ACCESS Week in Jakarta (Part XXI)

October 16, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XXI:

So… guess who is back in an airport?

After the BEST week in Jakarta, we are headed back to Palangka Raya… When we left eleven days ago, we had no idea where we were going or for how long. We’d thought we could be gone for two weeks or so because the damn smoke just wasn’t clearing… However, thanks to a little bit of rain and some more visa complications, we are Pky-bound.

But let’s go back to this week…

After a fabulous weekend, which I wrote about here, we headed to aminef’s office on Monday morning. Because all of our meetings so far with Aminef have been in hotel conference rooms, none of us had been to their offices before! It was so fun to see Astrid, Ceacealia, Rizqi, Thasia, and Mark again – and be able to see where all the magic gets done. They work so hard coordinating and taking care of all 34 ETAs, the 14 researchers, and the 15 or so seniors scholars… All of us have Visa problems, housing issues, school situations, and of course, smog issues – and this group is essentially on call 24/7. It was so great to see them and to see where they work and catch up after all this drama 🙂

The American team HQ

At this point, aminef had coordinated with RELO, the Regional English Language Office – an office of the US Embassy – to have us help with the English ACCESS programs in Jakarta. The details, however, were not nailed down yet so after chatting with everyone for a bit, Ceacealia, Carlie and I grabbed a taxi and headed to the ACCESS office in Menteng.

We met Astrid there and had a great meeting with two of the coordinators of the ACCESS programs. ACCESS, funded by the US State Department, is a two year English program for underprivileged high school students. Classes range from 10-20 and students meet twice a week for two hours. Students selected for the program typically have extremely low English skills and because of their socioeconomic status, are unlikely to have an opportunity to improve their English.

There are around 10 ACCESS programs in different cities throughout Indonesia – in Jakarta, there are two sites – one at Menteng, in Central Jakarta and one in Rawamangun, in East Jakarta. We decided that we would each work at one of the sites – Carlie at Menteng and me at Rawamangun. The classes meet after school, one class from 4-6 and another from 6:45-8:45 – meaning super long days for the students! Students go twice a week so, at Rawamangun, there are five classes that each meet twice a week for a total of ten classes Mon-Sat. The program lasts for two years, and the students at Carlie’s school are at the beginning of the cycle, while the students at my school are at the end – they only have a few weeks left! By the end of two years, these student’s English skills improve tremendously!!

After learning more about the program at that meeting and how we can help, we all headed back to the office where we had lunch in the building cafeteria with the whole aminef crew, met with Ceacealia and Astrid to nail down a few more of the logistics, and then eventually headed back to Menteng to go to the class!

It was SO MUCH FUN. I mean, I can certainly attribute a lot of that to the fact that we have been out of the classroom for six weeks and it was just so good to be around students again. But there’s also something different about these students – their English is WAY better than my students in Palangkaraya, they are extremely motivated (the ACCESS program is a big commitment!), and they are grateful and excited for this opportunity to attend this English class. In short, they are AWESOME.

The first day in Menteng the students were learning about “unusual foods.” So after introducing ourselves and fielding questions, Miss Arey asked if we wanted to begin the lesson! We knew the topic but had no idea what we were supposed to be doing… so in typical Mackenzie fashion, I happily took the marker and began to wing it!

By “unusual foods” the textbook meant bugs and such, but I also knew that most American food is considered quite unusual to Indonesian students! So I asked them what they knew about food in America, what do we eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner… What do we put in a sandwich? What do we put on pizza? It got them speaking and laughing and listening to Carlie and I pronounce the words. Then, I asked them to work with their partner to come up with three differences between Indonesian and American food – and they had such great ones! Not eating rice for every meal; breakfast, lunch, and dinner all three distinct “types” of food (in Indo, you eat the same thing for breakfast as you do for lunch as you for dinner and that’s totally normal); ketchup in Indo is essentially soy sauce but our idea of ketchup is called tomato sauce (makes a lot more sense!), etc. After that, we passed it back to Miss Arey and helped during the rest of the class. It was such a great start to the week!

Chatting and showing pictures of my life in America

After teaching two classes, we finally headed back to the hotel at 9pm. Starving and exhausted (our last meal had been at noon and we’d left the hotel at 8:30 that morning), we found food and happily discussed the exciting prospect of getting to work with these students, and actually be doing something while we are evacuated from our site!

On Tuesday, we settled in to Starbucks for the morning before heading to our separate sites for that afternoon. Carlie went to Menteng and I went out to Rawamangun, about 45-1 hour from the center of the city (very grateful to aminef for covering these taxi rides!) I found the building, walked in, and was immediately greeted by three very enthusiastic, sweet as can be teachers, Puspa, Gita and Aan. I had arrived pretty early, unsure how long it would take to get there with the crazy Jakarta traffic, so we had about an hour and a half to chat. And omg, these girls are the best. They are all young – between 26-28 and absolutely full of life (quite literally – two are getting married within the next month and one is pregnant!) We talked and talked, about me and my program, the ACCESS program, their backgrounds, their lives, the students… Gosh, it was great to talk to girls around my age, who speak fantastic English, and are just so much fun!

Gita and Puspa <3

A little later, we headed upstairs to class and I helped out in both of that evening’s classes. I introduced myself, answered questions, and then helped with pronunciation and giving background to the textbook (the topic was “learning” and types of learning, styles, and college – aka, something I can speak to quite well!) It was so much fun!

Exhausted and happy, I headed home that night so thrilled to be helpful and inspired by these incredible students. Two years into this program, my students are SO ADVANCED. I was shocked at their level of conversation and how they answered my questions. I could have been teaching this lesson about learning styles in America, to high school students (and native English speakers!), and get the same answers! I kept having to remind myself that two years ago, these students could hardly speak English! Yet here they were, describing different ways of learning in the classroom, discussing the positives and negatives of different forms… it was fantastic!

Wednesday morning we headed back to Aminef. Each of us only had one class that evening so rather than sit around all day, Mark put us to work 🙂 He asked us each to write lesson plans based on upcoming events, that our fellow ETAs could use in their classes. Knowing my academic background and as today (October 11^th) is International Day of the Girl, Mark asked if I could write a lesson plan based around that, which I was obviously thrilled to do! That afternoon, I showed Gita and Puspa what I had written and they were super excited about it and wanted me to teach it to the classes on Friday and Saturday. I was thrilled!

We worked on the lesson plans all morning, had lunch with Rizqi, Thasia, and Mark, and that afternoon, I headed back to Rawamangun. It was another great class – this time, Puspa had promised her students they would work on pronunciation and conveniently, I was there to assist! We ended up spending most of the two hours flipping through dictionaries, pulling out specific words and practicing how to differentiate between that word and similar words. For example, bag, beg, bed, bad, back, bake… like, when you stop to think about it, how confusing is that! They sound so similar if you don’t pronounce the final consonant clearly! Or, sins, since, cents, scent, sent, sense, scene, seen… Um, so hard. We laughed and laughed and had a wonderful time!

Thursday, we did some more listening practice from the textbook – they were learning, “should have,” “could have,” and “would have” and the textbook also had them learning the more informal version, “should’ve,” “could’ve,” and “would’ve” – we had a hilarious time trying to say these phrases fast! The students loved it and it was so perfect that I was there to explain it, give examples and help them say it right and practice! We also talked a lot about college (per the lesson) and my life in America – I drew a (terrible) map of the US on the board to show where I grew up, where I went to school, where my brother goes to school, where Harvard, Yale etc are… Then drew a line of the route Martha and I drove driving home this summer – it was really fun to share and answer all of their questions.

Friday, I met Chesna, Dyah, and Yoyok from Standard Chartered for lunch! I was so happy to get to see them 😀 These friends from two years ago feel like family to me here now! I went back to Aminef to print out materials for my class that afternoon and was able to meet one of the Fulbright student researchers who had just arrived in Indonesia and was getting her initial briefing from aminef. Susie is staying in the same hotel as us and when Astrid brought me in to the conference room, she goes “Oh, you’re Mackenzie!” Um.. yeah? We all started laughing and she said that the hotel receptionist told her all about me last night (we’d chatted with them for awhile that afternoon when we had to extend our hotel reservation) – all bules know each other right? Ha! Well, it was pretty funny but great to get to meet her! I offered that she could hang out with Carlie and I the next day and explore Jakarta with us, which she did and it was a blast!

After collecting my materials from Mark, handing over all my taxi receipts, and thanking aminef profusely for everything over the last few weeks – I headed back to Rawamangun… my happy place in Jakarta 😀

I was able to teach three classes about the International Day of the Girl 😀 I started by introducing the concept of role models and asking who their role model is and why… After each student shared, I told them that my role model was Malala. None of them knew who she was so I explained her story and then showed a video profiling her. We discussed her life and the importance of education for girls. Then, I handed out short narratives of four young female heroes – Malala, Yuna (Malaysian pop star), Kartini (Indonesian education activist), and Evi (Indonesian entrepreneur). In small groups, they read and discussed the narratives and then switched groups so that each new group had one expert on each girl. They all shared about these girls’ lives and then as a large group, we discussed the issues that these girls care about and why it’s important to talk about them on International Day of the Girl! Finally, each student wrote a short essay on an issue that girls face that they care about, and then everyone got to share their topic with the class.

Let me just tell you… WOW. First, these students are NOT native speakers, and two short years ago they could hardly speak English, yet we had full and substantial and inspiring conversations! I kept forgetting that I was using the activity as a way to practice English and not talking with native speakers about the the importance of investing in girls. Damn, these kids impressed me. Teaching a lesson like this was something I never thought I’d be doing. It’s obviously a topic a care deeply about and could talk about forever… and here I was, offered the opportunity to teach three classes about it. One of the coteachers commented afterwards that when I brought the group back together again to discuss the four girls, my eyes lit up and it was quite evident that I’m very passionate about this!

Watching the video about Malala

Discussing in small groups

On Saturday after my class, Carlie and I met up with Susie, the Fulbright researcher to explore Kota Tua (Old Town Jakarta). We wandered the square, answered interview questions by eager high school students, and got extremely lost wandering a shipyard/marina. Always an adventure! 😀

We were trying to go to this hotel/restaurant/marina but got a bittttt lost 😉 When we finally found it we realized we were stuck on the wrong side of the wall! NOOOOO

Peeking through the wall at where we had tried to go… lol

But at least we found beautiful water!

It was a great week in Jakarta! But unfortunately, Sunday we had to head back to Palangkaraya… Initially, we were excited to go back. It had rained a little and the air pollution levels had gone down. I was excited to get back to school and settle in. Plus, we still hadn’t received one of the documents for our visa conversion so we had to go back in order to ask for an extension on our 60-day visa (which was expiring in 12 days…). More on that in the next post!

Evacuation Round 2: From the smoggy jungle to the big city (Parts XIX-XX)

October 5, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XIX:

Saturday.

I’m in Jakarta. I can go outside and take a deep breathe of reasonably clean air. There are skyscrapers surrounding me and a Starbucks a few blocks away. I’m a five minute walk from Standard Chartered Bank, the office I worked in two years ago. I’m going to see my friends Chesna and Odi tonight. I’m so, so happy.

When I last wrote, I was heading back to Palangkaraya after a week’s evacuation in Banjarmasin. I was thrilled to be heading back – mostly because I desperately needed to do laundry, but also because I was looking forward to being reunited with my friends and students. After the four hour drive on Monday, we rolled in around noon and I had barely brought my bags inside when Tisia called me and told me to come to school to join them for lunch. It was wonderful to see them all again – I haven’t been around all the teachers since my first week in Palangkaraya, a month ago. After a quick lunch, bu Tisia, bu Juniar (my co-teachers), and I piled into bu Lusni’s car and headed off to imigrasi. I was so happy to be back with them – we laughed and talked and caught up after almost a week and a half apart.

We got our N95 masks and are ready to go back to Pky!

This should be forest. But now, it’s burnt, smoldering peatland – miles and miles of it. Somewhere between Banjar and Pky. The President ordered the military to dig canals to get water in – that is what the excavator is supposed to be doing…

My adorable neighbors happy I’m back!

At imigrasi Tisia handed over all of my paperwork and spoke with the immigration official in rapid-fire Indonesian. I followed a little bit of it and soon learned that we were missing one document. After talking on the phone a few times to Rizqi and Ceacealia from aminef, we all went back downstairs and sat in the lobby where Tisia explained everything to me: except for the missing document (a letter from another agency in Jakarta), everything was set for her to be able to complete the visa conversion process for me. The official accepted my Letter of Attorney, Tisia would become my legal representative, and I was free to be evacuated again.

Tisia rocking the imigrasi paperwork

That evening, Carlie invited me to join her for dinner at her co-teacher’s house. After spending a solid 8 days together, we were happy to be reunited again so soon and I had a wonderful time with all of her people!

I’ve never seen so many plates for one meal

On Tuesday, my headmaster wanted me to come to their teacher workshop and formally introduce myself to everyone. When I arrived, I was ushered straight to the front of the room and seated next to the Headmaster and the head of the PTA (I think). Yosef, the 12^th grade English teacher and my other counterpart moved a chair up to the front to sit next to me and translate what was going on. I was very appreciative 🙂 The headmaster gave a short introductory speech in Bahasa, and then pointed to me – my turn for a speech! Ha! I gave a very rudimentary introduction of myself in Bahasa to the 50-some teachers in the room. I messed up many times but they loved it and all seem quite excited to help me practice my Indonesian!

Yosef, me, the PTA head, and the Headmaster

Miss Mack giving her speech 😀

After my speech, I moved to a seat next to Tisia and listened (aka filled out imigrasi paperwork and played on my phone), sweated, and breathed in hazardous air for the next 3 hours of the workshop. Then we ate lunch and the workshop was over! I ran home to grab my five batik fabrics that I had collected over the last month and met Tisia back at school and off we went to the tailor! I handed him the pieces, told him what I wanted and hopefully, when we get back to Palangkaraya, I’ll have five new batik outfits! Pretty excited!

Tisia and I braving the air to head to the tailor

At this point, I’d been back in Palangkaraya for about 24 hours. The smoke was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Visibility was better than the day we had left for Banjar, but the air was so thick that you could feel it. It coated your mouth and your nose in seconds and there was no way I could wear my contacts – I could hardly keep my eyes from clouding up with my glasses on. When I was in my AC bedroom, sitting in front of my fan in the house, or sitting under several fans in a classroom – I was okay. But when I left those spaces, either to travel in between buildings, or in the morning when the air in my house was still thick with smoke, I coughed and my eyes smarted, and I constantly had a dull headache. I couldn’t believe how people were living there day in and day out… having to go about their daily routines, open their shops, ride their motorbikes across town… just live in all that smog.

The photo is this grainy from the smog!

At this point, we were waiting for word from aminef on the next steps. They had told us they were meeting with people from RELO (Regional English Language Office), a program of the US Embassy, on Tuesday to discuss whether we could join a program somewhere else in Indo until the smoke cleared up and it was safe for us to be in Palangkaraya. On Tuesday evening, they said they still weren’t quite sure and we’d have to wait until Wednesday to hear. We waited all of Wednesday before hearing from them that evening, that they were still figuring some of the details out so – “hang in there.”

And I was hanging in there. But I was dreadfully bored. From about 2pm on Tuesday until Thursday morning, I was alone in my house, pretty much confined to my AC bedroom and staring at my phone waiting for it to ring with our next plan. It doesn’t sound so bad when I’m typing it but imagine this… Tuesday 2pm-10pm – sit around, read a little, sweep your house, shower, read some more, the power goes out for 2 hours so you sit on your bed in the pitch black and watch a movie on your laptop until it dies and then you are stuck, power comes back on and you read some more, and more, and finally, it’s an acceptable time to go to bed. Wake up Wednesday with no plan for the day at 7:30am. Shower, sweep the ash up from the house, swish some clothes around in a bucket of soapy water, read, read, read… I love to read, but when it’s 10:30am and you’ve already read for two hours and you’ve done your laundry and have literally nothing else to do all day – you can’t even leave your house and go for a walk, reading begins to lose its charm. So somehow, I passed Tuesday and Wednesday and then Wednesday evening, we were told we’d have to wait until Thursday for word. At this point though, Carlie had had a migraine for a day and was done with the smoke and called aminef and asked if it was at least possible to get us back to Banjarmasin. The palangkaraya airport was closed so if we were going anywhere, we’d have to at least get to Banjar.

Ash people. I sweep up this much ASH every day in my house.

People, this is ash. I sweep up this much ASH every day in my house.

The smog got even worse the day we left

A little while later (this is 8 or 9pm – we’re such a burden to aminef. They’ve been working around the clock for us for days), they had contacted a driver and arranged for us to leave in the morning. I packed my things – this time plenty of clothes as I had no idea how long we would be gone and this time I wanted to go prepared – and Thursday morning, we set off for Banjar again.

We went back to the same hotel we’d stayed at just three days previously, and the hotel staff greeted us with laughter and smiles. We went for a walk to get dinner at the river warungs and we were so pleased to be able to walk outside again! It was definitely smoky there still, but nothing like Pky. That evening, Mark and Ceacealia informed us that we would be heading to Jakarta the following day to spend however long this evacuation lasted working at one of the RELO English Access Programs in Jakarta.

I cannot describe to you the pure joy I felt in learning this. Jakarta is a city of 10 million people. It has Western food, Starbucks, beautiful malls, and most importantly, friends. Dyah, Chesna, Odi, Frida – all friends from my time at Standard Chartered. And Mark and the whole aminef team… I was thrilled to get to see familiar faces after the long and lonely last couple of weeks. I know my small town of Palangkaraya will be great once school starts and I have students and teachers around me and can go for walks and visit Carlie and see things and go places… but since coming back from Bandung, the time in palangkaraya, confined to my bedroom, has been lonely as hell.

Friday afternoon we headed to the airport and after a short delay, we were off to the big city! When we stepped off the plane and onto the stairs that led down to the tarmac, I took a big gulp of air and squealed like a little girl upon taking in a breathe of air with no smoke! We were beyond thrilled.

We grabbed our bags, found a taxi, and headed into the city. The airport is about 30-40 minutes outside of the city with no traffic, and we were trying to go into the city at 6pm… not ideal. But I couldn’t have been happier in that 90 minute taxi ride. As we entered the city, I began to recognize landmarks – malls, buildings, hotels… Then we got nearer to the heart of the city and I really began to recognize everything. Tom’s apartment and office had been right in the center of the city and in a hilarious twist of fate, our hotel is quite literally a five minute walk from the Standard Chartered Bank office. I know these buildings, I know this area, I know a few good restaurants, and where the closest Starbucks is. It’s amazing!

Later, settled into our room, I couldn’t stop staring out the window at the bright lights of this big city and the fact that the SCB logo on the side of the building was just visible from my bed – it was so comforting to see that. I’m in a foreign country, evacuated from my site, disappointed that I’ve been here for six weeks and still have yet to spend a day teaching in my school, and yet, in a city of ten million I’m smack down right where I’m comfortable.

The SCB building is the one with the blue and green squiggle on the top, just behind the white building!

Part XX:

Sunday evening.

Can every day be like yesterday and today?

The only words I can think of to describe how I feel is pure joy.

After a full morning exploring our neighborhood, Starbucks, wandering one of the malls, Gado-Gado lunch, and some downtime in the hotel, we met Chesna and Odi for dinner at Plaza Senayan (one of the huge malls). It was so, so, so fun to see them!! I had seen Chesna on the first day I arrived in Indonesia, but it has been almost a year since I’d seen her son Odi. Odi moved to America for college, Northeastern, and graduated this May like me. But he spent his junior fall interning at Amazon in Seattle, so he (and Chesna) came to my house for Thanksgiving dinner last year.

First starbucks in six weeks <3

Hello Standard Chartered Bank!

Gado-Gado = vegetables smothered in peanut sauce <3

Catching up with them was wonderful. After six (crazy) weeks here in Indonesia, we had plenty to share and we are also eager to learn more about Indonesia and Jakarta. We ended up all going to a movie later and I felt so relieved and happy to be back with familiar faces, speaking “normal” English, and in a place where I’m not pointed at constantly for being a bule. My heart was full and happy!

Then, this morning we headed out onto Sudirman (the main road) to participate in Car Free Day. Every Sunday, from 6-11am this main road is closed to traffic and thousands of people take to the street to run, walk and bike. Street venders set up small stands and offer food, drinks, clothes, and souvenirs. There are carnival rides, music, dancing, animals, farmer’s markets… it’s unbelievable. Carlie and I jogged the mile or so down to the roundabout and the center of the city, and met up with Rizqi, one of the main aminef staff who has been helping us out. We chatted and laughed and shared stories of the crazy last few weeks we have all had, as Carlie and I have bounced from Bandung to Palangkaraya, to Banjarmasin, to Palankgaraya, back to Banjarmasin, and now to Jakarta – and the wonderful Rizqi and co. has been on the other side orchestrating all of it. We ended up walking a huge section of Sudirman – by the time we got back to the hotel we’d walked more than five miles. It was fantastic to be outside, breathing clean air, surrounded by thousands of excited people, and chatting with yet another familiar face.

Running. Outside. Breathing non-toxic air. Magical.

Car Free Day!

Pky girls and Rizqi!

Organic farmer’s market

The building on the right is the Shangri La where I lived last time! In the pent house 😀

We showered and decided to head back to the center of the city to the Grand Indonesia, the massive (and I mean MASSIVE) mall to find some lunch and kill the afternoon. When we got inside, it felt like dejavu, Tom and I had come here many times to go to the grocery store (as Whole Foods-ish as you can get here) and come to eat at the restaurants here. I led us up to the restaurant floor (the mall is 8 stories) and stumbled upon a café I remember eating at with a big group from the bank. They had Western food and I eagerly ordered a chicken sandwich and Carlie, spaghetti bolognese. We couldn’t stop grinning.

LOOK AT THIS FRUIT! <3

Afterwards, we wandered through some stores (Gap, H&M, Fossil… – yes, so excited) and then headed over to a coffee shop near our hotel where we were meeting some more of my friends from SCB. Frida was part of a cohort that was just hired for a two year rotational program when I came in 2013. Tom had connected us then, knowing we were similar ages, and I’d gone out to dinner with her and some of the others in her cohort a few times. She’s a blast and we’ve stayed in touch through social media over the last two years. So when we came back to Jkt, I reached out to her immediately. Two years later, she has graduated from the rotational program and is now working permanently in the bank. For five hours, Frida, Rosalia (another friend from that cohort), Carlie, and I chatted over lattes and then dinner as we caught up on the last two years, talked all about our time here so far, laughed about different customs between the US and Indo, and learned more about the nuances of the Bahasa Indonesian language. I can’t describe to you how fun it was to just sit and talk with girlfriends my own age…

Frida, Rosalia, me and Carlie

And now, after two full days in Jakarta we are exhausted but so happy. Tomorrow, we’ll head to the aminef office in the morning and, after texting nearly every day for the last three weeks, it will be great to reconnect in person. We’ll learn more about the English Access Program and hopefully get to go to the program tomorrow afternoon!

After three slow, smokey weeks, this was one fabulous weekend.

Thinking of our Friends (Part XIV)

September 23, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XIV:

Day 4 of evacuation: We were supposed to be going home today, but instead of the smoke getting better in Palangkaraya, it’s only gotten worse since we left.

I’m feeling more and more transient as we tack on additional days to our stay in Benjarmasin. I’ve been in this country for almost five weeks now and haven’t been at my site for more than 6 consecutive days. I have a growing list of things I want/need to do at home – find a laundromat and actually get to wear clean clothes (I’m pretty certain swishing my clothes around in soapy water isn’t doing the job), take my batik to a tailor to have it made into clothes, start the immigration process to get my visa converted into a limited stay visa (at the moment, I’ll be deported in a month), hopefully buy a motorbike and learn to ride it (!!!!), and of course… start this whole teaching thing. I’m five weeks in and I have yet to actually do what I’m being paid to do…

But here I sit, yet again, in a comfortable hotel room. I’m loving the hot showers, the fact that the bottom of my feet aren’t black, the shopping I’ve been able to do here (I found shoes in my size!), and the fun times we’ve been able to have exploring this city and meeting new friends. It’s also exhausting. This is far from “home” – we’re constantly on edge for news of Palangkaraya from our friends still there, we’ve run through our clean clothes as we only thought we’d be here for a few days (sticky, smelly, sweaty clothes it is)… Joel’s teachers are wonderful but we are constantly being introduced to new people, taken to new places, eating way too much or people forgetting we never had lunch and then it’s 4:30 in the afternoon and I’m dehydrated and feel like I could faint but we’re at a market an hour away in a tiny little packed gem store and I’m not quite sure how to tell them I need something to eat and drink… It’s making me miss Palangkaraya and the comfort I feel there – even though I’ve hardly been there. But Palangkaraya is home. I’m comfortable around my wonderful counterpart Tisia, and my coteachers at the school. They take such good care of me – taking me places, helping me buy whatever I need, taking me to new places to eat, introducing me to new people, but they also give me my space, and my time to rest. They have become my close friends and second family here <3.

It’s so, so hard being here when everyone I know is living in extremely hazardous conditions back there… Yesterday, the air pollution index in Palangkaraya hit 1, 990 more than 5 times the cap of “hazardous” air on the scale (Straits Times). How is it possible that the government is doing so little?! 200,000 people live in this city and it has the worst air pollution index in the world right now! I hate knowing that it’s the color of my passport and the organization sponsoring me that makes my life so different from theirs. I didn’t have a choice whether I stayed in Palangkaraya or not, I don’t have a choice when I go back… I don’t even have to pay for this! I get a free “vacation,” or as one of my fellow ETAs termed it, “evacucation…”

But… there’s not much I can do to change the immediate situation. I can’t will rain to come or send more firefighters into the jungle, so for now, Carlie and I are guiltily enjoying our stay here. We’re happy to meet new people, let them show us around, introduce ourselves to 10th grade classes… we’re thankful for the hospitality and grateful to AMINEF for the opportunity to get out of the hazardous smog areas but we haven’t stopped thinking for a moment of our friends, students, and communities who have no choice but to breathe in the hazardous air and live in a place where visibility is reduced to 10 meters. 10 METERS!

Maybe we’ll get to go back on Friday. At least, that’s the current plan for now. But with the smog only getting worse and no respite in sight, it may be Saturday or even Sunday before we go back. Needless to say, I can’t wait.

Orientation (and Evacuation) Part XIII

September 19, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XIII:

So then there was that time I was evacuated because the air pollution from the forest fires had reached “very unhealthy and hazardous levels.” Yep. I’ll catch you up on the smog and lack of exciting activities this week in another post (trust me, not much to tell except I’ve been reading a lot – finished Station Eleven and am half way through Missoula – books about the end of the world and sexual assault on college campuses… I think I need a happy book next – any suggestions?).

But I jumped ahead on the last post. Our seventeen hours of travel was due to the fact that we were coming back from two weeks of orientation with my fellow fulbrighters in Bandung!

Two weeks ago, I met Carlie at the airport and we headed back to Jakarta. Once there, we found the rest of our cohort settled in to an airport restaurant and it felt like the happiest of reunions! We had each been deposited in varying types of places in every corner of this country. No one could speak Indonesian and none of us had fully understood that our new role is half teacher, half pest killer. Needless to say, that was one of the funnest moments of this whole journey so far – as we shared stories of our new normal and laughed with each other about all the people we accidently offended by forgetting to only use our right hand, and never our left, and sitting with the bottom of our feet pointed at someone (both signs of disrespect). It was also a delight to see Ceacealia and Thasia, and later the rest of AMINEF, again. We were back in safe hands.

Once everyone had arrived, we loaded up a big bus and began the 3-ish hour journey to Bandung. Bandung is a large city of 2.5 million people and it was fascinating to see something so entirely different from my week in Palangkaraya. Then, we pulled into the Sheraton and the differences multiplied exponentially. Um, we got to stay at a beautiful 5-star hotel for two whole weeks. The staff waited on us hands and feet, always at our beck and call, and providing us with more food than I’ve ever been offered in my life. Incredible breakfast and lunch buffets every day, with both Western and Indonesian food, and then… outside the rooms where we had our sessions and Bahasa class, there was always a huge table, piled with beautifully crafted snacks and desserts. It was heaven. I’m also pretty certain I gained five pounds in the first two days, when I then decided I had to have some self-control, none of this food was going anywhere… I was here for two weeks.

Yes. This was breakfast everyday. It was amazing.

Yes. This was breakfast. It was amazing.

They had these little pods by the pool and they were the perfect place to chill in the evenings

I obviously spent my break times sitting here

For two weeks, we had session after session, covering everything from Indonesian faux pas, to teaching strategies, and of course, Bahasa.* On our first full day, we had to take a placement exam and were then divided into four classes. As the majority of us knew no Indonesian, there were three beginner levels, and one “post-beginner.” AMINEF had hired four Bahasa teachers from a language school in Jogja to teach us for the whole two weeks. I was lucky enough to get Moko as my teacher, who in my completely biased opinion, is by far the best and most fun teacher. Every day, my class of 7 had about 3-4 hours of Bahasa class and moved at a quick, but comfortable pace through greetings, introductions, basic objects, colors, basic questions, numbers, time, activities, shopping, days/weeks/months, food, places, positions, directions, transportation, imperatives, and adjectives. Needless to say, it was a very thorough introduction to Indonesian in just two weeks! *(Bahasa = “language”; Bahasa Indonesian is the correct term but I’ll refer to the language here as both “Bahasa” and “Indonesian”… sorry)

Bahasa class was absolutely my favorite part of every day. Moko is an incredible teacher and gave us unique tasks to practice and the funnest of games to play. We got to know the hotel staff quite well as in the middle of class, Moko would send us out to use our latest vocabulary of “Anda bangun jam berapa?” “What time do you get up in the morning?” on our nearest (unlucky?) interview subjects. They were quite amused by us everyday 🙂

C Squad on our last day of class 🙁

We also got to spend a lot of time outside the classroom with Moko and the other teachers. They came to karaoke with us, took us to the market to practice using Bahasa to bargain, and enjoyed a few meals with us. I love that in Indonesia, the relational divide between students and teachers is small – it’s perfectly normal to be friends on facebook with your teacher, to text them, to go to dinner with them, and to drink a little too much in front of them. We had a blast.

Just a 7 story market…

Karaoke and beverages with C Squad – what we affectionately named our class. Jared, Moko, Me, and Stephen.

I’m planning on continuing taking anguage classes from Wisma Bahasa through their one-on-one skype classes. I could keep working with Moko as my teacher and would get to continue learning the language in a structured sense, in addition to the practice I’ll get just by living here. I finally have a modem so have a semi-reliable internet connection to use skype… Really excited about the possibility of improving my Indonesian to the point where I can maybe actually understand what is going on around me!

The US Ambassador to Indonesia came to visit us one day. That was pretty cool.

And we got to practice teaching at a real public high school in Bandung. We each had a partner and taught for 45 minutes! It was a blast and the students loved it.

One night, one of the returners organized a futsal match for us against the hotel staff. Futsal = soccer and in this context, it was an like a small indoor soccer field and you play with a heavier soccer ball. Although we were absolutely destroyed by the hotel staff, we had a blast. We played six on the field at a time and had three groups of six trading off every five minutes or so throughout the hour we played. I’m not sure if we were all completely out of shape or whether it was the altitude, smoke (pollution + cigarette smoke from the 20 or so observers), or some combination of all of it but man… each of our five minutes of playing was exhausting!

We also had plenty of time to explore the city of Bandung and enjoy ourselves. We learned the angkot system (public transportation – vans that are kind of like buses?), bought batik (special patterned fabric that you can tailor into clothes), explored the market, went to bars, sang karaoke several times (why is that not a thing in the US? It’s SO much fun), and overall, had a fabulous time together.

Bandung batik that I’ll get tailored into clothes!

Dinner out in Bandung! Duck and rice and corn fritters and who knows what else!

Oh, and we climbed a mountain. Sunday was our free day and we had met an Indonesian couple who invited us to go hiking with them. A group of us left with them at 6am and we hiked 7.5 miles roundtrip – up a steeppppppp dirt road to the top of a mountain overlooking the valley and the city of Bandung. It was stunning. Then back down through the jungle and through a cave!!! It was a man-made cave from about 100 years ago, that the Dutch colonizers forced their native Indonesian slaves to build to hide from rebelling Indonesian forces. It had all these passageways and rooms and the remains of a wire tap communication system. And bats. It was 100% epic.

The landscape was absolutely breathtaking

Monkey selfies!

A jungle coffee shop!

Some of the sessions got a bit long and boring… and Chris decided to teach me how to do a Rubik’s cube. In two days, learning step by step, I mastered it! Then, came the fun of trying to do it as fast as I could! I got it down to 1 minute 59 seconds… I even found a (shitty) Rubik’s cube at the local hypermart (~mini walmart) so I can keep practicing. I could be a Rubik’s cube whiz by the end of this year with how much time I have on my hands.

The not so fun part of orientation came when I got sick 🙁 About a week into orientation, someone caught a cold and considering our close quarters, it passed around pretty quickly and by Monday of the second week, about half our group was feeling less than ideal. Luckily though, no one was too sick from stomach issues, which is what we had all expected to be dealing with – not to say no one had diahhrea. I’m quite certain we all did at one point or another, it just wasn’t too terrible.

For whatever reason, when I caught the cold, I caught the flu version of it. All day Monday and Tuesday I felt worse and worse, half the day sweating and hot, half the day freezing and shivering. By the last session on Tuesday I must have looked quite awful, for Ceacealia (one of the AMINEF staff, aka our mother/protecter) comes over to me and says, “Mackenzie, are you okay?!” I was not, clearly, and she offered to call a doctor, which, in my feverish state, I (foolishly?) declined on the premise that if I was worse tomorrow, she could call a doctor. I pushed through the end of the session before heading straight to bed. I slept fitfully from 6pm-6am and woke up having gained some stomach issues but lost the fever. I’ll chalk it up as a win.

It took most of the next day and on the advice of Ceacealia, lots of tea, orange slices, and watermelon, before I finally felt like myself again. By the end of orientation I felt fully recovered and glad that if I had to be sick, it happened in a five-star hotel with all my friends and under the watchful eye of aminef, and not by myself in the middle of Kalimantan. Knock on wood.

And now, I’m back in Palangkaraya. I’ve spent the entire week doing pretty much nothing. School was canceled from September 10th through the 17th and then extended again until the 25th because the smog is so terrible. This means I’m beem pretty much confined to my house with no means of transportation and hazardous levels of smoke outside (although my house is open air, so it’s not like staying inside is any better). Midway through my first morning back, I couldn’t believe how black my feet had gotten in just a few hours and so I figured I should sweep out my house. Well, that’s when I realized that a lovely dusting of ash descended on absolutely every inch of my house. The more I swept, the whiter my tile floors became but also the larger and blacker my dust pile became. Reality check.

And now, after a week of sitting here, we received a call from aminef today informing us that they are “temporarily evacuating” us to Benjarmasin until the level of air pollution recedes to less toxic levels. YAY! Because the airports are closed we are being driven to Benjarmasin, about 5 hours away in South Kalimantan. It’s supposed to be a large, bustling city and although it has some smog, it’s not nearly at the level that we have here. It’s also the home to Joel, a fellow ETA! We’ll be staying in a hotel during our Benjarmasin stay but we’ll get to hang out with Joel and his coteachers at his school. Pretty pumped about this extra vacation and the respite from the smog and its accompanying dreary, boring days.

The BEST Worst Day (Part XII)

September 16, 2015 by Mackenzie

Part XII:

Hour seven of, hopefully, eight:

In twos and threes, fellow members of our cohort have departed for their sites throughout the day, and now, it’s just Carlie and I left… with only another hour to wait, if we’re lucky. We were on the road before 7am this morning, driving the three or so hours from Bandung to Jakarta, and now, ten hours after leaving the hotel, we’re SO close to being on our way home.

The one thing that stands in our way, however, is the lovely smog that has descended on Palangkaraya at state of emergency levels. It’s all over the news: flights have been canceled, school has been canceled… it’s terrible. The smoke comes from the illegal slash and burn deforestation to create room for palm oil fields – aka another example of Western capitalism destroying the environment and upending people’s lives. Here’s my favorite video illustrating this:

It’s one thing to read about it, another thing to see it in a funny awareness video, and a FAR different thing to be living it. It’s similar to when I was in Madagascar learning about forest conservation and how poverty is driving the local people to cut down the forests. But here, it’s the demand for palm oil (in everything from cooking oils to laundry detergent) that is driving the local people (hired by large corporations) to burn the forests to make way for palm oil fields. I’m still learning about all of this – but my understanding is that it’s either “burn the forests” time or it’s just made worse because it’s dry season. Either way, the smog has descended on Palangkaraya (and much of the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra) and we are stuck in the airport because the planes can’t land (which, knowing Indonesia’s air travel record (abysmal), I’m perfectly content being grounded for as long as need be!)

Going a little crazy!

Hour eight of a now indefinite period:

It’s 6:30pm and we were supposed to board at 6:15. They have stopped making announcements in English, the bilingual announcer must have gone home, so I’m trying desperately to pick apart the Indonesian announcement and listen for “enam, tujuh, delapan” (678, our flight number) or for “palangkaraya”. So far no word. I ask the flight agent in my broken bahasa, and she responds in broken English, “something wrong with the weather. We do not know.” Awesome. Oh, and they already canceled the previous flight to Palangkaraya… so our hopes of this one leaving are slim.

However, this last hour has been the most enjoyable hour yet of our airport stay. I had been flipping through my notes from the last two weeks of Bahasa class when the guy sitting next to me sees the Bahasa words and asks if I speak Indonesian. “Sedikit” (a little), I respond. We start chatting (in English at this point) about where we are from, that Carlie and I are teachers in Palangkaraya, etc… He invites us to his wedding in Bandung in a few weeks (damn the travel policy). Later, he asks me to practice my Indonesian with him. I jump on the opportunity. I absolutely loved my Bahasa classes in Bandung and feel like I learned so much – definitely enough to have a basic conversation, and here’s someone new I can practice with! He takes my notes, flips through them, and starts quizzing me on words. I nail every single one (thanks quizlet). By now, there’s about 15 people near us watching, laughing, and pointing at us. They, and my new friend Adi, are absolutely delighted. We break away from the notes and a natural conversation flows – I’m having a blast and I CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS!

Bahasa friend!

Hour nine:

After exchanging numbers, taking photos, and him helping us learn that yes, our flight has been delayed indefinitely, Adi has boarded his flight to Benjarmasin and we are back to entertaining ourselves. However, by now, a number of people have witnessed our “amazing” (in their words) Bahasa skills and two more people start to talk with us. Unlike Adi, they speak ZERO English. However, they are from Palangkaraya so we have “much” in common. I thought the guy said he went to SMA 5 (my school) but later learned, that it was the woman’s daughter who actually went to SMA 5. We discovered this after the woman throws her phone at Carlie excitedly and says, “talk! My son!” Ummm, okay?

Carlie chats with her (quickly realized she meant daughter, not son), and then passes the phone to me. She has very good English and explains that she is currently in University in East Java but graduated from SMA 5 a few years ago! We chat excitedly and exchange contact information so we can meet up when she is home on holiday. How fun! Who would have thought that would have come out of randomly talking to a stranger with no English in the airport!

More new friends!

Hour 10:

It’s 8pm now (flight was supposed to leave at 6:45pm), and there is sudden movement around us. Our new friends say, “time, it time!” and we jump up excitedly. Finally! We are however, slightly concerned by the decision as it’s now pitch black, we’re certain the smoke is still there, and we’re flying on one of the less than ideal airlines. (We later learn – after arriving in Palangkaraya – that Garuda Airlines, the best one, canceled all their flights but Lion air will “take the risk” so that they don’t have to pay for people to stay in a hotel. Oh, Indonesia…)

But I’m happy to be on my way again so we board the plane and settle in for the short 1 ½ flight. Then, I get lucky again. The guy next to me asks what I’m doing in Palangkaraya, and I tell him I’m a teacher at SMA 5. He says he graduated from there in 2001! We continue chatting and he learns that I know a little Indonesian. So he decides that he’ll speak only in English, so he can practice that, and I’ll speak only in Bahasa, so I can practice that. We have an absolutely delightful conversation for the entire plane ride, sharing life stories, drawing maps of what the school looked like then, and now, and all the while, writing new words for each other in our respective notebooks. It was so.much.fun. I used the basic words I know to have a full, and fruitful conversation – it was amazing! I had no idea I could say all that I did in Indonesian!

When we finally land, scarily, as we land WAY to fast because I’m pretty certain they couldn’t see the ground through all the smoke (jk, I know they have instruments for that, but actually it was terrifying), I exchange contact information with him and make plans to see him again soon. He’s a journalist for one of the newspapers here and wants to interview me for a story about Fulbright and teaching here 🙂 We walk onto the tarmac and holy shit, I’ve never experienced anything like it. You know the super foggy mornings, when buildings are hidden and the rays of light look huge through the fog? Imagine that, but it’s not fog, it’s SMOG. Everywhere. It’s this thick haze that has descended everywhere and you can’t take a deep breathe without inhaling a mouthful of smoke, and can hardly see 100 yards ahead.

We step into the small airport, push through the crowd to get our bags, and emerge to find our counterparts and co-teachers ready and waiting to welcome us home!

This earie, smoggy city at midnight

We stop for a midnight snack of grilled banana topped with honey and cheese (interesting combo) and grilled spicy corn and then, finally, 17 hours after leaving Bandung, I open the door to my house (which actually was already standing open, sketch?) and collapse onto my bed. I’m home <3

Mackenzie

A Look Back