My Independence Day

So I spent my second day getting acquainted with the other teachers, shopping for various items for the apartment, and organizing. So far everything is going really well, and I feel like I’m adjusting much better than I did in Albania. Having a roommate helps a lot. We met another teacher who has been here for 2 years and he has given us some awesome tips. He also told me that I have to redeem the American name, because apparently the Americans last year judged Indonesian culture a lot. Everyone here is so friendly and I can’t imagine not loving my time here.

Everything I need is in my building (except for some shopping.) Seriously. I have a pool, gym, small mini-market, laundry service, maintenance service, cantine, and super nice fancy restaurant. Now if I could just get my internet in my apartment to work. Also, the school is pretty much directly next to my apartment. It takes me about 5 minutes to get there. I go down the elevator, walk through a hallway and go up another elevator. I can’t see a reason to ever leave (other than to grab a drink.) I’ve already seen some stout in the stores, but haven’t purchased any yet.

Today is July 4^th and today I started work. We spent the morning doing training in the Mathematics curriculum, doing the first steps to get our computers set up, and made a trip to immigration to complete the necessary steps for our work permits. I got to meet the rest of the primary ex-pat staff, and I found out, to my pleasant surprise, that I will be teaching grade 1 instead of grade 2. Apparently the grade 1 class is the biggest. Currently there are 15 students registered and they expect to have 20 by the end of the year. I will have my hands full. On Monday I get to meet my partner teacher. I’m psyched to be getting some training and explanations of the expectations prior to starting. Tomorrow we get to go over the English portion of the curriculum and we get to finish looking at math stuff.

This evening we were treated to dinner, by the director of our program. It was a wonderful combination of Indonesian and European dishes. We had some fried potatoes, calamari, rice wrapped in banana leaves, creamy fried onion soup, fish with red peppers, 2 kinds of chicken, ribs, a delicious salad made from papaya flowers and desserts. The first dessert was like an apple pie. The second one was like a bubble gum flavored slushy in a bowl with gummies in it. It was disgusting and I nearly threw up. They also added American flags to the centerpieces to help me celebrate Independence Day.

We were warned against using the tap water for anything. Unfortunately, we have been brushing our teeth an washing our fruit with it. Here is to hoping nothing bad happens.

I’m looking forward to a weekend of exploring and getting out of this area, and hopefully getting my internet set up so I can really catch up with people.