An 'epoch' is defined as an event or a time marked by an event that begins a new period or development, according to Mirriam Webster. For me, my latest epoch has been moving to Surabaya for the remainder of my exchange year in Indonesia. I cannot believe that I only have three months left in Indonesia. It still feels like yesterday, my first morning waking up in Gowa to the sounds of motorbikes, roosters crowing and the bakso (meatballs covered in spicy sauces served on a stick) being sold by the street vendors alongside the road. Now that I've got a new change of scenery in Surabaya, I know that these last few months are about to fly by.
To start, I absolutely love my new family. I was really happy living with my second family in Makassar, but the contrasts between the two are starkly different. My second host mom got married when she was 19, had a few kids and has since spent her life taking care of her home and her children. We'd spend time together cooking dinner, giving baths to my youngest host sister, going to the pasar (traditional market) together and pretty much doing everything at home. My second host family was also, like most Indonesians, very religious and I would often see my host family praying at least 4 or 5 times a day. They had a modest income, but always so generous and invited me to any family gatherings at the village where we would all come together for food and music.
My third host family could literally not be any different. I had to double-check that I was still in Indonesia. I mean, they're absolutely amazing and I couldn't be happier to be a part of their family, but oh my god. For starters, my host dad works for a Japanese company that has its headquarters in Jakarta, so he goes there every week for business. My host mom is such an awesome woman, but so totally different from anyone I've met in Indonesia. She writes books, designs clothes, goes bungee jumping, has been around Africa, lived in Paris, Edinburgh and is SCUBA diving certified. It's so great to see an Indonesian woman push the cultural boundaries a little and to have so much success in doing so. I also have a host sister, Salsa, who's 12, and a host brother, Paris, who's 7. I'm also really thankful for living in Makassar for 7 months before I came here because I know that if I didn't, I probably wouldn't have been able to learn Indonesian, especially living with the family that I am now. They all speak fluent English, and so do a lot of people that I've met in Surabaya. They'll begin the conversation in English with me, and once I keep responding in Indonesian- they'll switch to just Indonesian. I think that if there wasn't the necessity that I learn Indonesian while I was living in Gowa and Makassar because no one could speak any English, I wouldn't be nearly as proficient as I am now.
So last week my host family took me to Lombok and Gili. I posted the pictures already, and as you can see the place is gorgeous. Completely unreal. We went out snorkeling all day, sunbathing and shopping around the islands. Lombok is what Bali used to be like before all of the Eat Pray Love hype and Australian tourists got there. Most of the people still live very traditionally with a sense that they want to preserve the land through sustainable conservation practices.
Maybe once I finish college I can come back to be an English teacher or work for an environmental group over there...
The biggest contrast to me with Surabaya and Makassar is the level of education that I've noticed in the people that I've met. When I was in Gowa, my neighbor asked me where I was from. I said that I was from Chicago, in the United States. He said, "Oh, Chicago. Okay. That's next to Africa, right?" and I replied "Um, no... that's actually really far away from Africa." And the guy was so confused, because he showed me a picture of the Chicago Bulls team and pointed out that a lot of the players were black, so I must live close to Africa. I tried to explain that America was a country made-up with people of all sorts of different backgrounds and nationalities, but thought that I was trying to trick him or something. When I was in Makassar speaking with my friend Lucie from France, we used Spanish together because we both had about the same proficiency level with it and it was kind of fun to speak a language that very few people there would've been able to understand. If one of our Indonesian friends would ask us what language we were speaking, and we replied Spanish, they would say "Oh, okay, so they speak Spanish in France and America, yes?" And we would say no, French in France and English in America, but we can learn Spanish in school, and our Indonesian friends would just get really confused. Another time I showed a map of the U.S. to some kids in Gowa, and it showed the continental U.S. with Alaska and Hawaii in the corner. When the kids were through looking at it, they asked me questions like where is the hottest/coldest place in the U.S., and I replied that while other places can get really warm, Hawaii is the place where it is usually the warmest year-round and Alaska being the coldest. They replied that that would be impossible, because of how close Hawaii and Alaska are to one another. On the map. It's not that any of these people are unintelligent, not at all, it's just that the education system in South Sulawesi isn't really that great until you get to college, and college is a far-off dream for too many people because it would be way too expensive, and most parents would rather have their daughters married off and their sons to go straight to dentistry school or something.
When I mention that I'm from Chicago in Surabaya, people have given me responses like "Oh, the Windy City!" or "The Blackhawks are doing really well this season, congratulations!". They're up-to-date on most current global affairs that I wasn't even aware of while I was living in Makassar, which surprises them even more than it does me. People here are a lot more politically and globally aware, which is really neat but honestly it does feel like a bit of a culture shock to be here.
Oh! And I'll also be starting school next week at a fashion designing program, which'll be kind of neat because I can practice drawing and brush up on my sewing skills a little bit. It's a pretty nice deal, because I'll be doing that for 4 hours a day, and afterwards taking yoga classes at the gym with my host mom. Not bad, huh?
Another really big thing for me here in Surabaya is that being a white person (a 'bule') isn't so unheard of here and my presence isn't something that people really take a lot of notice to like people did in Makassar. When I went for a walk one of the first days that I got to Indonesia, I didn't get 10 feet before people stopped driving their motorbikes and cars to take pictures of me, shouting "Hello, Mister!" and "Bule! Bule!" at me as I tried to put my hood up over my head as quickly as possible. Needless to say I didn't get out a whole lot if I wasn't with my host family or friends to kinda shield me from that. When I went to a mall here in Surabaya last week with my host mom, I braced myself for what I thought would be an incessant stream of having to take pictures with about every other person I passed, but no one asked me for even a single photo! Very few people even took a second glance at me as I walked by the different storefronts. I feel so much more comfortable here because of that. I mean, I really enjoyed the experience of being one of the first white people that a lot of people have seen, and I defiantly understand why people would be interested in me because of that, but I finally feel like I'm not in a zoo anymore.
Makassar is only an hour flight away, but I feel like I could be in a whole new country. I feel really blessed to have been given these different perspectives of Indonesia that not many other students are able to experience. I can honestly see myself living here for a little while once I finish my degree. My host mom wants to take me to Yogyakarta this month with the family, and to Borneo the next! I'm a pretty lucky kid. I also just got a job offer for the month of July as an English teacher in Panama. I think I'll wait until the end of the month to make up my mind about that, just because I've been away from home for so long, but it would be a really amazing opportunity.
And a note on my new Rotary Club! I'm being hosted now by the Rotary Club of Surabaya Kaliasin. The best part is that it's a woman's-only club! All of the members are really excited that I'm there, because I'm the only inbound exchange student, and I think because I'm a girl, too. A lot of members have offered to take me out to lunch, go to museum and to travel with them and their families.
The first pic is one at a beach in Gili Trawangan, The second is of my two host siblings and the last is a selfie that I took the other day here in Surabaya.
Enjoy a song that I've been listening to on repeat a lot these past couple of weeks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwLyk3rxp_8
To start, I absolutely love my new family. I was really happy living with my second family in Makassar, but the contrasts between the two are starkly different. My second host mom got married when she was 19, had a few kids and has since spent her life taking care of her home and her children. We'd spend time together cooking dinner, giving baths to my youngest host sister, going to the pasar (traditional market) together and pretty much doing everything at home. My second host family was also, like most Indonesians, very religious and I would often see my host family praying at least 4 or 5 times a day. They had a modest income, but always so generous and invited me to any family gatherings at the village where we would all come together for food and music.
My third host family could literally not be any different. I had to double-check that I was still in Indonesia. I mean, they're absolutely amazing and I couldn't be happier to be a part of their family, but oh my god. For starters, my host dad works for a Japanese company that has its headquarters in Jakarta, so he goes there every week for business. My host mom is such an awesome woman, but so totally different from anyone I've met in Indonesia. She writes books, designs clothes, goes bungee jumping, has been around Africa, lived in Paris, Edinburgh and is SCUBA diving certified. It's so great to see an Indonesian woman push the cultural boundaries a little and to have so much success in doing so. I also have a host sister, Salsa, who's 12, and a host brother, Paris, who's 7. I'm also really thankful for living in Makassar for 7 months before I came here because I know that if I didn't, I probably wouldn't have been able to learn Indonesian, especially living with the family that I am now. They all speak fluent English, and so do a lot of people that I've met in Surabaya. They'll begin the conversation in English with me, and once I keep responding in Indonesian- they'll switch to just Indonesian. I think that if there wasn't the necessity that I learn Indonesian while I was living in Gowa and Makassar because no one could speak any English, I wouldn't be nearly as proficient as I am now.
So last week my host family took me to Lombok and Gili. I posted the pictures already, and as you can see the place is gorgeous. Completely unreal. We went out snorkeling all day, sunbathing and shopping around the islands. Lombok is what Bali used to be like before all of the Eat Pray Love hype and Australian tourists got there. Most of the people still live very traditionally with a sense that they want to preserve the land through sustainable conservation practices.
Maybe once I finish college I can come back to be an English teacher or work for an environmental group over there...
The biggest contrast to me with Surabaya and Makassar is the level of education that I've noticed in the people that I've met. When I was in Gowa, my neighbor asked me where I was from. I said that I was from Chicago, in the United States. He said, "Oh, Chicago. Okay. That's next to Africa, right?" and I replied "Um, no... that's actually really far away from Africa." And the guy was so confused, because he showed me a picture of the Chicago Bulls team and pointed out that a lot of the players were black, so I must live close to Africa. I tried to explain that America was a country made-up with people of all sorts of different backgrounds and nationalities, but thought that I was trying to trick him or something. When I was in Makassar speaking with my friend Lucie from France, we used Spanish together because we both had about the same proficiency level with it and it was kind of fun to speak a language that very few people there would've been able to understand. If one of our Indonesian friends would ask us what language we were speaking, and we replied Spanish, they would say "Oh, okay, so they speak Spanish in France and America, yes?" And we would say no, French in France and English in America, but we can learn Spanish in school, and our Indonesian friends would just get really confused. Another time I showed a map of the U.S. to some kids in Gowa, and it showed the continental U.S. with Alaska and Hawaii in the corner. When the kids were through looking at it, they asked me questions like where is the hottest/coldest place in the U.S., and I replied that while other places can get really warm, Hawaii is the place where it is usually the warmest year-round and Alaska being the coldest. They replied that that would be impossible, because of how close Hawaii and Alaska are to one another. On the map. It's not that any of these people are unintelligent, not at all, it's just that the education system in South Sulawesi isn't really that great until you get to college, and college is a far-off dream for too many people because it would be way too expensive, and most parents would rather have their daughters married off and their sons to go straight to dentistry school or something.
When I mention that I'm from Chicago in Surabaya, people have given me responses like "Oh, the Windy City!" or "The Blackhawks are doing really well this season, congratulations!". They're up-to-date on most current global affairs that I wasn't even aware of while I was living in Makassar, which surprises them even more than it does me. People here are a lot more politically and globally aware, which is really neat but honestly it does feel like a bit of a culture shock to be here.
Oh! And I'll also be starting school next week at a fashion designing program, which'll be kind of neat because I can practice drawing and brush up on my sewing skills a little bit. It's a pretty nice deal, because I'll be doing that for 4 hours a day, and afterwards taking yoga classes at the gym with my host mom. Not bad, huh?
Another really big thing for me here in Surabaya is that being a white person (a 'bule') isn't so unheard of here and my presence isn't something that people really take a lot of notice to like people did in Makassar. When I went for a walk one of the first days that I got to Indonesia, I didn't get 10 feet before people stopped driving their motorbikes and cars to take pictures of me, shouting "Hello, Mister!" and "Bule! Bule!" at me as I tried to put my hood up over my head as quickly as possible. Needless to say I didn't get out a whole lot if I wasn't with my host family or friends to kinda shield me from that. When I went to a mall here in Surabaya last week with my host mom, I braced myself for what I thought would be an incessant stream of having to take pictures with about every other person I passed, but no one asked me for even a single photo! Very few people even took a second glance at me as I walked by the different storefronts. I feel so much more comfortable here because of that. I mean, I really enjoyed the experience of being one of the first white people that a lot of people have seen, and I defiantly understand why people would be interested in me because of that, but I finally feel like I'm not in a zoo anymore.
Makassar is only an hour flight away, but I feel like I could be in a whole new country. I feel really blessed to have been given these different perspectives of Indonesia that not many other students are able to experience. I can honestly see myself living here for a little while once I finish my degree. My host mom wants to take me to Yogyakarta this month with the family, and to Borneo the next! I'm a pretty lucky kid. I also just got a job offer for the month of July as an English teacher in Panama. I think I'll wait until the end of the month to make up my mind about that, just because I've been away from home for so long, but it would be a really amazing opportunity.
And a note on my new Rotary Club! I'm being hosted now by the Rotary Club of Surabaya Kaliasin. The best part is that it's a woman's-only club! All of the members are really excited that I'm there, because I'm the only inbound exchange student, and I think because I'm a girl, too. A lot of members have offered to take me out to lunch, go to museum and to travel with them and their families.
The first pic is one at a beach in Gili Trawangan, The second is of my two host siblings and the last is a selfie that I took the other day here in Surabaya.
Enjoy a song that I've been listening to on repeat a lot these past couple of weeks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwLyk3rxp_8
2 comments:
You will love Java Timor!
I loved exploring Java. So many gorgeous places. If you get the chance to visit Jakarta and Bandung and Borobudur do it! All gorgeous. I wish I had more time to spend in Surabaya to explore what it has to offer!
hey I'm Tifanny, an outbound that is having an exchange in Brazil right now. I LOVE YOUR POSTS. I'm glad that you're enjoying your stay in Indonesia. You're so lucky that you've been to a lot of places which I haven't even been to! But I surely will visit after I got home. when will you return to America? I'm coming back on 12 June and I'll attend the Outbound 2013-2014 Orientation and I hope you're so still here so we could spend time a bit. Hope you enjoy and experience the best thing in your life for your last months in Indonesia! :)
Post a Comment