This week of no teaching is hard. I expect the afternoons to be hard. But when the mornings are hard, it’s particularly difficult. When I teach, I feel like I’m contributing. When I sit here at the school and just listen to the Arabic – it’s challenging.
By a crazy twist of fate, I am now the only person in my family who is fasting. The 4 nurses who were boarders here have gone back to their home village, my Ibu-Mama has stomach problems and didn’t fast from the beginning and now my host Dad is eating. After dinner, which I could only eat half of anyway, I showed them that I set my cell phone to go off at 3:15am and I will come quietly downstairs, turn on the light in the kitchen and finish the rest of the food. Please, please, I said in Indonesian, please sleep and be well. I can eat by myself. The food here doesn’t get refrigerated. It’s just put under mesh covers to keep the flies off. If I don’t eat something at one meal, it’s all there ready for the next one, anyway. We’ll see how this works out.
So far the hardest time was the day there was a discussion in the teacher room about going to hell and burning in fire. I have been reading The Noble Qur’an and this is the fate for “unbelievers.” (Jews, Christians and Pagans)
I try to think about it as a chance to practice tolerance at an ever deepening level.
I don’t have anything more to say.
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