Wow- sorry to have not written in so long! I have so much to tell! First things first- I have decided to return early to the US, and will be flying back on December 15. Indonesia has been an amazing experience, but I am ill-equipped financially to be here much longer, as I didn't come to Indonesia anticipating expenses such as lodging and food. Another big realization is that there is not much I can actually do in the way of volunteering ... without speaking the language and without having a skill set (a service or resource to provide), I can't do much to help people directly. I have spent a lot of time teaching English and playing with children, but those aren't my ultimate goals. BUT all this has had resulted in a momentous outcome... having done some serious contemplating, I've decided I want to get a nursing degree! I have been wanting to enter the public health field, and getting some technical, on-the-ground experience would be a great way to start. Nursing is great for me on a number of levels.... its a skill set that will allow me to help people directly both in the U.S. and abroad (more travel!) and will provide a good jumping point for a career in public health policy (we'll see about that). 

Anyways, Sara and I moved out of our apartment after one month and went to Jogjakarta for a few days. Jogja is famous for being the cultural capital of Java. We went and saw the famous Buddhist Borobudur Temple (supposedly the most-visited site in Indonesia), the Hindu Prambanan Temples, we saw the Ramayana ballet, and saw a shadow puppet show. All famous sites and performances! 

Days after Jogjakarta we flew to West Timor for a week to work on a malnutrition project with the Foundation for Mother and Child Health (one of the organizations I had been volunteering with in Jakarta). West Timor is geographically close to Australia, so it was a long flight. We were picked up in Kupang, the "big" city, and driven to a remote village called Anin 4 hours away in the mountains. As soon as we got there the village held a welcome ceremony for us, and ceremoniously gave us ikat (the local woven cloth that the region is famous for) that we wore around our necks to show our acceptance into their community. At the end of the ceremony we walked around and met the villagers. The traditional way to greet people is to bump noses. Villagers stood in a line to bump noses with me! Another tradition that we were introduced to was the customary betel nut. Most adults spend the majority of their day chewing out betel nut, which is actually the seeds of the betel nut, wrapped in a leaf with chalk. It reacts with saliva and turns bright red... and you're not supposed to swallow the juice so you have to continually spit. This accounts for the red splotchy ground all over the village! 

We stayed in a 4 bedroom house with the rest of the team. The house used to be the village king's house, supposedly, which explains the large size and the sturdy concrete walls and floor. Most villagers live in a tiny house made of wood slats with aluminum roofs. Most houses had a thatched hut behind it, which was used for storage of food or crops and oftentimes was where the kitchen was located. The village was spread out and covered a side of a mountain. One day we walked down to the river valley and it was an hour long strenuous hike down a dirt path. I can't imagine being a villager and living down there, and having to walk up anytime I needed to go to Church, market, or a community meeting. 

The village's biggest problem is water access. During the rainy season, the river serves as the primary source of water for drinking/cooking/bathing/laundry/etc, but the rainy season lasts only a few months. The rest of the year the community has to purchase water... and water is quite expensive (not to mention how difficult it would be to transport by foot down the mountain). The lack of water also creates a huge problem for agriculture. Many months out of the year farming is impossible, and so they have to depend on purchased food during this time.  There is no established industry, no jobs other than farming.... so people don't really have any money. And for the few government-sponsored jobs, like school teacher for example, the salary is only 250,000 Rupiah or about $20 per month. This was such an eye-opening experience!

The team that we were staying with consisted of 8 people: 5 from Jakarta and 3 West Timorese locals.  On the team was a doctor that served as project supervisor (he had initiated the Timor Project and was the one who had invited me), a project manager, 2 health educators, an Early Learning Center teacher, and the 3 locals (one who served as the driver). They lived together and worked together and seemed to really enjoy the experience. Anyways, prior to our arrival they had spent a few months going house-to-house compiling information on the health status of children under 5. This baseline survey covered everything from malnutrition and anemia rates to diseases like malaria and diarrhea. The day that we arrived the health educators were presenting the baseline results to the community health workers. The Foundation's role, as I was explicitly told, was not to develop a program for the village... it was merely to guide, facilitate, and motivate the village to identify problems and solutions. The health educators were using a method called Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) to do so. Sara and I arrived just in time to see it in action, which was awesome because I finally feel like I am seeing the subject of my university studies. The PRA consisted of day long "seminars" in our house for about a week. The health educators led focus group discussions on common village health behaviors and misconceptions, they did a village mapping to identify resources at hand, they made a timeline to look at the challenges and successes of the health workers in the past, etc. They also did a basic health training, discussing the role of carbs, proteins, vitamins & minerals in our diet. The end result was a project plan that included a more comprehensive training for health workers, health training to village mothers, and monthly meetings to report back to one another on their progress in their own sub-villages. The health educators weren't thrilled with it, saying they thought it was too simple, but at least its something to start with. 

The other aspect of the Foundation's work in Timor (health aside) is the Early Learning Center, like a kindergarten. The ELC teacher from Jakarta trained some ELC teachers in the village, and now the village 3-6 year-olds attend "class" with their moms or dads. The idea is to start the learning process at a younger age so the kids can get into and do well in the government schools.

The Foundation is expanding its health and education services to some neighboring villages. In our week there we were taken to 2 different villages to talk about the details. Both were really interesting experiences. One community couldn't even talk in a civil way about the ELC because the community was so torn apart... the women wouldn't stop yelling at each other. Apparently one of the health workers had given away all the food donations (these villages get food donations from international orgs like World Food Program) to her own family members, leaving nothing for her own village. There was so much hostility at our meeting because of the "stolen Biscuit" incident that discussing the logistics of an ELC was futile. It's scary to think that families are dependent on this donated food for survival. It's also really interesting to see the division between eating for survival's sake, and eating for nutrition. It's really frustrating for us to see international orgs distributing only biscuits and instant noodles, when their young bodies need so much more. Furthermore, our own nutrition team (from Jakarta, university-educated) did not have very high standards of nutrition. Sure, they incorporated fruits and vegetables, but every meal we ate was fried... fried rice, fried bananas, fried tofu, fried eggplant, fried noodles. Deep-fried everything, combined with rice 3 times a day, made me feel SO unhealthy! Sara and I made an American meal one night for dinner- spaghetti, green beans, and a potato dish... nothing was fried- and most of them didn't like it. They even took our leftover spaghetti and fried it. Unbelievable! ;-)

Sara and I had expressed interest in visiting a nearby village that is famous for being so traditional. I wasn't so impressed with the village, because honestly my village was about as traditional as this one, but the fun part was that we took motorcycles to get there. The entire team went, and so we hired 10 guys with motorcycles to take us. We drove as a group all the way to the village (about an hour and a half each way)... honking at schoolchildren, racing one another, taking pictures of the scenery. It was a great opportunity to see more of West Timor because we went up and over mountains and saw numerous villages. What fun! 

Now we are back in Jakarta, and we moved into a bedroom rented out by a wealthy family. We have plans to go on a day-trip tomorrow to the neighboring city of Bandung to see the town and its volcano. Sara is staying in Jakarta until January, but I am preparing to leave... to meet mom in Bali on December 3, and then fly home on December 15! Yay!

Volunteering!

I have been super busy since I last wrote! I have spent a lot of time volunteering at the Foundation for Mother and Child Health in South Jakarta. The first few times I went to the center I just observed their programs and made friends with the staff  and the women and children that utilize the resources and programs there. One of the classes that I saw was a cooking class... because malnutrition is such a major problem in poor areas of the city, the organization offer not only health education classes but hands-on cooking classes too, both at the center and at women's homes in the slum areas (how cool is that??). They had set up a gas burner outside in the center's courtyard and the women were sitting on the white tile steps prepping food. They cooked rice, meat, and veggies together in a pan with some oil and then picked up handfuls of the rice mixture and packed it into balls in their palms. Then they squished a quail egg into the middle of it, and deep fried each ball. One of the staff then assessed the weight and calorie content of an average rice ball and talked to the women about it. I got to taste one.... delicious! Another program that I saw was the Feeding Program. The center accepts 30 children every few months that qualify as severely malnourished and have the mothers and children come in 3 times a week. Each time they come the child is provided with a healthy meal, and the staff records how much the children eat. Once a week the child is weighed, and only when the child has reached an acceptable weight and level of health is he or she released from the program. To be part of the program, however, the mothers are required to participate in the health education classes and cooking classes. (There are also sewing classes that teach the women how to make bags and other items out of used plastic materials, like instant coffee packets; the center will then buy the finished products from the women and sell them at the center). 

The only skill thing that I can really do for the center is teach English, and so I have been asked to teach classes to the children, mothers, and the staff. The center has a Early Learning Center program for pre-schoolers (the program prepares them to enter government schools, and also provides scholarships so that they can pay the mandatory school fees). I am doing a unit on animals and so spent the first day just teaching general names of animals.... I had little plastic animal toys that I would hold up and yell "elephant", "whale", "tiger", etc and have the kids repeat after me. The kids speak zero English and are only 3-5 years old, but are very well-behaved. And cute! ;-) Future classes will focus on ocean animals, jungle animals, what animals eat, what food comes from animals, etc. I will plan out the lessons, and the teachers will provide the materials. It's fun! Classes for the mothers and staff will start next week. 

Last Saturday when I was at the center I met a doctor named Drevino who volunteers with this organization. He is launching a program for malnutrition in West Timor, with funding and support from the Foundation for Mother and Child Health. He has done TB work in that area before and so is well-aware of the widespread problems of malnutrition. So, last month he organized a team to conduct some preliminary research, and their findings showed that 63% of the children are malnourished, and 87% anemic! He is returning to West Timor on November 15 and is going to do a Participatory Rural Appraisal, in which he and his team will host community discussions to identify problems and come up with solutions. And... he has invited me and Sara! I would LOVE to go- this is development in action! The issue is how long we can go for, because now we have all these commitments here in Jakarta. But hopefully we can go for a week or so in November.  

I have also spent some time volunteering with an organization called Hope Worldwide. They had organized a book drive, and so needed help sorting the donated books into boxes for different schools in the area. I really liked this volunteer opportunity, because it didn't require Indonesian language (just helping hands) and so it was one of the few times that I actually felt helpful as a volunteer. 

The books had been stored in the organization's tuberculosis clinic... so seeing the TB operation was the really interesting part of that experience. We got to sit down with the director of the clinic and learn all about TB: the local stigma associated with the disease (how it's a disease of the poor, and so when people get the disease they don't seek treatment or tell others about it for fear of being shunned...which allows this contagious disease to spread), the treatment process, the costs involved, etc. It was fascinating! The center offers free treatment (treatment would otherwise be about $11 a week, which is an exorbitant amount here), but the treatment requires taking a daily pill for 6-8 months, so many people don't finish the treatment. We were taken into the lab where we saw a woman sitting at a microscope looking at patients' sputum samples and recording whether they were TB positive or negative. The samples were scattered around her on the table, and next to the microscope was a stack of papers and a pencil... she was literally just checking a "positive" or "negative" box on each form after looking at the corresponding sputum sample. It was so simple! We even got to look in the microscope at a sample that was TB positive, and I could actually see the TB bacteria (it was red, so stood out). Wow! Where else could I have this kind of experience?? I feel like I am being exposed to so much! On a side note, neither Sara nor I have had the TB vaccine (most Americans do not) and so wore face masks and gloves the entire time we were there. 

The third and last organization that I have gotten involved with is an organization called SOS Children's Village. It is an Austrian-based organization that has branches all over the world. I have befriended the woman whose family brought SOS to Indonesia (her husband is currently the Indonesian director) and they have encouraged me to volunteer at the Jakarta village, as well as check out the other 7 scattered around Indonesia if I have time. The Jakarta Children's Village is quite far away... it's in Southeast Jakarta and takes 2 hours to get to on public transportation. I went one day last week to check it out. It's an incredible organization! Basically it's a center for children that either don't have parents at all or have parents that can't provide for them. The center is set up as an actual village, with a soccer field in the middle, and 15 small houses situated around it. Each house has a mother in charge, and has 5-8 kids that live there. Each house is autonomous and has its own rules and traditions (some are Muslim houses, others are Christian), but the kids get to live and interact together in a beautiful and well-maintained "village". Imagine mango trees everywhere and little kids running around playing hide and seek in bushes... it appeared very idyllic!  The children all go to school in the morning (they attend normal government schools), and in the afternoon they are required to participate in extracurricular activities. They have so many options... sewing, traditional dance, percussion, choir, badminton, etc. I sat in on a percussion group, which was utterly amazing! Apparently they have won first place in a televised competition. I also watched a choir class- adorable. I think that when I come back to the village in the future, I will spend the night (to make the long trek out worth my while), and just hang out with kids and maybe do some English-teaching. 

Volunteering aside... I got a JOB! Woohoo! I will be teaching English at a English language school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For every 80 minute class I teach I will make $150,000 Rupiah... about $15 (and I get cash at the end of every session! And they throw in about $6 for transportation).  The students are all Indonesian, age 7-18, and come from fairly wealthy backgrounds if they can pay for a program like this. The downside to the job is that it's a quite a trek to get to the school. It's only about 12 miles away.... but with traffic it takes about 2 hours each way. I take 2 buses to get there... and it is a LONG journey. 

So yes... I will be teaching lots of English in the months to come! I am excited though, I am starting to settle into routine and get to know the area. 

That's all for now!