I think I will do a post about one aspect rather than a time frame.  That will make it easier for me to include everything.  This will also allow anyone who is interested in a particular aspect to ask me to do a blog post about it.

This Post is gonna be about my down time and schedule in my host family house.
 
I live in a sweet house in Batu.  I have an adik laki-laki (little brother) named Aril.  He is a very energetic little ten year old.  I asked around and found out that he is kind of a trouble maker at school but he has some of the best grades.   I think he is afraid of me or something because he has a tendency to not know how to act.  We still have some bonding to do yet.   The main toy that the little boys play with is homemade whips.  They are always cracking those suckers. My Bapak (Father) is named Rofik.  Super chill dude.  He mostly just hangs out with friends, smokes alot, and passes out in front of the tv.  He and I hang out alot.  We mostly just sit there in silence with the occasional attempt at communicating something.  My Ibu (mother) name is Mujianik.  She is awesome.  she is so dang sweet.  she always has a cup of tea or coffee ready for me.  always with too much sugar, but we are working on that.  She tends to tell me what I should be doing.  she will say "Dan!  Mandi"  which means "Dan! go take a shower".  she tells me to eat and when I should leave for school.  My kakak perempuan (older sister) name is Arin.  Her and her husband Opick speak relatively okayish English so I have it kind of easy.  They are able to translate basic things for me so I am not totally in the dark. 
One of the other volunteers said that the community in an Indonesian village is just like a college dorm.  This is a relly good analagy.  Everyone pretty much leaves their doors open and people just come and go as though they are all part of one big building.  As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone knows eachother and what they do is chill in eachother's houses.  there seems to be a wedding every night and everyone is always invited.  You will probably be able to go somewhere in the village and find a big party with loud music playing well into 11 oclock or 12 oclock (that's pretty late considering people go to bed generally around 8 or 9)

People generally wake up around 4 or 5.  This is because it gets very hot midday so everyone wants to get everything done early.  I have been going to bed around 8 and waking up at about 6.  For those of you who don't know me very well, this is fairly different than my normal schedule.  if left to my own devices I will generally go to bed around 3 and wake up around 12.  It is pretty hard to stay asleep past 6 though considerning that EVERYONE is up super early and I have like 12 sheep outside going "daaaaan....daaaaaann" at about 4.  then at 4:30 the morning call to prayer is blasted out of every mosque (and there are many) in the village.

As I mentioned before, we watch alot of tv.  Mostly we watch Indonesian news and soccer.  But evry once in a while we watch a little spongebob, shawn the sheep, Indonesian Voice, or Indonesian Idol.  It is quite funny watching Spngebob with an Indonesian voiceover.  fortunately it has been a pretty good language learning tool because I am able to figure out what they are saying most of the time.
Generally at about 6 or 7 at night all the homies of my bapak and ibu stop by and we hang out in the living room.  I mostly just sit thre as they talk to eachother in jawanese.  Jawanese is not Bahasa Indonesia by the way.  Bahasa Indonesia is the main language of Indonesia, but I live on Jawa.  the main dialect of jawa is Jawaese.  this mean that my family and all the people in the village speak a language which is similar, but also totally different from the language that I am learning.  They all can speak Bahasa Indonesia, but only do when they are speaking directly to me.  this makes it kinda difficult to understand... pretty much anything they are saying.  I am starting to understand a little more every day, but this whole jawanese/Bahasa Indonesia thing is hurting my, and all the other volunteers, progress. 

When I chill with the homies we have a good time and they usually laugh at how white I am and how dark their skin is compared to mine.  The women ask me if I think that women with dark skin are beautiful and I tell them of course I do.  Then they make fun of my mustache and we all have a good laugh.  then they tell my if I shaved my mustache I would be alot more handsome and I tell them that that will never happen.  This type of conversation is pretty much all we ever have.  but considering I have only been here 2 weeks, I feel like that is relatively advanced.

When we aren't hanging out in the living room I usually go on some jalan-jalans (walks).  these consist usually of going to other peoples houses and hanging out in their living rooms and having more awkward conversations and them giving me tea and rice based snacks.

Living In Batu

Sorry I haven't posted on this in a while, but I havent had access to internet for about a week or something. I am not sure because I am just typing this on my computer.  I live in the Batu area and am sort of loving every minute of it.  You know those beautiful pictures of exotic places that you wish you could go to?  And you think "oh, the whole country isnt like that, It's probably just in certain especially beautiful places.  Well I dont know if that is true of Indonesia, but where I am is definitely one of those places.  There is a rose garden here with a view.  not just any view, but THE VIEW.  I have pictures, but honestly the pictures just cannot capture what it is that this view is.  And the thing is that this is just what it is like here.  everywhere I stand I see one of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen.  I have done a few jalan-jalans (walks) around my village and it is just ridiculous. 


 

There are less beautiful sights as well, such as the bucket baths with no hot water and the bouts of diarhea that I have been getting.  But seriously I am fine.  My host family could not be more welcoming and helpful. 

I live with Pak Rofik, Ibu Mujianik, Adik laki-laki Aril, Kakak Arinda, Kakak Opick, and Kakak Leli.  The first day was a little awkward seeing as how I was moving in with a family from a completely different culture who dont speak the same language as me.  When the cultural facititator dropped me off it was a quick introduction (in Bahasa Indonesia) and then they left.  we sat there and looked at each other and I said things like "selamat siang" (good afternoon) and "di mana kamar kecil?"  (where is the toilet).  beyond that it was mostly me smiling while they spoke very fast around me then would look at me on occasion and I would realise that they had asked me a question.  "tidak tahu" (I don't know) "Tidak Mengerti"  (I don't understand) and "Maaf" (sorry) have become my most used phrases.

The people around the village are just as nice.  Me and my host sister were on a jalan-jalan and many Ibu (little old Indonesian ladies) would invite us in for cakes and snacks.  when we got home I was almost too full to eat supper.  The food is pretty good.  I do miss hamburgers and pizza already, but I am sure I will get used to the food here.  I am not so sure about my stomach though.

Did I mention the diarhea?  I shouldn't have eaten that street meat.

Everyday so far I have had English classes form 7:30 to 11:30. then we break for lunch where me and the five cohorts in my English class get together and eat the meal prepared our host family.  They always put them in those plastic containers that elementary school kids pack their lunches in.  We all feel like helpless little kids because we can't do anything for ourselves and we cant hold conversations with anyone except little kids.  It also dosen't help that they put our lunches in these brightly colored felt bags with little tassels and things...  pretty cute I guess.  I'm not sure if they are making fun of us by giving us these lunch bags or not.

After lunch, we go to our LINK classes.  This is where volunteers from 3 of the villages around come together and have one class about teaching in Indonesia.  these last until about 4 or 5 and then we have the rest of the day off to integrate into our community.  right now I am mostly sitting around because I want to be close to a toilet.

My poopy has never been this soupy.  It's like campbells chicken noodle soup without the chicken or noodles.   But you know what?  Even though this is definitely the worst diarrhea I, or possibly anyone in the world, have ever had, using squat toilets instead of western style toilets makes it so much easier.  It just sort of falls out of you and then you get your left hand up there and make sure that its all nice and clean afterwards.

Bugs havent been too much of a problem in my house, I think that thats mostly because of an overabundance of geckos running everywhere.  i would much rather have geckos than mosquitoes.  It did freak me out though on one of my many midnight bathroom runs (no pun intended).  I hung my pants up on the hook (pooping with no pants on a squat toilet is sooo much easier)  and then when I was done, I grabbed my pants and two very large geckos ran out from behind my pants on the wall.  I might have screamed a little bit.

"Anda Tinggal di mana?" "Saya Tinggal di Surabaya!"

So we landed in Indonesia!  We got off the plane and as a group we waited in line for the custom guys to check our passport and get our fingerprints and officially put us on the Indonesian grid. 

After I was put on the grid I looked for my luggage.  I almost cried when I saw that my accordion was in perfect condition. 

At this point all of us Peace Corps trainees were about as tired as we could be and we had to go through one more security checkpoint in order to leave the airport.  The door after this went outside.  we were greeted with loud cheers and dreadful heat and humidity.  Cheers you ask?  Some of the current Peace Corps Volunteers were there to meet us!  They had signs and everything.  I wish that I wasn't so tired and overwhelmed by the heat so that I could say something to them.  I probably looked like a jerk because I was just like "oh, ok".

We then all loaded into shuttles that took us to our beautiful hotel: the Country Heritage hotel in Surabaya. 

The drive to the hotel gave us the first glimpse of Indonesian traffic.  It seems the traffic "laws" here are more suggestions, and something like 80 percent of people ride motorcycles.  this means that there are a few vans and trucks driving with motorcycles swerving anywhere they can in order to get to their destination faster.  I feel that the Peace Corps made a good decision in not allowing us to drive.

Our hotel is pretty nice.

The food is really nice.

In all honesty we are being babied.  For this first week we are staying at a nice hotel and being served food regularly.  The food is quite tasty too.  don't let the fish head scare you.  i would compare the taste to barbeque chicken.  We get bottled water and everything is planned out for us.  I have only left the hotel once without the Peace Corps and that was with a bunch of other volunteers to go check out the Alphamart.  I bought an umbrella (because it has rained heavily everyday) and some Indonesian potatoish chips. 

We get like 3 hours of language classes a day and other classes regarding our safety, food, diseases, culture, and other important things.  My Indonesian Guru (teacher) is Didit.

He is the guy with the awesome hat.

Bahasa Indonesia has been going swimmingly.  I can count to like a million.  Whenever we see someone we greet them with "selamat" and then the time of day (pagi, siang, sore, or malam).  It's a heck of a lot of fun. 

One day we had a field trip to the Peace Corps office in Surabaya.  It is a ways away so we had to get a ride there.  We rode in what is called an angkot.  These are basically vans that are turned into buses for the public.  It was pretty fun.  In the angkot that I rode in, the door didn't shut which was interesting.  It was safe I guess as long as the driver didn't make any sharp right turns.  one guy handed us a menu through the open door.  It was for a restaurant called the Super Awesome Cowboy Restaurant or something to that effect.

Like I said, we are being babied right now.  This is demonstrated by the fact that the hotel that we are staying in has a pool.  This is something that us sweaty and stressed out volunteers are taking full advantage of for this week.  we also have western toilets and toilet paper.  I am yet to use the squat toilet as the one in our apartment is in the basement and the light does not work.  I think I will hold off until I am able to see before I poop with no seat and no TP.

On Sunday things will get a bit more real as we move to our host families for our 10 week training sessions in Batu.


Sampai Jumpa Nanti!

Hello Everyone: The Journey Begins

So it is difficult to explain all of the things that have occurred in the past 3 or 4 days.  It is difficult to measure the number of days it has been since I left Minnesota.  Confusion and exhaustion and jet lag are fuzzying my brain parts.

I guess I will start at the beginning. bear with me because I think I'm running on about 4ish hours of sleep in the past 48 or something hours.

I left Minneapolis airport at 9:15 in the morning of the 6th.  My family was there to see me off and give moral support and teary eyed hugs.  I bought my coffee and boarded my flight to San Fransisco.

I arrived in San Fran at 11:30 (San Fran Time) and found my prebought shuttle to the Raddison hotel at Fisherman's Wharf.  In this shuttle with me were two other young folks who looked about as confused as me.  "you wouldn't happen to be going to Peace Corps Indonesia would you?" I asked.  I had just met my first of many fellow volunteer companions Elliot and Francesca.  We swapped relatively awkward small talk/get to know each other conversation as we rode in our very hilly ride across Downtown San Fran.  We arrived at the hotel and met our other volunteer companions at the staging event in the hotel.  The Peace Corps staff were very nice and we did many educational/get to know each other activities including performing sketches representing the Peace Corps Core Expectations.  We all got along swimmingly.  This group is a good group.  very fun and nice folk they are.

After the staging event we decided it was necessary to go out on the town.  So all of us rambunctious Peace Corps trainees left for Pier 39, a outside sort of touristy food court situation.  Many of us decided we needed to have some beers so we went to the nearest place that had beers: Wipeout Bar and Grill.  We continued going and finding more places with more beers and delicious food and beers.  Our last night in America ended up in a hotel room with many very fun folks chilling and talking about how awesome we are.  I did a bit of serenading with the accordion.  I went to bed at about 1 or so I think.  I don't remember very well.

Then my alarm goes off and I realize I have to get my things packed in 20 minutes so we can leave for the airport at 7:30.  I threw everything randomly into my suitcases and went down the stairs.  In retrospect I should have showered because I ended up stinking very badly, but I will get to that in a bit.  We loaded up the buses and off we went to the airport in preparation for our 12 hour flight to Tokyo.  WOOT!

At the airport in San Fransisco we all lined up to get our baggage checked by an incredibly irritable little Japanese woman who was not interested in checking all 51 of us.  I ate my last meal in America.  A burger and fries.

The nice thing about a 12 hour international flight is that everything is free and we got our own little TVs with a plethora of movie selections.  The not so nice thing is that it is a 12 hour flight and it is impossible for a person to be comfortable sitting in one place for that length of time.  I watched a couple movies that I had wanted to see like Cloud Atlas and A Beautiful Mind, and I also leveled up my Pokemon  a good amount.  However, one thing I did not manage to do was get any sleep.

When we landed in Tokyo it was a wonderful, wonderful feeling. I got into the airport without my boarding pass somehow, but I didn't think it was a big deal.  Me and a couple dudes got a couple beers in the terminal and talked about how awesome we are.

I realized that I did actually leave my boarding pass on the plane so I had to get another one printed out.  We then all hopped on a plane for our 7 hour flight to Singapore.  It was a nice plane ride, seemed pretty short compared to the 12 hour one we had just been through.  I did manage to get something like 3 hours of sleep this time.  The food was pretty good too.

We arrived in the Singapore airport and collectively did not know where the heck we were supposed to go.  We were told that there was going to be foot massages, a butterfly garden and a lounge with complementary food.  It was just a matter of finding it all.  Unfortunately it was about 1:30 am Singapore time, so not much was really happening.  We all lined up to transfer our baggage to Singapore airlines.  When it was my turn the nice lady at the counter told me that I needed my baggage tags in order to transfer.  I had lost these.  I was told to go to the other side of the airport (30 minute walk) and talk to them.  I briskly walked through a mostly empty airport trying to find the counter she told me about.  I was stopped by 4 Singapore policemen who were all packing large assault rifles.  They asked me for my passport and boarding pass. Luckily I had these so I didn't get shot.  When I finally found the desk I was looking for, the nice man told me that if I didn't have my baggage tag then my bags would be stuck in Singapore.  on the verge of pooping my pants I asked if there was anything I could do.  He said that in the off chance that there is a Delta flight leaving the airport, then I could get new tags.  I then walked to the other side of the airport again to the Delta counter.  Lo and behold there was a Delta flight leaving and a person behind the desk.  I got my tags and got my boarding pass.  Poop in pants avoided.

I then was able to relax in our nice lounge that the Peace Corps reserved for us which had SHOWERS!  I was so incredibly stinky at this point.  Never take a shower for granted.  In this lounge we also had wifi and a gym if we wanted to use it.  There was a place where we could go outside as well.  When I went out there it was more humid than I thought weather could get.  it was the middle of the night and it was as hot and humid as Minneapolis gets in mid summer.  This is what I am going to have to get used to. yaaaayyy...

After our 6 hour layover in this sweet lounge situation, we got on the last plane headed for Indonesia.
If it hadn't set in yet what we were about to be doing, this was the point where it was getting very real.  The air conditioning on the plane shot out a weird mist into the plane; it looked like we were being poisoned through the ventilation.  I had a coffee and a chicken sausage on our 2 and a half hour flight. My ears started to pop as we descended into the city of Surabaya Indonesia.


Landing and first days in Indonesia soon to come.

2 Weeks To Go: Pokemon and a New Camera

As April 6th approaches I become more keenly aware of how unprepared I am; yet for some reason I think that the best use of my time is to level my Pokemon up enough to defeat the ELITE FOUR.  This is definitely not the best use of my time as it turns out.

I finally moved out of my house in Minneapolis and back into my Parents abode.  Here I am keeping myself busy with Pokemon and my adorable nephew Matteo. 

Got a Camera Finally...

Here I am looking fly with my new digital camera and everything.

You all should expect to see many more pictures in this blog deal of mine.

I also got a fancy new computer with the help of my wonderful family.  It is a Windows 8 which is some sorta black magic inspired machinery, but it is kinda cool.  I'm enjoying it at least.  And now that I have this computer I can video skype and stuff.  So that's neeto.

Uh, yeah.  so I'm feeling pretty heavily anticipatory of my massive undertaking that I am going to undertake soon.  The heaviness of which is only now starting to sink in.  Pokemon will only distract me for so long, but I know that soon I will be on that plane and out of English speaking America for a long time... Heavy.

3 weeks to go

Hello everybody, 

My name is Dan and I am about to travel to the great country of Indonesia to teach English as a foreign language with the Peace Corps.

 I figured that some people back home would want to stay updated about where I am with my travel and exploration of the world and the various diseases I will contract, etc.  That's why I'm making this Blog.  Never made one of these before so bear with me.  I am pretty sure that I will be able to keep this updated and stuff for those people who are interested. This is also depending on if I have internet where I am in Indonesia for 2 years, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So!  It is March 13th and I leave on April 6th at 9:15 a.m. for San Fransisco.  I will arrive at about 11:30 and then have to get across town to the Radisson Hotel in Fisherman's Wharf.  This is where I will meet all of my Peace Corps Indonesia 2013 peers (and recent Facebook friends).  We then have an all day orientation type deal where we learn stuff about what the heck we are getting into.  After we all have realized the heaviness of the commitment we have already committed to and after we have changed out of our soiled undergarments, my guess is that we will go  and promptly drink our terror away in a bonding / shameful night out in the city of San Fransisco.

Just kidding Mom, we will get a good nights rest... for our ELEVEN AND A HALF HOUR FLIGHT to TOKYO!  wowza.  Yep, we are gonna go straight from California to Japan in one insanely long flight.  Then it's another flight from Tokyo to Singapore.  Then from Singapore to Surabaya Indonesia.  I then stay in that country for a pretty long layover, something like 2 years and 3 months.

Some awesome news is that I am almost ready to go!  All I have to do is move all my stuff back to my parents house, buy all the necessary items and clothing, see everyone I know before I go, resolve all my financial obligations, quit my jobs, pack, and party like I've never partied before.  It's a good thing I am super good at partying and moving otherwise I would be worried and stressed out that I didn't have enough time to do all these things. 


Anyway, this is where I am at right now.  I can't think about anything but my near future and I couldn't be more stoked/nervous/terrified about what is going to happen. 

Thanks all, Love ya