Adventures in Aceh

We are coming to the end of our time here in Indonesia and our last adventure in this country has been spent cycling 200 km down the west coast of Sumatra in the province of Aceh.  While the distance was about 80 farther than we expected – and with much bigger hills to climb! – the views were gorgeous and the end destination made the huge effort of getting there completely worthwhile.

Aceh has absolutely beautiful white sand beaches all along the west coast

The last time I visited Aceh was back in 1996 while on an exchange program with Canada World Youth.  I spent three months living in a village called Teuwi Peuriya (population c. 500 people) while learning about development issues.  In the last 15 years, Aceh and Teuwi Peuria have survived two awful tragedies.

Just two years after I lived in the village, it was occupied by guerilla separatist fighters called GAM who forced many – including my host family – out of their homes and stole their food.  Those who resisted were killed, including the father of one of the other homestays that billeted participants from my program.  My host family along with many of their neighbours fled their inland village to live in a coastal town called Teunom when their homes were burned down.  For the next five years they tried to rebuild their lives until the second tragedy hit:  The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.

This is a photo from google images of the Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh taken just after the Tsunami. Now it is totally cleaned up.

It is nearly impossible to fully understand the scope and impact of what transpired, but according to my host sister, at 8am on Sunday December 26, people thought they saw a black mountain approaching from the sea.  At the same time there were very odd and frightening crackling noises and an awful smell in the air.  This was the first of three massive waves that washed up to 7 km inland, destroying nearly every building and up to over half the population of coastal villages. Amazingly everyone from my host family survived.  Some were washed up to the roof of the largest Mosque.  Others climbed coconut trees.  Many people survived the first wave but climbed down from where they had been keeping safe to look for relatives and died when the second and largest wave came about 15 minutes later.  They also noticed that the mosque seemed to ward off the approaching water and many saw this as divine intervention.

This is the Mosque that my family climbed to get away from the tsunami.

My family had a bad feeling about going down and decided to stay safe on top of the roof.  For the next week they had no rice and very little food. They survived manly on coconuts until helicopters flown by foreign aid workers arrived with supplies.  When my host mother (mama) first saw the white foreign aid helicopter pilot she thought it was me and that I had arrived to save the village! (Keep in mind that until that point I was the first and last white person she had met!)

Here is my host family infront of their house. The only thing to have changed since i lived here 15 years ago is new cement floor.

My dad, Cayleigh, and I only had two nights in the village but it was very special and memorable to be back there. We spent our time drinking coffee and catching up with my second family and old friends. Mama was so excited to see us that she sniff kissed both me and Cayleigh all night long! Both she and my host father had tears in their eyes, as did we. All the young children I lived with have already grown up, and most have children themselves. The old photo album I brought was a definitely hit! Despite everything they have been through, very little looks different in the village itself as it is far enough away from the coast.

We also went to see the poor but admirable attempts at “development” that my CWY group created back in 1996.  The public washroom and well that we built are still standing but look like they haven’t been used in at least 14 years, and the intricately painted cement gateway has now been painted over in army green.  As a group, the participants of the program always knew that the true value of our time in the village was not the physical things that we build but the enduring friendships that have lasted.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Farewell to Parigi

It is hard to believe that our time in Parigi, Sulawesi has come to an end. Truly the end of a chapter.

Just about to board the plane from Palu to Jakarta

After our holiday in the Togean islands, we returned to Parigi to pack up and say goodbye. We had a lovely final visit to each of the two schools that we taught in, and spent our last night at another karaoke party at the principal’s house with all our teacher colleagues.

It was such an opportunity to have stayed with Ui and his family and to have become so much a part of the community in Parigi since the beginning of September. It was sad to say goodbye, and we were spoilt and showered with gifts and souvenirs, which Indonesians call “oleh olehs”! Three full cars of people convoyed with us to the airport (2 hours away) to see us off!

One final photo shoot with the principals!

While we will no longer be in Parigi physically, it seems our legacy will remain… our photo is up on the wall (celebrity-style!) in one of the restaurants we ate in, hundreds of people have terrible cell phone photos of us… and we even did a spot for a Sulawesi radio station that will be played over and over! A few weeks ago we did a one hour radio show about what we were doing here, and afterwards they had us record in Indonesian, “This is Mr. Patrick and Mrs. Cayleigh from Canada. Never forget to listen to Radio Kareme Nuvela!” Hilarious!

 

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Togean Islands: White beaches and Jungle Treks

The past week has been incredible- the stuff you thought you could only see in dreams… or in touched-up tourist brochures for  very elite travellers!

Seriously?!!

We have spent the last week in the Togean Islands, which is north of where we have been living in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Patrick’s Dad John arrived last week to join us on our travels for a few weeks, so we were fortunate to all experience the Togeans together.

The photos truly speak for themselves.  Breathtaking scenery. Truly awe-inspiring. And the sounds of waves crashing arhythmically right outside our beach hut each night was so good for the soul. It is a trek to get there (8 hours on a bumpy bus all through the night followed by 5 hours on a local ferry), but so worth it!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Jam Karet (Rubber Time!)

Indonesians have a unique concept of time which they jokingly refer to as “Jam Karet” (rubber time).  Time here is objective.  It can bend with the circumstances and is often dictated by those with more power.  In school for instance, break time is scheduled for 15 minutes but could run as long as 30 minutes or even 40 if the principal gets caught up in something important like taking pictures of us repeatedly with her cell phone and forgets to ring the bell.  I kid you not, in the three and a half weeks we have been here we have yet to see a clock within 10 minutes of the “real time” and at least half of them do not run at all.  We have even noticed that the accuracy of the main clock at the schools we work in is different everyday!  Here is a sample conversation we had with our principal:
Principal: Where are you going?
C & P: To start teaching our class.
Principal: Istirahat dulu! (Rest first!)
C & P: But isn’t recess over? My watch says 9:15.
Principal: (looks at the clock) Yes- looks like 9:30.
C & P: We thought recess was from 9:00 – 9:15?
Principal: Yes, 9:00 – 9:15. Sit down! Eat some more!

When asking people the time you often get an approximate guess like “after six” which is obvious because it is dark out and the sun always goes down at 6.  However, we haven’t had the opportunity to go into a mosque yet.  We have a sneaking suspicion that the clocks inside Mosques must be accurate  since the daily prayer calls that are broadcast over the neighbourhood seem to be quite regular.  Maybe it is divine intervention!

We have started to adapt to the local way now and have learned to just roll with it.  I hope we make it on time to the airport when we catch a plane to Jakarta in two weeks…hmmm… or was it three weeks…

Pak Guru, Ibu Guru (Mr. Teacher, Mrs. Teacher)

Amongst our various monikers here, we are known as Pak Guru and Ibu Guru. We are also called Mr. Pat-er (roll the r!)-eek and Mrs. K-ai-lee. What is nice is that now as we walk along the streets close to our two schools, people sometimes call out to us by name instead of just “Hallo Meester” and random honking!

Ibu guru and Pak guru with the Grade 3s who did drawings connecting Canada and Indonesia

Anyway, we have really been gaining momentum with our teaching here, as we becoming increasingly more comfortable with the people and the system here, and as our knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) improves by the day. It was pretty hilarious at the beginning – we were essentially comic mimes as we tried to make ourselves understood! Patrick has quite a good grasp of the language from when he was here before and it came back to him quickly, while Cayleigh had to spend the first few weeks with her nose in her ‘instant passport to Indonesian’ book that she bought in the airport on the way here!

Cayleigh practising English greetings with students

We have split our time between two schools. At first, we significantly preferred the school where Ui’s daughters go, as it is smaller and in our nerighbourhood, so the kids saw us more often walking around and didn’t go as crazy every time we arrived at school. It got a bit tedious going to the other school and wading through the throng of uncontrolled kids every time we arrived. Fortunately, however, that has settled down now and we have been able to do really neat cultural exchange projects with each school.

At the smaller school, we had the Grade 3s write about their daily schedules, the Grade 4s write about the food they eat, and the Grade 5s write about their houses and surrounding trees and animals. They really highlighted things that are so different from Canada, like waking up at 5am to pray, eating fried bananas and rice for breakfast, and having ducks, goats, cows, coconut trees and mango trees right in front of their houses!

Grade 5s with their 'Istimaiwa" (something special) project

At the other school, we asked the Grade 5 students to each bring in something ‘special’ to them. We had kids bring in everything from rice paddy stalks to traditional dancing hats to durians (a very stinky fruit that they love here!) to a takrau ball (used for a hacky sack-like sport here). It was amazing! We have some awesome teacher friends in Canada who have jumped on board and are sending back material from their Canadian students! We have also been teaching ultimate Frisbee to the Grade 6s at each school, and at the end of this week the Grade 6s from both schools are going to play each other in a big final face off!

AND, we were asked to present a workshop about what teaching is like in Canada. We proposed a hand-on workshop for 1.5hrs with two teachers from each school in the district (a total of 34 people) so that we could demonstrate some creative teaching practices. The head of the board of education proceeded to arrange a 4 hour lecture for 150 teachers! Bah! Please send us good luck on Friday!

Most days of teaching are really fun and satisfying… and others are outright frustrating! There are many differences between the school system in Canada and the school system here in Indonesia:

-          School here goes from 7am – 12noon Monday – Saturday (Grades 1 & 2 go home at 10am).

-          On average, there are 40 kids in each class.

-          All students (even in public school) wear uniforms, and they are different for each day of the week.

-          Teachers also have daily uniforms! Mon.= forest green, Tues.= khaki, Wed.= navy blue, Thurs.= Batik (traditional patterned clothing), Fri.= sports day, Sat.= free for all!   Patrick and I clearly don’t have the uniforms, but we do our best to fit in… and I have had many loaner clothes from Illa, making me often look like a conservative 1980s missionary! (Think: Meryl Streep from Out of Africa!) Oy!

-          Students are often left unattended by teachers… it is frequently hard to distinguish between class time and recess!

-          If a teacher is late or absent, there is no supply teacher- the kids just hang out on their own. No one seems to take notice or worry about this in the least.

-          The principal gets paid the same amount as the teachers… the position is largely a promotion to a “higher” status whereby you don’t have to work as hard! The principal’s main job is to ‘supervise’ the teachers… which generally means hanging out in the staff room!

-          Academic priorities are different here. For example, kids only get taught Math twice a week, and the passing grade for Math is lower than all the other subjects.

-          Every lesson involves copying from the whiteboard. Critical thinking really is not yet part of the educational system here.

-          “Smart kids” sit at the front of the class, and once they answer a question correctly, the teacher moves on… while many kids in the back don’t even bother to attempt the work. This is very hard for us to see.

-          The general noise level in schools is astonishing – partly because of all the kids on ‘extra recess’, and partly because teachers do not ask the kids to be quiet in class, even when other students are presenting.

-          It is important to acknowledge that teachers here get paid very little and need to supplement their salaries with other jobs in the afternoon, so it is hard to motivate them to work harder or teach more creatively. Very complicated…

-          If teachers have children younger than school age, they often bring them to school with them.

This teacher's son is "helping" her with her marking!

-          All that said, teachers and students all appear very happy here, and there is a wonderful culture of singing in all the classrooms. It is a very low-stress environment, and it seems we in Canada could stand to learn something from that. Teachers at home are often self-critical and working under pressure.

I could go on and on, but through all our classroom experiences here, we have had many opportunities to reflect on our own teaching practices at home and to garner inspiration for when we return to Canada.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Saturday was a busy day!

The fisherman who was our host... he is fishing for small fish to use as bait.

On Saturday morning, we went fishing with Illa’s cousin… we did not seem to have good fortune in finding fish to hook, but we had fun being out on the water and giving it a try.

Then on Saturday night we were invited to the principal’s house for dinner and a night of karaoke! I think the pictures truly speak for themselves… it was hilarious! The songs were not even in Indonesian- they were in the local language of this area, so we didn’t know the tunes AND couldn’t read the words, but they still wanted us to belt out into the microphone anyway!!

 

 

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Cock fights and Coconuts

The days are often very slow here in Parigi. We get up early, teach a couple lessons at school while it is still relatively cool and then come home for lunch and nap. In the afternoons we visit neighbours and nearby villages to eat and let people take photos of us. But hardly a day goes by here where we don’t see or hear something new that would never happen back home.

Yesterday for example, I was awoken from my siesta by the angry voice of our host. “WHO STOLE MY COCK?”  Ilya apparently had lost one of her prized boxer cocks to a thief. Boxer cocks are a common sight here in Parigi. You often see them strutting their colourful feathers around front yards. Some of them are pure bred and are ferociously good fighters that can be worth one to three million rupiah ($100-$300). I’d be mad as well if I lost my cock! This fiasco was put into context by our trip to a nearby village last week to visit with some relatives and to drink fresh coconuts picked straight from the tree. On the way home we came across a group of men training their roosters for a fight. It was only a practice round and not a real fight but the men were still very quiet and cautious as we approached. Once they realized that we were safe and would not alert the police to this illegal activity the fight began. In the end the roosters did not sustain any major injuries but did put on a spectacular display of acrobatics!

Random things we have forgotten to share so far…

Cayleigh swimming with Naya, Illa, Alsha, and Illa's sister Lili

-          Alsha and Naya, the girls that we live with, call us Om Patrick and Tante Cayleigh (Uncle Patrick and Aunt Cayleigh) – very cute!

-          There is a different norm here with regards to personal space. While it is not normal for couples or family members to show any public displays of affection, amongst friends, physical touch is very normal. Friends walk down the street holding hands, or sit with a hand on each other’s leg. For us, the funniest is that during our inevitable daily photo shoots with people we have just met, we very often end up with a hand on our rear end or our inner thigh… or in my case a female’s head on the chest!! (Since height-wise that just seems to be the perfect landing place!)

Don't be decieved by this innocent-looking photo... Patrick and I both have a hand firmly on our rear ends!!!

-          There is a huge belief in the spiritual life here. People embrace the duality of existence and don’t look for “answers” and “truths” as much as we do in the West. For example, to explain a successful robbery, it is believed that thieves can blow through a dead man’s bone so that the inhabitants of the house they are robbing will ‘sleep like the dead’.  This may seem preposterous to our way of thinking, but who are we to know? There is also a woman in this neighbourhood who people pay to ward off the rain when they are hosting an important event. When so surrounded by different beliefs, it is interesting to take some time to ponder what we perhaps overlook in our lives at home by keeping our physical lives and our spiritual lives so separate…

-          An interesting note on climate (did I mention how HOT it is here?!!)- it is interesting how we spend so much effort and energy trying to perfectly ‘control’ our environment in Canada, yet here they completely surrender to their environment and let it dictate their lives. In some ways, I don’t know how they do it… like all the Muslim women here who wear thick cotton long sleeve shirts and bottoms and just sweat it out. In other ways, it makes us chuckle… like how when it rains, everyone just uses it as an excuse not to go into the office! (Remember that it is rainy season for months at a time!)

-          In general, the pace of life here is much slower, and there seems to be a lot of ‘biding time’ at the office or at school. While this drives us crazy as Westerners who are used to a certain level of efficiency, to look on the positive side, it does mean that they lead relatively stress-free lives, in stark contrast to a lot of people at home.

-          There are no such things as “building standards” here… in a staircase, for example, often each stair is a different height; and houses often have random dips and small stairs where you wouldn’t expect them… a challenge for those of us who are definitely too tall for this country as it is… and perhaps a little clumsy too! Also, all the construction tends to be a little “off” by Canadian standards (eg. doors not quite lining up with their frames, sporadic gaps where the walls meet the ceiling, paint splattered over new tiles etc.).

-          While we Canadians often want to be tanned and have a “healthy glow” to our skin, being very pale and “putih” (white) is considered beautiful here. So instead of putting on blush etc. like we do, women here put on what almost looks like white face paint as make-up!