I have been
living in Samarinda for a little over a month now, and it feels like I’m
starting to develop a regular life and a routine. “Regular life” here does include strange
activities like trips to crocodile farms and a visit to a under-construction
housing development where I toured some model homes, but I really enjoy that I
can consider experiences like that part of my daily routine.
I go to
school Monday thru Friday and I teach ten classes a week to the 10th
grade students. I see the entire 10th grade class each week, so that
means about 400 students and 40 students in each class. It is a lot of
students, so I do feel worried that I won’t be able to really get to know each
and every one. Luckily, they are pretty well behaved; they talk to each other
in class, but they tend to hush up when I glare at them. Of course sometimes
they are supposed to talk in class, and the students are shy so it is a bit
difficult to have them raise their hands to answer questions as individuals. I’m
betting that shyness will fade as the weeks go by.
When I teach,
I’m focusing mostly on listening and speaking activities. So far that has meant
mini-presentations about me and my life in America and lots of basic
conversation practice (this past week we talked about invitations). It is fun,
and while my school gives me the conversation topic they want me to focus on
each week, I have a lot of freedom in how I actually teach.
My recent
adventures have included a trip to a crocodile farm where they raise crocs for
eating and for medicinal purposes (I was told that crocodile penis tea makes
men virile, and then I wasn’t allowed to try any for myself). I went on a short
trip to another city about 3 hours away, that is actually very similar to my
city, but it has a beach and a starbucks, so that was reason enough to go
there. I’ve been fingerprinted by the
police, and they also have a record of my teeth, hair color, eye color, and ear
shape, so the entire province would be able to identify me if necessary. Last
week I went to watch two of the students at a speech competition at the local
anti-corruption festival, and was roped into being a judge as soon as they saw
my native English-speaking bule face. It was actually an interesting chance to
hear students talk about a very important issue, but between the fact that it
is a complicated issue and they were speaking in a second language, nobody said
anything that seemed too radical, or even practical.
I still don’t
speak or understand as much bahasa as I would like, but I suppose I’m making a
little progress (mostly I know the words for my favorite foods). I try to talk
to my neighbors and the teachers at my school, and I lot of it ends it me
tilting my head and squinting at them in confusion. But I tell my students the
only way to get better at a new language is to try and keep trying and even
make lots of silly mistakes, so if that lesson is true for them, its probably
true for me too.
These are a couple pictures from my day in Balikpapan
The beach. Not quite an idyllic paradise,
But if you closed your eyes and just listened,
You could imagine being someplace just a little bit different...
