A Moment

The weeks sometimes drag by, but the weekend always shows up again. Even though this week was more fun than a regular week because of the opportunities I had to spend with friends, I was still eager for the weekend. I am starting to feel the weight of this year settle on my shoulders with so many things coming up during the next few weeks, but at the same time I am still able to see glimpses of God's grace in my life. Take, for example, a few days this week when I came to school tired and unexcited about dealing with adolescents all day.

But then things started happening.

One of my students smiled and said something funny to me, another erupted with his unique laughter, a leg "accidentally" fell into the aisle as I passed by, and I begin to feel my heart softening. Suddenly I remembered how much I love my kids and the relationships I have been building with them. I have always hopped that I might be able to brighten my students' days and make them feel at home, but it has never crossed my mind that those feelings could be reciprocated. I thank God for those special moments this week where, by his grace alone, enthusiasm replaced passiveness in my teaching.

Even so, the weekend is here and I am very thankful for the chance to refresh and renew myself before another crazy week.

On another note, how do I explain the events of the past month? I am still amazed at all of the opportunities I have to explore and experience in Indonesia. Just a brief description of this past month: swanky wedding, soccer carnival,Jazz festival, dancing, beach bumming and hiking, professional development,and crazy tie day.

Jogjakarta

Some of you may be thinking "Does she ever work? It seems like Michaela is always on Holidays!" If you have had these thoughts, I understand. I have had two 4-day weekends in February and it has felt like I have been gone a lot lately. Us singles at SPH live by the motto "work hard, play hard." How can we sit around on a weekend when there is so much to discover!!

On that note, I got to visit the city of Jogjakarta, in central Java, this weekend.This past Tuesday was a Muslim holiday for Muhammad's birthday, and Monday was a school holiday. I went with my friends Amy and Lydia. We left on the train Saturday night and Lydia and I flew back Tuesday night (Amy the day before because she had prior commitments). It was a whirl-wind weekend, but it was full of great experiences. Some of these included:

-the Sultan's palace
-the Water palace
-puppet shops, batik art shops, and silver art shops
-Borobudur (a Buddhist temple that was once a wonder of the world)
-A crazy night fair
-Ramayana (A Hindu ballet)
-The Prambanan
-motor-cycle adventures around the city

I thoroughly enjoyed the cultural richness in Jogjakarta, which is not as evident in Jakarta. I was able to bargain for some neat souvenirs and enjoyed using the little Bahasa Indonesia that I know. I discovered that if I mentioned that I lived in Jakarta, I often got a better deal or was given more respect by shop owners and such. Even so, we were constantly being asked if people could take our picture. After a while it got annoying and very old. I guess that is what celebrities feel like when they go out in public. We aren't celebrities by any means, but we are white, and apparently that was an exciting thing for a lot of the young people we saw. I am considering making a collage of all of the pictures I have taken with Indonesian people. :) Amy wants to make a book of signs or t-shirts with totally bad English. It is pretty funny sometimes to see what non-English speakers will wear on their t-shirts.

This was a successful trip with some more great Indo-moments to remember!

More fun in Indonesia with Grandpa and Grandma!

The fun in Indo continues!

Yesterday we went to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (translates as Mini Garden, Beautiful Indonesia...or something like that). This was a large park area that had life-size examples of homes from tons of cultures and Islands in Indonesia. Inside many of the houses or buildings were additional artifacts, costumes and such. We drove around the park and looked at many of these houses and learned some cool things about Indonesia's history. For example, there are more than 17,000 islands in Indonesia, with 300 different ethnic groups and 500 different languages. Wow. So, as you can imagine there were many things to see at Taman Mini. We had to pick and choose what we saw. Some of our favorite things from the day were:

-Sulawesi's houses and history
-Papua's history (We talked to a man who grew up there, and spoke dutch because of the colonialism. G&G enjoyed that.)
-Petting the Komodo Dragon and holding a python
-Taking a gondola or tram ride over the park
-Walking through the beautiful National Museum







Today was also a day full of fun.

The day started off with lots of rain, so we decided to go to a national museum near Monas, the national monument to wait out the rain. The museum was pretty good, but not as good as the one we saw yesterday. After that we went over to Monas, which is basically a tower with a flame on the top. The flame is plated in 50 Kg of gold. We also went to the gold room, where there are other things plated in gold. We were going to go to the top of the tower, but it would have been a 3 hour wait. So, instead we went up the stairs to the second floor, then to the basement for a quick look at some historical dioramas.

After this we took a taxi to Batavia, which is the old city were there are some remaining dutch buildings. Overall, the area is very run-down and dirty, with many buildings falling apart, but there were some interesting historical things as well. We had lunch at a nice cafe, went in a museum, walked along a canal and over a bridge, and then went to a ship museum in the harbour area. We ended up walking through some dirty little streets and past a fish market, which was interesting. Nothing like getting right down with the locals. On the topic of locals, we were celebrities for the day. I lost count of how many pictures we had taken with kids. Yay for being white!

We finished off our evening with dinner at a little restaurant down the road, which was actually quite good. I have always wanted to try it, and now I can say I have. Grandpa and Grandma are leaving for Bali tomorrow, but they have had a great time with me in Jakarta.

A Day at the Zoo!

Grandpa and Grandma have been in Indonesia for three days now and they are having a great time here. Wednesday they came to school to check things out and Thursday we spent the day in Karawaci doing things like swimming, biking, and enjoying a Chinese New Year lunch. Today, however we broadened our horizons and headed to the mountains in South Jakarta, to Taman Safari. Taman Safari is kind of like a zoo, but it also has a water park, a small theme park,a camp ground, and some different shows. Although we couldn't do it all, we did enjoy the "Zoo" aspect of the park quite a bit.

When we first arrived at the park we did a caravan drive which is basically like driving through all of the animal's pens. At the beginning we had all kinds of deer, zebra's and antelopes coming up to our windows and looking for carrots, or wortel as they say here. Luckily we had bought come wortel on our drive up. This drive took us through the homes of elephants, giraffes, tigers, lions, bears, hippos, rhinos, and the list goes on. When we went through the lion and tiger pens we could see them walking right by the car, so we made sure that our windows weren't too low. There were signs depicting people's arms being bitten by the tigers, which were quite funny to see.

After our caravan drive we parked the car and walked through different parts of the park. We first stopped by the baby zoo where we got to take pictures with a leopard and a baby orangutan. It only cost a dollar per time, so I figured it was worth it. After this we had lunch and then we went to see the komodo dragon, which was quite large, but lazy and not in the mood for a photo shoot. The Cowboy Show started soon after that, so we headed out to that and listened to an Indonesian version of a Wild West show. It was all in Indonesian, but it was fun to watch anyway. They had western-type stunts and all kinds of typical farm animals to make the experience more real. We even got sprayed by some water during part of the show because we were sitting close to the front. We did not expect it at all. After the show Grandma and I had a quick ride on an elephant and then we visited the reptiles and monkeys before our 3 hour drive back to Karawaci.

Overall, we all considered the day to be quite a success. We have included some of our favorite shots from the day. I love the one with Grandpa's Taman Safari shirt. He was cold during the day, so he bought a shirt to put under the shirt he was wearing...but we think it was an XL for an asian woman, and not a North American man. Haha. Don't worry, he is not trying to pull off a new look, he will pass the shirt on to one of the grand kids. :)

Groovy times in Indo

This past Friday I had a blast from the past at my friend Helena's 70's party. Parties are fun in themselves, but when you add costumes they become fantastic. In preparation for the 70's party, my friend Amy and I went to a crazy mall in North Jakarta to find a funky dress. We had our eyes on them the last time we went to the mall, but decided to wait. This time around we had a legit reason to wear them, and so we made an investment towards our costume collection.

It was great to see all the different costumes that people had. One of the couples even bought their own crazy fabric and had matching costumes made because tailoring is cheap here. The evening was filled with food, 70's tunes, trivia, and good conversation. I am already looking forward to the next costume party. Presently the themes might be The Flinestones or Grandma and Grandpa style. I am happy either way. :)

The Same Old Thing

I always think it is interesting to think of when something becomes "The Same Old Thing." When exactly does the change happen? Well, that being said. Life in Indo is really starting to just feel normal; hence the lack of blog updates.

Things at school have been going really well these past few weeks. It feels good to be back in the classroom and back into my routines. I have not been motivated to blog much lately because it just feels like normal life. In fact, yesterday I was in North Jakarta which is more run-down and very different from where I live. I did notice the differences, but they didn't really phase me. It is crazy how something so foreign can soon become so normal. Crazy traffic, food vendors, motorcycle taxis, and "performance" monkeys are just a part of regular life. There are, and will always be new things for me to notice and want pictures of, but after a while it is hard to remember how this place was initially so foreign. What is interesting is how when new people come, you get to experience everything again from their perspective.

Thankfully I have visits from both my Grandparents and parents to look forward to this year. I am looking forward to introducing Indonesia to people for the first time. Even as I think about it, I know that they will see the similarities between Indo and place like Thailand and Nicaragua. Developing countries have a lot of similarities, but they also have differences. I hope I can do a good job of showing what makes Indonesia, Indonesia.

I was home for Christmas!

Christmas vacation came and went, and I am back in Indonesia. Crazy how fast the time goes! It was so wonderful to be home again and spend time with my family and friends. I got to enjoy the pampering of home which includes delicious meals and wonderful company.

The first week was pretty slow and relaxing. Because of jet leg, I slept a lot, but I was also fighting off a nasty cold that I picked up somewhere in transport. Throughout the rest of the break I read books, played games, visited people and enjoyed the winter wonderland in North-western B.C. Some of the winter activities I enjoyed were sledding, skating, cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling. It was actually very refreshing to be in the cold weather again. I loved being all bundled up and just laying in the snow.




It was also wonderful to see my little niece Lily. She is so cute, and I had so much fun playing with her. I am excited for this summer because Lily will be older, and I will have another niece/nephew who is due to arrive in February.

I am so thankful that I was able to spend some quality time with my loved ones. God has blessed me with a wonderful family and I was blessed to be home for Christmas this year. It is always such a special time and a time to feel regenerated for the New Year. On that note, Happy New Year to you and God bless you richly.