My mother is not a Pooh.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost three weeks since I arrived in Palembang. I spent six weeks in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 2007. If this were then, I’d already be home.

So, no, my mother is not a Pooh. :) I’ve introduced myself to at least 12 different classes of 10^th and 11^th grade students. I write out important words on the board, like my name, Ohio, Ball State University, Callie, etc. And I always write out my family’s names. Winnie comes first, of course. “POOH!” the students inevitably scream. “No,” I say. “My mother is not a Pooh.”

Christine (an ETA stationed in Depok) came to visit this week! It’s been terrific having another American here. She had the week off from school since her students are doing mid-year testing and we’re not allowed to help with that.

This was supposed to be my first week of actually teaching. It’s not going as well as I’d anticipated. I’m hoping to get a firmer grasp on it soon. I did finally get a slightly more clear schedule from one of the teachers. And next week, I’m going to put my filthy little foot down and start asking for topics and classes ahead of time. Right now, I sort of feel like the school thinks I’m a sweet American girl loaned to them by AMINEF for whatever they might need. I’m substituting in classes where the teacher is absent, etc. I really want to have my own classes like I’m supposed to. That way, I can start to really get to know my students, have ongoing lessons, and plan ahead for activities and games.

They warned us that when you’re in another country for an extended period of time, you usually experience culture shock in a wave that resembles the letter “W.” At first, everything is crazy and different and awesome! Then you go through a rough patch. Then everything gets great and wonderful again. Then it’s rough again. Then, just as you’re leaving, you hit another high peak. I think I’m probably in my first low.

Take today, for example. I continued in my never-ending quest for the internet. I have already spent more than 18 days and $150 trying to get a connection in my house. Yes, I know, I COULD do without. But I’d be happier knowing I could contact people. I’d be a better teacher if I could look up lesson plans and research ideas. And I’d be a better future journalist if I could keep track of what’s going on in the world.

So today someone was supposed to come at 1:00pm to hook up my internet. I left school early to meet him. He didn’t show up, but that didn’t really matter because the electricity was out. And then the water decided to go out, too. So I just sat there in my house: no water, no power, no internet. At least I had Christine! (I’m such a terrific host, right?)

Last week I tried to meet Raj at the Novotel Hotel in town. We were planning to get dinner and use the wireless. Yana volunteered to drop me off there on her way home. Unfortunately, we got trapped in an insanely messy rain storm and wound up sitting under an awning on the side of the road for 2 ½ hours. Her dad finally came and picked us up, and then her brother took me home on his motorcycle. I left at 5:00pm. By the time I finally got home, drenched, hungry, and without that satisfying internet fix, it was 10:00pm. I walked in the door just in time to see the power go out. That night, it wasn’t too much of a problem—I just went to bed.

The heat continues to be a problem. The school begins every week with a flag ceremony every Monday morning where we stand outside for at least an hour. This is always a little uncomfortable for me, since I don’t pledge my loyalty to their flag or pray with them. So I stand, put my head down occasionally, and suffer through the direct sunlight. Last week, I turned to tell Yana I just couldn’t stand to be outside anymore, but luckily, everyone else started to come inside then. I started to climb the stairs, my head heavy and dizzy, and I promptly fell over. I came to when I realized my foot had collided with a veiled woman’s head… the assistant headmistress. Thankfully, she was very sweet and other nice teachers helped the rest of the way up the three flights of stairs.

Oh, no. Have I complained enough yet? Let me think of some happy things.

I figured out where all the dirt under my fingernails is coming from! You don’t think that’s a happy thing? It is! I’m not digging in the dirt or anything here. (Although maybe I’d have a better shot at finding water then.) Imagine my delight when I discovered that the all the dirt… was coming OFF OF MY OWN BODY. I’ve been scratching at all my bug bites and pulling off all the day’s grime from motorcycle rides and dust everywhere. Eww. I am officially gross.

I made a couple friends. That’s right, look at me, a regular social butterfly. I inherited Yanti. She was really close with Andrea (the old ETA) last year, so now I get to be her friend, too. She took me downtown and shouted awesomely nasty things in Indonesian at the men who harassed me. I found the post office and tried anotherrrrr kind of pempek. And she’s really terrific at speaking English and teaching me Indonesian.

Speaking of, I am getting slightly and slowly better at the language. Sometimes things just click and I want to jump up and down. I had a terrible cold last week and walked around telling everyone “Saya sakit” [I am sick]. So when I saw a big building with the words “RUMAH SAKIT” in front, it jarred my memory. Rumah is house… sakit is sick… sick house… sick house… IT’S A HOSPITAL IT’S A HOSPITAL IT’S A HOSPITAL!

One of my friends loaned me a Learning Indonesian book. Thanks to the complete lack of copyright laws, I copied that whole 208-page sucker for less than $3.

On a flight to Jakarta, I met a guy named Vincent who has honestly been my savior here lately. Vincent is from the UK, but he’s been living in Palembang for the last 10 years, and now he owns an palm oil plantation. I’d gauge his age at about… late 30s somewhere. He’s married to a woman from Palembang and they have 2 little kids. He owns four cars, and he sends his driver to pick me up for dinner! I feel like royalty.

He made what is probably a very good point. He said I can certainly enjoy Indonesia and learn from the country now. But he said I don’t stand a chance at really being happy here until I can speak the language.

The one really encouraging, rewarding part of my school day is English Club. It’s Monday and Tuesday for an hour after school. I’m really able to help the students—they’re all high-level enough that having a native speaker makes a significant difference. We get to play games and just work on English, instead of having to center the discussion around specific lessons like in class. Each afternoon before English Club starts, we have “Indonesian Club” where I tell them the new words I’ve learned and they teach me a few more. They LOVE feeling like they’re teaching me, and they cheer when I get words right.

Welcome to my little home.

I thought it was time for you to see what I'm talking about!

Welcome to my school. Nice, huh? Yes, but ehhh.

They're actually in the process of building a new school.

My little house: Blok L, No. 15

(You can see my yellow curtains there, too.)

Come visit me anytime! Really.

Don't you love the blue couch?

I have a spare bedroom!

And you can see the green kitchen through the door.

Here's the view from my front door.

Good morning, Palembang!

Miss you all tons.

Miss Katie in the Classroom

I really thought my first day of school in Indonesia would be like one of the earlier scenes from The Sound of Music. You know the one: Maria, fresh from the abbey, skips down the sidewalk, nervous but optimistic on her way to meet the Von Trapps. She sings “Yes, I’ve got confidence!” as she swings her guitar case to the beat. That was supposed to be me. (Minus the nun part.)

My first day at SMA LTI IGM—an awful lot of letters, right?—didn’t go quite the way I’d planned. There was no learning to sing on top of a mountain, that’s for sure, although the thick yellow curtains in my house would probably make a nice children’s fabric.

SMA LTI IGM stands for SMA (indicating it’s a private school) Life Skill Teknologi Informatika Indo Global Mandiri. Everyone in Palembang refers to it simply as “IGM.”

Yana had arranged for a motorcycle taxi (known hereafter as an “ojek”) to pick me up at my house at 6:45am. School starts at 7:00. For some reason, the driver got here at six on the dot. I ran outside and tried to explain charades-style that I wanted him to either come back or wait. Not an easy thing to show. At any rate, he sat there in my driveway smoking a cigarette and smiling cheerfully for nearly an hour.

The school is very large, and it actually holds an elementary, junior high, and high school. Regardless, I will still be teaching grades 10 and 11. None of the ETAs are allowed to teach the 12^th graders, because they spend literally all year preparing to take a standardized exam in April. Compared to what other Fulbrights are telling me, I think I got lucky when it comes to my school. The teachers are mostly young and the classrooms are air-conditioned.

Of course, the air conditioners weren’t turned on my first week, because it was everyone’s first week back from a month-long vacation, and they hadn’t gotten everything back to working order yet. It would be the equivalent of me arriving at an American school in January after winter break, except these students weren’t beginning a new semester.

Every Monday morning, they have a junior and high school-wide flag ceremony on a huge concrete area behind the school. This is where Yana brought me first, and I shook hands with all the teachers and met Agustina, who was the counterpart for last year’s ETA Andrea. She introduced me to the students over the microphone.

I couldn’t understand anything she was saying, but Yana whispered that she was telling the students that they weren’t just welcoming a new teacher, they were welcoming a sister. I tried to smile my best friendly, welcome, yet professional smile.

She then handed me the microphone, and I gave a short, simple speech (in English) about how I looked forward to meeting each of them and learning more about their school, city, and country. I said they didn’t need to be afraid to speak English to me, because I’m making many mistakes while I learn Indonesian, and I understand how challenging it is to learn a new language.

They stared blankly back at me but cheered enthusiastically when they realized I was done saying whatever it was I had said.

After the flag was raised (Indonesia’s flag is very simple: red on the top half, white on the bottom half), the teachers got in a line and shook every single student’s hand. I use that term loosely; really, each student took my right hand in both of theirs and raised it to their forehead or cheek, bowing slightly. Because there are 500 students, this took a while.

Unfortunately, the line worked itself out so that I was standing behind a large rock that was imbedded in the concrete. The students were so excited to be seeing an American that they didn’t notice it at all, and at least 40% of them tripped and fell the moment they reached me.

The English teachers in the school seem to be the most well-liked, which is wonderful news for me. It’s both helpful and frustrating to follow in another ETA’s footsteps: on one hand, the teachers have worked with an American before; on the other hand, everyone remembers Andrea as she was when she left. For example: much, much better at Indonesian than I am right now.

I have to observe the classroom for the first two weeks, and then I get to actually teach my own lessons starting next Monday. So far, I’ve spent every class introducing myself and taking questions. The students are separated into five class levels based on their language abilities. There’s a huge difference between level 1 students (who are fluent in terms of basic conversation) and level 5 students (who don’t know the English word for cat). I tried to make my introduction as simple as possible for the level five students, and I wrote a lot of the important words on a dry erase board.

In the first class, when I started to speak, the students gasped. I asked the teacher what was wrong, and she said I sounded exactly like the voice they hear on the tape recorder reading them English. I liked that. J

The students seem much more interested in how I see their country than in learning more about me, which is typical, I guess. I got a few, “What’s your favorite color?” questions, but mostly it was the same thing over and over again with slightly different wording:
“What do you think about Indonesia?”
“What do you think about people from Palembang?”
“What do you think about our school?”
“What do you think about the things to do in Indonesia?”
“What do you think about the students in our school?”
And always, always always, “Miss, do you like pempek?”

I found myself saying, “Everyone is very friendly and helpful!” repeatedly. It sounds like most of the other ETAs are getting the same thing.

Raj’s counterpart actually asked him not to teach the girls how to perform abortions. Wow, ok.

At the end of class, each student has to write about me in their English diary, and I had to read through all of them and comment. I cannot legally “grade” their papers, but I can write little notes. They were hilarious. Here are some of them (from the highest-level students), typed exactly as they were turned in:

“She came in igm to teach all the students. She has funny cat. His name Harly. (What?!) She is love it. Today I’m very happy can meet Ms Katie.”

“She born 7 November 1986. She have pointed nose, sexy lips, short straight hair and then she wear glasses. She is pretty woman. This morning Miss Katie said: She like eat pindang and mie ayam. Mike Katie like to try something new. I hope I can learn English with her.”

“She like cat, she has white skin, slim body, and blonde hair.”

“It’s nice day because our school have a new family. She is a woman, who come from Ohio, America. Her name is Katie Bostdorff. She is a nice, and kind teacher. She likes cat, she has a white skin, pointed nose, orange and long hair, she ware glasses.”

For the most part, the students seem a lot younger than American high school students. Though almost all of them have boyfriends or girlfriends, they act more like American middle school or elementary students. Everyone asks me if I have a boyfriend, and when I say no, they all laugh and shriek and poke each other. The boys scream “I love you, Miss Katie” out of windows when I’m walking into the school. They honestly seem to have a lot of trouble sitting still.

One of the teachers asked me what Ohio was famous for. Well, aren’t these students in luck—I know a thing or two about Buckeye State trivia. I explained that we grow a lot of corn and soybeans, which are crops surprisingly popular here, too. Then I said, “You know the first people to fly a plane, the Wright brothers? They were from Ohio.” Someone threw a paper airplane. I’d try again. “The first man to walk on the moon was from Ohio.” Well that got them. They started whooping and cheering. Just when I started to think that these were really some scientifically-minded young adults, one of them got up and started singing Thriller. Oooh. “No,” I said, “not the first man to moonwalk, not Michael Jackson. The first person to walk on the moon, an astronaut by the name of Neil Armstrong.” Disappointment all around. Crap.

My schedule is pretty terrific. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are long days; I’m there from 6:45am until 5:30pm. But I’m off on Wednesdays and Fridays! The students still have school, but no English classes. My specific class schedule is confusing as heck… I have no idea when I’m supposed to be anywhere. It looks like something out of a Dan Brown novel. Supposedly, someone is making me one I’ll be able to comprehend.

When I’m not in a class, I’m in the teachers’ lounge. It’s not air conditioned, but they let me sit closest to the fan. It’s arranged like a classroom for teachers with large desks all lined up. It’s also the only place I can access the internet.

The teachers have all been very welcoming to me. They like teaching me Indonesian words and asking about pronounciation and phrases. Most of them speak a little English. One teacher asked if I would help him learn English (through a translator) and I said I’d loved to, if he would help me with Indonesian. The next day he gave me a wrapped package. Inside was a big English-Indonesians dictionary and a phrase book! It was so sweet.

One of the gym teachers who also doesn’t speak English tried having a basic conversation with me through a translator. She told me I look like a princess [puteri]. I like the sound of that in any language, and I like the kind of person who says it. I then wowed her with my vast knowledge of the days of the week in Indonesian.

She said something to the translator and then watched for my reaction shyly. “She said she has met other Americans,” the translating teacher relayed, “but you are different. The others made her scared to speak in English. You do not make her afraid to try.”

I think that is the nicest thing anyone has said to me since I’ve been here.

The Fresh Princess of Villa Gardena 2

Ooooh, West Hemisphere born-and-raised...

In the Midwest is where I spent most of my days...

Ok, I'll stop.

Bugs. There are bugs everywhere. There are bugs in the shower, bugs all over my food if it sits around for even a millisecond, and bugs that think I’m delicious. The first night I didn’t sleep with bug spray on—big mistake. The welts on my ankles, chest, and arms have diminished significantly now.

Cockroach count: 4 (which I hear really isn’t that bad)
1 in the kitchen
1 in my bedroom
2 in the shower

Little lizard count: 5

Luckily, I have a nice neighbor who got rid of them for me. I guess squeals of terror don’t need a translation. The lizards are almost cute and they’re harmless, I think, but they poop everywhere. I have nothing nice to say about the cockroaches.

My house is really nice. It’s small and beige on the outside, and the inside is very empty, but clean. I have a bright blue couch. There are a lot of things I want to buy: a toaster, a bigger mirror, a blanket to sleep on, a small plastic chest of drawers, a broom, a trash can, etc. I haven’t really figured out how to get anything bigger than a the most basic groceries home, though. I can only take what I can carry on the motorcycle… this will be a continuing mission.

It’s hot. And when I say “it’s hot,” I mean “IT IS HOT.” I don’t know what the actual temperature is, but when I sit here, I have no trouble at all imagining myself straddling the equator. I don’t have AC in my house, but I do have an old fan, which I carry around with me and plop down next to me wherever I am. I am not a person who sweats much, but I literally soak through my clothes on a daily basis here. I can’t keep up with my own demand for deodorant. The cold shower has turned out to be the least of my worries.

Have you ever seen “Fools Rush In” with Matthew Perry? There’s a scene where his family is out on a boat along with the Hispanic family he married into. Someone asks his father what’s wrong, and he yells, “THE WHITE PEOPLE ARE MELTING HERE!”

AMINEF warned us that Palembang was a really difficult place to live as a Westerner, mostly because the people here are especially conservative. That’s why they put two of us in this city. Rajiv is the other ETA, and he’s stationed at a Catholic high school downtown, while I’m outside of the city at a private high school. We’re still at least a half hour apart by motorcycle, but we’ve been able to meet at the mall a couple times.

Some of the food is unbelievably spicy. Dear god, I feel like I’m eating flaming rice. But I like it when they warn me about the salt. I can handle my salt, you see. They say, “Katie, beware! This one, it is very spicy. And this one, it is very salty. Much too spicy and salty for you.” Then they watch me closely, and their eyes widen a little in what must be sheer admiration. I can eat the best of them under the table when it comes to salt. It tooks years of practice, putting too much salt on soup, potatoes, and meats.

Whenever we go out to eat, I feel like some clichéd supporting actress character on a bad movie. Waiter hands me my plate. “Ooh, sir! Excuse me! You forgot to give me a spoon and fork for this meal! However am I supposed to eat this?!” Hardy har har. Everyone eats with their hands. And my hands taste like hand sanitizer.

The second you even mention the city “Palembang” in Indonesia, someone will inevitably tell you about pempek; the two are basically synonymous. Pempek is the traditional dish of Palembang. It’s basically a ball of fish, usually with the skin still on it, mixed with some other minor ingredients and dipped in a dark spicy sauce. In every single class I’ve met, the students told me about pempek, as did every angkot driver, AMINEF employee, and native Indonesian. I’ve asked if any of them don’t like it—I haven’t found a single native who doesn’t adore it.

And they love love love to share their favorite food with you, the visitor. People from Palembang aren’t just disappointed if someone doesn’t like pempek, they’re genuinely insulted. So I was greatly anticipating (and fearing) my first experience.

Raj is a vegetarian. That’s perfectly fine with people from Palembang as long as you’re still willing to eat meat.
Raj’s counterpart: Tonight, I will take you to eat pempek.
Rajiv: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m a vegetarian.
Counterpart: Oooh, really? Well you will like it very much.
Rajiv: I don’t eat any meat, actually.
Counterpart: But you will try this and I know you will like it.
Rajiv: I’m sorry, I can’t.
Counterpart: …You will not eat pempek?

It’s enough to almost break your heart.

So I finally ate some. It’s nothing I’d order for myself given, uh, any other menu options, but it’s not bad. And I’d choke down a few bites of anything to see the smiles like the ones on my students’ faces when I finally answered: “Yes, I did try pempek. I liked it!” Cheers all around.

Guess what I did? I got clean drinking water for myself. I am really beaming with pride just thinking about it. Obviously, I can’t drink the tap water, which is only really annoying when I’m brushing my teeth over the kitchen sink (my only sink). When I moved in, I saw an empty water cooler. Normal-sized, like you’d find in an office. After rooting around, I found a few of Andrea’s (the old ETA) receipts from a place to get it refilled. She left a note saying it’s 30,000 if you carry it back yourself or 35,000 (35 cents) if you want them to carry it back for you. I couldn’t believe how cheap that is… even bottles of water here are at least 40 cents. I showed Yana the address, and she helped me find the little water stand, which happens to be the ONLY kind of commercial business within walking distance.

So one afternoon, I changed from out of my school clothes into the acceptable casual outfit of jeans and a sweater (gasp, sweat, choke on heat) and started off down the my little gravel road carrying my big empty cooler. Before I left, I had translated all the sentences I thought I’d need to use and I carried them in my pocket on a note card. What I wasn’t planning on was finding 14 (I counted) kids under the age of 8 there with no adult. “Please stop jumping on me and screaming at me in Indonesian and go find the shop owner so I can finally stop wasting my precious bottled water cleaning off my toothbrush bristles” was not one of the sentences I had anticipated using.

After asking “Where are your mom and dad?” repeatedly for about six minutes, a 15-year-old kid finally showed up. He helped me fill up the jug and drove it home for me. I waved goodbye to the kids and skipped down the road. I even paid the boy 5 more cents, and he lifted it into the machine for me. And then he left. And then I had clean water.

Coming up next: Katie’s First Day of School

"Who asked you to come to Palembang?"

And to think… a few weeks ago, I was actually complaining about the sound my hair dryer made. Hah! Boy did life get a lot harder in the last week…

I can see that I must certainly have angered the culture gods or something. “What? Katie is starting to adjust to life in Indonesia? She’s starting to feel comfortable? She experiences occasional feelings of genuine happiness? We cannot allow this to continue.”

And so, three flight delays and two suitcases that couldn’t possibly have held one more thing later, here I am in Palembang.

I met my counterpart Yana when Fulbright brought her to Bandung. She’s my “partner” here at the school who is assigned to help me get settled and will do some teaching with me throughout the year. We went through 2 ½ days of training together, where we got to know each other a little bit, talked about our expectations for each other, and went over a very general plan for the year. She's quiet, but very nice. I don’t know much more about her, but maybe her favorite hobby is reading blogs by Americans in Indonesia, so I will keep that in mind.

The Palembang airport is very small, but modern and clean. But as soon as we stepped outside, I was hit by a wall of heat. I feel like I’m sitting directly on top of the equator in a massive forest fire. Oh, wait…

The first night I stayed at Yana’s house. We went to dinner on the river with her family, and I had “pindang.” It’s a really spicy soup-like dish with beef or fish. (I chose beef.) I knew they didn’t have a traditional toilet, so I made a vow not to drink anything at all during dinner in hopes that I wouldn’t have to use it. That soup was so unbelievably hot that I drank two big bottles! And her whole family was just slurping it down like ice cream!

We walked past the Ampera Bridge, the most “famous” Palembang landmark. People were pointing and whispering about me the whole time. Yana said a lot of them are afraid of me, too. I tried to smile and say hello in Indonesian, but most of them just looked away. AMINEF said we’re probably the only Americans most of these people will ever meet. A band was playing a concert there and everyone was chanting, shouting a line over and over again. I asked Yana what they were saying. She said it was a soccer fight song, and they were yelling, “Who asked you to come to Palembang? We didn't ask you.” Yeah, that sounds about right. I felt like they might as well have been talking to me.

I found a pretty decent deal on international calls for my cell phone, so I use that when I don't have a good internet connection. While I was outside Yana's house that night talking on the phone, she overheard her neighbors talking about me.

Neighbor 1: Who is that girl?!

Neighbor 2: That must be Yana's American.

Neighbor 1: Her nose is so long!

Neighbor 2: Yeah, that's how you can tell it's a real bule.

Another blog coming soon! Miss you.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Guess what I should be doing?

Packing.

(That's the answer about 85% of the time when I'm procrastinating.)

I have to set my luggage outside my door at 5:00am, and the bus for the Jakarta airport leaves at 6:30am. So I need to wrestle all my new clothes and old clothes and books and medicine bottles and shower stuff into two suitcases. And I need to shower. And sleep. All within the next 5 1/2 hours. Yes, this seems like a smart time to write a blog.

Tomorrow I will arrive in Palembang, and I'll stay there for the next eight months. I won't have the internet right away, but I'm hoping to get it set up on Wednesday. Tonight I'll take my last hot shower in who knows how long. This is what I signed up for... here we go. I'll also step back an hour, so I'll be 10 hours ahead of EST.

I remember staying at Samantha's house in St. Mary's, Ohio this summer for a few days. I checked my email one morning, and I had a message from AMINEF. It said I'd been placed in Palembang, South Sumatra for the 2009-2010 school year. I looked it up when I got back to Muncie. Then, it was just a little dot on a map of a country I knew hardly anything about. In 12 hours, I'LL be on that little dot.

And take a look at this beluga whale of a baby!

It even made the front page of the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum.

This is from the island where I'm headed:

http://www.bucyrustelegraphforum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200909250730/UPDATES01/90925004

Instead of writing 5,000 words...

I figured I'd post some more pictures! Don't worry-- I'm still planning to write one more Bandung blog before I hop on the scary plane to Palembang.

At the McDonald's here, you get rice with your combo meal!

(But they're still trying to get you to supersize it. I guess some things are universal.)

Outside of the Saung Angklung performance area... isn't this pretty?

Trying snakefruit. Not as bad as durian, but it's no dragon fruit.

(John, me)

Dago's waterfall! At least by the time you're gasping for air from the hike, you're rewarded with this scenery. Indah sekali... very beautiful.

Taking a short break from our sprint down the volcano to stop at the crater at Tangkuban Prahu. Smelled like sulfur. (me, Christine, Tyler)