There is also a link to a German born expat who details her meeting of the Peace Corps advance assessment team trying to determine if they want to resume the program here. As a former PCV, I think that having English teachers here would be great, provided there is some development of collaborative teaching between an Indonesian teacher and the PCV. An Indonesian teacher will definitely have a better chance at maintaining discipline to a class of 30-50 raging children. With that said, I feel less on edge here in Makassar, Indonesia than I did in Boriya, Nepal. Insurrectionists are not coming to my school to extort money and the only loud sounds I hear are the fireworks for Chinese New Year. Heck, I may even want to volunteer again by the time (and if) Peace Corps returns. I could even vie for a pre-service trainer position given my time here.

Things to do in the next four months: travel to Surabaya twice for collaboration of some sort with Fulbright English Teaching Assistants, buy a suit (should be done this week), attend and present at Asia TEFL conference in Kuala Lumpur in June, sell off/give possession acquired in the past three years that are too big to put in luggage, spend about 15,000USD in grant money on trainings for in-service teachers, and enjoy the rest of my contract.

Dive info: My colleague Denis flew up to Gorontalo after the Grand Opening in order to go visit the Togian Islands for diving. He only had a few days and didn’t know the boat schedule from Gorontalo to the islands and ended up staying in Gorontalo to look for diving. Anyway, he tried to find diving around Gorontalo and the dive outfit that was in the Lonely Planet “didn’t know squat.” He finally found an outfit, Miguel’s Divers, that knew what they were doing. Denis has been diving for 10-15 years, so he should know when a company is a good one. I guess if you’re stuck in Gorontalo waiting for the boat, check them out for a good time.

I’m off tomorrow for work-related travel to Java and Sumatra. I’m not thrilled to be on five flights in the coming days. For some reason, that childhood glee I once had at being in the air has been replaced with something quite the opposite. I have no idea what changed that. Because of the travel, I’ll not be posting until I return (and I’m keeping that secret). It’s either an arm and a leg for internet access or trudging off to a warnet with very slow access. Being away from the internet is good for me too.

The Java trip is to the conference I already wrote about. I’m going to prep up my 20 minutes Powerpoint tonight in between fits of packing. The Sumatra trip is up to Medan as onlooker at a colloquium for modern language development in Islamic higher educations institutions of Indonesia. I am not going on vacation just because I’m leaving Makassar. No, no, no.

On the homefront, the structural changes that will take the project I’m currently working on another step forward are currently being made–saws, nails, doors are all being used. Finally. It took around six months to get to this point. When I get back, we’ll start receiving the guts of the Center. I’m busy as it is and need to work harder in developing a pool of trainers that the Center can call on when I’m told to take a hike.

Which brings me to passport woes. It happened again. The folks at immigration or another arm of the government stamped me for residence in Indonesia until June 20, 2007; the other arm stamped my exit/entry permit valid until May 20, 2007. Hmmm. This happened to all of last year and we had to send our passports in a second time to get the exit/entry permit extended. I suppose we’ll do it again as, technically, my contract won’t be finished until June 26, 2007. It just costs more money every time though.

That’s it for tonight. I’ll eat up my dinner and dread having to get up at 4a while packing and prepping the presentation.

Last weekend, I went up to Manado for rest, relaxation, and work. Twenty-four hours on Bunaken Island away from the hustle and bustle of Manado with friends was lovely. In fact, I can’t think of a bad thing in the four days. I went on official business and had to finish up a gift of books from the US Dept of State to the Manado Polytechnic University with a workshop on how the books can be used and abused. In fact, I have to give another one this Monday.

Last Friday was the closing ceremony for the language center of the university. I practiced up the first verse of a Buginese song and sung it terribly (no warm-up). Nevertheless, the 200 or so audience applauded my bad self. When I wrote to Scott before singing, he responded with something so very apt:

You’ll have to let me know how the song went. Ah, just like Nepal. You’re got yourself a pretty sweet set up. And let me tell you one thing, my friend, is that being a great success is only worthwhile when you’re not in the US and can brag about it.

He’s right.

Lastly, my friend, Dusty, sent a package before Christmas—music, movies, TV shows. Then he sent another after Christmas because that package never showed up. Within the span of a week, both packages showed up in Manado, more than six months after they were sent. Things do eventually arrive.

Blogroll addition: Yvette – yet another friend from Peace Corps Nepal. She’s getting her MBA from Georgetown but doing an unpaid internship in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Swell.

Today was commencement at UIN Alauddin. We had a moment of silence for the earthquake victims on Java. The Rector (university president) reminded us all to donate and announced his donation amount. I stayed on for the diplomas handed out to the Masters students and left with my counterpart. The exercises went on til past 2p; they started around 9a. Phew!

I went to a couple graduation parties with the office denizens. Plenty of chicken soup and rice was had. I was asked for photographs with the proud grads and a bit taken aback when a female student grabbed my arm and hugged it close to her. For various reasons, cultural or otherwise, I don’t get a lot of physical contact with women, and it felt strange, maybe even *wrong*. Gasp!

Finally, I’ve been adding a couple links in the right column. For those of you who are really into computing, check out Matt Guthaus’ page. He writes scripts for things I don’t understand. Also, a former traveling companion, Jess, has just started up a blog for those who wondered what dorm life is like on the adminstration side. Kara, a fellow Michigander and Peace Corps/Nepal alum, will be heading off to Afghanistan for her own reasons (work). Yikes! Not much there yet.

Ok, the interjection crazyness is related to work. I visit another university that houses an American Corner. It’s a place that the US government funds and has all types of periodicals from the US, books, CDs and DVDs. Anyhow, they have the complete set of Schoolhouse Rocks!, and I made the students there for my discussion time watch one of the grammar songs–interjections!

Another Nepal tidbit: Scott has a neat photo of one of the many Nepali language/cultural facilitators that indoctrinated us into the eating of sukuuti, a spicy, water buffalo jerky. Mmmm. You can read his post here.

I’m told that I’ll be taking a trip to Bangkok in May sometime to do research for my project here at UIN. Yes, I’m returning in August or September for one more go-round. Anyway, I’ll get to go for at least one day–maybe in one night and out the next evening. A quick one to have a look over a teacher learning center there. What’s a guy to do in Bangkok alone?

If you want to have a look at some great photos of Indonesia, you can also have a look at this other guy’s blog/photo archive. Cheers and, from what I understand, happy springtime to you in the US.

From Today’s Nepali Times

The 25 civil society activists, doctors and journalists who defied the curfew on 8 April at the Teaching Hospital and jump-started the current agitation and were arrested have been shifted to a detention centre in Duwakot. The group includes prominent human rights activists Padma Ratna Tuladhar, Kapil Shrestha and Malla K Sundar, constitutional expert Laxman Aryal, medical doctors Madhu Ghimire and Sundar Mani Dixit, as well as Himalmedia publisher Kanak Mani Dixit.

Dr. Madhu was a Peace Corps Doctor in the 1990s and has been active in the peace movement.

The doctor mentioned here correctly identified the two-year long infection on my ankle as fungal. He couldn’t cure it with anti-fungal cream or oral anti-biotics but went on to suggest that I wear socks and shoes ALL the time and it went away.

Anthony Sir, Greetings! I am safe here. I am so lucky in this strike and curfew. But in our nation’s life isn’t guaranteed. Our cruel king is sleeping joyfully in peoples blood. We are hoping the strike will make a new revolution in the nation and the criminal king will cease to be in Nepal.

Chilling.