Then again, when I look around my apartment, I get a bit of a reality check. How did I get so much stuff in two years? It's not that it's so much, actually, just more than I can fit in two suitcases. Some is being shipped home, but I think in the end I will have to pay for extra baggage. Oh well. I suppose I can deal with that... Papers. It's darn papers and books that always take up the most room. Notes from students, handouts from professional development, teaching books, and always the miscellaneous "Other" category that takes up the most room. That Thai cooking book I got during a cooking class in Thailand? I'm not going to throw it away. Nor the music for the dizi I have accumulated, now that I actually have a dizi (Chinese flute.) My friend who taught me how to play it is very generously letting me keep the one I have been using. I can't get rid of those. And yet, everything takes up room. Alas!
But you are not interested in my packing woes, nor the myriad ways in which I procrastinate in dealing with them. (Say, by blogging.) In this post, I want to write a little bit about what my life in Jakarta has meant to me and what I'm going to miss most about it, as well as some of the surprises, pleasant and otherwise, I have had being a Jakarta expat for two years.
This is not the end of the Teaching In Indonesia blog. First of all, I have about three more Indonesia-related blogs I want to publish, which I have simply been too busy/lazy to get around to publishing yet: the ones about Chinese New Year, term break in Sumatra, and some of my observations about social issues. These might need to be published later however, because after Nicole and I return to Jakarta with our visas-on-arrival, we will be leaving Tuesday night (the 17th) for six weeks of travel in Indonesia. There are many places in Indonesia we have never been to (for example, most of the 17,000 islands that make up this nation.) It has always been the plan to travel once the contract was done. (Makes sense, since we're already here.) Right now, our plan consists to going to Raja Ampat in Papua, Maluku, Sulawesi, and Flores - all different islands in Indonesia. This will bring us to the end of July. It will be the beginning of Idul Fitri then, and everything will be closed, so we will lay low in Bali for a few days, stop in Jakarta to take care of assorted business, and then head to Myanmar. There may be time to visit either Cambodia or Laos too, after Mynamar, but that much is not certain now. I will, however, visit Taiwan for a week before heading home to the states. Many of our Chinese-language teachers come from Taiwan and I will visit them in mid-September. The long and the short of it is, come Tuesday, I will be on the road, with inconsistent internet access, and although I plan to continue to blog, I don't know when exactly you'll see posts. I plan to finish up the three blog posts already mentioned, but I will also write about my travels too.
Which brings me back to my previous point. In a couple days, I am going to be gone from Jakarta for good. I am going to miss my Jakarta life. I am going to miss my life here in general. This is the first time I've made a life for myself. Of course, I lived away from home during university, but that's different in a way. I'm not saying that school-life is any less "real" than work-life, but it does feel different. Also, when I lived in Morris, I was about a three hour drive away from home. Something about always being 35-48 hours away from home (by plane), being as far from home as it is almost possible to be, makes you take a deep breath and really think about being independent and relying on yourself. Then again, Skype has made it very easy to stay in touch with people at home too. Sometimes I will call my parents to ask them a trivial question, just because I can. Even if it takes 35-48 hours to be home in person, at least I call home at any time.
I have certainly felt myself grow as a person and as a teacher. I think I was a much better teacher during year two, just because I had a better sense of what I was supposed to be doing. The academic side of teaching - writing an engaging lesson, for example - has never been too much of a problem for me. It's the whole organisation and classroom management thing that has taken time for me to refine. (Surprise, surprise.) These are a couple of areas where I find myself constantly stealing good ideas from veteran teachers or books. There's no shame in that though; I think it's a good way to learn. And it seems to have worked for me so far.
One of the best parts of teaching is getting a nice note from a student at the end of the year. This, too, I think, is evidence that you're doing something right. A couple of my 5th grade boys wrote me a very nice note that read: "We know that you are quitting BBS this year. To show how much you help us thorugh out this year, here is a small token of gratitude." (They gave me a fridge magnet.) "We all will miss you. I hope you will miss us to. Ms you always help me do anything I cannot and you always make me happy, you always calm me down when i'm stressed... and goodbye I can't bare to say good bye to you. Oooooh! noooo! Goodbye Ms Danna. From, P5-Faith." It was actually very touching, coming from 11 year old boys who normally act like they don't like anything about school. Another student told me this year, "Miss, because of you, I became a bookworm." That was also touching. And meaningful. Proof that at least I've done something right for one student. Sometimes it's hard to assess yourself, but when you get real, positive comments from students like that, it can give you a lot of happiness and motivation.
As far as teaching goes, I think I'm on the right track and I'm looking forward to doing more teaching in America (and possibly abroad again.) One unexpected thing from these two years is that I've really become a science geek. I had some previous experience with this when I taught 6th grade science in Fergus Falls, but these two years have made me think I really want to continue teaching science.
When I had my interview with Bina Bangsa, they asked me which subjects - English, math, or science - I would most like to teach. I said English and science and so that's what I got. I have been the level rep. for 4th grade science for both years, writing the tests and making the worksheets for the grade level. I have also been one of the teachers in charge of the Science and Technology club for 3rd grade to 6th. This club is pretty popular, and we had about 40 or so students who joined this year. The teachers in charge took turns making the activities for all the students. Some of mine this year included doing an acid and bases lab, making musical instruments out of various materials (i.e. anything and everything I could find in the science lab) with a tie-in to sound waves, and a classic baking-soda-vinegar lab. This last one had a twist however. I found that you can use carbon dioxide to extinguish a candle flame, which is very cool. In my own classroom, I got in the habit of answering all the students' various science questions, even if they weren't related to the topic at hand, and they had so many that we had to start a Science Questions jar to answer them. A 5th grader even prefaced a science question to me by saying, "Miss, you're a scientist, right?" It's funny how having a little bit of knowledge makes you seem like an expert in the eyes of a child. As long as I am teaching 10 year olds, I feel like a science expert. When I hang out with my friends who actually have science degrees, I feel like a ignorant middle-schooler. Regardless, wherever I teach next, I hope I will be teaching science.
Leaving the professional side of things alone, I think I have also grown in personal ways too. Moving to a new country with only a few contacts and having to build friendships from scratch has been challenging at times, but very much worth the effort. Also, I fully expected to run into cultural differences in Indonesia, but I really wasn't prepared for the nature of them. Sometimes, those differences felt like more than I could handle. Here's an interesting observation I've made about myself,which I never could have imagined making before living abroad: I am just as open-minded as ever, but I am not as tolerant as I had thought I was, perhaps.
Let me explain. It's taken me a while to come to terms with Indonesian culture, as well as the culture of the wealthy Chinese-Indonesian families. I have a lot of respect for many aspects of Indonesian culture: the hospitality, the warmth, the tendency to share meals, the resilience in the face of floods and storms, the diversity and embracing of so many sub-cultures, religions, and languages within one country. Other aspects of Indonesian culture have taken me a long time to understand and accept, but I simply cannot embrace some of them. I cannot help but feel that nanny-culture is detrimental to kids. This is my opinion. Many children are growing up being raised by their nannies, who only act in the role of servants and don't actually take a parenting role. Sometimes the protective instinct - the sheltering and molly-coddling, if you will - goes to an extreme. I'm talking about junior high kids with nannies; children who don't know their nanny's names, who just call them "Mbak" - an impersonal title like "Miss," or "Girl"; 9 and 10 year olds being spoon-fed; 1st graders with awkward gaits, because they've been pushed in strollers for so long they haven't properly developed the neural pathways for motor skills; children who think that Bali is another country, and when they go there, spend all their time playing an Ipad at a resort; and if you asked our students to find Indonesia on an unmarked map, I think about 98% of them would fail at that task.
The Chinese-Indonesian way of raising kids, so far as I can tell, consists of love, doting, and a weird combination of high and low expectations. Kids are expected to get perfect scores on all their tests, but, knowing how to tie their shoes is not expected. Many of our students - and their parents - live and die for the honour of being named one of the "Top 10" students for the grade level - ceremoniously announced in front of the whole school at the end of the year. So, scores at the 90% level? Yes. Dressing and feeding oneself? Not so much. Parents get very worried if they think their child won't have time to eat a snack at the end of the day, and yet the kids seem to chow down exclusively on hot dogs, instant noodles, chicken strips and desserts. I have much respect for the love, care and concern that parents have for their kids. I cannot respect all the ways they get expressed though. And I think that's okay. I am not Chinese-Indonesian. This is not my native culture. I try to understand it, but, if at the end of the day I don't embrace it, I think that's perfectly fine. (I also have many issues with the persistent racism and sexism I see in everyday life, but that's an issue for another blog.)
There are also many differences in the Singaporean school system that I don't fully agree with. It really just boils down to a difference in personal philosophy. I think that if I decide to teach overseas again, I will seek out a school with a more Western basis. Teaching in a very difference culture and school system for two years has helped me to realise better what is important to me when it comes to school and students. Having to adjust to this very different system has been good for me though. It makes me think that I can handle any number of challenges that might come my way. It also has made me focus on cutting through philosophy - my own Western perspective and the Eastern perspective of the Singapore system - to direct my attention on what my students actually need from me on a daily basis. All of that is good. The long and the short of it is, these two years have really helped me grow as a person and teacher. And it's not all negative experiences either! I don't want it to seem that way. There have been many, many positive teaching experiences for me here as well. (Turning children in science-geeks, for example. Or helping struggling students learn basic skills.)
And now, I believe, it's time for some lists. Everybody loves lists. (Especially if they come with pictures and are easy to scroll through on Buzzfeed. These, however, will require some reading.)
Somethings I never expected to do in Indonesia:
1. Join a Chinese orchestra and learn to read Chinese music. A unique experience and one I'm glad I said yes to. I have made new friends and learnt new skills while trying to master the dizi. Reading the Chinese music was the biggest challenge, but I'm okay at it now.
2. Discover I could put a 19 liter gallon of water on a water dispenser. For at least a year and half never replaced our water jugs when we ran out. I always let Lynsey do it because I didn't think I had the strength. Then I discovered that Nicole regularly replaces their water and though she's stronger than me, it made me start to wonder if it might just be possible after all. Turns out it is and now I replace our water jugs too.
3. Be reduced to tears because someone was cleaning for me. This was an example of big cultural dissonance. After Science and Technology club - which we held in the assembly hall due to the high number of students involved - it used to be that the cleaners would regularly clean up our science experiments. This bothered me immensely. If it was the club doing the activities, why should the cleaners remove our materials and wash our beakers? To me, it felt abusive. I never minded asking the cleaners for help setting up the tables in the assembly hall (because that's part of school property,) but I just couldn't abide them doing clean-up from the activities too. When I mentioned this to my fellow Science and Tech teachers, they casually told me not to worry about it, because the cleaners expected to do it. After all, I was told, they have a good job and get a Christmas gift from the school every year, so it's okay. This basically reduced me to tears because I could not handle the cultural dissonance. I did not grow up in a culture where one class of people serves another and it was too difficult for me at that time. My friend LeAnne came up a very logical solution: just have the students do the clean up. Oh. Right. That makes so much sense.
I have eventually learnt how to deal with the service-culture a little bit better. The cleaners always do the dishes in the staff room sink too. (That sign you see in American staff rooms, "Your mother doesn't work here. Please clean up after yourself," would only confuse people here, I think.) At first, I'd never hand over my dishes. Again, it felt abusive to have the cleaners do my personal dishes. And yet, that's not their perspective. I had to learn to see things from the cleaners' point-of-view. If I refuse to hand over my dishes, the message coming across isn't: "I'd like to save you some trouble. Please don't bother with doing my dishes." Instead, it's: "I don't trust you to clean my dishes. I cannot even let you do this simple task." In other words, while I might think I'm being nice, my actions might come across as offensive. So, if someone is doing the dishes at a time when I have just finished eating, I now hand them over with a sincere thank-you. (Still feels weird though. If no cleaner is there, I do my own dishes automatically.)
4. Teach the finer points of grammar (adverbial phrases, collective nouns, past participles, present perfect continuous tense, subordinate clauses, etc.) to little kids. I now know more about English grammar than at any point in my life. Because in our school system, when you teach English, you're really teaching how the English language works from a mechanical perspective.
5. Learn how to use a squatter toilet and become totally comfortable and unphased by it. I have gone from skepticism to tolerance to appreciation on the matter of squatters. Sometimes when one is out and about in Indonesia - the real Indonesia, not the malls of Jakarta - there are both Western and Asian toilets available. Often the Western toilets are dirty and wet and nothing I would ever sit on anyway. I have to squat over those as well, so wouldn't it just be easier to squat over a squatty-potty? Yes! They're better in a way because you don't have to make any contact with the toilet. The first time I encountered one of these, I took a photo of it - equal parts fascinated and disgusted - and stuck the photo on this blog as an object of curiosity. Now, to come across one, it's like... whatever. Doesn't even warrant a thought or emotion from me. It's a toilet.
6. Attend two wake services. (Very sad, this one.) The first was during year one, when one of our American co-workers died very suddenly. That was truly shocking and numbing. The second was this year, for the mother of one of my students.
7. Fly to another country for a doctor's appointment. Last year, part of my skull was feeling very tender. For a few months. That on top of a the appearance of some headaches made me panic a bit. I went for a CT scan at an Indonesian hospital (a procedure that cost $100 total.) Even though there was nothing amiss from the head scan, I still felt that I should go to a hospital in Singapore for a second opinion. Aasha and I went to Singapore for fun on a weekend last November and worked in a visit to the Raffles Neurological Centre as well. The Singaporean doctor thought it might be a combination of stress (we talked for a while about the stresses of Singaporean education) plus unconsciously clenching my jaw. This seemed more plausible to me than the Indonesian doctor's theory that wearing my hair in a pony tail was the cause of the problem.
8. Understand the every squirm, wriggle, and gurgle of my digestive tract. My stomach is fine-tuned to what is going to make me run to the toilet in an hour and what is not. I have a much more intimate relationship with my digestive system these days.
Things I'm going to miss:
1. Lychees and mangosteen. My favourite tropical fruits!
2. Cheap massages. A 90 minute massage costs about $12. Perhaps $14-15 when tip is included.
3. All the fancy restaurants in Jakarta. Jakarta has a pretty decent night lift and many good places to eat.
4. $3 movie tickets. So cheap, lah!
5. Micro-travelling. What an awesome time in my life when I can go to Bali for the weekend on a $100 round trip ticket.
6. Hanging out with my friends. Going to Starbucks with Aasha and Amber. Drinking by the apartment pool with LeAnne and Duane. Getting a creambath with Mildred or Nicole. Having queso and margaritas at Hacienda. Eating Indian food at Amaya every chance we get.
7. The expat life and the diverse expat friends I have made. Going to the Jakarta comedy club. Meeting Bonnie and Dan through LeAnne and Duane. Seeing Dan's expat band play live at Eastern Promise. Getting to know Simone, an Australian friend my age. (She taught at English First and now has a teaching job in Bogor that she will return to Indonesia for. She helped us to place orders for tailor-made dresses at Pasar Mayestic, the cloth and fabric souk. I regret that I met her so late though. I hope we will meet again. Guess this gives me a reason to visit her in Australia!)
What I'm not going to miss:
1. Traffic jams.
2. Pollution so thick you could cut it with a knife.
3. The wonderful perfume of the sewers and canals. (AKA: Jakarta Fresh.)
4. All the various illness associated with life in Jakarta. Mostly...
A) Sore throats and ear-nose-throat infections.
B) A persistent, hacking cough, known as Jakarta Lung.
C) Any manner of digestive problems. Even if you're careful you can still get bad food in you, and then the diarrhea comes, or the vomiting, or if you're very unlucky, both, at the same time. It happens. As much as it is a fact of life, and really no more unusual or unsettling for me now than getting a cold or sniffle, I still use any number of euphemisms for this: "A Disgruntled Digestive Tract," or "Major Protests in the Lower Intestine," for example. There have only been a few times when it got so bad I really had to stay home and was incapacitated. Otherwise, you just deal with it. (Even at school, kids will tell you they were home sick because of diarrhea. No embarrassment or shame about it. It's like reporting you had pink eye, or the flu.) On the plus side, my tolerance for street food (and the perceived coolness I'd like to think comes with it,) isn't half bad at all.
The first two illnesses on the list above tend to get drawn out and aggravated by the omni-present pollution. It's true that some days the skies are actually clear. There are the occasional sunny, blue-sky days and clear nights with a few stars. However, it's also true that there have been a couple days during my time here when the smog was so thick you could see it at eye level, like fog. The last sickness on the list can happen to you anywhere in Indonesia.
Another fact of life: Rare tropical diseases are not that rare when you live in the tropics. During the past two years, I have personally known two people who got dengue (and very likely more than that, unofficially) and two who got typhoid. One of the people who got dengue was Lynsey, my roommate. It had to have been caused by a mosquito bite (while still in Jakarta, might I add - in fact, both cases of dengue were in Jakarta.) It made her weak for a week and gave her lots of headaches and pains, but, as she said, "At least it's not malaria." As for me, the worst I suffered was when I got severe diarrhea and vomiting for about three days at the end of September, 2012. I was bedridden for a couple of days, completely weak, dehydrated, famished and uncomfortable. It was awful. Could it have been dysentery? I still wonder.
But despite illness, pollution, traffic jams, floods, and all my crazy school experiences... I absolutely do not regret moving to Indonesia. I'm afraid I've drawn attention to too many negative experiences in this blog post. I should make it clear that there have been so many good experiences too. The best experiences have centered around travel, friends and food. Personal and professional growth has been challenging but rewarding. Seeing a new part of the world has been invaluable. I don't know. How do I even end this blog post...? I know. By saying, that's that, and going to finish my packing. That way, I don't have to end it. Besides, I've got more to write later.
Miss Danna, you are awesome. the insight and thoughtfulness you put into each post is truly incredible. Thanks so much for taking the time to write about your adventures, both good and bad. as a current student teacher and aspiring international educator, your blog is invaluable. again. thanks!
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