FEBRUARY 2015 . MONTHLY HIGHLIGHTS

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• Chinese New Year: One of my friends and colleagues met a Chinese girl and he and I went to her house for a traditional Chinese New Year celebration. Her family is wealthy as well as most of the guests so after enjoying some food at her parents place we relocated to someone else’s home for a pool party.






• Durian: One of Indonesia’s national fruit. It has a distinct and a very strong smell as well as taste. People either love it or hate it. I know people on all sides of the spectrum. Those who don’t like the fruit will often describe it as “dirty feet” – yeah….not appealing eh? Being curious as I am I wanted to try it for myself. I remember my first grocery shopping experience here and being able to smell durian miles away from the grocery store. In fact, depending on where you travel there are rules where you are not allowed to consume or bring durian into certain taxis or hotels because it smells so much. In some situations, a fine can be issued if you do! My Indonesian colleagues were excited when they heard I wanted to try it. Some of my Indonesian friends who don’t like the fruit questioned why I would bring this upon myself. I warned them I just wanted to try a little bit. In the end they brought me two kinds of durian to sample. I was bracing for the worst and had water at standby in case I was about to gag. The cameras were ready and video recording was taken to document this momentous occasion. In the end it wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating BUT I wouldn’t eat it again. The aftertaste was pretty bad. Nevertheless, my curiosity was satisfied and the unknown taste and discrepancy around this fruit was revealed.






• My friends had a baby boy and I was able to see him shortly after he was born. Since then I have babysat him a couple times when his parents needed me to. His mom is Indonesian and his dad American.






• Each year grades 7-10 go on a service trip. Since I am on the Grade 9 Level team, I went with the class to Lampung , Southern Sumatra on their service trip. Since our student come from very wealthy families these trips allow them to be exposed to the “real” Indonesia. Most students are definitely out of their comfort zone when it comes to this kind of thing. We spent our time helping out at a local school, shopping at a local market based on the average income for those living in the community, and visiting local businesses. One group had a completely different experience as they stayed with families in a different community. This group of teachers and students had to travel there by local transport which in and of itself was an adventure! Those of us who volunteered at the local schools also did home visits for a couple hours one afternoon. It gave our students the chance to see how majority of Indonesians live much different than they do. It created an opportunity for students to ask questions and learn about the Lampung people. The group I traveled with was within a short walking distance from the school we were working at. The student whose house we visited was also in grade nine and loved sports. We found out that her favorite sport was volleyball and my students know I’m the girls’ volleyball coach at our school. This opened up some dialogue between this particular student and the students in my group. My students would translate for me and also acted as my translators back to the family with whatever questions I was curious about. At the end of the week we spent an afternoon at the beach as well as sleeping at a Sheraton hotel that night . From the beach we could see Krakatau, one of Indonesia’s famous volcanoes. This particular group of students was amazing. They are very relational and have a great sense of humor which definitely made this trip enjoyable.






• Java Jazz Festival: A huge jazz festival downtown Jakarta. I had heard about this in my first year here and was always curious about it. A group of us went into town to check it out and had a lot of fun. There were International artists which I knew and others which were more local have haven’t heard of before.






• Every February as a PE department we assess each student’s fitness level. Depending on their achievements and overall score they can earn a medal of recognition for various categories at the end of the year award ceremonies. I helped out with the swimming assessments. I chilled by the Olympic pool and got my tan on as I timed students in the pool on different swim strokes. Other assessments include pushups, sit ups, an endurance run etc.

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