We’re not in Kansas anymore…

8 of 10 on the first day!

The first week of school was a bit of a blur. The kids are great, Rob’s classes are amazing, the students are engaged (though for me, they’re 2nd graders, so they’re only engaged for about 10 minutes at a time), and the schedule is doable. Thank God it’s over! We both hate the first week—filler activities, pre-assessments, forgetting names, missing yard duties, and everything that comes with first week jitters. But anyway it’s behind us and we ALL made it!

The weekend was great. Friday night, we ditched out on the First Friday party to celebrate Rob’s birthday at a Dutch restaurant at the Supermal (yes, it should be spelled with 2 “ll’s”, but it’s not!). On our walk home we were nearly scared out of our shorts as we noticed the leaves on the grass moving. After stopping and trying to figure things out, we noticed that the leaves were actually toads out for their evening meal. This motivated the kids to come home and watch “The Princess and the Frog” before bedtime. The frogs have become a great incentive tool as we persuade the kids to walk back up the hill to the Supermal to shop.

Saturday was spent as most Saturdays are spent—errands. We’ve decided, though, that errands are REALLY difficult when: your mobile phones aren’t charged and don’t have credit, you don’t have a car, and you don’t speak Bahasa Indonesian (the local language). First, the phones. Urgh. We bought pay-as-you-go cards because the money is supposed to last a long time and they are really easy to find. Unfortunately, we had been receiving the occasional text messages in Bahasa. No biggie. Except… we must have inadvertently responded to one and now we’ve been bombarded with text messages that has depleted our credit.

250,000 Rp. = $25

Second, we don’t have a car, a driver, or a driver’s license. This is not a big deal except it has limited our range of travel and exploration to the areas we can get to on foot or places that we already know. The first time I got in a car, I hadn’t figured out the exchange rate yet so when the driver told us that we owed him 15,000 Rp. I nearly flipped my lid. But then I realized that it was only about $1.50 and that was after a 10 minute drive. Not bad.

But there’s another problem about not having a car—we end up schlepping a lot of stuff around! After a wonderfully exciting 5 hours at the Supermal, Rob and I decided to reward the kids with the things they had been asking for since Grandma and Grandpa left—bean bags! OK, fine, we can handle bean bags. At the “Bean Bag” store, we noticed that the small, cute, soft and cuddly bean bags were like 1,300,000 Rp. Yes, I said 1 MILLION, 3 HUNDRED THOUSAND Rupiah (though that’s only about $130.00) and the gigantic, easy-to-wash, and not-so-cute bean bags were only 700,000 ($70.00). So, we got 2 mammoth, colossal, and I mean freakin’ HUGE bean bags. At the register, it occurred to Rob and I that they would never fit in a taxi. So, we decided to hoof-it home! Yup, through the packed Supermal, the crazy gringos slogged their big ass “Santa” bean bags. Through the mall, and the traffic, passed the frogs (that we NEEDED to watch), passed the laughing guards who protect our complex, and into our home. We need a car!

The third rather big challenge here is we don’t speak Bahasa Indonesian. All we can say is “thank you” and between the four of us, can probably count to 5. This is OK as we’ve done a great job getting around with broken English, charades, and a lot of business cards. We’ve been able to order dinner, price out a new car, buy a couch, and grocery shop all without knowing more than the cordial Indonesian head bow and “thank you.”

Our lack of Bahasa came to a head after a rather exciting day at school on Monday. Let me detour here for a minute and tell you about the crazy day we had. Tuesday is Indonesian Independence Day and the way the school celebrates is by getting the local and expat staff together in the gym for the “Merdeka” games. “Merdeka” is the Bahasa word for freedom so it’s a great way to commemorate their freedom from the Dutch. In any case, the gym is packed with people all decked out in their red and white clothes to play silly games like: balance the rice basket on your head, tug-of-war, and cross-dressing soccer. It was a hoot to watch and next year we’ll be prepared with tennis shoes and gym shorts. At the end of the event, winners are given huge bags of food and everyone walks away with a goody bag—an SIS tote bag with a traditional Ramadhan dinner. Awesome. But the kids had no idea we’d be going to the “Merdeka” games. I had forgotten about the games when I had promised the kids a trip to the pool. Oops. So, to make up for my tactical error, Rob and I decided to take them to McDonald’s for dinner.

Bubur Ayam Soup?

We need to learn Bahasa. Except for the things we ordered by picture: Xavier and my cheeseburgers, Anouk’s spaghetti, and Rob’s Big Mac, we had no idea what we were getting. The ketchup is substituted with chili sauce, most meals are offered without French fries but with rice, noodle soup and fried chicken drumsticks are on the value meal, and napkins are a commodity. It was definitely a night to remember. Our Indonesian cultural experience ended with a long walk home past the frogs as we counted the bats we saw flying overhead. We read our Indonesian fairytales for kids and called it a night.

The way Google celebrated the day

Happy Independence Day Indonesia! It’s been quite a ride already.

FYI—we are all a “Twitter” as our mobile twitter account is all hooked up. You can follow us on a more regular basis by logging on—http://twitter.com/teach4Travel.

The Eagle Has Landed

Entrance of the school

It's just after 4 am and I can hear the faint chant of a nearby mosque from my bedroom. Excitement and sadness is welling up inside me because today my parents leave and I get to meet my students for the first time. It’s orientation day for students at Surabaya International School so my kids are stoked that they get to meet their new teachers and see their classrooms. But today is bittersweet because our amazing support is outta here! Grandma and Grandpa have been awesome as we hit the ground running here in Surabaya. From day 1, Rob and I have participated in loads of shopping sprees, orientation (read: networking) meetings, and lavish lunches in gorgeous, historic hotels or enchanting garden settings and we haven’t worried about the kids once!

Front of the house

WOW! This was the first word uttered from my mouth when we arrived and I think I've repeated it about 1,000 times since we've been here. We have arrived in an amazing world full of green, beauty, buzz, energy, and excitement. It's a city of contrasts, big skyscrapers and 50-floor apartment buildings interspersed with intimate canals and bustling neighborhoods. The landscape reminds us of Kenya everywhere we turn.

Welcome flowers

The dining and living area

The day we arrived was an oddity. A downpour hit Surabaya, the likes of which haven’t been seen in over 50 years. Though we’re on the southern hemisphere and it is winter season, it doesn’t typically rain in the winter, so the rain caused all sorts of havoc (read: traffic). When we finally pulled up to our house we realized that the pictures we had been sent didn’t really tell the whole story. The house is gigantic. The entry way (which was decorated with a gorgeous flower arrangement), living room, and dining room area (which meld together into a great room of sorts) are about the size of our Kuwait apartment…and we haven’t even gotten to the rest of the joint. There is a spacious spare bedroom/office downstairs, an arched staircase that leads upstairs to a landing that will serve as the kids play area and TV room. From there, stem our three bedrooms. Xavier has the smallest of the three rooms but he opted for that one because he wanted a Queen-size bed. Anouk picked a slightly bigger bedroom with a balcony that overlooks the back garden, while Rob and I moved ourselves into our gigantic Master bedroom with en suite. Our balcony overlooks the front garden and, on a clear day, to the volcanoes in the distance. The biggest problem with the house is the size—the ceilings are so high, the rooms are so big, and everything is so lavish that it makes all the furniture look puny. Xavier and Anouk LOVE their new house and are thrilled with their bedrooms. They think we live in a castle.

The Koi pond

The front sign

Day 2 brought the family (not just Rob and I) to school. The kids walked into the foyer of the school, clad in antique Indonesian furniture, art, and fresh flowers from the school’s gardens with gaping mouths. They both sort of squealed with excitement especially when they walked out to the hallway and stopped at the koi pond to get a view of the school’s local pets. A few strides past the pond, they were outside playing on the swings and slides and really enjoying their new playground. The kids are THRILLED with their new school. And as parents, Rob and I couldn’t be happier. The classrooms are nearly twice the size of our rooms in Kuwait and for me… I will only have 10 students. I have cabinets stacked with books and the storage room (between both classrooms contains everything our heart could desire, plus an entire guided reading room just for grade 2). It’s an amazing contrast that excites me both personally and professionally! And then there was the library!!! Who doesn't love an amazing library? The kids took a tour of the library with grandma and were amazed at how many books they can read. It is surely a sight to be seen!

A view of 1/2 the library

Life is good for us here! But it became even better on Sunday after an enchanting brunch at the Shangri-La hotel. My new Principal, Robbie, and his son Harry James, took our family on a brief tour of the Pakuwon Golf Club just minutes from our house. After a brief look around, it was a no-duh that we needed to become members, so we signed up! (For those of you who visited the Corniche with us in Kuwait…it puts that place to shame!) Monday found Rob and I at school trying to get things ready for the year but found the kids at the pool with my parents (and their new pal, Harry James) for nearly 8 hours. By the time we arrived home that afternoon, the kids were three shades darker than we left them that morning and they were zombie-like in front of the TV. So… the grown-ups left the kids with Noryeti, the house lady the school hired to start off our time here, and we went to a wonderful dinner in the clouds (literally). At 6 pm, we arrived at a rooftop restaurant with glass walls and no ceiling. The cool, evening breeze washed over us as we ordered up a few beers and glasses of wine. As we raised our glass to toast, our Superintendent, Larry repeated a phrase that we’ve heard about a dozen times since our arrival, “Well, here’s to another hard day in Southeast Asia.”

The Shangri-La Hotel

I apologize for not writing more than this, but we are currently in a house with no internet and when we are at school, with internet, we are more focused on working and preparing for our start on Monday.

Give us a couple weeks to get in the groove and we should be able to send emails, Skype, or talk on the phone. Until then… we hope all is well and if you think I’m exaggerating—my parents will be home by Monday, so you can ask them yourselves!

We are happy and we feel really blessed to start another “hard” day in Southeast Asia!