Jawa

This week I received literally dozens of messages wondering if I was affected by either the earthquake, tsunami or one of two volcanic eruptions that struck Indonesia recently. Luckily, I wasn't. Thank you all so much for the concern.

I knew almost nothing about Indonesia when I applied for my Fulbright grant almost exactly a year ago today. I chose it if only because I knew it was a less competitive place to get a grant to, and that it has the world's largest Muslim population. So, here are some of the things I have learned in the short two and a half month period I have been here.

About Indonesia:
Population: 240, 000, 000 (making it the fourth most populous country on earth, behind China, India and the US)
Number of Islands: 17,500
Timezones: 3
Independence in 1945 after 350 years of Dutch rule
Currency: Rupiah (about 9,000 Rp = $ 1)
Over 700 languages are spoken in Indonesia, but only one (Bahasa Indonesia) is spoken by almost the entire population as the result of government programs to encourage nationalist identification.
The island I live on, Java, is the world's most populous with over 130,000,000 people. Javanese culture is historically, economically, politically, and just about everythingly the most central culture to the development of the country. Only one of the Indonesian presidents was not born on the Island of Java.
86% of the population is Muslim, 9% some form of Christian, 3% Hindu and 2% Buddhist. I should mention that Indonesian Muslims, from my experiences here, generally embody every open-minded, progressive and welcoming attitude possible. In one notable example I think I can demonstrate this. One day I was wandering around a mall here with some Indonesian friends and I saw the one woman I have seen here wearing a Burka (full body covering). While I turned my head in amazement, it was nothing next to the reaction of the Indonesians I saw who were significantly more shocked than I was.
I should also include a brief point. In Islam, alcohol is harem or forbidden. As a result, maybe three in four Indonesians will never try any form of alcohol. The side effect being that it is very hard to find a drink. I live in a city of over four million people, and I could count the number of bars on one hand.

Some Geography:
Indonesia is huge. To fly from Papua, on the right side of this map to Aceh, on the left side of this map would take 8 hours on the fastest jetliner. Thats longer than a flight from Miami to Seattle.
In this map I live in the province of East Java or Jawa Timur. My house is located in Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya.

Here is a map of Surabaya, I live in 7d, south of the river from the zoo.
http://www.sparklingsurabaya.com/tourist_map/

So there it is, Indonesia.

Also, before I go. While I live in a huge city with its own wikipedia page and a fleet of airconditioned taxis, my experience is by no means the average. Most ETA's are located in either rural or undeveloped areas, necessitating the use of motorbikes, lacking air conditioning and especially access to internet.
One night a few weekends ago, I texted another ETA telling him that I was getting drinks with another American friend. He responds as such: "Drinks with another American? our lives are so different, I'm sitting in another blackout on my island of a few hundred people that I can't leave if I wanted to because there is no boat tomorrow, potato, pahtato."
Anyway, I feel guilty about painting by default a pretty incomplete picture of Indonesia, so I have included links to some pretty good blogs for you to read to get a fuller picture of life in the archipelago.

Rick Ferrera, Maluku (Eastern Indonesia)
http://rickferrera.wordpress.com/

JT Erbaugh, Pati, Central Java
http://patitime.blogspot.com/

Alison Dierlinger, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara
http://alisondieringer.wordpress.com/

Emily Ziedler, Palembang, Sumarta
http://indoemily.wordpress.com/

Indonesia's national motto is Bhinekka Tunggal Ika, a Javanese expression that literally means "unity in diversity." Indonesians seem to be universally strengthened by the adversity they face. They respond to challenges like these tragedies with remarkable unity that can bring millions of people together. I hope that through reading more you can find the motivation to come visit the country that warns travelers they are visiting a place that is "dangerously beautiful."

Khadijah

Somedays I wonder what it is that makes life here so different. It could be so many things: the overwhelming friendliness of the people here, the heat and humidity that make walking down the street feel like 10 minutes in an oven, the sheer numbers of motorbikes that crowd every street in Surabaya.... While there are so many things that distinguish life in Surabaya, there are so many things that remind me that it really isn't that different after all.

A typical day for me begins at 545 am. I wake up, take an impossibly cold shower, eat some yogurt for breakfast (Indonesians are routinely shocked that my breakfast does not include rice), grab somethings for school, and by 615 I'm sitting on the back of another teachers motorbike zipping along for the 4 minute ride to school (two minutes of which is spent sitting in traffic). On the days when I leave later for school I usually walk. The walk takes ten minutes and despite the fact that I've been walking around my neighborhood of Karangrejo for the past three weeks people still do double-takes when they see me (usually children will scream at the top of their lungs "HELLO MR. JACK!!!"

Upon arriving at my school - SMA Khadijah - I usually walk straight for the teachers lounge and stand in front of the air conditioner for at least ten minutes. Khadijah is an Islamic school with international standards. This means that fully one -third of their curriculum is dedicated to Islamic studies. It also means that because they are a school which the government here classifies as "international standards" they must teach part of all classes in English. Every monday and wednesday we have English days, during which all announcements are made in English, all classes are supposed to be taught in English and the school becomes fully international.

Two pictures of my school, not a bad place to work at all...
The court is actually a partial gift from the Development Basketball League (an NBA project to create a sports league for students that prioritizes academics equally with athletics).


Our classes begin at 645 after morning prayers. Two days a week I have morning class, during which I'm usually waiting for my coffee to kick in at the same time I'm trying to teach a lesson. The classes usually last for about an hour and twenty minutes, and while somedays my schedule is quite free, other days I teach literally every period of the day. This week I taught three different lessons.

In the tenth grade we were practicing improving our skills with introductions. We reviewed different ways in which people can introduce themselves, and also important information to convey to the people you are meeting. My tenth grade classes often require that I speak slowly and accentuate my words so they can understand, luckily - and it should come to no surprise to anyone reading this - my voice is loud enough they can hear me perfectly. During that exercise I had all of the students write down the name of a celebrity - whether Indonesian, English, French or otherwise and put it in a hat, they then selected another name and the students had to pretend to be that person and have their classmates guess who they were by asking questions like "where are you from?" "what is your job?" "how old are you?" and so on. Some of the names they wrote down were Indonesian (Rhoma Irama, Agnes Monica, Sukarno, etc.) and others were from all over. In one class three people wrote down the Prophet Muhammad, and three people also wrote down Justin Bieber (culture clash possibly?). One girl had not only written down Justin Bieber but had also written down "I heart JB!" on her card.

One of the eleventh grade classes (science 1) asked for a photo after class, here it is:


The eleventh grade classes this week were practicing their listening skills and speaking skills. This week we listened to some English language songs and they split into groups and tried to analyze the songs. I played a variety of songs but two of the most common were Yesterday by the Beatles and A Message 2010 by Coldplay. The students were very good at explaining these songs and speaking infront of the class. Sometimes I feel it is very necessary to try thinking outside of the box with the eleventh grade because their textbook is not the best. In one exercise on using the past tense it had ten questions, four of which had grammatical errors in them. The textbook also has hilarious nonsense words and sentences which are simply hilarious.
The picture below shows my favorite odd sentence, it reads "I'm sorry, Miss. My body is not delicious." Ohhh Indonesia....


Classes usually end at 1, followed by an hour for lunch and then finally the afternoon classes run from 2 to 330. I have an afternoon speaking class every day during this period. This week I had them arrange pictures in order and then tell a story about the pictures. The pictures were just drawings about a family that needs to call a plumber. In one of the funnier moments of the week, one student forgot the word for dripping so instead just said the "water was mini-mini."

After classes I return to the teachers lounge to wait for a ride home. During this time the teachers room also is the spot where the teachers children choose to hang out. While I work at the high school, Khadijah is actually part of a K-12 school that also includes a foundation headed by the former Indonesian Secretary of Women's Emancipation under the first democratically elected President of Indonesia. All of the children are fantastic Indonesian teachers for me and have an incredible paitence as they try to get me to understand some of the more difficult words. Two of them in particular are Uyun who is a nine year old girl and her little brother Anas who is six.
I took a picture of Anas for this blog because my day is really never complete until I've seen them and learned another Indonesian word from them.


At about 4 pm each day I return to my neighborhood and try to sleep a little before the next day begins. Knowning full well that there is bound to be some even crazier moment tomorrow.