The End is Nigh

Today was the last day of classes here in Jakarta, and I couldn’t be happier. Spending eight hours in class every day for the past four and half weeks has been a serious challenge. Coming off of a year where I was either out in the field, or able to come and go from my office as I pleased, sitting through often monotonous and superfluous lessons turned into an incredibly frustrating affair. I have immense respect for my twin sisters, Alice and Daphne, who are entering eighth grade this year, and are just now being initiated into the world of waking up at 6AM, riding the bus, taking classes all day, playing sports in the afternoon, riding the bus home, eating dinner, doing homework – and rinse wash repeating for five years. I certainly don’t have the attention span or mental endurance to go through with that today!
An average day here consisted of three hours of Bahasa (Language) Indonesia classes, split between the morning and afternoon, and four hours of teaching English as a second language classes. Several times a week, we had guest speakers come to talk with us about everything from finding medical care to cultural taboos to part time volunteer positions at our sites. The nineteen of us will be spread across the archipelago, from Medan, North Sumatra to Denpasar, Bali – Hillary, who will be living in the latter city, is the envy of us all.
This morning, an American Marine helicopter captain came to sit-in on our class. He will spend the next year teaching Indonesian marines in Surabaya, East Java how to speak and how to teach English. The idea behind his mission is to give Indonesian military personnel an added skill set while preparing him for a future role as a regional commander of some sort. He seemed like a great guy, and I’m happy to know that our troops are being managed by people like him. Check out his blog for a different take on life as an expat in Indonesia:
JonB-One.blogspot.com
We were all given our travel arrangements to our sites today. I’ll be flying to Surabaya on Friday morning, where (in theory) I’ll be met by the consulate general and the principal of my school. Only forty more hours in Jakarta!