A Day in the Life of Language School

What does a typical day look like for our family right now, you may ask?  I'll walk you through our day.

4:30 AM- Call to prayer from the nearby mosque(s) starts broadcasting and wakes me up if I fell asleep without my earplugs.

 6 AM- Alarm goes off.  I get out of bed and make my morning cup of coffee.  (Lighting the burner on the gas stove with a lighter doesn't scare me anymore, so I am making progress).  I read my Bible, and of coarse my Face Book, and look over my pengalaman (more on that later).  I wipe the ants that have migrated onto our kitchen counter off so I can make breakfast.  Scrambled eggs, pancakes, leftover papaya, or toast is the usual fare.  Sometimes the kids are awake to eat with us, if they are still asleep I cover their plate of food with plastic (so the ants don't carry it away).

7:45 AM-  Ibu Yani our pembantu (house helper or more accurately lifesaver) arrives to watch the children and help with laundry and cleaning, she also cooks us lunch.  We say goodbye to the kids (if they are awake) and walk to IMLAC, our school.  IMLAC is about a mile walk from our house.

8 AM- School starts.  On Mondays we have chapel together, but every other day we go to class right away.  There are six people in our Unit 1 class.  We all take turns at the beginning of the class sharing our "pengalaman"  which means "our experience".  We write eight sentences in Indonesian about our past day and stand in front of everybody to read it.  Starting next week the teacher would like us not to read off of the paper.  Yikes!  After we are finished the teacher (or pilatih) will write down our mistakes on the board and we all practice the correct way together.  Intimidating, yes.

9 AM- We split up into two groups and practice short drills.  We are given about 3 phrases to learn for the day, we then repeat the phrases with the pilatih.  Later in another class we learn words we can substitute in the phrases.  We also have a 20 minute class where all we do is repeat words the pilatih says.  By the end of this class my mouth is sore, there are a few sounds our mouths just don't make in the English language that are hard to get used to.  

11:45- At the end of the day we dialog with the pilatih (in front of the class) the text we have been working on all day.  This whole process is quite draining, by the end of the day the first week I honestly was holding back tears I was so tired by the last class.  I would get crushing headaches and forget simple phrases.  Anybody who is close to me knows that I am NOT a crier.  :)  It is getting easier, class is still crazy hard, but we are getting used to the schedule.  

IMLAC Campus

I forgot to mention that about 1/2 of the pilatihs don't speak much English and the entire class is taught in Indonesian.  If we have a question, it is asked/answered in a mixture of Indonesian, drawing on the white board, and charades. 

12 PM- Class is out.  Mike and I walk home, which is perfect because it gives us time to decompress from the day.  We arrive home to an amazing meal that Ibu Yani and Ibu Janarti have made for us, from scratch.  The meal of coarse always involves rice in some form.

2 PM- The pembantus go home for the day and Mike and I try to get out of the house so we can practice our Indonesian.  Our neighborhood isn't good for practice so we usually take a walk, with the kids, and try to strike up a conversation with people, or we hop onto the angkota and walk around downtown.  It is super intimidating to try and strike up a conversation with a complete stranger and this is the most stretching part of our day in many ways.  We are trying to find ways to be immersed in Bahasa Indonesian more, which is difficult because all the locals speak Javanese to each other so we can't just listen to their conversations to "get an ear" for Bahasa Indonesian.

5 PM-  We rotate between eating out for dinner and eating leftovers at home.  By this point of the day we are exhausted and cooking is too much to think about at this point of our overseas journey.  Of coarse heating up leftovers is a lot of work here too because we don't have a microwave.  Funny thing is if you asked me a month ago if I could live with out a microwave I would have screamed, "NO!"  Now I don't even really miss having one, leftovers taste about 10 times better reheated on the stove anyway.  There are not a lot of convenience food items that require a microwave here either, so you don't really need one.  They are available here, but many people joke if they plugged a microwave into the wall of their house and tried to use it, it will overload the breaker and their power would go out!

6:30 PM- I help the kids take showers, we only have showers in this house no baths.  Yes, we do have hot water!!!  The water is heated by an LPG tank outside, the system has broken on us three times so far in one month, but who's counting?  I am thankful for a husband who can splice wires.  

8 PM- We try to have the kids in bed by this time.  After this Mike and I start on our homework.  We try to study our vocab words, translate the next day's lesson, and then we write our Pengalaman and try to read it a few times before we have to recite it in class.

3 AM- During Ramadan, which just ended 2 days ago, we would be awoken to a drum parade and cries of, "Barung!" that would last about 30 minutes.  This went on for an entire month.  I'm glad I can delete this from our current routine.  

For now, that is a day in the life.  August 12 it will change a bit because the kids will be starting school. 

Random Pictures of Town

Today our internet is being cooperative with me so I am going to post a few photos from around town here in Salatiga.  The internet repairman has already been out here twice to fix it, the speed seems to come and go.  We can never get enough speed to watch Netflix :( which is probably good, because we have a new language to study and learn this year. :)  For those of you who would like to keep in touch, we have found Face Time works much better for us than Skype.  Call us!  We would love to chat, or as they say here bercakap-cakap.

Here are a few pictures of our new town (life).

We don't own a vehicle yet, so we get around town mainly by walking.  Language school for Mike and I is about a one mile walk from our house, it is a nice way to decompress after school by walking home (more on that in a later post).  If our family wants to get downtown we hitch a ride on the Angkotak (a little blue buss) which costs 2,500 rp. (about 25 cents).

If we need to travel to a larger city to do some shopping or enjoy some American-ish food, we can hire a driver to take us there in a car.  It is still a bit different to travel without car seats, but half the time there isn't even a seat belt in the car to hook it to anyway!  We won't be able to travel to the larger cities that often, because we are so busy with school; trips like this will probably happen once a month.

The best way to get around town in Salatiga is by scooter.  I was shocked by how narrow the roads are here, they are about the size of a bike path in the U.S.  We are planning on purchasing a scooter in the future, but we are going to observe how the traffic flows here for awhile before we hit the road.  When we need to get somewhere in town quickly, or after dark when the Angkotak stops running, we hitch a ride on the back of a fellow teammate's scooter.  Macie LOVES riding on the scooter and is the biggest advocate in our family for buying one right away.  We purchased some really nice helmets in town here for only $90 dollars (total).  Of course in Indonesia you can ride a bike barefoot with no helmet if you want to (I have seen this on many occasions).

Here is the road in front of our house, it looks quiet in this picture but it is quite possible to get hit by a scooter if you aren't paying attention while walking on it.  We have a good view of the volcano from our house, but it is quite rare for the clouds and haze to clear away for it to make an appearance. 

Indonesians take their badminton seriously, there is a store downtown that sells some pretty nice rackets.  If you want any "street cred" when you show up for a game, you need a descent racket.  Mike and Colton went into town and picked up a racket and net, so we can practice and play in our yard.  We don't have enough yard for a full-sized court because our banana tree gets in the way, but it works. 

There are some pretty incredible restaurants in town, that is of course if you are brave with your stomach.  We have had good luck so far (just don't eat the uncooked veggies).  The phrase, "Lord please let this food be a blessing to my body" takes on a whole new meaning while eating out here!  This picture was taken at a restaurant we went to after church this past Sunday.  It is beautiful if you don't look too closely at all of the trash floating in the water alongside the rice patties.

I know this post was random, but with the culture shock and diving into learning a new language my head is feeling a bit random at the moment.  We are loving our new home and are settling in well, the people in Salatiga are super friendly and they make us feel welcome.

Greetings from Salatiga, Indonesia!  Our family, along with ALL of our luggage made it all the way here.  We are currently unpacking and setting up our house that, by the way, we get to live in for an ENTIRE year.  As soon as we get our house set up and the internet cooperates with us I'll post a video tour so you can see what our home looks like.

How did flying 1/2 way across the world with 2 kids and most of your possessions go, you may ask?  It went surprisingly well.  

Our trip began at 3 am in Idaho and ended at 1:30 am the next day in Jakarta.  I think Mike and I got a total of 2 1/2 hours of sleep the night before we began.  With us, we had a total of 9 checked bags, all of which came in between 49 and 50 pounds.  Success!  For carry ons we had 4 roller bags, 2 computer bags, 1 camera bag/backpack, and 1 tiny child sized roller backpack.  

Our routing was Boise-Denver on a 737 (4 hour layover), Denver-Narita on a 787 (3 hour layover), Narita-Jakarta on a 767.

The first 2 legs of our trip went great.  Our kids have quite a few air miles under their belts and probably know how to navigate TSA security lines better than most adults.  They also were able and willing to each carry one bag for us.

Starting our new adventure

We were super excited to get the opportunity to fly on the new Boeing 787!  The plane was so new, it still had the "new airplane" smell.  The inflight entertainment system was cutting edge and we never heard a single complaint from either child the entire 11 1/2 hour flight.  Macie watched a couple of movies and fell asleep for the rest of the flight, Colton on the other hand was having so much fun he didn't fall asleep until 1 hour prior to landing.

The trip got "interesting" once we landed in Narita.  We had to shake Colton awake; he was now delirious and unable to carry his bag for us.  In Narita once you disembark the plane you have to go through security again.  Poor Colton was so tired he was sobbing, and we had to keep encouraging him to stand up and move.  We made it through and once we arrived at the gate, he crashed again.  When it was time to board the plane to Jakarta we had to shake him awake again.  In Narita it is tricky to board the plane because they don't have jetways at every gate.  To board our plane we were loaded onto a bus that drove us to the plane on the tarmac, where we then walked up a stairway.  To a 767!  Those are some big steep stairs for little ones (whom you cannot help because your arms are full of bags).  We survived the whole process with no injuries to the little ones and boarded the plane.  The second Colton sat in the seat, he was sleeping again.  Crisis averted. 

Once we landed in Jakarta, we were all fully awake again and the kids were able to carry their bags for us.  Nice.  I was a bit worried to go through customs, but I shouldn't have been.  I've heard Indonesians are nice, but I had no idea how nice!  The customs agent was the friendliest customs agent I have ever dealt with, he was nicer to us than our fellow American custom agents are.  

After we cleared customs and picked up our luggage, our fellow MAF team member was there to pick us up outside of baggage claim. We were then driven out to a guest house in Jakarta to rest for a couple of days before we continued on to Salatiga.

I would have posted more photos, but our internet is slower than molasses in the winter.

Celebration Park

Lately I've (Angie) been tired, not just physically tired, but emotionally tired as well.  The roller coaster that has been the "normal" for our lives this past year has taken a toll.  When I get tired like this I don't need to veg out in front of the tv or read a book, I need to get outside and enjoy God's creation.  Luckily Mike understands this about me and after he came home from work last night suggested driving out to Celebration Park for a hike.

Celebration Park sits right on the Snake River.  When we told the kids the name of the river, Macie's eyes got very big.  We explained to her that the river wasn't called the "Snake River" because it's full of snakes.

Boise is only about an hour drive this side of the time zone line, so the sun stays up super late this time of year.  We were still hiking past nine o' clock and it was still bright (yes we are a family of night owls).

There was most definitely a hatch going on and the fish were rising to the surface of the water like crazy.  I could tell Mike wanted his fly rod so bad!  Of course it in storage back home in Washington.

Here are a bunch of pictures.  It is so pretty out here!

Macie is really into bouldering (climbing rocks) right now. 

This is a converted railway bridge which is a walking path now.

When you are a mom you get the chance to suck up your pride and carry around princess lunch boxes your little girl "promised" she would carry on the hike.

Colton is pretending to sleep in this picture.

So tired.

We are Batting One Thousand

Thursday morning Mike and I carried out our daily morning ritual by checking our email inbox to see if we had any news from the travel department at MAF, and we finally read the words we have been waiting for since we turned in our paperwork last June.  All four of our visas are here!  We were thrilled to get such good news. 

Then our day took a turn for the worse.  

Ever have one of those days where you feel you just need to go to bed so that you can put an end to it so bad things stop happening?  It started out with small problems.  Colton started to feel crummy and ended up with a fever by the end of the day.  On the way to our celebratory dinner at Chick-fil-A his flip-flop blew out (minor  I know, but still unfortunate).  On the way home the clutch went out on our car.  To top it off when Mike turned on our iMac to research how to fix the clutch he got the "beach ball of death".  Our hard drive crashed.  Apples are not supposed to die!  This is the point of the day where I wanted to throw in the towel and just go to bed. 

It is sometimes easy to focus on the negative and feel let down after a day like we had, but if you examine it closer you can see the hand of God at work in the midst of it.  I didn't mention it earlier, but our car broke down 1/2 a block away from home.  Isn't that a miracle?  I thought of all the places I had driven the car earlier in the day, and counted the amount of times I shifted gears.  The fact that the clutch broke so close to home is a miracle.  

Mike was able to tow the car with a tow dolly and truck MAF owns to a hanger full of tools and aircraft mechanics.  What a perfect place to fix a car.  Now we can sell the car with a nice new clutch in it.  The clutch was starting to take a bit of "finesse" to down shift, not the best selling point.

Is it a bummer our computer hard drive crashed?  Yes it is, but we had it properly backed up and there is an Apple store in the Boise Mall.  We took it in to the Apple "geeks" (or are they called "geniuses") and they are installing a new hard drive for us, no big deal after all.  Imagine if the computer crashed one month from now in Indonesia?!  What a headache that would have been.  

As for Colton he woke up the next day feeling better, nothing a day of laying on the couch watching cartoons couldn't fix.  He is also rocking a brand new pair of red flip-flops, his favorite color (his old flip-flops were blue).    
  

      

Three Out of Four Ain't Bad

Three out of four...the amount of visas in our possession at the moment.  Mike and the kids have their visas, yay!  My visa has a minor typo and will be issued soon we are told.  This is great news for us!  Visas are moving in Indonesia, our friends, another MAF couple also awaiting their visas received their's this week.

Our family has most definitely missed the May language class in Salatiga. We don't have exact dates or plane tickets yet; the next language class start date is July 5th which means a departure date of June 18th (ish).  We will let you know when we find out our exact departure date.

Are we disappointed that we missed the May class?  

Not really...and this is why:

Mike and I have been praying for God's timing awaiting our visas and moving to Indonesia in June will actually work out quite well for our housing situation.  All of the MAF housing is currently full in Salatiga at the moment and if we were to move to Salatiga this May we would have to stay in an apartment until the end of the month.  Which basically would mean one more move, and one more transition for our family.  God knows what is best for our family and I am grateful he is relieving us from an extra move!

In the meantime we will continue to live in Idaho, while Mike works at MAF headquarters.  

A Tour of "For Now" Home

I love handing Colton, our six year old, the camera and asking hime to document events for me because it is always interesting and entertaining to get his perspective.  I asked him to take a couple pictures of our drive out to Idaho from Camas, he took roughly 150 pictures.  I just posted 3, don't worry.

That's me driving down I-84.  Mike's Uncle Mark drove his car out to Idaho for us full of our stuff, and Mike hitched a ride with him.  We had a mini caravan driving down the road.  In our car it was just me, Colton, Macie, and our trusty Dashboard Ninjas.

Colton decided to take a picture of his eyeball...

I love this picture of Macie's little foot, she's just kicked back looking out the window trying to spot windmills in the Columbia River Gorge.  (Yes those stickers are little brains.  She decorated her window all by herself.)

We are currently living in a house that a local family bought solely for the purpose of letting MAF missionaries stay in it when needed.  It is such a blessing to be able to live in this cute little house.  The house is located about a 10 1/2 mile bike ride away from MAF headquarters.  Now that we are a one car family Mike rotates between commuting to work on his bike, and the kids and I driving him to work in the morning.

This house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, it feels like a mansion to us right now.  After living in a 1 bedroom apartment for 4 months, and living with friends for the last 3, it feels a bit weird to have this much space to ourselves.

The house even came with a giant book full of pictures of fighter airplanes!  Colton is often found flipping through the pages of this treasure.

The kid's room has bunk beds, which is very exciting.

Colton was very fascinated by the concept of rabbit ears on our tv set.

For all of the "Napoleon Dynamite" fans out there.  "I want that boat."

This is the first time our car has gotten the chance to live in a garage, it's great.  Colton loves to push the button on the remote and is the "official" opener of the garage door.  We do need to be careful when we pull in and remember to take Mike's bike off the top of the car!

Of course, home wouldn't be complete without our Indonesia pile of stuff waiting for us.

The house comes with a nice sized, fenced backyard that is big enough to kick a soccer ball around.  However, we have found that it is easy to loose an airplane over the fence.  The kids have decided that lunch taste better outside in the sun, I agree.

 Thanks for stopping by for our quick tour.