunday evening at 8pm until Monday morning at 7pm. I've only attended once and I'm sorry I didn't go more often.

And this is our local monthly Contra dance. I'm a bit harder to spot in this one, but I'm there, wearing a sleeveless tank top and a long skirt. (Where's Waldo, anyone?) I love this video because I know so many of the people in it.

The annual Dance Flurry is a whole weekend in February filled with music and dancing of many types. It could take several blogs to describe it in detail. I've gone twice, in 2007 and 2009. I'm not going to embed it but I'll link to this video about Dance Flurry. It's 10 minutes long and shows a little of the diversity of types of music and dance at the Flurry. This next video is from the 2007 Flurry and shows me going by several times (I'm wearing the same purple dress from the first video but my hair is down). I really enjoyed the Sacred Circle Dancing, and have been attending a new local circle dance which is similar.

I've only been doing English Country Dances for a couple of years but I really enjoy them also. I find them more graceful and flowing than most Contra Dances. This next video shows a practiced group of good dancers, several of whom I recognize and have had the good fortune to dance with. In practice, we always have a mixture of experienced dancers and beginners, and we have callers directing us like in the Contras.

Here's a link to another video of English Country that's a little closer to what I'm used to with a caller and mixed skill levels. It is shot from above so we can see the geometric figures which are lovely when we remember to keep our lines straight.

One of my favorite things about all of these dances is a great community feeling. The groups of dancers are generally friendly and accepting of newcomers, and they have lots of sayings like, "if you're having fun then you're doing it right". It's generally accepted dance etiquette for experienced dancers to invite new dancers to be their partners. People of all ages are welcomed into the dances. Sometimes parents dance carrying their young children and we accommodate them (and wonder how they have the stamina to do that).

I have a couple more dances to attend before I leave, and I expect that I'll find a way to keep dancing wherever I go. But here's to the memories of a great dance community, with wonderful dancers, musicians, callers, teachers, and organizers. Thanks to you all!

P.S. A couple of followups to past posts:

My cats have a definite home. Thanks to all who have enquired about them. They will be returning to the person who gave them to me, and I'm sure they'll all be happy to be reunited. This is a big relief. They're very shy and frightened of new people so I was not expecting them to be happy at having adapt to a new owner. It took them months to get used to me.

I did have a second yard sale to clear away some more of my stuff. It was very successful. Craigslist and Freecycle were also wonderful tools for helping my stuff find new homes. The Poughkeepsie Library graciously sent a lovely man to pick up my leftover boxes of books for their annual sale. And I filled my car with clothing and assorted items for Goodwill where I've enjoyed shopping occasionally. My house is pretty empty now, and there's only a little bit of sorting left.

Savoring New York's Beauty

2009-06-16T22:17:00.000-07:00

I've long thought New York State is beautiful but the prospect of leaving makes me remember to look around with special appreciation and enjoyment. For the past few months, I've been walking regularly with friends at various local parks. I began doing it for exercise and companionship, and to help get me out of the house during the daytime while I'm unemployed. After I decided to definitely leave the country, I began remembering to take my camera with me sometimes to help me remember the beauty of this spot.

Here's a little mosaic of a few of the lovely things I've seen on my walks in the past couple of months. (You can click the picture to get a larger view.)

The spots in the photographs are (not in order) Poets' Walk in Red Hook, the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, Mills Mansion in Staatsburgh, Ferncliff Forest in Rhinebeck, Burger Hill in Rhinebeck, the Roosevelt Estate in Hyde Park, and Wilderstein in Rhinebeck.

And I just went camping with a friend in the Adirondacks for a couple of days. We hiked and canoed, cooked over an open fire, listened to the songs of the frogs and crickets, and generally soaked in the beauty. These photos were all taken by me during that 2 1/2 day trip (except the newt which I took a few days before in Hyde Park but we saw a lot of these little critters during our walks in the Adirondacks so I included him).

We saw lots of lovely ferns and wildflowers while we walked, and I learned that the Adirondacks are too cold for poison ivy to grow so there's none there - Hoorah! During our canoe rides, we startled several of the beavers who are very active on the little lake where we were staying. You can see pictures of their dam and one of the 5 or so lodges on the lake. Once before getting into the canoe, I had to turn out a garter snake who was rather perturbed and confused at being disturbed. He left quickly once I tipped the canoe so he could get over the side.

We hiked up a nearby mountain (about 2,000 feet elevation) and paused for some photos and a nice snack of gorp. There were lots of black flies there wishing to snack on us in return until we got the hint and applied repellent. And we experimented with the timers on our camera to get a couple of pictures with both of us in the frame. We made it back to the little cabin just ahead of the rain.

On our final day we tried to hike up another mountain but we got a bit confused about the directions and ended up turning back without finding it. The trails were very wet and mucky in places and I stepped into some deep mud which sucked the shoe right off my foot. I replaced it, took one step, and lost the other shoe. After watching me repeat this several times, complete with sticking my arm in the muck up to the elbow to search for the missing shoes, my friend was laughing so hard I thought she would hurt herself. I'm sure I looked like quite a buffoon, and I had to laugh at myself too, but I found them and was more careful where I stepped from then on! As you can see, they were perhaps a bit grubbier than they started but I still have them both in good working order.

Getting Ready - Decision Time

2009-06-02T08:50:00.001-07:00

There was quite a gap between my first and second posts in this blog and during that time I narrowed down my target area from "Asia" through several lists of countries, and settled on South Korea. Many people have asked why I'm choosing South Korea so I thought it would be a good subject for a post.

There were LOTS of factors I considered but these were the main ones:

1. Money. OK, it's a bit crass and I'd like to be just following my heart to find adventure but I have a house that I'll need to pay for until it sells, and I have a son in college that I need to help with tuition. Also I'm spoiled and like a few luxuries in my life. So I wanted to choose a location where the pay will hopefully allow me to easily support myself and not dip into my savings too much.

2. Health Care. I'm pretty healthy but I'll be turning 50 just about the time I accept a position. I wanted to choose a country with affordable and good health care. South Korea has good national health care and it's very reasonably priced.

3. Language. Some of the spoken Asian languages, like Chinese and Vietnamese, are tonal and that's difficult to learn. Some of the written languages, like Chinese and Japanese, use a system where you must learn hundreds or thousands of characters to be able to read and written. Korean is not tonal and uses an alphabet. I'll plan to take lessons once I arrive.

4. Jobs. There are lots of jobs available for English teachers in South Korea. They're hired by public schools, private tutoring schools (hagwons), and universities. Most positions come with lodging within walking distance, making it easy to get settled.

5. Culture. South Korea is very cosmopolitan and first-world. They are so hospitable to foreigners that many signs are in both English and Korean, at least in the cities. There's a large population of American expatriates and it's relatively easy to find English speakers. They are generally welcoming to Americans, although it certainly depends on the individuals.

On the down side, North Korea is right next door and has been shooting off nuclear missiles lately. But everywhere has its dangers. When I moved from the midwestern US to the east coast, I traded an area where tornadoes occur regularly for an area where there are indigenous poisonous snakes. And I'm upriver from a nuclear power plant and NY City which is a target for terrorism. My friends in other countries have asked in panic about the new "Swine Flu epidemic" here in the US. (There are no cases in my city and only a few deaths in my state.) Every place has its risks and they often seem scarier to others. I've decided not to operate on a fear basis, or I'd just stay under my bed.

If I'd chosen China, I could possibly have been near Lize, the boy who stayed with me as a foreign student last year. It would be great to have the safety net of knowing someone in the country. I was very tempted.

But in the end, I had to decide on one country to focus on, and I chose South Korea. I'm looking forward to broadening my horizons and learning more about their cuisine, art, and overall culture.

This didn't figure into my decision but South Korea has a great flag. According to the Enchanted Learning site:

The white in this philosophical flag represents peace and purity. Symbolically, the Yin-Yang symbol represents opposites; it is the belief that all things in the universe have two, opposite aspects that cannot exist without the other. The kwae trigrams are from the I Ching; the broken bars symbolize yin (dark and cold) and the unbroken bars symbolize yang (bright and hot). The four Kwae represent: heaven (three unbroken bars), the Earth (three broken bars), water (one unbroken line between two broken bars), and fire (one broken bar between two unbroken bars). The Kwai trigrams are placed in such a way that they balance one another, heaven is placed opposite Earth, and fire is placed opposite water.

Getting Ready to Travel - Yard Sale

2009-06-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Whew! I'm exhausted but happy with the results of my yard sale. I didn't manage to sell everything but in 3 days (Fri-Sat-Sun), I got rid of 2 beds and a dresser, several chairs & tables nightstands & lamps, 2 ladders, 2 bicycles, countless dishes and pots and notebooks and dresses and knickknacks, ... And I made more money than I dreamed I would - should be enough to cover a month train pass to commute to my class, plus pay for my visa, international drivers license, shots, and whatever things like that I need!

I had huge amounts of help from some wonderful friends - labeling and sorting, loaning tables & stuff, bringing food during the sale, helping sell items, helping clean up and take down the signs, feeding me dinner afterwards, and buying stuff.

As I sorted through and handled all my things several times, I was reminded of all the stories that each of them has for me. A picture by MC Escher hung on my college dormitory wall, and was later framed and hung in several houses. The main set of dishes were given to me by Aunt Ruth since they were her Passover dishes and she was no longer keeping kosher. Some items I got at garage sales myself.

I will be happy to think of some of those things being used by friends who will be adding their own stories beginning with "I got this from my friend Paula when she was leaving for Korea." I bought the hand-made rocking chair at a local craft shop, used it to rock my baby, and have now sold it to a good friend who is a story teller. My ex-husband made the quilt hanger to display my great-aunt's quilt on a wall. It was been bought by a friend as a birthday gift and she brought the quilt that will hang in it so I can see. It's a lovely one with cats. There was a piano bench that my father made for me, with my name and the date inside. Another friend will use it in her bedroom as a side table with storage. Wheelbarrow and ladder went to a friend who will use them in her landscaping work. And many of my favorite books went to friends.

I will also enjoy knowing that a few items will go to good causes. I've saved out old towels and buckets which will be used for a car wash and then donated to the animal shelter. Trowels and a rake went to another friend for her school's gardening group. A pair of women bought batting and fabric for their quilt group's use making quilts for shelters. And another woman bought all the rest of my towels at a discount for an animal shelter.

Overall, I'd estimate that I sold about 2/3 of what I put out. All the tools, most of the games & puzzles, many kitchen items, around 1/4 to 1/3 of the books, all the CDs, a little clothing, almost all the office supplies, some furniture.

I will use craigslist to advertise the remaining furniture. I've heard that it's very effective. I'm still trying to decide whether to pack up everything else to donate in different places, or whether to have a final one-day sale in 3-4 weeks.

In the meantime, my house is pretty empty and I can begin with a checklist of getting it onto the market and getting other things done.

PG: Paula Greenspan Plays Globally - Inaugural Post

2009-04-14T16:20:00.001-07:00

This is the maiden entry in my new blog ... Taa Daah!

I take keyboard in hand to mark my intention of sharing my travels with friends and family as I embark on this new chapter in my life. I have been accepted into a 4-week course for CELTA certification (learning to teach English as a foreign language) at Teaching House at St. John's University, New York in July. Before I go, I need to sort my belongings and get my house on the market, and prepare an initial resume. In August, I'll make job applications and pack my remaining belongings to take out to store in my parents' garage/basement/cabin.

Then we shall see what life brings.

I don't know how often I'll update this as I prepare for my move, but I thought I'd experiment a bit to see how it goes. And if I'm going to give this address out for people to check, I think it should have something on it. If I get ambitious, I may put a few blog entries about the moving process, or some memories about Poughkeepsie before I leave it.

Does anyone want 2 cute cats? They are seeking a home with someone who will not be globe-trotting, at least not to the extent that I intend. They are very loving but a bit nervous around new people and have a bit of an unfortunate tendency to sharpen their claws on furniture.