teaching in indonesia

This is my first post for this, my new blog. I'm teaching in a National plus school in Indonesia in the city of Tangerang, which is basically being swallowed by Jakarta. I'm a science teacher, Biology, being my area of speciality.

I've previously taught in Indonesia, about 1o years ago, at an international school, and also spent the last 5 years teaching in Bangkok, thailand, at a large international school in Bangkok.

www.ajarn.com is an english teachers based website for thailand (ajarn being the thai-word for teacher)

Indonesian Food Carts

Now one of the things that i miss abt bangkok is the easy availability of food on the streets (particularly moo ping (fried pork), being a muslim nation there aint much pork here! ) but anyway they have food carts that these guys move around much the same as bangkok.

Different times of day for different foods and each type of food has a different sound to attract you attention and so u know what they are selling, i found out not so long ago that the guy that screams out "ssssssssaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttaaaaaaaaaaaay" sells satay, funny really!

Anyway here he is...putra malam = night boy - i think that is not exactly polite more of a double meaning really, but i wasnt gonna ask him abt that - i just wanted a plate of chicken satay. unlike bangkok they dont precook them - they start out raw - so he has to fan the coals like buggery for about 10 minutes to cook it properly.beginning to look good.

u can get them wrapped in paper, but since this was out the front of my house i brought him a plate of mine (the maid will wash it anyway) now to make the sauce, lots of oil, some chilli, some other stuff....then i ordered some longton - glutinous rice cooked into mush inside a bananna leaf, he chopped it all up - satay and then a sprinkle of dried onion on top.

doesnt look so good with the flash, ah well too late cos i already scoffed them down, enjoying them on my front step.

fashion show

Indonesia has a phrase Ibu-ibu - it sort of refers to older married woman, who may not have to work, but like to do something to keep themselves occupied. Charity work is often done by groups of Ibu-ibu. At our school the PTA - (parents and teachers association) tends to be such a group - and lovely people they are too. Anyway they wanted to run a fund raiser for our school - so asked a few teachers if we could help by performing as models for their fashion show.

Yeah fine, not a problem, not realising it was going to be bigger than ben hurr, we had practices and meetings and then on the day - TV camera crews, live radio, various VIP's etc were all in attendence, but in the end we enjoyed it anyway.

Jakarta Floods

Quote:
"Storms bring fresh floods to battered Jakarta JAKARTA (Agencies):

Heavy rain inundated low-lying parts of theIndonesian capital before dawn Thursday, compounding the miseryof some 200,000 people already forced from their homes by thecity's worst flooding in years, witnesses said. A break in the rain Wednesday led to some of the filthy waterreceding, enabling residents and emergency workers in this cityof 12 million to begin a daunting clean up operation. But overnight fresh rain in Jakarta and in its upper areas --Depok
and Bogor -- water up again in many parts of the city,according to Elshinta new radio. Many residents have to return to the temporary sheltersThursday because their houses were inundated again Thursdayalthough many of them have began removing muds covering floors oftheir houses Wednesday. "We spent yesterday mopping and scrubbing and now the watershave come again," said Haji Jajan, 52. "I'm tired, but what canwe do?" he was quoted by AP news agency as saying. Harun, a resident of Rawa Barat district in South Jakarta,expressed their disappointment as water inundated again theirhouse after he cleaned up along Wednesday. "I have bought chemical liquid to make sure that my housewould be free from any dangerous microbes. But water came againToday," Harun added. Many residents were still living on the second floors of theirhouses a week after major rivers across the city broke theirbanks. On Thursday waters streamed back into downtown districts, re-flooding local markets, businesses and thousands of houses,witnesses said. The rain caused conditions to deteriorate at emergencyshelters at mosques, where doctors have been treating largenumbers of evacuees complaining of diarrhea, respiratory problemsand skin diseases. At least 50 people have died since last Thursday when therains started, mostly from drowning or electrocution, the HealthMinistry said. Authorities warn that the rainy season is not due to end until the end of February."

No wonder so many Thai’s are rubbish drivers!

The other week my significant other decide she wanted to get her car licence. So she rang up a car driving school and signed up for 10 hours of lessons. This school (perhaps they all do) also included the chance to complete the drivers test also.

The first question she was asked by her driving teacher was “do you want to do the test or just pay?” !!!Now I’m no newbie to Thailand and its system of bribes – but that just appears a little bit too systematic to me rather than a few (well very many) people making a little extra on the side whenever they can!

A week or so later she announces that she is doing her test WTF ? – that’s fast! She got it to, so now my g/f is able to drive a car through-out Thailand. Now I’m not saying she’s stoopid – far from it – she’s a smart gal – but in farang land ( I know I know TIT ! ) but in da west – one generally needs to complete something like 10 times that number of hours learning how to drive – just to gain confidence, read traffic, road rules? Ability to respond to different driving conditions (ie rain, fog, night) (all her lessons were the middle of the afternoon.) ability to calmly respond to emergency situations that may arise.

Most of which can only be leaned through experience and TIME spent driving!She decided she only wanted to get her automatic licence – tho I convinced her to at least get some lessons in a manual ( turns out she had a total of 10 minutes – before the instructors car broke !? and only managed to use 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears!)

Apparently she never learnt how to reverse ( and by implication reverse park!) Anyway I own a manual 4WD – u guessed it she wants to drive it now, ok ok I’ll sit with you – show me how well you can drive. Feck me – she accelerates hard straight at a brick well in our apartment carpark – I slam on the hand brake and have a wee chat with her which consisted of you don’t need to go fast in the carpark – and her saying I wasn’t going fast.

OK – its Sunday morning – should be light traffic – overshoots the driveway exit leaving the nose of the car in the middle of the road – lucky no traffic was coming past, overcorrects the corner so we end up on the wrong side of the road.Couldn’t stay in the white lines down sukhumvit road – generally accelerated towards cars that where already braking despite me asking her to repeatedly to “Chaa Chaa!” (which means go slow go slow!)

We arrived safely – I promised some more lessons at a later date, – while filing a mental note to check my insurance cover! If this in any indication of the general population - its no wonder they all drive like feckn maniacs!