Archives for August 2015

And then they asked me to teach… (Part XI)

August 31, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XI:

Saturday morning. The students still have school, sheesh they work hard. Saturdays are pramuka day or scout day. They do their chanting in their boy and girl scout uniforms and two young 10^th grade students shyly break rank from the military exercise and ask if I want to come to breakfast with them. Of course I do!

Breakfast is an adorable affair. This is my first time eating with the 10^th graders and they are so shy. But adorable and ask me a few questions. They seem mesmerized by the fact that I chose to sit and eat with them today 😀

I know Ibu Tisia teaches at 10 but I figure I’m bored, so I may as well walk over to the school and see if any one is around. There are a few teachers in the teachers lounge and they look surprised to see me but I figure, what the heck. I’m bored so I’m going to sit here too! They introduce me to the headmaster, who for whatever reason hasn’t been around all week. Then I realize I should really give him Oleh Oleh to win him over but I forgot it at home. I slip out of the teachers lounge, run home (5 minute walk), and come back, my bag bursting with candy, keychains, bubbles, and pennies.

I give the headmaster his Oleh Oleh and then pass out more candy to the rest of the teachers. That seems to have done the trick. They were super friendly with me before but now… we’re tight. One of them comes over and says, “do you want the wifi password?” (I have my computer out). Um YES. He types it in and I’m quite pleased with the outcome of my accidental bribe.

Ibu Tisia comes a little bit later and at 10 – she says, “Mac. I’m double booked! The headmaster gave me the 11^th and 12^th grade to teach at 10am. I can’t be in two places at once!”

Knowing where this is going, I smile and say, “okay… I could…”

“Could you teach???!!!!!”

“Sure!!”

She walks me to the room and tells the twenty 12^th grade students that I’m going to be their teacher today. They are thrilled and I’m stoked to get a chance to finally teach and hang out with the kids. The downside is that I’ve only known I was doing this for about thirty seconds so I have absolutely no idea how I am going to fill a 90 minute class session.

Ibu Tisia leaves and the kids look at me expectantly. I have a hundred ideas racing through my head but most require some of the games/teaching supplies/mac adapter for my laptop that I have at home… So… I improvise! I grab the white board eraser and tell everyone to stand up and get in a circle. From what I can tell, they don’t do many activities in class so they are super excited when I get them up from their desks. They shove desks out of the way making a ruckus and I was certain someone in the room next door was going to come in and yell at me for making so much noise. But I get them in a circle and explain that they are going to toss the eraser across the circle and the person who catches it has to introduce themselves to the class. They love it and I get to learn a little bit more about them, and they are practicing their speaking skills!

Then, I ask them to get out a piece of paper and ask them to write answers to 1) Why do you want to learn English? 2) What is your dream job? 3) What is the hardest part about English for you?

Obviously, those were well-pointed questions to help me get to know my students’ abilities and goals – a couple of them asked to share their answers in front of the class and I was so proud of their initiative! Most of these students want to go into the military or police force (hence the fact that it’s a semi-military school) but it was good for me to hear their goals from them.

After that, I let them ask me questions! They had a million things they wanted to ask, ranging from everything like “where are you from?” (drew a pretty terrible map on the board and pointed out Seattle and St. Louis) and “why did you go to school so far away from your family?” to “do you have instagram? And can I follow you?” Ha! They all pulled out their phones and followed me, and clearly shared my profile with all of their classmates because I now have 200 new followers 🙂

Finally, I told them we were going to do a role play. I asked them to write a dialogue between a student from Palangkaraya and a bule (white person) who is visiting. After they wrote the scripts, I asked them to do it in front of the class. They were hesitant at first but then I said I had American candy in my bag for the first group to volunteer to go… and all of the sudden everyone was jumping out of their seats 😀 One by one they went, and in the end, everyone got a tootsie roll 🙂

Is this not the sweetest instagram post?!

These students absolutely made my day and I was honored to be able to teach them. I cannot wait to get in to the classroom for real!

Breaking the Ice (Part X)

August 31, 2015 by Mackenzie

My absolutely adorable students

(Warning: This post contains a number of hilarious videos – mostly 10 second videos saved from snap chat. I highly recommend you turn your sound on and watch them…:P)

Part X:

Friday morning. The call to prayer sounds at 4:15am and I groan. I want to keep sleeping. I get up and use the restroom in the dark (the light in my bathroom doesn’t work), then I crawl back in bed. I drift off back to sleep.

I awake to the sound of the “La Bamba” song blasting through the loudspeakers. Say what?? I roll over, check my phone, and yes… it’s exactly 4:45am. They can’t seriously be playing “La Bamba” at 4 in the morning in the middle of the rainforest in Borneo. Usually, it’s pretty quiet until 5:30 when the chanting begins but today… not so much. I start laughing when I realize that yes, it’s actually La Bamba playing. I grab my phone and snap a video, trying to catch the audio… I open the front door and confirm again, that yes, it’s definitely La Bamba, it’s definitely 5am and still dark, and no, this is not a joke.

I stumble back to my room, still laughing, and realize that, even at 5am, Indonesia will never cease to surprise me.

I have absolutely no idea what is expected of me today and therefore, how I will fill this day. In America, I absolutely dreaded that feeling. I hated knowing others were doing fun or productive things and I was not. But here… while I would like to be doing fun or more productive things, I’m also okay with the fact that I’m not. I know I can always curl onto my bed and read for hours in the air conditioning – something I haven’t had the privilege or time to do in years.

I decide today would be a great day to do laundry. So I grab my soap, my clothes and my bucket and get to work. A while later, with my clothes at least wet if not very clean, Tisia texts me that she has class at 9am. Great! I have something to do today!

Around 8, I see students playing soccer on the field at the school. I’m sure there are other students watching, so I grab my bag and head off to join the fun. I round the corner and see girls playing volleyball and another twenty or so girls watching. They all say “hi” shyly and I ask if I can watch with them. They scoot over to make room for me and the brave ones begin to pepper me with questions. “How old are you?” “Where are you from?” “Do you have any siblings?”

I smile because I know I can turn this into an amusing conversation. “Yes! I have a brother named Spencer. He’s 19. Do you want to see a photo of him?” “Yes!” they shriek. So I scroll through my phone and find a photo of him. I pass my phone around and all at once they start shrieking, “AHHHH! HE’S SO HANDSOME!” All twenty of them 😛

I laugh and ask them, “do you want to send him a video?” They gasp. “Really?!” “Yes!!” So I open snap chat and say satu, dua, tiga and they begin saying, “hi spencer!” “you soooooo handsome” and I’m hysterically laughing. They ask if he has a girlfriend and I say, “yes, he does…” and all at once they all groan, “nooooooooo.” One of the girls clutches her heart and says “my heart!! It’s broken!!” I’m dying of laughter.

I ask if they want Oleh Oleh from America and I pass out pennies – they are so excited and I have students leaving the volleyball game to come get a penny from me! I ask if they’ll teach me Bahasa… I pull out my notebook and start asking how to say the colors of their clothes. Then I ask how to say head, and shoulders, and knees, and toes… and I say, okay! “Samua (everyone), get up, let’s play a game!” they jump up and I get them in a circle and I start singing and acting the song. They LOVE it and so I make them do it faster and faster. We’re giggling and sweating and causing a ruckus… but I know that they, and I, are having a fabulous time.

I was in about 100 versions of this photo with some fellow teachers… it quite quickly became “throw the baby on Mackenzie’s lap and everyone take as many photos as they can with her”

I finally decide I’ve had enough of school and decide to venture off campus for a walk. I know there’s a small foodmart down the road and that they have ice cream bars. Walking out of the school and down the road, I feel like an escaped prisoner… For one, I feel like I’m breaking some rule (I’m not by any means) by leaving. I haven’t left campus by myself yet and it feels wrong to do so. Plus, everyone rides motorbikes so it’s odd to see someone walking on the side of this busy, rural road. Add to that the fact that I’m one of two bule (literally albino) in this town of 200,000 (Carlie, the other ETA being the other), and I’m constantly stared at like I’m a ghost. I don’t hear many people yelling “bule, bule” at me, like we had been taught to expect, instead, it’s just the heads turning that make me uncomfortable. I’ve got to figure out a better means of transportation. My coteachers have promised me a bicycle and I’m hoping that when I return from Bandung in a few weeks, that there will be one ready and waiting for me. Otherwise, I’m seriously going to consider buying a motorbike.

Walking down my street

Came across this man… I was slightly terrified

The foodmart ends up being much farther away than I had anticipated to go on this hot and humid Friday afternoon, but the thought of ice cream propels me all the way and I’m very happy in the end that I went.

On Sunday, I head to Bandung for orientation. I can’t wait to see the other ETAs and swap stories. Our one-liners to each other in the facebook group have been a highlight of my week – its nice to know I’m not the only one with ants in my house and sitting around for much of the day. And, I’m extremely excited to stay in a nice hotel and have a real bathroom and speak English with my fellow Fulbrighters.

An Indonesian Birthday (Parts VIII-IX)

August 31, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part VIII:

Right on schedule, the girls arrived at my door.

“Hello Miss!” “Good morning miss!”

I had set my alarm for 5am but at 4:15, the call to prayer went off and I awoke. I nodded off to sleep until 5 and then decided I should get up – if they come this morning I want to be ready!

I check my phone and see a number of notifications but one stands out, from my momma – a Happy Birthday text and a picture 🙂 I smile, scroll through facebook and decide that the first thing I’m doing on my birthday is making coffee.

2 year old Mackenzie on her birthday!

I make coffee and turn on the fan to air the living space of the haze that seems to descend inside my house every night. I realize its 5:15am and not knowing when I may have morning visitors, I race to get ready. I decide a hot pink v-neck shirt is birthday appropriate, although I don’t know if it is school appropriate. But it’s my birthday so I’m wearing what I want. I pull on a long blue and white strip skirt and smile, today will be great whatever it may bring!

I finish getting ready and decide to sweep the carcasses of the bugs I killed last night out the door. As I’m sweeping, the girls arrive and off we go to breakfast!

The other students are lining up in their military style rows but we walk past them and get to the dining hall first. I laugh and ask whether they get to skip the line by coming to get me J They say “yes! We escape” and giggle.

Breakfast consists of a small slice of cooked eggplant, a fried egg, and rice. I’m getting the hang of the dining hall and I think the girls are impressed. The girls ask me my major and I tell them “international studies and women’s studies”. I wonder what door I’ve cracked open now…

“Women’s studies? What is that?”

“Well, in America men are often higher than women but many people think women and men should be equal. So I study how to make women more equal.”

“Ahhh! Yes! Equal to men! What you do with that? Teacher?”

“Maybe! Or go to government and help change laws (they struggle to understand “laws” so we settle on “government rules” instead). In America, men and women not paid the same for the same job. Men get $1 and women get $.75.”

“Ahhhh” (I think that went over their heads).

“How old are you Miss?”

I smile, “23! Today… today is my birthday!”

Gasps all around. “Today?!” “Miss, sorry we didn’t know!” “Happy birthday!!”

One of them starts singing happy birthday quietly (the students mostly eat in silence so we are by far the loudest table). They giggle and laugh and struggle to pronounce “twenty third birthday”. But they aren’t shy in trying and asking me questions and I love it!

The meal is almost over and the girls start speaking excitedly in Indonesian.

“Jalan” “ulang tahun” I hear. I know those words, walk (kind of like go) and birthday. I have an idea of what they may be planning…

The head student stands up to end the meal. Keke walks up to him and whispers to him. It’s unusual for a student to interrupt him so I know now what they are up to. He nods and she whispers to a few of the other tables. Then, Keke says whatever it is that ends the meal. And then says in English, “And today we celebrate Miss Mackenzie’s 23^rd birthday!” and all the students clap and smile at me.

I laugh and say thank you. The meal ends and we go to wash our spoons. Other students come up to me and say happy birthday – they are so shy but so cute. I tell them I will see them at school later and they head one direction and I walk back to my house.

The boys are lining up and a few say, “good morning miss!”

I smile back, “good morning!”

“Good Morning” they all chant back to me.

With a huge smile on my face, I unlock my door, set me bag down, and think, gosh, it’s only 6:15 and this is already a great day.

Part IX:

After my birthday breakfast, I wait for Ibu Tisia (the 11^th grade English teacher) to come pick me up. She arrives 25 minutes late, 15 minutes after class had officially started but I wasn’t worried… I’m operating on Indonesian time. I jump on the back of her motor bike and ride the short distance through the asrama (dorms) to the classrooms. She checks in with the teachers and we walk to her class.

As I don’t have my official work visa yet, I can’t technically teach – and apparently if I do, and the immigration official finds out, then he might not give me my limited stay work visa :/ So in this first week, we’re here to settle in and observe classes.

I’ll be working with both Ibu Tisia (10^th grade) and Ibu Juniar (11^th grade). Each grade is divided into 4 or 5 classes (11-1, 11-2, etc) and each class has about 25-30 students in it. Each class is assigned a classroom and the teachers move from room to room, rather than the students. From what I can tell, teachers see the students once a week – at least that’s how the English classes go. So on Monday, 11-1 meets with Ibu Tisia at 9 am and 11-2 at 11am. Then 11-3 on Wednesday and 11-4 on Friday (or something like that… trust me, I’m confused about most everything still). I think I’ll have around nine classes between grades 10 and 11 that each meet once a week. Then, I’ll run the English club for two hours a week to round out my 20/hr/week limit.

Enough about the details… Tisia and I walk into class on Thursday morning (20 minutes late by now) and all the students stop chattering and stare (at me) intently. I smile, and not knowing what I’m supposed to do yet, follow Tisia to the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. She introduces me to the students and asks me to say a few things about myself. I tell them my name, that I’m from Seattle and that I’m so excited to be their teacher this year. They all smile hugely at me and clap excitedly.

One of the students gets a chair for me and I sit in the corner and watch. I quickly realize that this is Tisia’s first time with this class (although school started a few weeks ago? Still not sure about that one). I smile as I watch her explain her expectations and her rules for the classroom – it wasn’t that long ago that I was in their position, listening to a prof explain her expectations! Even on the other side of the world, education looks remarkably similar 😀

Tisia then begins her lesson on “Suggestions and offers.” It’s different from what I expected… more advanced, but also taught very quick. There is a projector in the classroom so she has a powerpoint but I know half of the students don’t understand what she is talking. Most can read the words on the screen, but do they understand?

Sitting in my corner, I’m remembering the brief teaching lessons we had at our pre-departure orientation in DC. At least five activities come to mind immediately, of ways to practice and help make sense of the concepts she is teaching. I’m excited to begin helping and to see what I can do with these students.

Later, I observe Ibu Juniar’s 10^th grade class. This class is taught far differently. There is no projector in the 10^th grade classrooms so all we have is the whiteboard. Ibu Juniar has the students write on the board the answers to their homework about the main ideas and details of an example Pen Pal letter. The letter is long and their answers are long as well. We spend the whole two hours rewriting the homework they had previously done. It’s not the most productive use of class time but its enlightening and I’m looking forward to working with Ibu Juniar and coming up with lots of activities for class.

After class, the teachers excitedly tell me that we’re going to lunch at 2pm to celebrate my birthday 🙂 Class ended at 11:30 so all the teachers disperse with the plan to meet at school at 2, once school is over. I go home and without quite meaning to, collapse on my bed and fall fast asleep.

I wake up at 1:30 and get ready to leave. They pick me up and drive me across town to a restaurant on the river. I’ve heard a lot about this place, it’s one of their favorite “hangout spots”. We sit by the river, take selfies, and eat delicious fish with our hands. It was certainly a memorable celebration 😛

Birthday lunch! My coteachers are on either side of me (Ibu Tisia – counterpart and 11th grade co-teacher) on the left and Ibu Juniar (10th grade coteacher) on the right.

We ate out there… it was beautiful – right on the river.

I spend the rest of the afternoon reading. I eat dinner with my students in the dining hall and then go back to my house. I’ve got a lot of alone time at the moment, especially since I’m too dependent on others to leave the school. I spent a quiet evening in my house, chatted with my mom before she went to work, and then drifted off to sleep 🙂

Welcome to SMAN 5! (Parts IV-VII)

August 30, 2015 by Mackenzie

I wrote these posts throughout the week – so here’s the day-by-day account of my first week in Palangkaraya!

Part IV:

Departing from our hotel was a bittersweet affair. I was thrilled to be headed to Palangkaraya and to finally see this place that I’ve been thinking about for months. But I also was sad (and freaked out) to say goodbye to Rizqi and the other AMINEF staff. They are our lifeline. And now I’m on another island, in the middle of a rainforest, completely overwhelmed, and all by myself.

A few hours after leaving the hotel, we were off to Palangkaraya. Now in my mind, who the hell is going there? Most Indonesians don’t even go to Kalimantan, let alone smack in the middle of the massive island. Carlie and I were definitely the only bule (foreigners/Caucasians) on the flight. And this was the first time I felt like I was actually getting stared at. I was conscious of every move on the plane.

An hour and a half later, we began the descent into Palangkaraya. Descending through the clouds, I could see the rainforest below. Then as we got lower, it felt like we were going through clouds again… but this time it was smoke. And the lower we got the more I realized I am way the heck out here. Like holy shit I am OUT HERE. It was dark from the smoke and that was only accentuated when we got out of the plane. You could tell instantly. It was hot, smoky, and humid. Ugh. But we made our way off the plane, onto the empty tarmac, and into the tiny airport. Our teachers were there waiting for us and it was a joy to finally meet them!

Smokey sunset

Smoke from the fires

Welcome to the middle of Kalimantan

The empty tarmac made me realize just how remote we are

But we made it!

We got our bags then I went outside and met the rest of the teachers. A group of nine had come to pick me up and they were so excited. A few speak pretty good English and they peppered me with questions, so random that I can’t even remember what they asked. “Do you like spicy food?” “You’ve been to Indonesia before, yeah?” “What’s your favorite sports?” “Are you Christian?”

My co-teachers and some of the administrative staff who came to pick me up at the airport!

We drove towards town and it became a little more of a city. It’s semi-populated and there are a few nice looking places. We stopped at a KFC for dinner. We ate fried chicken, rice, and some mashed potato ball-looking thing. Oh, and we ate with our hands… 😛

We took off again to the school and ten minutes or so later we arrived. We drove into the back and pulled up outside my house! It’s huge!!! I have a four bedroom, two bathroom house all to myself!

Home sweet home!

I have a Western toilet and a squat toilet. Currently I’ve used the squat toilet twice because the Western toilet is covered with ants. When we arrived, the teachers all began going around making sure all the lights worked, making my bed, making sure all was well… it was so sweet.

Then they all left and I begin to settle in. I unpacked a few things and then discovered thousands of ants everywhere. In certain corners, they are literally everywhere. I panicked but then realized for the most part they aren’t moving. So I began unpacking the essential things and I’ll unpack more once I get this ant situation under control.

Hundreds of ants… so not cool

Also, I have no toilet paper. I must remedy that tomorrow.

I needed to use the restroom again so since the Western toilet was still covered in ants I decided to use the squat toilet again. But coming back I discovered a massive cockroach crawling on my stuff. HOLY SHIT THAT’S SO NOT COOL. I ran into my room and shut the door. When I peeked out a little later it was gone. God help me. Why am I living alone? I put a pillow under the doorframe and hope that keeps him out. Ughhhhh.

Desperate times call for desperate measures…

Now it’s time for bed. Except I’m hungry. But my food is in the kitchen and I’d have to pass the cockroach. Not doing that.

Part V:

I tossed and turned all night because the AC was so good that I was freezing. And I was terrified of Mr. Cocky the Cockroach. And here I was thinking I’m in the hot, humid jungle so have no warm clothes! Luckily I remembered at about 3am that I have a sweatshirt so I threw that on. Thankfully. I later realized that I can turn the temperature on the AC up, so it’s not nearly as cold at night. Cha-ching.

At five thirty I hear the chanting begin. It sounds like the students are right outside my house and so I crawl out of bed and carefully open my bedroom door, scanning for evil Cocky. No sign of him so I creep over to the window and sure enough, about a hundred students are lined up outside my house chanting and doing military exercises. Emily (the previous ETA here) wasn’t kidding…

Suddenly, I hear knocking on my front door. Shit. It’s 5:30 in the morning! No one is supposed to get me until 9am! I wait until I hear a second knock then run to the door. Then realize I locked it and the key is in my bedroom. I race back to my room, grab the key and open the door to two smiling, cheery girls.

“Hello Miss!”

“Hello!” I reply.

“Ibu Tisia told us to take you to breakfast!”

“Um… Okay! Can you give me 5 minutes to get ready?”

I run back inside and frantically try and find something appropriate to wear. Yesterday, at the security briefing, Rizqi told us all about our individual schools and said to me, “you should be very conservative. High neck, sleeves…” Everything is still deep in my suitcase but I see the shirt Suzy gave me. It’s kind of batik printed and has a high neck but short sleeves. Oh well, that has to do. I throw the shirt on with my dirty black skirt that I wore for 36 hours on the plane, throw my contacts in, use the squat toilet and go back to the door where the girls are waiting for me.

I walk out and they say, “Miss, you are so beautiful!” “Miss, you are so tall!”

“What is your name?”

“Miss Mackenzie. And yours?”

“Olive” “Nadya”

“You are so tall. The other native speaker was like, chubby and short” (I don’t know where they got this from. She seemed tall and lanky to me haha).

“Where are you from?”

“America. Seattle”

“SEATTLE? I just went to Seattle!”

“WHAT?!”

We chat about their recent trip to Seattle as we walk towards the cafeteria. Nine now 12^th grade students got to go do an exchange program at North Seattle University (which, coincidently is about 15 minutes from my house) for two weeks this summer. It was so fun to hear about the things they did in Seattle – such a coincidence!

At the dining hall, there is a line of students chanting and marching inside. We cross through the grass and weave through students until we find a woman scooping meat onto bowls. Olive and Nadya find me a plate and get me food. Then we go into one of the dining rooms and they point me to my seat. They fill my plate with rice. Another student grabs me water. And we eat.

I ask their names. We talk a little but it is mostly quiet in the cafeteria. A few minutes later one of the older students goes to the front of the room and makes a speech. Students clap. Then everyone gets up to clear their plates. I follow suit and Olive and Nadya take my half eaten plate from me and go to wash it. A few boys introduce themselves to me. One is Simon, the boy who won the WORDS competition last year – more on that later.

Then they ask if I want to go to school with them or go back home. Going home to regroup sounds quite nice so they escort me there and here I sit, waiting for Ibu Tisia and whatever is next for today.

Part VI:

The area around my house suddenly comes alive with the sound of chanting, and shortly after, laughter. It’s lunchtime.

It’s been a quiet morning but now, the students are returning from their classes and its time for lunch. The school campus reminds me of how my college was designed. All the academic buildings are together surrounding a big field and off to the side, is the dormitory area. There are two large dorms for the boys and two for the girls. In the middle is a cafeteria with three large rooms. And to the side but between the dorms is my house, along with the houses of two other teachers and their families.

The asrama (dorm area) was alive with the sound of children at 5:30 this morning but after school began around 7am it’s been dead quiet. But suddenly, at 1:40pm, the children came marching back (literally) and once they got to the cafeteria, the chanting and marching turned to laughter and games. I was glad to see the students back. It can be lonely in my house and I’m not sure what the routine is yet. But seeing the students around me made me smile and know that pretty soon, I’ll feel comfortable joining them.

Part VII:

It’s the end of my second full day in Palangkaraya. I just came home from my first dinner with my students and gosh, I feel so full of joy, love, and excitement.

That’s not to say this isn’t easy. I’ve spent the majority of my last two days killing ants, sweating profusely, inhaling excessive amounts of smoke, getting bit my mosquitos, and wondering what I am supposed to do next. This morning I woke up at 5:20, wanting to be dressed and ready if the students knock on my door again. Blinking awake, I could hardly see across my room. The bright blue shower-curtain-like curtains looked extremely hazy and the light filtering in behind them was filled with particles.

I got up and opened my bedroom door to a mouthful of smog. This room is even worse than my bedroom. But my students might me coming so I fly around, eyes watering trying to get ready. My students don’t come until later, around 6am, but in the meantime I’d decided to try out the oatmeal I bought at the store last night. After I politely decline my students’ invitation, and tell them I will see them at school later, I stumble back into my room and fall on my bed in exhaustion and blinded. With the students gone, I realize I could go back to sleep… I close my eyes, but my eyes are still stinging and watering from the smog. Eventually, I get up and go to take my contacts out. That’s when I realize the purpose of the fan that’s been sitting in the corner… I quickly turn it on and blow the smog out of the room. My house is open to the air – between the top of the windows and the ceiling is open air with wood slats every few inches… so once I get the air moving, the smog slowly clears.

I crawl back in bed and sleep comes instantly.

But back to the good! My students are finding me on facebook and although I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing (I decided not to make a second facebook account for my students… I just didn’t want to deal with that – I later ended up making a second account :P), it’s an easy way to communicate with them. While living on campus is a bit odd, it makes socializing with my students very easy. Their dorm is literally about 50 yards away and they have offered multiple times to help me with anything. The other good thing about living on campus is that I have three free meals offered to me every day so I don’t have to worry about not having dinner plans with another teacher or not having any food to cook with.

I message one of the students and ask if I can join them for dinner and a few hours later, three girls are enthusiastically calling out, “Miss! Miss!” at my door. I grab my fork and spoon and run outside to meet them and they excitedly bring me to the front of their dorm where the other students are waiting to be called to dinner. Some are lined up in military rows, others are lazing about. We laugh and ask questions of each other and I can absolutely see my purpose here. I am the native speaker that they don’t have access to. They can learn grammar and vocabulary all they want but knowing how to pronounce words, and having the confidence to speak English only comes with speaking with a native speaker.

It’s my third time eating in the cafeteria, and by now I know what to expect. We go to the middle building to get our plate with a small piece of chicken on it, then we go to one of the dining halls where there are large pots of rice, which we add to our plate. We sit and wait for one of the older students to say something and then we eat. Only a few minutes later, the head student is back, commands something again and everyone is up and clearing their plates. Extra food is scooped into a bucket, plates and cups are stacked in a large container, and forks and spoons are washed briefly then carried back to the dorm.

One of the girls walks me the short distance back to my house and when we get there, I tell her “wait!” and run inside. I grab a tootsie roll from my stash in the fridge and bring it to her outside saying, “Oleh Oleh for you! Now go study hard!”

She smiles huge and gives me a big hug. Then she runs off to her dorm to study and I go inside, close my curtains, put my spoon and fork away, and crawl in my bed feeling quite happy and loved.

Planes, Guns and Friends (Parts I-III)

August 23, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part 1:

I’m currently writing this while somewhere above the Pacific Ocean. I’m four hours and fifty minutes in to this ten hour flight, step one of our three-part adventure to Indonesia. Nestled in to the window seat that I somehow scored when the original occupant didn’t show up and I was relieved of my middle seat, has reminded me, again, how much I love to travel. Yes, this last week has been stressful. I only got my visa and plane ticket six days ago and have been on hold with customer service agents for what feels like the majority of my week. If I had to do this again, I would certainly have come home far sooner to begin to work out the final preparations. Eight days wasn’t nearly enough.

I won’t bore you with the details but here’s a small snippet of my time at home…

After ten days of adventure and travel with my best friend, Martha, I was quite relieved to pull my jeep into my parent’s driveway. The following day was spent unpacking and the next attending a family friend’s wedding. Then, it was off to Spokane to visit my grandparents and extended family for a few days. I returned home on the 13^th and finally, this trip sat squarely in front of me, with eight days until departure. I had constructed an eight page, color-coded to-do list and packing list and I was excited to finally begin checking things off. And I did, slowly but surely. REI, Target, Amazon… Then came the adventure of packing it all inside my suitcases… I may or may not have checked a bag that weighs 69 pounds… 🙂 (but what else are you supposed to do when you need to bring a year’s worth of contact solution?!)

The real stress came from attempting to get the insurance company to override my account so I could get a year’s worth of medication and take it with me… ha! I can tell you that while it wasn’t quite successful, (due to my naive assumption that a pharmacy would have 1200 capsules of that medication the day before I left), I did make three new friends at Regence and was apparently the talk of the department for a week 🙂

While the last few days were a tad stressful, I’m on the plane and my inner travelite is waking up. My last big trip was to Madagascar, and the year before that, to Indonesia – both of those trips, I remember descending into Antanarivo and Jakarta with pure excitement. I feel that now – and I’m still 25 hours from arrival. I’m soooooo ready for this trip. This morning, while I was filling out a last minute form for my new international bank (who conveniently shut down my account in the last week… yeah, add that to the stress…) I had to write the date and it took me a second to realize that today is 8/21! It’s the day I’ve been waiting for and counting down until for MONTHS!

I’m incredibly excited to see where I’ll be living and teaching for the next nine months. I’m nervous but thrilled to be thrown into a new culture, a foreign language (quite literally, my Bahasa studying went out the window in the last month… alas), and a new way of living. I know it will be a challenging year, but gosh, what more could an adventurous girl ask for her first year out of college?

Here’s to the next 25 hours of travel, the next year of discovery, and a lifetime of memories.

Part II:

I’m here. I’m stretched out on a bed, in an eclectic hotel room, listening to the traffic and a rooster outside my window. I’m positively exhausted but when I tried to sleep, I couldn’t… I’m just too excited to be here, and quite frankly past the point of sleep. The trip was exceptionally long. I think I’ve slept maybe 3 hours in the last two days…

We (Clara and I) flew ten hours from Seattle to Tokyo, then had a few hour layover where we met up with five others in our cohort. It was a blast to finally be in a group and share stories and the misery of this unnecessarily long trip (because its a State Dept. program we had to fly American carriers, which does not allow for the quickest or most direct route to Indonesia). We then flew seven hours to Singapore and got in at 11:30pm local time. Our flight to Jakarta wasn’t until 10am the next morning… which was made more painful by the fact that Jakarta is only a 1.5 hour flight away! We were so close!!! Yet we had to spend the whole night in the airport.

But let me tell you… the Singapore airport is incredible. A friendly airport employee suggested we sleep in the free movie theater (!!!!) but that was too loud. So we camped down by a koi fish pond and Clare and I wandered off to find an internet kiosk. On our way back we discovered free massage chairs. Like full body, super comfy massage chairs. And there were two open ones. It was a dream come true. We brought out bags over and settled in to the massage chairs for the night.

An hour later, I felt Clare hitting me and I peeked out from under the eye mask and slowly took my noise-canceling headphones off… And almost shrieked! There were five uniformed men with machine guns in front of us. UMMMMMM. I hadn’t heard them approach thanks to the headphones and Clare was frantically trying to explain why we didn’t have boarding passes…. We showed them our passports/visas and thankfully appeased them. The couple in the massage chairs next to us was not so lucky… their flight didn’t leave for two more days and they were actually trying to camp out in the airport for two days. I guess that’s what these police and their machine guns are looking for!

This was what we deliriously woke up to… except all five of them were standing directly in front of us. I took this photo as they questioned the couple next to us.

Clare and I, our hearts pounding (it was also only 3am by this point) decided to leave the massage chairs and regain the comfort and safety of our group. We moved back to them and stretched out on the floor to try and sleep (to little avail).

Hello Indonesia: country of 17,000 islands!

Finally, too many hours later it was time to board our flight. Off we went the short distance to Jakarta and then we were here!!! It was hot and humid but we were thrilled to see AMINEF staff with their signs. They brought us back to the hotel and let us chill for the day. For many of us, that meant an inexpensive, yet fantastic 60 minute massage and a shower. Praise the lord.

Welcome to Jakarta!

I also was able to meet some friends from the last time I was in Indo. Chesna and Dyah were two of my favorite coworkers at Standard Chartered Bank and I was able to meet them for lunch in Jakarta. They sent a driver out to the hotel to get me and it was so bizzare driving back through the city and it all seeming so familiar! It seems like I was just here – not two years ago! We had a lovely lunch and then it was back to the hotel for me!

A lovely lunch with Chesna and Dyah!

Dinner our first night. Nasi goreng dengan ayam (fried rice with chicken) and fresh strawberry juice. Playing it safe for now…

Part III.

After finally getting a full night’s rest, we had a security briefing this morning, learned a bit more about each of our sites and then wandered down the street to buy Indonesian sim cards. They gave us each Indonesian brick phones when we arrived and then the plan was to also get Indo sim cards for our phones. Apparently all Indonesians have multiple phones… Well, walking out of my hotel room this morning I accidentally dropped the brick phone and cracked the screen. Awesome.

So I’m down to one phone, but was able to switch the sim card in the Indo phone to my iPhone. I think I’m set now? idk… someone text me from America to test it!

In an hour we head back to the airport and Carlie and I will board our flight to Palangkaraya! I’m so excited to see my school, my house, and meet my counterpart and coteachers. I’m thankful I have a working cell phone (at least I think!) with data on it (again, I think) so while I don’t expect to have wifi at my house, I should be able to at least use Whatsapp to communicate with friends, family and AMINEF for the time being.

What a great start to this year so far! Wish me luck this next week as I head to Palangkaraya and have no idea what I’m doing or any Bahasa! I would LOVE to hear from you! Leave me a comment here, text me, or send me an email!

Xoxo Mackenzie

M&M On Tour: the Road Trip

August 12, 2015 by Mackenzie

I can’t believe I leave in just a little over a week! That is, if everything comes through… ten days from today, we’re all supposed to be boarding flights and jetting across the Pacific to arrive in Jakarta on August 23rd, except I still have yet to book my flight… or get my visa!

The other 34 Fulbrighters to Indonesia received their visa documents a few weeks ago – and for reasons unknown to me – the documents I needed to send to the Indonesian Consulate took ages to acquire. We needed a letter from the school we are teaching at saying they are sponsoring our stay, but my school was many weeks delayed in sending me my letter. But… I finally received the documents on Monday and I overnighted them to the San Francisco consulate and hopefully I’ll receive my visa in the next few days and can then book my flight! It might not happen until a few days before but I know it will all work out – whether I arrive a few days after everyone else or end up getting a flight out on the 21st.

In the meantime, I’ve left St. Louis and after an epically long road trip west – I’m back on the west (best) coast. My friend Martha, whom I met and interned with in DC last summer, flew out to St. Louis to drive back with me. We had a fabulous couple of days in St. Louis before loading up my jeep and beginning the drive.

We strolled through the Missouri Botanical Garden and went to the jazz in the garden with Abby and Jack.

We toured Wash U…

We hit up the St. Louis classics – Ted Drewes and the Arch…

We went to a Card’s game with Maisie and Jill

Then we packed up the Jeep! To the brim!

Day 1: St Louis to Omaha, Nebraska (and the world’s largest ball of postage stamps)
Day 2: Omaha to Chamerlain, SD (and our friend Clay, who we interned with on the Hill in DC last summer! Great to see him in “the greatest state in the union!” – according to Clay!)