Creepy Crawler

About a week ago I was walking around a really cool garden. It was cool and quiet and there was a small stream running through it. I was following the path and then turned to continue along toward the stream. I was passing this tree when all of a sudden I realized this giant spider was in my face (and about the size of my face)! It made me jump back, startled. Before moving on I whipped out my camera and snapped a quick shot. Indonesia has the strangest creatures.

Student Council

A new journey has begun for me.

Class Photos

Each year on picture day the classes get to pick where they want to take their class photo. Classes are getting more and more creative with their class photos. Sometimes elementary classes just do something simple like take it out on the playground or take it in a special place in their classroom.

This year the 8th graders chose to go to the Kindergarten classroom and pretend they were Kindergarteners. The 12th grader took their photo out on top of the large dirt pile where they are building the soccer field. The 9th graders took a couch out to the middle of the road and took theirs there.

This year I am 10th grades class sponsor. My class decided they wanted to re-enact the earthquake that we had earlier in the year for their class photo.

When the earthquake happened they were in English class with Mr. Schaffer. Apparently all sorts of funny things were said and they had a bunch of inside jokes from this bonding event as a class. As they felt the earthquake start the students climbed under the desks but then a student jumped out and started yelling, "Guys it's just a simulation." Another student right away called his mom and told her to send the car and driver. Apparently Mr. Schaffer, still new to our school and to earthquakes, climbed under his desk with the evacuation/emergency flip chart and was frantically flipping through trying to read what the proper procedure was for responding during an earthquake.

So for the photo they made funny signs of all these things and posed for the camera. They are so fun. I really enjoy them and look forward to working with them this year.

Now just a silly one.

And of course a serious one.

Hope Amidst the Rubble

Some of you who are up on current events may have heard about the earthquake that happened in Indonesia at the beginning of November. Some have even been asking if I'm ok. I am sure by now you assume you would have heard something if I wasn't, but just to clear the air I am alright. The earthquake measured 7.6 and hit the island of Sumatra (a different island than the one I live on). I don't know the exact stats (and strangely couldn't find it when I did a quick search online) but last I heard they were estimating up towards 1000 people have died as a result of the earthquake. Many more were injured and many people lost their homes and businesses. Efforts are still being made to dig through the rubble and help those who have been hurt. The largest city near the epicenter is the city of Padang. Padang is the capital and largest city of West Sumatra (located on the coast). The landlord of the house we live in actually lives in Padang. After a couple weeks we finally heard from him and he is alright, but his store collapsed and was destroyed. While we have not been directly effected here (we are way too far away to have felt the earthquake), there are indirect effects that are reaching us. Several of the dads of my students are in Padang right now helping in the relief efforts. A few of them drove all the way there and took supplies and donations to give away. At church and school we are collecting clothes and other items along with money that might be given to those who are without basic necessities because of the earthquake. If you would like to give to the relief efforts that are happening through the expats that live here and are seeing the needs first hand, send me an email and I can get you information on how to give. Here's just a few pictures to bring the devastation to life:

(Photo taken from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33085687/)

(Photo taken from http://www.theage.com.au/world/second-quake-hits- sumatra-as-death-toll-soars-20091001-gd43.html) And some photos sent back from one of the dads in Padang right now:

In the midst of the rubble these children are laughing.

Nearly 25 schools have been destroyed. Here's a temporary school building set up by some of the relief workers.

Another truck load of goods to be distributed. Apparently the Spanish government sent some representatives to give away a million dollars. Somehow this dad got connected with them and has been helping them with translation and distribution of donations.

hope amidst the rubble

Penang- Malaysia Trip Part 3

And finally. Last but not least (in fact probably my favorite). Here's part 3: Penang Penang is a small island connected to the rest of Malaysia by a bridge. We took a very nice bus from KL to Penang. It took us about 5 hours of traveling before we arrived, but they served us Subway sandwiches and supposedly had wifi on board (although none of us had a computer to test it out). I think we all thoroughly enjoyed this leg of the trip as the bus was nice and it gave us a chance to just relax. Here's the closest thing we have to a group photo (everyone except Krystle): We stayed at a great hotel on the beach. We enjoyed a beautiful ocean view.

Even though it was beautiful we didn't end up spending much time on the beach. We stayed pretty busy trying to fit other things in while we were there. We enjoyed going to the top of Penang Hill, the highest point on the island. We took an old and very slow cable car up to the top. I think it took us about 30 minutes and we had to change cable cars half way up. They crammed a lot of people in together which made for quite a clastrofobic and uncomfotable trip. As you can see below we were the only white faces in the crowd. There was a great view from the top of the whole island.

Of course while we were in Penang we enjoyed some good food. We had a great dinner at an Indian restaurant one night with some staff from the international school in Penang that we met up with while we were there.

I think one of my favorites was the wet market that we went to for breakfast. It's a market with a bunch of food stalls that is only open in the mornings. We went because it was recommended by some friends that used to live in Penang. It was so good we had to wake up early the following morning to go back again before we headed to the airport to catch our plane. At the wet market we found a great Indian family. The husband fried the roti (bread) and the wife made the coffe and tea. Here she is pouring the thick, strong coffee out of her home made strainer. Then she adds sweeten condensed milk and pulls it to cool it down before adding ice to make it ice coffee. Oh so good! I want to go back just to get some more of it. :)

And lastly, we enjoyed an afternoon at Penang's butterfly farm. It took us awhile to get there and find it, but eventually we did (just a long bus ride and 3 km walk). Once we were there we saw a bunch of beautiful butterflies. But the highlight was getting a chance to hold some cool insects. Somehow I picked up quite an afinity for bugs and so I was excited to hold the different creatures they brought out for us.

Kuala Lumpur- Malaysia Trip Part 2

Continuing on in the stories from our trip.

Here's part 2:

Kuala Lumpur

The hotel we stayed at was quite sketchy. It kind of made me feel like we had entered haunted mansion at disneyland. It wasn't so gross that we felt the need to leave, just had a bit of a creepy feel and made us want to stay up late and make a horror film.

The hotel from the outside, my roommate Kim waiting for the very old elevator, and the leaky roof plus rain caused the need for buckets throughout the hallways.

A very scary looking bellman helps us to our room, the girls hanging out, and the boys dig doughnuts out of the trash (because the breakfast food at the hotel was just that bad).

Some cool sights around the city- a couple very tall towers (neither of which we got to go up) and a busy night market.

Navigating through public transportation (we figured out the metro system and took it often... we saved a lot of money by avoiding taxis and doing this instead)

One of our days in KL we spent at an amusement park an hour outside of the city. We had to take a 30 minute gondola ride to the top of the mountain where the amusement park was. We enjoyed the cool weather up in the clouds. We did not enjoy all of the long lines and fighting our way through the crowds from the holiday weekend.

Traveling- Malaysia Trip Part 1

Sorry for the delay in posting. I have been wanting to share our trip to Malaysia with you but wasn't sure where to start. So I kept putting it off and putting it off. In an attempt to try to tell you some tidbits about the trip I will break it up into parts. Here's part 1: Traveling. We had a week vacation for Idul Fitri this year. I love vacation and traveling. Usually with just a couple days we take a trip within Indonesia but because we had a whole week I thought it would be fun to travel to a different country and see some things outside of Indonesia. We chose Malaysia for the destination. There were 9 total of us who were up for the adventure (Molly, Kim, Krystle, Jennie, Laura, Scott, Aaron, Joel, and I). This is kind of a big group to take on such a journey. With our bags packed, plane tickets in hand, and hotel reservations made we set out to see what cool things we might find. We took a car from where we live in Kota Baru to the airport in Bandung. I thought it would be more fun if we all squeezed into one car for the first leg of the trip. With all of us and our luggage we barely fit. I am in there somewhere. Once we got to the airport and checked in we were walking to our gate when we encountered this sign. It kind of looks like choose your own adventure. If you choose Kuala Lumpur go to the left. If you choose Singapore go to the right. I guess those are the only two options. Choose wisely.Next we hung out in the Bandung airport waiting for our flight. Finally we got to board. Here's our gang walking to the plane. Off we go. Once boarding we got a special upgrade and were asked if we would like to move to the emergency exit seats for extra leg room. Yes please. Lastly, after landing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia we took a bus from the airport to the center of the city. This trip took about an hour and was filled with some chat pack questions and the start of some inside jokes. Stay tuned for our adventures in Kuala Lumpur.

Mohon Maaf

Ramadan came to an end last night. The local people stayed up all night praying. And when I say praying this is not a private, stay in your own closet kind of thing. Praying here is very much a public, communal affair. All the people gather at mosques to pray together. And those not present can still join in because they make sure to blare it all over the loud speakers. So as I lay in bed last night trying to get some sleep, I was constantly reminded that I was not there participating with them. And when I woke up this morning they were still going strong- sermons and chanting blaring outside my bedroom.

But all of this also means Ramadan is over, to which celebrating should be given. And a group of us are taking off for vacation since they gave us a week off of school. We will be going to Malaysia. I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures and stories to share when I return.

Time for an Adventure

It was getting to be about that time to get out of Kota Baru and have a bit of an adventure. Plus Molly needed to check out a lake that she's going to be taking her students to on a field trip next week. So a few of us hopped on motorbikes and started driving.

Here's what we found:

Some traffic, weird trucks on the road, beautiful trees, and children in cool uniforms getting out of school

A really big lake, funny peddle boats, wooden docks and a fun boat ride

A whole fishing town out over the water and a yummy fish lunch

One of the highlights of the day was the "peddle-your-own" roller coaster we found.

The price seemed reasonable enough. Rp 8000 is about $0.80.
But if that seems too expensive for you, it's Rp 8000 per becak (car)
so that's only $0.40 per person.

Here are the becaks. But they aren't connected to each other like a normal roller coaster.

And yes, when I say "peddle-your-own" I do mean that there were peddles
and we had to get ourselves around the track. This is when I began to get
a little nervous. I am not a lover of bikes or the need to peddle myself anywhere.

Are these looks of excitement or nervousness?

Excitement

Off we go.
There was lots of yelling out of fear that we were going to die as the car rocked
back and forth on the track. At one point Laura, who was riding with me, started
screaming "I don't want to die here!" over and over again. She had stopped
peddling and I was laughing so hard I couldn't yell back at her to keep peddling.

And of course we found some new friends along the way :)