Yeah, I know it’s obtuse, but indulge me.

There is not much excitement, but I suppose that is a good thing for the time being. I’m looking into scuba lessons out on Pulau Weh. I’ve got to have something else to do besides teach.

My new place is a bit aways from the center of town. I live in an area of the city named Darussalam and like that there aren’t becak and other beasts of burden rumbling about so much. I’m also a quick walk to my office, but a long walk from this internet shop or any place to buy pretty much anything. The major supermarket in town had very little I am accustomed to from living in Makassar. I found milk, tuna, oatmeal, and peanut butter. Much else that I cook for myself is gone. Explorations are still occurring.

My counterpart took me for a little ride last weekend to the freighter ship that was in the middle of a neighborhood. At first I thought it was a massive building but he then pointed out that it was electricity generating ship from the harbor. The locals have rebuilt their houses up around the monster. Someday it will have to be disassembled and removed, but, for now, it still can be fired up to generate electricity. We then went off to the harbor that the ship came from, passing one of the mass graves along the way. The antenna of the ship was all that could be seen from the harbor at Ulee-leh. The rebuilding looks like it is finally picking up and reminds me of the new subdivisions that get built in the USA. On the whole, Banda Aceh seems a bit behind the development times with only a few international franchises and the locally owned supermarket chain. The coffee is good (when you finally get serviced). It’s probably going to pick up in the near future with all the natural resources that don’t have to be shelved because of a separatist movement.

This week was the first week of classes and about 2/3 of the enrolled were showing up. Next week will be Meugang, or the days previous to the start of Ramadan, and I was told that the students would probably go home or be preparing for a pre-Ramadan feast. Then, we get about two weeks of classes before the big break starts. I’m heading to Bali once again. I have plans this time of renting a car and driving about the island with another Fellow. We’ll see what happens…

The second abnormal thing to occur in my afternoon class was a young lady fainting on her classmate. This hadn’t happened to anyone in my class here before but definitely has happened on a field trip I attended. My colleague usually chalks it up to poor nutrition and wearing all the clothes the ladies are required to wear on campus. I’m not sure I could say much different. I noticed she was coughing and kind of fading in and out. Finally, another student brought to my attention that she had passed out. Half the class paid no attention to the situation and the other half loved the commotion. They laid her out on the chairs and I called my colleague to orchestrate the next step. By the time I got back to the room, someone had whipped out some smelling salts they were conveniently carrying in their bag and roused the fainted lady enough to have her open her eyes. My colleague arrived and organized several other ladies to carry her off somewhere. The young lady was absent today.

I’ve also scheduled up one last trip to Manado for the time being. Garuda Airlines, the national flag carrier, will be my steed. Service in Indonesia is not a priority in most places and the Garuda office wasn’t either today. I arrived around 9a (they open at 8.30a). I pulled a number for my queue and looked around. There were six or seven counters and only two were occupied by representatives. One was working with a gentleman reckoning what seemed to be a month or so’s worth of transactions. The other representative was working with another customer. Fast forward 15 minutes and seven customers behind me. A third representative shows up and I turn out to be the next in line and quickly conduct my transaction, much to my joy. Yes, I was next in the queue and, yes, it took 15 minutes. It’s almost as painful as going to the supermarket when there are 30 or so checkout lanes, but only half are staffed and the lines are 6 or 7 customers deep with baskets full. Or the queues at the gas stations here.

Roughly translated: Condom vending machines are the products of Jews.

It’s just an observation.

Yes, evidently, in the gutters live small fish not much bigger than a few fingers. Tasty fish, I’m told. Many of the neighborhood boys and men attach their fishing line to a stick and jerk the baited line in front of these fish. I have often seen these small fish pulled out and stuffed into plastic bags with their other friends.

UIN Alauddin has an interesting program in that EVERY student who enters the university must successfully complete two semesters of both Arabic and English language. Because of the large number of students who enter these classes, some instructors are pulled from the ranks of upperclassmen. I met with these instructors last week. It was unclear why we were meeting. It quickly became a Q & A on teaching. I know the instructors just wanted answers but I also implored them to think about their own teaching and what they had been taught up to this point.

In the fray, one of my colleagues brought up an observation from someone else about foreign language teaching that I had yet to hear. He mentioned that our job as foreign language instructors was riddled with ‘failure’ and that we were not looking for a panacea but a way to minimize ‘failure.’ Hmm.

You see some extra photos of yours truly at Scott’s Flickr pages.