Maaf

Sorry in Indonesian. Sorry I promised a contuinuation of the last post right away. Got distracted doing some research on the net, and as it's painfully slow, I don't have much time to mess around (which I forget).

Anyways... last Sunday we had a spelling bee in Jayapura. Anyone in grade school was welcome to participate. It was quite an event! There were easily over 100 students. I was sick that weekend so I had lost my voice. Fritz had to be the pronouncer for me in the priliminary round. The event was held at a local school. The priliminary round consisted of about 4 groups of 25 kidsw each. Fritz and I had one group. We handed out answer sheets, then pronounced the words for that round. Students had fifteen seconds to write each word. After that we handled all the scoring, and then the semifinal round began, complete with buzzer and flashing lights and everything! One of my students made it into the final round, but he came in second.

Last week was pretty uneventful. I gave a bunch of final tests to some of my classes, as they were ending. This week they are continuing to the next level though. I have English First Jayapura's first Threshold 3 class! This is the highest level, and I'm going to make them do a lot of reading and debating!

On Friday on the way to work Hannah and I had a fender bender on the bike. We were coming into town and approached a notoriously trafficy area. I slowed down quite a bit, but the truck in front of us didn't move and at the last minute I grabbed for the clutch instead of the break, and we slammed into the back of the truck and fell over. I got a bruise and a scrape on my leg, and Hannah came out lightly bruised and scraped also. Surprisingly, an entire crowd of people ran over to help us, and coached us to the side of the road (we were pretty shaken). The bike came out OK and we made it to work on time, ready to teach.

I discovered a fresh fish market close to our house! On Friday Hannah and drove and picked up a freshly caught yellowfin tuna for Rp 20,000 ($2). I lasted us for three meals, in addition to having leftovers to feed some of our housemats twice. I think we will be eating much more fish. For those of you who are curious about the math heare, that comes out to less than Rp 5,000 ($.50) a meal for each person!

On Saturday Hannah, Wade, Rani, James and I went to Base G beach to hang out. I was cloudy so we were the only ones there. I climbed around a point there and found a little point break! Exciting! Made me wish I had a surfboard! After Base G Wade and Rani went home and Hannah and I decided to go exploring on our bike. We continued on the road past Base G, and came to the top of Jayapura. We parked and hicked to the top of this little stripped plateau and got a 360 view of Jayapura and the Pacific ocean. Amazing. Behind us in the deistance we could see an intriguing patch of uninhabitted jungle. I told Hannah we should go in there and hike around.

Sunday we went back there to hike in the jungle. We found our way through a small neighborhood 'till the road dead-ended. A man and his three boys led us passed a barbed wired fence, and over some hills of farmland. Then we entered the jungle and he led us down a small path that supposedly led to a beach. About a mile and a half, and much jungle, and extremely wide and deep river canyons, and treacherous downslope, and breathrtaking vistas later, we popped out of the jungle onto a small secluded beach. From the top of our hike down to the beach must have been at least 1000 feet. Our guide's boys hiked the whole way quickly barefoot. We spent about an hour and a half at the beach, swimming in the water (which is warmer than the air), and watching a small group of locals prepare to catch some sea fish. The had speared some smaller fish in the river which emptied into the ocean from the beach, and were using them as bait. In the ocean they caught some snapper, and some other fish I couldn't identify.

Then Hannah, our tour guide and his children, and I hike back up. It took a long time, and was tiring, and we were trying to beat a storm. But we made it, both sunburned and starving, and rode home. Hungry as we could possibly be, we cleaned up and headed out to a real sit down restaurant on the hill overlooking Jayapura bay: The Green View Chinese restaurant. Yummy, Chinese food! We were very full, and so tired when we got home that we could have easily gone to bed at 8:00.

Today I start some new classes. Should be exciting. Threshold 3! Talk to you all later!

-Nick

Teaching While Sick

Well, last Wednesday I woke up a little achy, and thought it curious. Later that evening after teacher, I had a sore throat and a bit of a fever. Then I knew I was sick. By Thursday night I had a full on cold, and Friday morning I couldn't make it to work. I thought if I satyed home Friday morning and had someone cover my 10:00 class, that I feel rested enough to teach my 4:30, and 6:10. It was important for me to go to those classes because I was going to bring my guitar and sing "What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor" to teach imperatives, i.e. "Put him in the bilge and make him drink it", and also to teach English syllable and stress patterns. Also, most importantly, my 6:10 class (Threshold 2, the highest level), was having a debate, and I made them brownies. So, I figured instead of taking the whole day off and subjecting the rest of the teachers to having to cover my classes, I just took one early and easy class off. Turns out this was the worst decision I could have made. On Friday Fritz called in Sick, and Annie called in sick, and the only person comming to work early enough to cover my 10:00 class was Wade, who was planning on taking his mother-in-law to the hospital, and spending time with he and his wife instead (none of this I knew until after the fact). So, Wade had to come in early, teach my class, and figure out how to disribute five other classes fairly. Later that day I got a lecture about how if I decide to stay home at all, it should be for the whole day. Turns out that the rest I got proved to be only temporarily beneficial, too. Consequently I had to stay home all of Monday because my voice was completely gone. Kinda hard to teach English when you can't speak. Much tension arose between all the members of the teacher's household, but thankfully now it is mostly diffused.

Being sick in the tropics is very strange. Normaly when we get sick, it's during the colder, darker time of the year. Here, it's never colder, and never darker. It's almost hard to tell whether you have a fever because it's so warm and you were ALREADY sweating anyway. But, I seem to slowly be getting better. Teaching is about the worst medicine for a cold though. Imagine having a sore throat, fever, and achy body while at the same time being required to entertain physically and intellectually (and especially verbaly) a group of 8 students, 4 hours a day.

Anyways, more new to come very shortly, I have to switch from Wade's computer to the internet cafe because he needs to use it!

So, a dios for a short time.

-Nick

Washing clothes, Driving on the left, Minor surgery

On Saturday, (the 10th) Hannah, Wade, Rani, I, and some friends went to Base G (the malibu beach of West Papua) to celebrate Wade and Rani's birthday. Rani's cousin, James, taught Hannah and I how to ride our new motor bike! That's right, now we have a motor bike! The beach was amazing. It was a cloudy day, and we went early, so we had the clear blue waters to ourselves. I spent the previous evening crafting somewhere around twenty hand-made tortillas to be made into burritos for the beach party. Swimming in the ocean here is an interesting challenge. The shallow sea floor near the coastline is dominated by coral (living AND deceased). Consequently, waves pop up without warning, and sometimes dissapear just as quickly without breaking. As dangerous as it sounds, playing in the surf above coral beds is not so risky. The coral is not as sharp as one might think, and as long as you don't "go over the falls", you are not likely to get hurt.

Hannah and I picked up bike riding very quickly, even I, who had to learn how to drive a manual vehicle among other things. We purchased the bike from Daniel and Lucia, former teachers, for about $800 (less than half our combined reimbursments for our plane tickets). We spent about half the time at Base G taking turns riding the bike up and down the long rode that runs paralel to the beach, until we felt fairly confident. Yesterday I rode the bike solo for the first time on the road from our house to downtown Jayapura. Piece of cake! I stalled once, but out of trafic behind a line of taxis, and had no toruble starting again. Last night I drove Hannah and I home from school, and today I drove us to the internet cafe where we are now! More news with follow if anything else exciting happens with the bike. Having a bike will be a nice advantage for us, because it will allow us to travel to uncrowded beaches and and such outside the city. One side note: now I drive on the left!

On Sunday I washed my clothes for the first time here. Not terribly exciting. I placed all my clothes (and some of Hannah's) in a large bucket, filled it with soapy water, and stomped on it. Then I took each item out and individually scubbed them on the concrete with a bristle brush. Then I gave 'em a rinse, and but 'em in a dry bucket. Once all were washed I hung them up to dry! To wash all my clothes, and a small portion of Hannah's took about an hour and a half.

On Sunday I also had to deal with a problem that has been gently haunting me fort the past few months. On my back I had a mole that had grown rather large. Hannah had noticed it several times in the States and strongly recommended I see a doctor. But I procrastinated. So, not wanting to allow something cancerous to continue to develope, I took Hannah's pocket knife and a band aid and went into the bathroom, and cut it out. Yes, there was pain, but not a great deal. And yes there was blood, but not nearly buckets. In short, I got it out (although it took me about 30 minutes total including psyching myself up, being thorough, and cleaning up). It is already almost healed. Yay!

Concerning where we left off in the last post: Timika. In Timika there is a large mountain (the name escaped me). The mountain is host to, I'm told, the last glacier in the tropics. At the foot of the mountain is the largest mineral mine in the entire world. Heaps of gold and other prescious materials pour frome the mine, which is operated by a large Transnational Corportation from the United States. The mine is also a strip mine, making it a very very large strip mine. This has nothing less than fatal consequences for (probably hundreds) of square miles of plant and animal habitat. Many people in Papua are stronly opposed to the mining there, but, no one in this part of the world has te power to order this company to leave, and somewhat ironically, the government here is able to sustain so well almost exclusively because of exports from the mining in Timika. It may do you (and many others) well to research this a bit, and determine if goods and services you are purchasing are contributing at all to the devistation of Papuan forest (and probably) a delicate topical glacier.

On a happier note, I made brownies! Not succefull by Patrick Happel Culinary Institute terms, but deliscious enough to tide us over. I have just aqcuired by means of the internet a recipe for Brownies Cockaigne, so we'll see if I can imrpove.

A note on the people here. Generally Indonesians are quite rude by habbit. It genuinly feels like an "every man for himself" sort of atmosphere. Not much casual conversation like in the states (unless you find yourself somewhere at a distance from the city). Average life span here is about 60. The country is not wealthy enough to be very conscious of diet, and the city and it's suburbs are rather dirty, so it's not surprising that we rarely see any old people. Rudeness aside, I get feeling here rather similar to that in Mexico. Rapid and haphazard industrialization seems to supress or eliminate local cultures, making places half way around the globe from each other feel eerily similar.

Selamat tingal!

-Nick

Details

OK. We're on to our second week of teaching. This is officially our first full week of teaching classes solo. At EF we teach people of all ages. Typically from children aged three up to adults aged 40 and potentially beyond. Anyone under sixteen is usually in one series of courses, while adults are generally in a seperate series of courses. The first series (for younger folks) start with Early Learners, which is effectively just an English play-group. Then comes high flyers, for those children who are a little older. The final stage is Trtailblazers. For adults, we start with Beginner one and two, then Waystage, then Keystage, then finally Threshold.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I am currently teaching a Trailblazer class at 4:30, and then a Threshold 2 class at 6:10. The traiblazers are fun, though sometimes hard to control (puberty). And YES, the DO have teenagers here! I think it was Hannah's uncle Marty who was doubtful, either that or he was being sarcastic, I couldn't tell. The Threshold class tends to be easier to teach, mainly because by that time the can speak a lot of English, and I can generally explain new concepts USING English. Also I get to have genral converations with them, which is really nice! I sometimes find it odd to be put in a position of such responsibility, teaching people who are older (sometimes quite a bit older) than myself, some of whom have taugh at a University!

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have another Traiblazer class at 3:00, and a second one at 4:30. They are both fun, and the first is extremely energetic. Sometimes during an activity I find them SCREAMING English at me! Which I suppose is very good! (maybe not in primary or secondary school in the states though).

Now, get ready for some a the details of cultural differences here in Jayapura. First off, it IS a third world country. Essentially this means that there is a lot of disorganized imported technology. Incidentally, technology does a fair bit of harm before its really start to make drastic improvements in standard of living and quality of life. For example, one of the first things I noticed when Hannah and I began to approach Jayapura in the car from the airport is that there is trash pretty much everywhere. Since Jayapura is so remote (it is the only area of all Papua, the largest island in the world, that is occupied predominantly by Indonesians. There are many who feel the Indonesians shouldn't be here at all, or at least that half of Papua shouldn't belong politically to Indonesia, but that will come up later.), everything that doesn't already grow here, mainly everything but pigs, chickens, a selection of native fruits and vegetables, is imported. Besides this making Jayapura the single most expensive place in Indonesia, it also imports a lot of trash material! All of these heavily packaged, Western type food items have been introduced to this area without simultaneously establishing any sort of trash service. So practically, this means that all the rivers and streams and aquaducts and sewers, and many of the beaches in the main bay, are filled with trash. Also, whatever isn't littered is thrown into a pile in the street outside your house, and torched until it burns to ash. (This is very smelly).

There is a very primitive form of waste management, although not a very conscientious one, that involves men in a truck picking up trash from your house. But, they have no schedule, and seem to show up whever they feel like it, which tends to be less than once a week. Instead of being buried in a landfill though, collected garbage is uaually loaded into a ship, taken off shore, and dumped into the ocean, leaving a nice trail of garbage behind!

In short, as a result of technological imperialism from the west, technology has been introduced to quickly here, and it may be a long time before it matures.

I'm running out of time, but next time I write, hopefully I will remember to tell you about Timika and its mountian, now the only place in all the tropics, with a glacier.

Adios!

-Nick