Epi and I

This is Epi. She lives next door to our office. She's very friendly, especially to bule's (foreigners). She especially likes me for some reason. I think it's because we both have curly hair. She started off giving me flowers or grass that she'd picked. Then it was pretty rocks. Now, for some reason, she feels like it's necessary to give me a rock every time she sees me (several times a day), sometimes they're still pretty rocks, but usually it's just a piece of gravel she picks up on her way over to greet me. I still act excited about the gravel, but miss the pretty rocks, grass and occasional wildflower.

Epi's mom and dad have a little cafe by our office. I go there to get an occasional cup of authentic Acehnese coffee, minus the sugar (real authentic Acehnese coffee has so much sugar in it that you can hardly taste the coffee). It's pretty strong black stuff- very black. Actually, sometimes it's just pure charcoal. Sometimes it's really good though. So, I take my 1000 rupiah (about 10 cents US) over and give it a shot.

I tried taking a picture of Epi’s mom making the coffee, but she was too shy. But, I tell ya, it’s a unique process that doesn’t involve drip, glass canisters or any other coffee paraphernalia that I’m accustomed to.

a few more comments

So, it’s officially the hot season here. And it’s hot. HOT!!! Also, religious rules are becoming stricter and that means more clothes. Which makes it even hotter.
I went shopping today to buy more long-sleeved shirts, and actually had some luck (perhaps my taste in clothes is adapting as well). But it was so hot, it wasn’t so much about trying on the clothes as peeling and unpeeling clothes on and off. I just don’t like sweating this much. But, the good thing is that it makes me appreciate cool things a lot more. Like the AC in the truck and the office. And a refrigerated drink. And now we can find ice cream here in Meulaboh. Which is awesome. It doesn’t taste like any particular flavor, however, but rather sort of the color it is. For example, the “strawberry” tasted pink. I’m not complaining at all though. I’m just really excited that it’s here.

On a side note: while I still love avocado juice, my current favorite has switched over to mango juice since mangos are finally in season again.

Another completely unrelated comment: We have this amazing electric mosquito zapper thing. It looks like a tennis racket and you swat mosquitoes and bugs with it and it zaps them to death. They’re completely vaporized. It’s awesome. It also makes a very satisfying pop sound whenever you kill one. I think I take almost too much pleasure in zapping them, but entertainment options are a little slim here.

March English Camp-whew!

All I can say about this week is “Whew! It’s over!” I feel like I need to sleep for several days just to recover. Every week we teach for three mornings in an elementary school, and now we also have English Club on Friday mornings, plus staff English lessons in the afternoons. Well, on top of that we added our once-a-month English Camp! It was my second camp here, and for some reason I had the hardest time writing the curriculum for it this time around… which made for some late nights frantically putting things together. Luckily, I’m working with a great team of people, and I’m happy to say that we pulled it off, and pulled it off well- if I may say so myself.

Last month we realized that we had grown past the reasonable capacity of our office, so we had to find another location. After much searching, we were allowed to use the meeting room at the mayor’s office. I think meeting there, plus being active in a public school for a month greatly added to our credibility, because the attendance at English Camp grew this week in staggering proportions! Last month we averaged around 50 kids a day (with actually about 70 kids in all attending at some point). This month we grew to over 90 students by Friday (with over a hundred attending at some time during the week)! That’s A LOT of children in one room. One HOT room, I may add. The sheer numbers made us have to creatively adjust a few things, but in the end, it all worked out.

We taught about family, descriptive adjectives and jobs. It was a lot of fun leading 90 kids in silly motions for the various descriptive adjectives (friendly, serious, clever, etc). We also played rowdy games in the front parking lot and led craft projects. We had kids showing up over 45 minutes early, just wanting to hang out, and lingering as long as possible afterwards as well. If that's not a mark of some sort of success, than I don' t know what is! A lot of fun was had by all, but I must say I’m relieved to have a respite this next week!

This morning I enjoyed sleeping in, and then wandering into the kitchen to find my friend hacking into some fresh coconuts! There’s nothing quite like fresh coconut water first thing in the morning. Yum!

Here they are getting registered and receiving their name tags, pencils, and English Handbook. And generally milling about.

Wira busy welcoming the 84 students who showed up on Wednesday.

Some of the cuties that got a special ride home. They were so proud to be driven right up to their homes, though their directions just included yelling "here! here!" good thing our driver knew where he was going!

Hard at work filling in their job picture dictionaries.

Some girls hard at work making their I love You Dad/Grandpa/Uncle cards.

A couple weeks ago one of our collegues here got married. For Acehnese culture, that meant several days of festivities! Here he and his bride are at the reception room at the groom's house. Happily for us, the wedding meant GREAT food, and plenty of photo opportunities!

Here's the reception room at the bride's house. The decorations were amazing, the entire room had been transformed.

Here's some of the FHI women staff and Emi and his bride.

Reminders, Reminders Everywhere

All week I was reminded of the tsunami. When I first came here, I saw the destruction everywhere, and every time I went down to the beach I imagined a giant wave sweeping towards me, dwarfing the palm trees. Every person I looked at, I saw as a survivor. It was fresh, so very fresh for me. But, it’s amazing how one can just get used to things. Now, when I go to the beach, I usually just admire the beauty. I can go for an entire day without consciously thinking about the tsunami and what the people here went through. But this week, I kept getting reminders of it- real, practical, every-day sorts of reminders. For example:

During the staff English class we were learning about the various rooms in a house. I asked a student how many bathrooms were in his house, and he asked before the tsunami or after?

This week we went out to invite children to come to our new English Club, we walked through one of the still-occupied tent camps where people are crowded in together so closely. This camp though, has a bit more of a long-term, lived-in feeling. There are a few tent-stores, bikes parked against tent walls, and a surprising amount of satellite dishes feeding in the latest TV series. We sat and talked with people, giggled with kids and generally answered questions about our programs. Then, as we were leaving, up walked one of the ladies who works in our office and house. She lived there, in a tent with her son; a tsunami widow who lost almost everything and was still living in a tent over a year later. And this was a woman that I saw everyday, that I knew, that was my friend.
Next we walked through a neighborhood that had been about sea level before the tsunami, but is now a bit lower so it’s always flooded with the waters rising to cover the newly rebuilt streets when the tides come in. When I asked why people are trying to rebuild over all that water, I was told… “this is their land, the only the land they have, so of course they’re going to rebuild on it.”

There is a lot of rebuilding, all over Meulaboh, slowly some of the ugly scars of the disaster are being smoothed over… but there are too many scars for it to be hidden. And the worst scars are on the people’s hearts themselves. Many are afraid of the sea now. Many still dream of their lost ones. This week, our intern, told me she had been dreaming of her brother last night, and that she missed him a lot. The way she said it made me think that he was just off in another town, going to university perhaps. But when asked, she said that no, he had disappeared in the tsunami. She said that they had hoped for weeks that he’d just show up again at their home… but as time went on, they just had to realize that he wasn’t coming back. She said she missed him so much, he had always given her such good advice and helped her out whenever she had a problem. She said that she really missed his advice.

What do you say? What can you do to help people that have suffered something so horrible that the average person who wasn’t there can’t even fathom?

What about all these children who are still living in tents? The children who are stuffed into over-crowded classrooms with little future opportunity? Granted, things were lacking educationally before the tsunami, but it certainly didn’t help matters. But, it has opened the door to this area that has so long been off the beaten path. Happily, there are people here who are working hard to make things better. And I’m excited to be amongst them, to do what little I can.

I’m a firm believer that a good education is an avenue for good opportunities on so many levels. A decent education allows a person to have the chance to do more with his or her life, it gives her/him a voice, self-esteem, and hopefully the capacity to dream, and to try to do something about that dream. When asked what sort of things they wanted NGO’s to help them with developmentally here, one big request was English and technology education. So, I’m excited to be help with the former, however as many of you know, I’m not that handy with the latter! There are many people here in Meulaboh doing everything from rebuilding homes, to giving business grants, to working in the educational sector.

If you want to support what FHI (Food for the Hungry) is doing here in Meulaboh just click on the Food for the Hungry link on the right side-bar here on this page! (yes, it's a shameless plug, but it's a great cause!)

Well, this has gotten long, and a bit soap-boxish. There’s a lot of stuff one just has to work through here. But, there ya have it!
Enjoy the pictures.

Inviting children at the Manggis neighborhood tent camp to our new English Club.

Talking to a family in the tent camp about our English Club. I made this little girl cry! But she warmed up again when I took her picture!

The floor tiles of homes that were once here, now almost covered by plants. This is where the helicopter lands now.

Plants grow on what was once a thriving neighborhood on Meulaboh's peninusla.

Here's a view of Meulaboh from a helicopter. In the distance is the peninsula that sustained close to complete destruction, as well as Meulaboh proper. You can also see the amount of standing water inland from the beach that hampers rebuilding efforts.

In this area, some houses amazingly were left standing (the white one in the background) while others were completely washed away, or almost completely as this remnant shows what was once someone's kitchen.

Some rebuilding and some ruins.

This was once a full neighborhood in downtown Meulaboh.

One of FHI's Cash for Work projects was to employ people to rebuild roads in this neighborhood. They also made road signs, choosing to include FHI's name with the street's.

Some of the constantly standing water.

This is 1st grade. Happily, there's plenty of room to walk down the aisle here! As you can see, though, there's always by-standers in the doorway which can be pretty distracting. But if you shut the door, it's unbearably hot.

Here's a very crowded 2nd grade classroom. Even the kids have a hard time fitting in the aisles. As you can see, though, they're pretty enthusiastic learners!

Our First Morning English Club

This week was our first week of Morning English Club (not to be confused with English Camp!). Since so many schools were destroyed, there are two shifts at the schools that are still usable. So, all the kids who have to go to school in the afternoons don’t get a chance to go to English Camp, so we’ve started a Friday morning English Club for them. We had about 25 kids this week, and a really nice group too. We discovered that one of the older girls (6th grade age?) who came, didn’t even know how to read in Indonesian yet. Usually these students slide between the cracks of the educational system here, and are ridiculed as they go. I could see in her eyes the wariness, and the self-consciousness about any attention from a “teacher”. We are glad she came, and hope we can give her some positive reinforcement so she doesn’t give up on herself, like so many others have done. The club went really well and I think they enjoyed themselves.

Here's some of the girls that came.

they're really into it!

Meilin's teaching numbers.

Here's our first morning English Club group picture!