Photos from Labuan Bajo, Rinca and Komodo
I spent the first week of my winter break traveling with two friends around Flores, one of the smaller islands east of Bali and Lombok.

This is the sunset taken from my hotel balcony my first night in Labuan Bajo. The airport had decided not to put my luggage on the plane, and I was waiting on friends to show up the next day, but this view and a lukewarm beer made me feel a lot better about things.

The next day a new friend took me on a motorbike tour of the island. We drove past a library he built out of recycled bottles and talked about the local environmental movement. 

Went caving.

Saw a bat. Our guide pointed this baby bat out to us and said "use your flash, make sure you take a good picture"

Hiked out to a waterfall. See the rain clouds lurking in the distance? About 15 minutes into our hike, the heavens let loose and we were immediately soaked through. But we kept on, slipping and sliding down a jungley slope, grateful for having remembered to put the cameras in the drysack.

The waterfall. We had to ford (swim) the river to get even this close to the big falls, our guide said we couldn't go further, because the water was rising fast.

So we played around in this baby waterfall.

Sailing out to Manta Point to go scuba diving with manta rays.

Snorkeling. I saw a cuddlefish!

Komodo Dragons!

In Komodo National Park. Sacrifice to some god of Komodo Dragons? Or just to keep things interesting for the tourists?

This is the bud of rafflesia arnodii, the biggest flowers in the whole world. The bud was 10" high. The books say it might also be the stinkiest flower in the world, it smells like rotting death.

That log-like thing in the background? Yep. That's a komodo dragon. They can run up to 18km/hr, have very sharp claws, dirty mouths, and are capable of bringing down a water buffalo. But luckily, this one isn't feeling very hungry.

One of my weekend hobbies here in Samarinda is weddings. Weddings are great. I haven't been to an actual ceremony, but its the reception the day after that is the main attraction. Weddings are a huge event, you invite everybody you know and hundreds if not thousands of people show up, sign in, get a small present like a fan or a tissue paper cover*, drop some money off as a gift, greet the bride and groom, pose for a picture, eat some food and then skedaddle for the next wedding. As a wedding guest, you can be in and out the door in ten minutes, five, if you're in a hurry.

However, for my sixth wedding here, I was not just a wedding guest, I was part of it! Yesterday was the wedding of the daughter of one of my Ibus at school. She invited me to come be a part of the wedding party as one of the official hand shaker people who greets guests as they come in the door. The job of the hand-shaker person, might not be as important as that of the guest-book guard, the present passer-outer, or the food server, but it was exactly right for me. 

I got to get dressed up in traditional kebaya. The skirt was of a long, patterned red and gold fabric, woven with sparkly golden fibers, and the top part is a lacy and bejeweled tunic top. In the picture below you seem me after getting dressed that morning. Kebaya Barbie is drinking lots of coffee, and obviously (and unsurprisingly) has not been doing much housekeeping this week.

We got to the wedding around 10:00 and took some pictures with the bride and groom before the guests arrived. I also had a chance to eat a quick bowl of chicken soup and some beef curry (not an abnormal breakfast option).

As guests began to show up, we took our places at the entrance of the big reception room. I stood with some of the Ibus who are teachers at my school, and some who I hadn't met before, all of us dressed in the the same outfit, and for the next four or five hours, I touched hands with every single woman that walked into that room, and probably about half the men. Now, this wasn't exactly a handshake, Indonesians don't like the firm grip, American-syle handshake, instead you keep your hands in a prayer-shape and lightly shake them around the other person's hand and then touch your chest, maybe with a little head bow thrown in. I did that a thousand times, and one of the best parts was watching people do a double-take realizing there was a bule in the receiving line.

Bu Nur and me

After a few hours, my feet were hurting and the rest of me was sweating; I took a few breaks, but I think I managed to put up a good show as an official member of the greeting party.  It was a really good experience to feel part of a community. There were lots of smiles, photos, babies, and food, so it had everything a good wedding party needs (except the dance floor and the open bar, but I wasn't expecting that). I had fun meeting new people, practicing my bahasa, and watching all the guests decked out in colorful, sparkling wedding clothes.

When Bu Nur picked me up that morning, I tried to figure out the appropriate way to say congratulations. I tried "Selamat Perkawinan" which would mean basically just be wishing "good wedding," but instead found out it is better to say "Selamat mulai hidup baru" which is more like "congratulations on beginning your new life." I like that. 

These Ibus are helping to serve delicious wedding food, soto ayam (chicken soup) and sate (satay...duh)

Bride, groom, and assorted relatives. Those are some excellently sparkly clothes!

Some of the wedding party ibus with the bride and groom

*Fun Fact. I now own three, dark red, lacy tissue box covers. If I can keep this up, I know what everybody back home will be getting as presents from Indonesia

After spending a significant portion of last weekend curled up in bed bemoaning my lack of pumpkin pie, things turned around and I ended up having a wonderful week.

Last Sunday's adventure was that a group of my students invited me to the mall to go see the new Twilight movie with them. The final one in the series. My last chance to see sparkly vampire skin and that hunky werewolf walking around without a shirt. Of course, I never would have wanted to see the movie had it not been a chance to spend time with my students (of course.....), and the fact that they took me out for McDonald's afterwards made it an oddly endearingly American-style afternoon.

The week has been great since then. I was really proud of my lesson plan this week, and I felt like a good teacher in the classroom.  We talked about how to express sympathy, and then my students wrote and acted out their own "sad dialogues." We also played antonym bingo. I taught an English class at the hotel where I go to the gym and that went really well too. I lectured about good and bad conversation topics:
travel, weather, sports, movies = good
religion, politics, asking if I'm married, have kids, and how much money I make = bad.
I even guest-starred as a teacher at an elementary school for an afternoon; I got to shake hands with all the 6 year olds and re-enact all the old Kasintorn favorites: "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed".  It reminded me of all the fun parts of teaching English to little kids who just mimic everything I do and made me yearn for the carefully drawn, home-laminated picture cards and masking tape that were the staples of my Thai teaching.

Outside of teaching, I can't say that anything thrilling has happened, except that I bought tickets to head out to Flores and Komodo the first week of my winter break. But I had an English conversation hour with some of the university students. I went out for dim sum. I logged many many miles on the treadmill at the gym. I did a little home yoga. I read some books (yup. books plural. I have thousands of books on my kindle and I end almost every evening with a book and a cup of tea). And I finally got my laundry done, which I think everybody who spends much time around me will appreciate.

I have one more week of teaching before winter break begins. My first trip will be out to Flores where I plan on hunting komodo dragons, diving, and hiking up to a mountain to see some rainbow lakes. Then I'm flying back to Samarinda for a wedding, which I get to dress up for in my brand new kabaya! (the traditional costume of long songket skirt and lacy beadazzled tunic top) And then I don't really know what I'm doing. My plans for Christmas and New Years are still unknown, but I'm excited to see what they turn into. Maybe taking a batik class? Maybe more beaches and sunburns?

Its funny to me to remember that last year at this time I was trudging through snowbanks followed by herds of children who didn't understand why I wouldn't let them touch the snow with their cotton gloves on.  I imagine the world back home is starting to turn into a Christmas-shopping-extravaganza land, and while I can't say I'll miss the never-ending carols on the radio I will miss the datenut pinwheels, the Tom and Jerrys (the drink), and the smell of fresh-cut pine trees.

Here's a smattering of the better photos I've taken lately:

baskets!

inside the biggest Islamic center in Southeast Asia

a delicious padang feast

buaya! (crocodile! and don't worry, I took this photo through a fence, a chicken-wire fence, but better than nothing)

...and this is pretty self-explanatory

Happy Thanksgiving from Samarinda!

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with a group of students, teachers, and friends. We had Indonesians, Americans, and even an Ecuadorean. Our Thanksgiving feast was a delicious spread of roast chicken, potatoes, mushroom soup, roasted veggies, and fresh rolls. No cranberry sauce, stuffing, or pie, so it wasn't as good as celebrating at home, but since nothing is as good as celebrating at home, I think we made the best of it.

Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday and calling home that evening to get in on the "Do we really need more bread?" debate made me miss all the friends and family (and food!) back home. The phone call didn't last nearly long enough, and when I got cut off I resigned myself to imagining the smell of sauteed celery and onions, mushrooms, and sausage while watching the bowl of bread overflow.  Soon many hands would reach into the two (because there is too much to mix in just one) bowls of stuffing for the time-honored taste-testing tradition. More poultry seasoning. More salt. My mom always gets the final decision on when its ready, and then we turn ourselves to the next task of overcomplicating a giant game of Cat's Cradle so we'll be able to lift the turkey out of the pan when its ready. Thanksgiving is a time to be surrounded by people you love and to be very very full of food but still save room for pie.

As I write this blog, I know that having slept off the initial feast, everybody at home is waking up to that perfect breakfast of coffee, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. So I'm drowning my sorrows in my sister's homemade biscotti (best care package ever!) and remembering that I am hugely grateful for the job I have and the place I'm living right now. I am so lucky to have this opportunity to live in Samarinda and make my small way as a member of this community. I am thankful for the beautiful places I get to see, the incredible people I get to meet, and the fact that I touched a giant sea turtle last weekend.

 Thanksgiving dinner. Smiling, hungry faces.

For all but 3 of us, this was the first Thanksgiving.

The feast.

Thank you!!

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 10^th grade students. I see the entire 10^th 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...

It seems utterly appropriate, and quite wonderful, that as I'm working on this post, I'm sitting in the main room of my house, listening to something wonderful. The door is open to let in the (slightly) cool evening air, and I can hear the melodic buzzing sound of the call to prayer over the loudspeakers of my neighborhood mosque, while also listening to my next door neighbor, strumming his guitar with a group of friends, all of whom are singing Christian Hallelujah-y songs. There's also a really big lizard skittering across the wall, and that has nothing to do with anything, except that its really big and it has a pretty snazzy orangey-yellow pattern.

Recently, every time I pick up the Jakarta Post, I read an article or an editorial about protests in Islamic countries. When I check my gmail, it seems there is always another message from the US embassy warning me away from large gatherings of people. Friends of mine in other parts of Indonesia have had brief encounters with demonstrations, but here in Samarinda I have felt completely safe.

The news, the protests, all of it has gotten me caught up in a lot of interesting discussions about the movie, “Innocence of Muslims” (though I have yet to talk to anyone who has actually seen it, Google has blocked it in Indonesia), about tensions between Islam and the West, and about freedom and persecution in general.

It has been a fascinating subject to think about academically, and then a slightly scary subject to think about when I remember these protests and demonstrations are really happening. The Indonesian Muslims that I've talked to condemn the violence, but they also don't understand why the United States would allow a film like that to be made in the first place. Why can't our government do something to stop something so hateful from being made? (or don't they want to?). There is a general feeling not of violent rage, but just of sadness.

Editorials in the newspaper here talk about the fact that our American value of individualism and our constitutional freedom of speech don't seem as clear in parts of the world where people don't have as much freedom from government censorship. The editorials also talk about freedom of speech vs. a freedom from being hurt. People feel legitimately hurt by the blasphemy of this video, in fact, Indonesia's President SBY announced plans to address the UN at the upcoming conference asking that the UN adopt an international protocol affirming that intentional insults to religion are not freedom of expression, but are intentional attempts to create violence. This is the idea that these provocations not be recognized as causing violence, but as being violence.

A friend of mine, who has the bahasa skills to delve into all these thorny issues sent out an email, quoting a man he talked to about the movie (italics are my friend's comments):

“I listen to President Obama talk about freedom of expression on television and I think of course freedom of expression is good! Freedom of expression exists and it is a right, but I have rights also! I am HURT! HURT! HURT! My soul is HURT! Is freedom of expression more important than freedom to not get hurt?(When I write hurt, the phrase he was actually using was “melukai hati” or “hati dilukai” – which means to injure one’s heart or a heart is injured.) This is not freedom of expression, it is freedom of aggression, freedom to hurt people. That doesn’t exist! And President Obama says he can’t do anything about it because of freedom of expression. Yes he can! The CIA can kill people, it’s easy, they kill everyone who says things they don’t like. How hard is it for the CIA to walk up and stab the person who made this film. Then I could believe President Obama.”

He also said,

“In Indonesia we are better than other Muslim countries. We have freedom of expression. We can insult our government. But we don’t have freedom to insult religions, and we don’t want it. Freedom doesn’t mean you can kill people or rob from them – and religions are far more important than people. Religion is the most important thing. So if there is no freedom to hurt people, why is there freedom to hurt religion, which is more important?”

What this guy is saying seems pretty important, because while the conversation in American might be about freedom of speech and the intention of what one could say (and the intentional violence in might provoke), in Indonesia, they also see the film inself as violence. And as such, they are fairly wondering why the US government would let someone commit such violence without consequence. Most of them also deplore the violent reaction to the film, and people have assured me that Islam is a peaceful religion and violence is wrong.

Today I also had an interesting conversation with one of the teachers at school. She was in Australia right after the Bali bombing and simply because she walks around with her jilbob (headscarf) on, people assumed she was a Muslim (which she is) and went so far as to flip her off and yell “f – you” at her as she walked down the street. Talking about it today, she says she understands why people were upset, lots of people had just died. But still, to take out that sort of anger on a complete stranger seems so wrong.

She also talked about airport security. Whenever she travels internationally, she has come to expect extra security screenings and delays, just because of what people see when they look at her. This teacher's experiences aren't exactly connected to the film, but they do speak to the tension that exists between Islamic peoples and western cultures.

It all leaves my brain feeling a bit stuck. I believe very strongly in the importance of freedom of speech, those sorts of freedoms are one of my favorite things about my country. But I'm also starting to understand how hurtful statements and media like the “Innocence of Muslims” film are to Muslim people. It makes me wonder what will happen next. In our ever more connected, globalized world, hateful content can be created and spread so easily. What rules or values should apply when messages can fly around the world at the click of a button?

I just realized that I've been to the airport in Jakarta almost every weekend since I've been in Indonesia. I haven't always been flying someplace (at the end of training I went to the airport just to wave off everybody else), but I am starting to think I know my way around the place. I also managed to learn an important lesson about not leaving cash in an unlocked suitcase (even if its pretty well buried under a lot of other things), which I probably should have known already.

All that aside, I'm looking forward to spending some time away from the airport. I was in Samarinda for less than a week when I flew to Singapore to get my work permit, and I only just got back yesterday.

The trip to Singapore was good, but brief. I basically only had one day there, and part of it was spent making shady deals outside a MacDonalds, handing over my passport and a wad of cash to a man named Wahab*. The rest of the day I spent wandering through the National Museum, relaxing in a park, and admiring the merlion statue. The real highlight was probably that my hotel (another beautiful room, thanks AMINEF!) was in Little India, so I managed to pack away a lot of delicious palak paneer.

So far Samarinda has been good to me. I have a little green house on a hill and wonderful neighbors on either side of it who feed me and allow me to practice my terrible Indonesian on them. My school seems like a pretty great place too. The teachers have all been very kind and welcoming. Every day they bring in new Indonesian foods, so I am eagerly learning all the different ways you can make tempeh really delicious and really bad for you.

I haven't started teaching yet, but I have been around to a lot of the classes, introducing myself and taking questions from the students. The students have been studying English since they started school, so they know a lot, but seem a bit shy to actually talk to me yet. That's understandable, as I am completely shy about languages as well, turns out you feel pretty silly when you confuse the words “cook” and “enter” all the time (masak and masuk) and accidentally call yellow rice “cat rice” (nasi kuning vs. nasi kucing).

Outside of school, my life remains pretty tame. I go to the gym, read, study Indonesian, kill the ants in my house, and hang out with my neighbors. I've been to 2 weddings, they were my very first day here, and the hoards of people, food, and sparkly dresses was overwhelming in a really great way. I am trying to find my way around the town, which has been difficult, I haven't found a good map yet, and for a long while I didn't know my own address (Kate, Mom, you may remember that forgetting my own address is not so uncommon for me). Speaking of addresses, if perchance any of my loyal readers were inclined to send me mail, they can send it to my school:

SMAN 1

Jl. Bhayangkara 54

Samarinda 75121

KALTIM – INDONESIA

Awesome care package ideas include: fresh veggies, stinky cheeses, and good wine!

For the most part, I really do have everything I need. I managed to find floss in Singapore, and I have some dear family members who might be shipping some coffee-making tools out this way soon...

So things are good. I am excited and nervous to start teaching soon. I am looking forward to making friends in my community. And I've been logging a lot or hours on the treadmill at the gym, in hopes of staving off all the makanan goreng (fried food).

*The permit process was actually completely legal. It just makes for a much better story if I describe the shadiness of it.