Singapore

Two weeks ago, I left the island of Java for the first time in 7 months. It was like tasting and feeling freedom at the same time. I desperately needed a change of scenery. I chose Singapore to be my first getaway because my family friend, Monica, currently lives there. When I booked my ticket last July, I was excited to explore Singapore. But as my departure date came closer, I became more excited to see Monica than Singapore. I was desperate to reconnect with someone outside of the Peace Corps bubble.

Monica had to work during the weekdays, but we still managed to catch up each night. She took me out twice to enjoy Singapore’s nightlife. She even convinced me to smoke a $40 Cuban cigar on a rooftop bar. What luxury!

During the weekdays, I explored Singapore by myself. This was the first time I had ever explored a foreign country alone. It was exactly as fun as I thought it’d be! I didn’t make an agenda or force myself to go to touristy places. Each morning I looked at a map, found an area that interested me, and then went for it! I liked the idea of exploring a city and not being tied down to a strict agenda.  

On the first day, I literally sat inside Monica’s apartment enjoying the air conditioning and free wifi. I barely got up out of her bed. When I finally did muster up enough motivation to leave, I ended up across the street from her apartment building and into a comfy seat at the movie theater. It was a lazy, rainy day in Singapore and I felt as if I had lived there for years.

On the second day, I acted like a true tourist and headed to the Asian Civilization Museum. When I got to the museum, tangled wires, loudspeakers, and a microphone scattered the atrium floor. I asked the staff if here was a performance going on later. They said, “Yes, there is a jazz band playing here later today.” Obviously I stuck around to enjoy the live music!

A college professor from Singapore asked his students to play a few jazz numbers at the museum. They played songs by Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra. They even played Moon River, one of my personal favorites! I’m so glad I went to the museum on that particular day. I think I enjoyed the band more than the museum itself!

Overall, Singapore was fun, but I did not fit into the local culture. Everyone was dressed in expensive outfits complemented with Louis Vuitton bags, Kate Spade shoes, and Gucci watches. I did not fit in with my long, hippy flower shirt and my baggie t-shirt that reads “Help the Homeless.”

I once read an article stating that a country’s best quality is also the country’s worst quality. Singaopre’s best and worst quality is….

Drum roll please….

It’s perfect.

It’s perfect in the sense that everything is clean and orderly. There are many rules and regulations in Singapore. These are the ones that intrigued me the most.

 1) Each animal is quarantined and observed for a month before being allowed into the country.  This ensures that the animals is disease-free and safe to enter the country.

2) The license to own a car is sometimes valued higher than the car itself (this expensive license helps regulate the number of cars let into the country).

3) If you are found homeless in Singapore, the government will place you in housing until you land on your feet.

Overall, the country is also incredibly safe. According to Monica, you can leave your wallet on the table of a busy café, come back an hour later, and discover your wallet untouched. She also told me that many Singapore residents chose to leave their doors unlocked. Now that’s trust!

However, the country has no flare, no zest. Everything in Singapore looks and feels  brand new. It’s as if they forced the personality out of Singapore and left only the orderly, well-dressed people. Don’t get me wrong. Singapore was great, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

H2No

In college I took a course on Latin America. During one class period, I studied the Water War in Bolivia. In 1999-2000, Bolivian citizens protested the privatized water systems. The leading water resource Aguas del Tunari soon monopolized the water industry. The price of installing this system was incredibly high; many locals could afford the price of water, but not the price of installation. As a result, many Bolivians began to collect rainwater in attempt to eschew the private water companies. The government soon discovered these tricks and made collecting rainwater illegal. Water became scarce and sacred.

“That must have really sucked,” I thought as I walked out of class.  Later, I filled my water bottle, went home, took a shower, boiled some pasta, ate dinner, and put my dirty dishes into the dishwasher. The thought of water never crossed my mind again even though I was using water all day. I never stopped to appreciate the precious liquid gold until today.

Right now, my village is going through a drought. It’s nothing as severe as the Water War in Bolivia, but it is a serious issue. Let me explain my water situation:

There are two types of water in my household. There’s potable water that comes from a water cooler and there’s tap water. The drinking water is more expensive than the tap water. In fact, the tap water is paid for through taxes. The tap water is the stuff they warn you about in travel guides. You don’t want to drink that…ever. I still have potable water that gets delivered to my house every week. That’s not the issue. The issue is the tap water.

My bathroom has a large square basin on the left hand side. The basin is usually filled with water. Most of the time, the basin is overflowing and spills onto the bathroom floor. This water is used to mandi (bucket bath) and to flush the toilet. The toilet is a porcelain squatty potty. You pour water in the squatter (hey, that rhymes) until your excrement has been flushed down into the abyss.

Recently the water in the basin has been either 25-50% full (or 50-75% empty for all you pessimists out there). Indonesians usually take 2 bucket baths a day. Last week, my ibu asked me to skip my second bucket bath because there was hardly any water in the basin.

“We have to save it for the toilet,” she told me.

Just yesterday, I went into the bathroom in the morning to take a bucket bath. Unfortunately, the basin was nearly empty. I chose to only wash my bottom half in order to save the water for other purposes. Later that night the basin was full again, so I was able to fully bathe.

My ibu also tells me to be incredibly careful when I’m hand washing my clothes (I don’t have a washing machine in my house). To relieve some of her stress, I started washing my clothes only once a week as opposed to twice a week like I used to. I also wear the same clothes twice in order to avoid washing more clothes. It’s sort of gross in this climate, but I don’t want to be the cause of more stress.

In front of my house, there is a large dust lot. The lot can fit about 2 cars. My ibu “waters” this dust lot. When I asked her why, she said, “The dust flies up into your face. When it rains, I will stop doing this.”

I thought this was pretty counterintuitive seeing as we are in the middle of a drought. But here’s the logic behind it: if the dust constantly flies into my face, then I cough and need to drink water. Potable water is expensive, and therefore I am spending more money on water. By pouring tap water onto the dust lot, I am reducing the amount that I have to spend on potable water.

As I said before, the water in the bathroom basin sometimes overflows. To prevent the loss of water, my ibu has been saving the excess water in buckets. This water is used to water the dust lot.

I asked my host parents what we will do if the rain does not come until December. They said we will have to cut our bucket baths to only once a day and we will stop watering the dust lot.

Although the drought isn’t severe yet, I have developed a new appreciation for my water supply. I knew the lack of water is a concern around the globe, but I didn’t understand  how the lack of one resource could alter your lifestyle.

The Death of My Facebook Account

People keep asking me why I decided to delete my Facebook. Honestly, I thought my online disappearance would go unnoticed. I first started unfriending everyone while simultaneously saving photos onto a flash drive. But soon people (mostly other Peace Corps Volunteers) noticed and I got a ton of questions.

So what’s the deal? Let me tell you:

Facebook makes me miserable. I feel lonely when my friends are in Washington D.C. hanging out at a bar together. I feel left out when my entire family attends a family friend’s wedding without me. I feel a sense of longing when my boyfriend is photographed at a wedding (a wedding in which he had a +1 invite!). Lastly, I feel inadequate when other volunteers post their success stories.

Rather than sitting here in a bubble of self-loathing, I decided to do the healthy thing. I deactivated my Facebook. HAZAA! Deactivating your Facebook account means that you temporarily go away in the virtual world. You can disappear and reappear whenever you want. In order to get your virtual life back, you simply enter your password. Poof! You are back online with all of your photos, all of your friends, all of your statuses, and all of those “likes” we all seem to like.

Deactivating my Facebook made me feel liberated. Well, for the one day I actually did deactivate it, that is. The very next day, I found myself typing in my password, eager to get back online. I wanted to see what the world was up to while I was away for that brief period. I was like an addict. I just needed a fix. I needed to post something, like someone’s photo, stalk someone who I secretly envy. I simply could not cut my social media addition.

But the funny thing is, I didn’t post all that much. I mostly checked up on others. I compared my Peace Corps experience to my friend’s.  I saw how one volunteer got a dentist to send a box of supplies for her school. I saw care packages being sent. I saw people taking snap shots of them skyping their family. And the worst was when I saw other volunteers who got to visit home. Their access to cheese nearly threw me off a ship of sanity and into a green sea of envy.

I even looked at photos of people from my past. I loathed my former college classmates. They were pictured drinking in bars that had air conditioning. They were with friends, smiling, and posting comments that contained inside joke. I SOOOO wanted to be on the inside.

All of this Facebook envy wasn’t because I was unhappy with my life in Indonesia. In fact, I’m really happy here. But I can’t lie; it does get hard. It gets lonely and frustrating. I find myself needing a lot more alone-time than I normally would. I shut my bedroom door and then play loud music just so I can dance by myself. The culture can be overwhelming. My sleep gets disrupted from the morning call to prayer at 4:30am. It’s difficult to live far away from the familiar. I realized that Facebook was my out. It was like watching a reality TV show, except I knew all of the characters personally.

One post could literally ruin my day. I would mull over the amenities I didn’t have or become upset over friends I no longer kept in touch with. So, I deleted my Facebook. Deactivating it was clearly not working since I did not have the willpower to stay off. Plus, why have something if you never plan on using it? It took me over 2 months to fully delete every friend and every photo, but I did it. I deleted everything in order to make it difficult for me to come back. If I had no friends on Facebook, then what would be the point of being online, right?

I sometimes miss Facebook. I liked the chat function, but overall I’m happier. I no longer think of things that are thousands of miles away. I no longer envy people with whom I barely talk to. I no longer envy other Peace Corps Volunteers. I feel liberated. And I now fully understand the meaning of this very important phrase:

Out of sight, out of mind. 

Just Call Me Miss Kruti

I want to be completely honest: I didn’t think I would enjoy teaching. I came into Indonesia thinking, “Fine. I’ll teach, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” During training I was overwhelmed with all of the teaching strategies the Peace Corps was throwing at me. In 2 and a half months, I not only had to learn how to teach English to non-English speakers, but I also had cross-cultural training in order to work with an Indonesian counterparts. I thought teaching would be a bore, a chore, would make me snore, and just another requirement from Peace Corps.

However, I look forward to teaching.

Every.

Single.

Day.

Me teaching a lesson outside of school at another teacher's house. She has a built in classroom on the side of her house. 

I walk into each class, throw both hands in the air, and scream, “HELLLLOOOO!!!” And the crowd of 30 goes wild. They scream right back, sit eagerly in their seats, and wait for me to ask them questions in English. I ask them how they are, how their families are, whether they have already prayed…etc. Simple questions that everyone can answer in unison.

After I teach a topic, I ask them to put their thumbs up if they understand and their thumbs down if they don’t understand. I yell, “ON THE COUNT OF THREE. ONE. TWO. THREE! SHOW YOUR THUMBS” The students love this because students openly admit confusion. It is hard for some students to ask questions because they are shy or feel stupid. The thumbs up/down system allows students to be slightly anonymous. In fact, I’ve seen some students put their thumbs up, look around, and then put their thumbs down realizing that the rest of the class is just as confused as them. The students are still warming up to me, but they now understand that it’s okay to be confused. In fact, I tell them that I am just as confused when I speak their native language.

I also taught the kids a song PCV Russel learned at Boy Scouts. It goes like this:

I like bananas, coconuts, and grapes (3x)

That’s why they call me

TARZAN OF THE APES.

When the students sing the last line, they shout at the top of their lungs and beat their chest with their fists. It’s a great way to release energy at the beginning or end of each class. Sometimes, I go right into the lesson and I will hear a student humming along to the tune. Soon, other students will join him/her. I see this as a sign that students are losing focus so I turn around and yell, “STAND UP.” I make them sing the entire song 3 times until they have all of their energy out. Afterwards, they all sit down and quietly continue taking notes. I don’t mind when my lesson is disrupted because it keeps students on task after I encourage them to let out their energy. I mean…they’re kids. They should have fun, especially in school!

Not only are my students great, but also my counterpart is wonderful. My counterpart is the person that I co-teach with. We make a great team. During training, volunteers were warned that we might be frustrated with our counterparts because of cultural differences. I was terrified that my counterpart, Ibu Muji (Bunda for short), would be unmotivated and expect me to teach alone. I was also afraid she would not show up to class or that she would always be late.

When I met her, one of the first things she said to me was, “I love how disciplined Americans are. I try to always be on time.” I officially developed a lady crush on this woman, and it had only been 10 minutes. Bunda has been an incredible help with my transition into my village and my school. She lesson plans with me, which many Indonesian teachers don’t do.  Many teachers enter class and simply teach straight from the book.  However, Bunda is open to teaching through fun games and activities. We incorporate at least one game into each topic.  We are fully prepared for each class and know exactly what to expect.

The other great thing about our relationship is that we can read each other very well. When she is tired or having an off day, I do most of the talking and vice versa. She is also quick to translate for me when my Bahasa Indonesia is not grammatically correct or when my English confuses the students. She also encourages me to take water into class even though that is not the cultural norm. It is considered rude to eat or drink while others are not being served. However, she doesn’t care if I chug water while I sweat profusely near the white board. She was also okay when I encouraged the students to bring water into class. She said, “For this class, it’s more than okay!”

Of course, my counterpart and I have been frustrated with each other. That’s natural when teaching with another person. However, Bunda and I are really open to learning from each other. That’s what makes this relationship great and class so much fun.

Volcanos and Marathons

Last weekend I headed up to Mount Bromo (Gunung Bromo). I knew I was going there for weeks, but I didn’t make any plans for it. I left my village in a very Kruti-like fashion: I winged the whole trip. I didn’t research how to get there. I literally got on a bus on Friday Septeber 5, and prayed I would make it to my final destination.

The bus made a pit stop in Malang, the city where all the Peace Corps volunteers trained for 3 months. The driver told me that we had some time to spare so I stepped off the bus to grab a bite to eat. Lady luck must have been with me that day. I ran into 2 other volunteers who were headed the same direction. I was elated when I saw them. I started speaking English really fast and telling them every little detail about my site. It was the first time I had spoken English in a while, so I was overjoyed to see their faces.

We finally made it to a city called Probolingo. From there, we took a shuttle to the base of the Mount Bromo Tengge Semeru National Park. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, but we paid exorbitant prices to get around the mountain. At some point, I took out my entire month’s stipend and accepted the fact that all the money will be spent at Bromo.  Despite the prices, I really enjoyed myself.

Here a few fun facts I learned about Bromo while I was there:

1) Bromo is named after the Hindu God Brahma

2)  People used to throw things into the volcano as a sacrifice to the gods

3) Some items did not make it into the volcano. Those items were considered to be lucky. People would go into the crater to fetch those items.

4) Yes, some of those stupid people fell into the crater. What luck

5) When you go to the top of the crater, you get a strong whiff of sulfur

6)  The base of the volcano is all desert called The Sea of Sand”

7)  Bromo last erupted in 2011

8)  I am terrified of volcanoes. I was looking directly into Mother Nature’s soul, and she seemed pretty ticked off.

 Fellow volunteers Craig, Jen, and Saj with Mount Bromo in the back. Check it out, everyone! NOT A PALM TREE IN SIGHT!!! 

We rode horses through the dessert to the base of Bromo. 

Our sweet ride that cost almost half of my entire month's stipend

The stairs leading up to the mouth of the volcano 

The main reason I was at Bromo was to run a half marathon with fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Tate. The race itself was fun, although the track was incredibly difficult. The Bromo Marathon is ranked one of the toughest marathons in the world. I met one runner who said he ran half marathons that were easier than Bromo’s 10K.

At the finish line with friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Tate. She was such a great running buddy! 

The first 5 miles were uphill. Tate and I were there just to finish, so we walked a lot of it. There was no way I was prepared to run uphill for 5 miles straight. The race wasn’t too competitive, either. A lot of people stopped along the way to take pictures. Tate and I managed to take a half marathon selfie after the 5^th kilometer.

Overall, the race was just a fun thing to do! I hope to run another half marathon or marathon when I get back to the United States (and I’ll be sure to avoid marathons that are on mountains).

On the way home, I stopped off in Batu to visit my host family that I stayed with during training. I didn’t realize how much I missed them and Batu. It amazed me to see how much I’ve adapted to life in Indonesia. I got around without asking for directions, I managed to not get ripped off by angkot drivers, and I even had a lengthy discussion about Islam with my ibu. It felt good to be back.

Last weekend broke up the monotony of village life. I was starting to get a little too bored in my village. I’m glad I got to see another part of Indonesia that I have never seen and got to visit my first host family. It was like experiencing the old and new and appreciating both in the span of 72 hours.