Hotter than the Sun

I never thought I would find a place that was too hot for me but, oh my gosh, is it uncomfortable here. It's been in the mid- to upper-90s for a couple weeks. With the humidity, the heat index feels around 110. It's not so bad if I'm sitting down under a fan. It's also not so bad in the mornings and evenings. But between the hours of eleven and six, I regularly feel like I might pass out.

I realize that I'll get no sympathy from those of you who still have to endure snowy winters. I'd still take this over that. But I'll be glad when the end of June rolls around. Supposedly, May and June are the hot months and the rest of the year is bearable. Of course, during the typhoon season, I'll just be wet all the time and everything in my house will have mold or mildew. But these are minor complaints compared to the joy I feel every day just going to work.

My job here, basically, is to help teachers plan and carry out more student-centered lessons. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. Imagine yourself a veteran teacher. Then, imagine some foreigner comes to your school and into your class and starts telling you everything that you need to change about your teaching. I was a little bit scared of meeting strong resistance. But the teachers are truly dedicated to their jobs and they want to try new things all in an effort to get their students to enjoy learning. Today in a class, I saw a teacher try an activity that she made up herself. She quickly presented new vocabulary and then cut up a bunch of letters and had teams race to spell words when she held up the pictures. The students loved it and the teacher couldn't stop smiling while she was watching them. It was a beautifully simple way to reinforce spelling without the mind-numbing drilling that is so common in classrooms here. And that's my job: to change teachers' thinking about what a classroom should be, to help them help students discover new information rather than to feed it to them.

The weeks are passing quickly and every weekday goes by in a bit of a blur. The weekends seem long, because I'm mostly alone with my thoughts--no TV and not much to do within reasonable driving distance. But I'm getting used to the quiet and starting to explore more. In two and a half weeks, I have a two-week holiday for the term break. I'll be spending a couple days on yet another tropical island with gorgeous coral reefs and a couple days in Kuala Lumpur. After that, I'll be playing it by ear, but hoping to explore some parts of the country that are a bit further away.

A Long Absence

Wow, I can't believe I stopped blogging. I think I got comfortable in Jakarta. Once if felt like home, it didn't feel as exciting anymore. Things stopped being new and so I stopped writing. But that was silly. The point of this blog was to let people back home know what was happening. And a lot has happened since August.

The short version: In September, I took three trips. I went to Pulau Bunaken, off the coast of Sulawesi for part of our Idul Fitri break. It's mainly an island for divers because it's surrounded by one of the world's best reefs. I didn't dive, but I did snorkel and the coral was unbelievable. So many colors and so many different kinds of fish. I didn't even think about the fact that I was in the ocean--there were too many things to look at.

After we got back to Jakarta, I left immediately for Malaysia. One of my extended family members (cousin of a cousin) married a Malaysian woman and they came to visit. At the same time, a former colleague and her husband (who is also Malaysian) came to visit. It was too good to pass up. I spent four days eating yummy home-cooked food and catching up on news from home.

Then, at the end of September, one of my best friends came to visit and we went to Bali. I'd resisted Bali for most of the year. It's the place that everybody associates with Indonesia and there are so many wonderful and beautiful places. My assumption of Bali is that it would be overdeveloped and overly touristy. But it turned out to be a really nice week. The great thing about Bali is that everything is easy because there are so many tourists. The roads are good, the restaurants are good, and everything else is as beautiful as the rest of Indonesia. My favorite part was Ubud. I surprised myself last year. I've always loved the beach, but my favorite trips were to the jungle!

In Ubud, there's a really relaxed vibe. There are lots of art galleries and you can take long walks out in the rice fields. I opted for a long massage and time in the pool, but still, the option was available to me. I also really liked the Monkey Forest. It's completely overrun with monkeys and they are not shy. I reached in my bag to pull out my camera and a monkey who thought I was getting food came over and climbed up on my head. Crazy.

After Bali, I spent a quiet October and November in Jakarta. We had a nice American Thanksgiving, but otherwise, things were just normal. My last big trip of the year was just after Christmas and through New Year. We went to Gili Trawangan, off the coast of Lombok. It's a serious party island and a fun place to spend some time. We spent our days at the beach and our nights at the bar.

On New Year's Eve, it started raining at 11:30 and by 11:45, the main street of the island was knee-deep in water. The thunderstorm was one of the most amazing I've ever seen, made better by the midnight fireworks happening in the foreground while streaks of lightning hit the ocean in the background. Super. Cool.

Three weeks after we got back from the Gilis, my contract was up. I took a quick trip to Singapore to get a new visa, and then I was back in Jakarta for the month of February, taking the CELTA certification course. It was an intense month, but worth it. I learned a lot, and now I've got my CELTA and can get better jobs. And speaking of better jobs...I landed one--in rural Malaysia. I moved on February 27th and have been working for two months, training teachers in primary schools here.

I've got five schools and a whole bunch of teachers. So far, I love the job and I love where I live, even though it's two hours to the closest respectable city. I see monkeys and cows and goats and chickens and monitor lizards on the side of the road all the time. Sweet!

More to come soon! Sorry I took an extended break and Happy New Year, a little late!!