First things first, it looks like I will be heading to Papua on the 2nd of December. For all I know, this could be the last time I blog. I may or may not be able to get Internet access once I get there.

The four walls...

I like to think of myself as the prime example of why there is everything wrong with the way education is nowadays; but then you all probably think I am just being obnoxious.

When I arrived Canada at 16, I was accidentally put in the regular grade 11 program, instead of the ESL 11 program. So instead of sitting in a language classroom learning the nuts and bolts of English, I braved through Lord_of_the_Flies with Canadian kids (and grew up to read Foucault... I am permanently brain damaged) and picked up English language in a flash.

Then here I am in Indonesia, instead of taking language lesson inside the four walls of a University classroom, I just hang out with the people here, and again, I learnt the language that much faster. If I were to follow the "intensive" BI program at the University, I will be at level two by now; but I can say with confidence that I have mastered up to level 3 materials on my own by just living a life here, OUTSIDE of the classroom. [well, okay, I lied. I got a lot of helps with Micaela back when I was in Canada too...) My conclusion is, education only serves to IMPOSE a limit on human potential. It puts people in their place and tell them where they belong in a hierarchical society...

But, so much for that, I have narrowly escaped the horrible fate of studying in a University again and instead, I now teach inside four walls in a SMP. I also attend English class at a college with some friends close to my age.

The lecturer at the college and students welcomed me warmly... maybe too warmly! A keen student asked to shake my hand and wouldn't let go for the next 2 minutes... she also followed me all the way to my bike after class and she seems quite reluctant to let me go. The lecturer speaks enough English that I can speak to him in normal speed, which is a nice chance for me to spill my heart out. (it's a bit difficult to do in Indonesian...) Most students in class cannot understand the readings so the lecturer has to translate and explain the text in Indonesian sentence-by-sentence, which is a nice chance for me to pick up some new vocabularies and also translation skills.

Teaching at SMP (middle school) is interesting, there are more boys than girls in the classes but 90% of the time, the girls are the ones to answer the questions I ask. The vice principal sits at the back of the class and the class stays in some sort of order. As soon as he walks out, the boys get really rowdy. He also has a 5 year old son who stays in the class with me, he likes to disturb the class and pull childish stunts, like climbing a table to pop a plastic bag in my face in front of the class, or throw toys in my face, or tickle me, or shout into my ears... No problem, I was shaken but not stirred. I mean, I only threw balls at my teacher in elementary school and swapped oil-pastel with chalk so that the teacher freaked out when she realize she can't erase the board when I was in middle school... (here is a living proof that karma is true, what comes around must goes around, no matter how you try to avoid it...)

When I ask the student to read the text one by one, some kids are shy and won't speak up loud enough for the class to hear, to my horror, the vice principal walks up and whack them really hard with a huge duster. Another time, I walked across the playground on campus and the boys at Phys Ed class called out to me, the PE teacher walks up to them with a huge stick and threatens to beat them, I was really freaked out... at the end, I don't know if he actually hits them, I didn't want to look.

So after class one day, I pulled the vice principal aside and told him to stop hitting MY students, though he told me sometimes that's the only way to get student to cooperate. Actually, before I even start teaching, he told me that students at this school are "all stupid. Only students from very poor family with very poor ability come to this school." What kind of educator is this??? I was exasperated. His son is a constant headache and trouble in my class and that's not a problem to him, but the shy students apparently deserve a harsh beating. So, in response, the next day, I spanked his son in front of the whole class. Justice has been served, all is good. :)

In general, I have more problems with the teachers and the vice principal's son than the students. Teenagers in this country seem curious, friendly, talkative and not at all shy. most of the time, I quite enjoy them.

Muslim-Fundamentalists, culture of shame, and "silence"??

"They" say, Indonesian has a "culture of shame and silence" regarding sex. Either "they" don't know what they are talking about, or I am some sort of magnet for breaking cultural taboos.



I have been touched and grabbed and kissed inappropriately so many times already by guys I hardly know, I am starting to seriously doubt this idea of muslim people having any respect for women. True, many of them are people working in the tourist industry, but many enough Indonesian work in the tourist industry that you really cannot exclude them as "out-liar" or "abnormal."

Many of my friends here also told me people in the city have very different attitude from people in the village. Conveniently, I have friends from the city AND from the village. My city friends think people in the village are too "muslim fanatic;" whereas my friends in the village keep telling me that people in the city are "nakal" (naughty/ devious). For example, one of my friends works in the tourist industry, he has the typical perception of foreigners as amoral people and sexual maniac. He calls my village friends "muslim fanatics," but honestly, I still enjoy them immensely. Ibu Yuli, on the other hand, told me she has never "gije-gije" (sp? apparently it's just a local slang, it's not in any dictionary). before she got married, but a lot of girls in the city has already done it. Asbi also told me that girls in the city are "sudah biasa" (used to it?) about kissing, even though it's a big no-no in the village.

So I live in the village... I have been hanging out with my neighbour's family a lot, we jus sit at the bruga and play guitar/ chat/ study together. Unfortunatelly for me, they are very religious people, and some of their friends are hardcore Muslim evangelists, so on many occasion, I have already been assured that I (and all my "Christian friends" ... I told them I am Christian) will definitely be going to hell unless we follow Muslim. I was told, "there is everything in heaven, beautiful girls, no need for money, enough for everybody, if you like pigs, you can eat pigs in heaven, if you like cats, there are cats in heaven. So it's up to you, if you want to go to heaven, follow my family. If you want to go to hell, silakan! There is nothing but siksa [corporal punishments] in naraka [hell]... I tried really hard not to laugh, because that's what some of my Christian "friends" told me too XD

I have already told you a bit about my neighbour's youngest son Asbi, the koran-guru who travels through the village on foot to teach children to read the koran. That's how I became friend with his family, Asbi teaches the kids in my family Bahasa Arab as well, and after the lesson, we often play guitar together, I now also go to English class in a college with him.

One day, I have been playing guitar with Asbi at his house when it starts raining dogs and cats, and the power went out. Asbi told me he has been having stomach-ache for a few days, and as usual, I offered to (play doctor and) give him some medications. It was actually the second time I offered to medicate him; a few days ago, when he was so sick he couldn't pay attention in class, he declinded the medication, no double out of shyness. I guess, this time his stomach hurts badly enough that he wants to try some pills, so I was about to brave the rain to get the medication when he told me to wait for the rain to stop.

But the rain didn't slow down until it was late and dark... It was still raining, but this time, he insists I go home. He wanted to give me a ride, but I wouldn't let him, I mean, he is sick! He asks me when will I come to his house again, I said in a few minutes, because I still have to bring him medication. He told me he is not sick anymore, which is obviously a lie. I told him I will come back, so just wait. He shoulted "tidak usah" (don't bother) after me, but I just waved it off. I mean, it's not really a big deal, I am a big girl and I can take care of myself, right?

Apparently not, I came back soaking wet from the rain, with the medication, and he got really mad at me. "Why did you come back? I told you not to!" I gave him the medication, but he wouldn't take it at first, "I said not to come back, it's already night time!" (it was only 7:30pm) I just couldn't believe it. I was concerned about his condition and he got angry at me for walking to his house at night to deliver the medication. At last, he took the medications. His friend wants me to stay to chat, though Asbi is obviously not happy about it. At last, I went home, feeling a bit puzzled and insulted.

A few days later, he brings it up again, "don't come here at night, my dad gets mad if it's already dark." So I asked him, "it's okay for you to play at my home late at night but it's not okay for me to go to your place at 7?" and he told me, "girls are not allowed, maybe other villagers will see us." I said, "it was dark and there was nobody on the street," and he actually said to me, "maybe they have telescope." Since he was so serious, I tried really hard not to laugh, but I failed. So that's what it comes down to, an intense fear of being seen. The funny thing is, he is not afraid to "silat"(local martial arts) me really hard when nobody is around, but when someone, ANYONE is watching, he will squeal and tells me he dares not fight with me. (But if I "aikido" him, it's okay if there is an audience... I just don't get it.)

So he sounds really shy, right? The thing is, he is not that shy about sexual discourses. I now teach Asbi English and in exchange, he teaches me to read Bahasa Arab. One day, out of the blue, Asbi says to me in English, "I don't know why my heart dropped when my girlfriend held my hand," that sounds conservative and innocent enough, but just the fact that he confesses his interactions with his girlfriend to me seems to contradict the notion of "silence" and "shyness." We then go on to talk about our sexual experiences, and even though he accuses me of "berdosa" [sinning] and that I am going to get a lot of "siksa" [coporal punishments] after I die, and he keep saying "saya tidak berani," [I dare not], he doesn't seem shy about talking at all.

On another occasion, Asbi covers his face and squealed "tidak mau~ tidak mau~" when I encouraged/ instructed him to kiss his girlfriend... but he also regularly brings up the topic of kissing. When I teased him that "mungkin kamu sendiri belum pernah cium dalam kampung-ini," [maybe you are the only one in the whole village who hasn't kissed yet] he comes back by telling me that his friends also talk to him about kissing all the time and none of them has kissed a girl yet. Again, that sounds innocent, but the fact remains that he and his friends are not that silent about sexuality.

Another time, Asbi walks up to me with a huge dictionary, after looking up a word, he asks me with a straight face, "don't you have lust?" My jaw dropped, but I thought, "I bet he just mispronounced a word," so I said, "what? say it again," And sure enough, he says "lust, don't you have lust?" I looked at him with a look that says "did I hear what you just said?" and grabbed his dictionary, he pointed down at the English word "lust," and I started laughing, no doubt out of embarrassment... we then go on to talk about contraception, abortion, children, and having cats instead of kids etc. But, honestly, how many of you in Canada will ask your friends whether they have lust??

A couple of days ago, before he kindly inquired about my lust, I was teaching him English. Apparently, he has been pulling words out of a dictionary randomly and trying to memorize them. There are many mistakes, many are very funny, (for examble, he thinks "to breed" children means to raise them from little till they are mature; and...) one of the words on his list was "blow." Since I already corrected a lot of the words on his list, I choked down my giggle and asked him, "what do you mean blow? blow what?" (!!!) and he says, "blow, a jab." What you need to understand is, Indonesian always pronounce "A" like "a" in "artist," so when he says, "blow, like a jab," he sounded more like "blow a job." I laughed until I was sick... even *I* was too shy to explain to him what a "blow job" is. (oh! The joy of teaching some innocent muslim boys English......)


Then there is Asbi's brother Ager; he is 26 years old, he is more bold and he is not afraid to have physical contacts with me in front of people (like a playful slap on my arm when we are joking around.) He is also not afraid to take me out for rides late at night. Like Asbi, Ager is not shy to talk about sexual matters. For example, not many boys in Canada have the gut to (bother to?) ask me if I am a virgin... but after knowing me for a week, Ager asked whether I am a virgin, and a lot more questions that I am too shy to confess to you here(!)

On another occasion, when I was surrounded by students at the SMP, one of the girls askes me "sudah kawin?" Innocently, I answered "belum kawin," she and her friends start giggling madly. Unfortunatelly for me, Micaela has already explained to me the multiple meanings of kawin,it could either mean "married" or "have sex," so apparently, I told a bunch of kids that I haven't had sex yet. (at least from the way they giggled, that's how they interpreted it.) Again, I was surprised by the boldness of Indonesian children.


So now, I am pretty confused about the notion of Indonesian "shyness" regarding sexuality. I will readily agree that they consider sexual contact shameful before marriage, but they are definitely not that silent about it!