Hike up a sacred mountain

This blog is mostly for fellow Peace Corps Volunteers who are considering climbing Mt. Rinjani on Lombok. The only higher mountains in Indonesia are on Papua. You start close to sea level and climb to about 7,700 feet.

After the climb we spent the next 3 days on the beach at Gili Meno and we all really needed it. My daughter has run a marathon and her husband is in good shape too but it really kicked our butts! It was hard to walk up and down stairs for the next several days.

It’s a great hike mostly because ¾ of the climb is through a forest with lots of shade trees and monkeys, then when you get to the crater rim there are awesome views of the ocean and the lake in the middle and the slightly higher summit.

My daughter booked the tour in advance through a company listed on line and it was pretty much what is described in Lonely Planet.

We did the 2 day, 1 night hike because we wanted to sandwich in as many activities as we could and that 2 days was plenty. We met some other people who had planned the 3 day hike but were so exhausted after day 1 that they didn't do the summit climb on day 2.

We used Adventure Lombok Tours but all of them are pretty similar. You can call Ronnie at +62 370 6650238 or +62 8175773060. They need 1/2 the money down, sent to their bank account in Indonesia - you go to any BNI with cash in hand and they send it to their account. Then the night you arrive in Lombok Ronnie stops by and gets the rest. It was the busy time and we wanted the security of knowing we had it all booked in advance.

We did the economy hike (I think each tour company has several levels) and it was fine. You are supposed to bring your own snacks and no cokes are provided and I think there wasn't supposed to be a toilet tent, but another couple in our group of 5 paid for the next step up and they gave all of us cokes and cookies and we got to use the toilet tent too. Up on top of the mountain there is no privacy and they dug a small hole in the ground and put a tarp like tent around it and it was nice to have that for pooping in. The total cost for the 3 of us was 3.500.000 Rp approx. for 2 days and pick up and drop off before and after. The guide and porters carried all the tents & sleeping bags and fixed all the meals and give us water, coffee or tea.

Between 5am - 5:30 am they picked up people at Senggigi hotels, and took us to a place near the north of the island where we could stash any extra gear at a guy's house and we ate pancakes there. We were on the trail by 8am and hiked till about 4:00 pm. It's STRENUOUS! I was able to do it but I hike about 2 1/2 hours every day - my 62 year old body needed the hiking sticks the guide cut along the way.

That night they put up 2 tents for us & we got a light weight sleeping bag and mattress pad too. It was cold on top but long pants, 3 pairs of socks, 2 shirts and a polar fleece were fine for me.

The view from the top of the crater was awesome! I really enjoyed it! There are longer hikes to walk up to summit the mountain on the side or go down to the hot springs but I felt the basic hike was sufficient and didn't feel like I needed to abuse my body any more than that.

The next morning at 6am we hiked down using a different set of leg muscles and were at the bottom around 2pm. We spent the night at a nice hotel on Lombok (Holiday Resort Lombok) but in retrospect there would have been enough time to catch the last boat from Bangsal Harbor over to the Gili Islands.

We met several local people who talked about the special times when there really is a ceremony at the top but it felt sacred just to be standing on the edge of the world with that “Oh my gosh, I really did hike up this mountain” feeling.

Cultural Exchange

Beautiful jilbab girls.

The purpose of this blog is to ask you to stretch in ways that may be difficult. It does not reflect the attitudes or opinions of Peace Corps, the United States or anyone else. It is NOT an account of life here in Indonesia!

You have been selected to participate in a cultural exchange program. For the past year you have filled out forms, asked people to write letters of recommendation, been interviewed, and visited 5 specialist doctors to certify that you are healthy, been to the police to obtain a report that you a good person and finally you get the paper that says you will go to a foreign country for 2 years.

It is such an honor to be selected for this program! All your friends are so happy for you. But some of them are worried. You will be going to a different part of the world where your religion is not common. They tell you to be strong and true to your faith.

When you arrive in the foreign country, many things are different. To begin with it is so cold, but people do not wear jackets. They say that the temperature is perfect and that if God had wanted people to wear jackets he would have given them fur. We are not animals. We do not wear jackets.

The people eat bread 3 times a day. You live with a very nice family. They know that you like to eat rice so every night they give you a very small amount of instant rice. Instant rice looks like rice but cooks in 5 minutes. It tastes like rice from last week that has been re-cooked. You smile and tell them thank you for the delicious food, but in your mind you miss your own good food that you had at home.

Your new job is teaching in a religious school. You are told that you must dress like a person of that religion but only while you are at school. For this religion people show their arms and legs. They believe that God made women to be beautiful and that it is right to show how beautiful they are. They are especially proud of their long hair and they like to feel the wind blowing through their hair. You feel very different with so much skin exposed but they tell you that you are beautiful and talk about how comfortable it is to have their skin and their hair in the wind.

For weddings they dress their little girls in shockingly provocative outfits! It is disturbing how little clothes they wear and how much make up they put on their faces. But your job is to be a teacher and to learn about their culture, so you try to be polite. Every time you wear clothes like they wear they tell you that you are a good woman. Only people who are ashamed of the body God gave them try to cover it up. It is a good woman who is thankful for what she has been given.

They love the color of your skin. They tell you that it is like sweet brownies. They call you “black sweet.” In the store you see that they sell soap to make your skin darker. And you see stores called “tanning salons” where rich women go to lay down under special lamps that make their skin look darker. They also like your small ears. In your own country, small ears were not considered beautiful and you are embarrassed that your ears are so small. But here you see people looking at your ears and talking about them all the time. A pregnant woman wants to touch your skin and your ears and then touch her belly so that her baby will also have dark skin and little ears like you.

One day in the teacher room, you hear talk about a man who is going to prison because he has 2 wives. The teachers are all saying what a shame it is – that everyone knows that one man and one woman belong together. For a woman to have 2 husbands or a man to have 2 wives is wrong. You keep quiet because the religious leader that you admire the most has 4 wives. The people in this foreign country just do not understand these things. You also hear that one of his “wives” was 14 years old. The teachers are outraged that a man would do this. He deserves to be punished and maybe even die. You do not tell them that your own mother was married when she was 12. It was a very good marriage. Her father married her to a wealthy family and you are proud of your grandparents and your mother and father.

At school you are required to say the special prayers for the religion. At first you do not understand what they mean because they are in a language different from the national language that you have learned. You say the prayers because you believe that God listens to all prayers. You want the students to respect you. The headmaster of the school tells you that he thinks you will be a model and an inspiration.

Your friends invite you to eat the holy bread that is a part of their religion. You do not want to offend them so you eat the holy bread. It doesn’t really taste good and you eat so much bread every day you can not understand why someone would want to eat more bread but you do it to be polite. Every day for 30 days they give you the holy bread. They talk about how it makes a person so holy. They say they feel so close to God when they eat the holy bread. They ask you if you feel peaceful inside and you say “yes.” You feel peaceful inside most of the time. You do not think it has anything to do with the holy bread.

Now your best friend is having a big party at her church. She is in charge of the program and all her friends and family and neighbors want to meet you and hear about your experience in their country. It will be held early in the morning. It is called a “Sunrise Service.” She wants you to come to her church and join the other people of her religion. It is a special occasion to honor the prophet that they think is God. She wants you to wear the clothes of her religion. She wants you to give a speech and tell about eating the holy bread and what you felt. And she wants you to talk about how you know you are a good woman when you wear the clothes of their religion. She wants you to give your opinion of people in the religion who believe their prophet is God.

You do not want her to be sad, but you do want to go to the church. You do not want to talk about the clothes. You do not want to talk about eating the holy bread for 30 days.

But she is your friend and whenever you try to tell her something that she does not like she says, “Never mind.” You know that she means, “No problem.” But still, it bothers you. Every time she says, “Never mind.” You think, “I DO mind.” “What is in my mind is important.”

You are worried because you can see that the people in the foreign country want you to believe what they believe and they want you to think what they think. But you do not believe what they believe. Your thoughts are different from their thoughts. You will be in the foreign country for another year. It is important to make friends. You do not want to disappoint her family and all her friends who want you to come.

What should you do?
Will you go to the church?
Will you give the speech?
Will you tell your friend that you do not want to go?

Your friend insists that you come. She says you must wear black on bottom and white on top. You don’t have the right kind of clothes but she says she will get some for you. She says if you don’t want to talk about religion, you need to write a funny story about your life here. She will translate the speech for you. If you do not go she will be embarrassed because she told many people that you are coming. You said you would go but now you are not sure.

What will you do?

English Camp at my school

GET FUN WITH ENGLISH AND BACK TO OUR CULTURE

That’s the theme of the first ever annual English Camp at my school!
And the motto is “Diligent and Show It” during which the students salute (diligent) and then put their fists to their hearts (show it)

Yesterday the kids began setting up the 9 sleeping tents. This morning when I arrived they had been decorated with potted plants and elaborate latticework arbors leading to the entrance of the tents. Some of them have decorated their front tent pole with fabric. Inside the tent is a sleeping area, and a lounging area. My co-teacher commented that each tent should have a little table with food and flowers to make it more hospitable. Each group has a name: The Sweet Smart Girls, The Cherry Blossoms, D Boyz, Dream Light…..

There is a stage set up with our “theme message” proudly proclaimed on a banner and a huge sound system to blast songs in English.

It’s raining, just a light sprinkle, but no one seems to mind. It has been relatively cold for the past week – no rain, temperatures in the low 70’s – that’s really cold by Indonesian standards. My fellow teachers have told me that many people have stomach aches because it is so cold.

Later on I need to sing a song and give a speech. The trick is to make it all in simple enough English so that the students can understand what I am saying. I’m going to sing:
“If all of the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops
Oh what a world this would be
I’d stand outside with my mouth open wide
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
If all of the snow flakes were cookies and cupcakes
Oh what a world this would be
I’d stand outside with my mouth open wide
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah”

I learned the first verse at Girl Scout camp and my wonderful sister, Pinky, made up the 2nd verse.

I’m also one of the judges (the jury) at the speech contest and also a jury for the movie activity. Each tent has to participate with at least one member giving a speech and the group together has to come up with a reasonable ending when the movie stops. They also get points for the games and “orienteering” activities.

The campfire tonight is scheduled to last until 11:30 and gymnastics start tomorrow at 5:30am, but I told the teachers that I will walk home and sleep in my own bed. Being 62 years old entitles me to some privileges and I’m not really that excited about spending a sleepless night on the ground in the rain trying to keep track of teenagers in tents.

There are 83 students who are attending English Camp and 14 of these students are the “committee” who organized all the games, activities, schedule, equipment, campfire activities, etc. This is out of a pool of 575 students in grade 10 and 11 who were eligible to join English Club. I’m pleased that so many students are interested in English. When they signed up for English Club at the beginning of the year, the campout was just an idea that they wanted to do. In December my students were invited to the English camp at the school about an hour away where Angela, another Peace Corps Volunteer is serving. We sent 17 students and a team of 4 teachers who were there off and on during their 3 days English Camp. That experience was enough to launch the official request that the students and teachers needed to come up with – the budget and proposed agenda that the Principal of my school had to approve. The proposal document is 11 pages long and includes all the necessary signatures from all the school officials. I’m impressed that they are willing to jump through so many hoops to accomplish this English Camp. All $300 for the funding came from local sources: the students each gave $1.50 and the English club provided some from its activity funds and the school donated about $200. The money goes for the large stage and sound set up, the badges and certificates and prizes.

We started with the official opening ceremony complete with marching and saluting and the address from the principal of the school. He mentioned the rain in English! He called it “rain: dot, dot” which I think is the literal translation of light rain, just a little more than a mist. Today it has gone from rain: dot, dot to rain: big drop, big drop!

The speech contest consisted of a representative from each tent who gave a 5 – 7 minute speech in English and answered questions from the jury. I think all the speeches were taken from the internet except for the boy’s tent which was only a 30 second speech. The topics were: Follow your Dreams, Education in Indonesia, The Importance of Adolescence and why Ramadan is important to Islam. When I asked the students – What is the title of your speech and why is it important? They had a difficult time answering. They would scan through the written speech and try to find the answer. My students are very good at reading written English but have a much more difficult time formulating their own ideas and getting the courage to speak in English.

I was given a badge with a smiling star to show that I am part of the committee too! Or maybe the kids just thought I’d look good with a smiley star on my jilbab.

The movie was the first 30 minutes of “Barbie and the Three Musketeers.” The students enjoyed it and asked to watch it again so that they could come up with a good ending.

The Neighborhood Exploration was a blast. For 3 hours the kids followed a route through the back streets and rice fields near my town and found their way to various “posts” where they had to do charades in English, or compose an English poem, or answer riddles or complete other quizzes.

The campfire was 5 feet tall complete with a ball of rags soaked in kerosene and put on a string so that at the significant moment it could be cut loose (from 15 feet away) and dropped onto the candle in the middle of the bonfire which caused a huge flare up. Disclaimer: this is my own personal observation: Indonesian kids and adults are pyromaniacs. They loved the sparks glowing 50 feet up in the air. And they kept adding more little baggies of kerosene to make the fire more dramatic. I think it was test of my patience related to all years that I worked with the fire fighters in the National Forests in America. I know it’s different here. Everything is so wet, it’s probably impossible to start a forest fire.

The students also stopped all the activities to pray 5 times a day. And they all took a bucket bath (mandi) twice a day so that they wound up changing clothes many times.

For the final closing ceremony they were dressed in their school uniforms, all standing in rows and saluting and listening to the closing speeches – so polite. In America they would be impatient to hear the results of all the competitions and receive their prizes.

What amazed me the most was that all the activities were directed by the students on the committee. Teachers were judges, but the MC and all the organization was done by the students themselves. This year’s participants will be expected to put on the program for next years students.

Clubfoot Chick and Duck Smackdown

My new host family has 6 baby chickens. They started out living in a cardboard box in the kitchen. Every night my host father dangles a light bulb into the box. My ibu-mama said that helps them keep quiet at night. It’s true. They are so cute. By the end of the day they are exhausted and just stick out their necks and fall asleep under the light bulb or half way lying in the little wooden box my host dad made that holds their baby chicken food. (It looks like sawdust.)

We also have some 2-3 week old chicks that have graduated to life outside in the yard. One of them has a club foot. He (she?) can’t walk very well and just drags the foot around. The other chicks – there are 10 in this combined liter (What do you call a batch of chicken eggs that hatch?) from previous cardboard boxes – run after each other and peck at stuff in the dirt. They still eat the special baby chick food that my host family buys in the market.

Our big chickens live in a walled off section behind the house. We give them the leftover rice each day. About once a week one of them becomes our dinner/breakfast/lunch. My ibu-mama likes to boil them first and then fry them. Every person eats a small piece of chicken for each meal and generally the whole chicken is eaten in a few days.

When we have chicken I eat about a 1 inch cube (with bones) at each meal until it’s gone. Our other protein sources are fish, eggs, tofu and tempe. An inch cube or sometimes two is about average for a meal.

There is also one large chicken in the yard. When I asked my host father “Why?” he told me that she will lay eggs soon. I asked if they lay an egg every day and he said, “No, every month.” Obviously there are some language difficulties with this conversation but I just chalk a lot of this up to “Oh well, there are lots of things I will never really know.”

I asked about the clubfoot baby and my host mother said that baby chickens don’t taste good. They don’t have much meat. She said they are waiting till it gets bigger and then…. “dead” and she used a cutting motion at her throat.

On a slightly different side note: there is a small outside food stall near my school that sells Bebek (duck) Smackdown. I’ve always been curious about it. How does one “smack down” a duck? What does Duck Smackdown taste like?

Peace Corps Trainees & Graduation Day at my school

Krystal and Nicole, new Peace Corps Trainees, came to my school and we got to teach together and attend graduation.
We also went swimming and I got to show them around my town. It was fun. My students wanted to know if they were married and if they knew Justin Bieber!
The headmaster of my school attended one of our classes so he got to see us in action.
Nicole and Krystal were wonderful teachers! Today they get their permanent site assignments... somewhere in East Java. I wish them all the best!

Testing Time

I resist testing. It just seems so pointless. Last month was the national exam for seniors so all high schools here shut down for a week.

A week ago my co-teachers announced that we would begin semester tests and yearly tests and district tests so that means there will be no more teaching for the rest of this year. I made up 2 exams for each grade level, then scrambled the questions so that kids sitting at the same desk don’t wind up with the questions in the same order. Then I gave my co-teachers the master copies so they could get them reproduced. I pay for my own copies for the students but often the “real teachers” get money from individual classroom funds and quite honestly I hate testing so much I wasn’t about to fork over my tiny subsistence allowance ($4/day) to pay for copies of tests.

This past week when I asked what we are doing in each class the co-teachers said that they had already administered the tests I made up and I needed to teach them something! I only see my students for 1 or 2 class periods each week, so I really don’t know what’s going on for the 2 or 3 English class periods when I’m not there. I had some review questions prepared so that’s what I taught.

Then on Saturday one of my co-teachers gleefully announced that we would be going over tests all this week so that we were “free.” I wasn’t polite. I just turned and walked away. I come all the way from America, giving up 27 months of my life to teach English and I just can’t get into the cultural adaptation that a “good” day is a day when we have a good excuse not to teach.

The actual testing is painful. Normally I join a teacher and watch the kids do “cooperative testing.” But this past week I supervised some classes on my own. The sample national tests that we’re using were way too hard. I had just finished grading some of them and the scores were 20 – 55%. The smartest kids got only 55% right on a multiple choice test! (With the “help your neighbor” philosophy in full force!) The teachers don’t seem to care. I get the feeling that students are supposed to do horrible on the first round of tests so that the teacher can lecture them about studying harder! Never mind that the teachers themselves can’t come with the right answers or that some of the questions are worded so poorly that even I can’t come up with a correct answer – or on some questions it seems to me that several answers are correct!

The “remedy” (remedial test) is that the teacher gives the kids the same test as a “take home exam.” Because there aren’t enough copies, she gives the test to one student in each class. I assume that the kids will just pass around an answer sheet and each copy that with their name on it so they really don’t individually need tests anyway but maybe this is also something that the class fund takes care of. Maybe.

The “minimal standard” at my school is 75%. That means that every student has to achieve that level of competency. Testing is a way to document that our students are achieving the minimal competency. Ultimately every student will be given a score between 75 and 95.

It’s a system that encourages corruption. The scores mean nothing. There is a kind of end of the year frenzy at my school. The teachers are positively gleeful that they don’t need to teach any more and the kids are on “test mode.”

I watched one boy sit and talk to his neighbors for a full 40 minutes and not write down one answer. His obvious strategy was to wait till the end and get the answers from his friends. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I brought him up and sat him down beside me. I read each question to him, slowly pointing at each word and then asked him which on the 5 answers could be correct. I translated a little – this teacher allows the kids to have dictionaries. He actually was able to figure out several questions, and I could tell he was surprised. When I sent him back to sit in his real desk, so I could work with another kid and he again chose to just talk to his friends. It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out!

I’ve tried to understand the cultural benefit of cheating. Hypothetically, if the kids cheat a lot and everyone in the class achieves the minimal competency, then the teachers don’t have to cheat when they grade the exams.

I’m not saying that the teachers or the students at my school cheat. I don’t want to jeopardize the standing of my school. Any Indonesians who are reading this blog should know that all this is all an assumption. I think my school is about the same as every school in Indonesia.

I’m trying to look at what is happening and tell myself that all is well in the world and things are exactly the way they are supposed to be.

I wonder if all our western values of “individual achievement” are a little on the crazy side too. Maybe it IS better if the group as a whole succeeds.

Okay, this is a stretch, but maybe the survival of our species is dependent on us acting more like bees or ants and putting the common good before our individual good.

Maybe I just individually need to learn patience and deep breathing and this is a chance for me to grow into the much better person that I’m invited to be.

End of semester vacation is scheduled to start Monday June 27th. That means I have 5 weeks of pre-tests, (called try outs), real tests, post-tests, grading and report making! It’s a little testing of my commitment to hang in there and feel the breeze in the midst of the heat wave.

Some things I am truly thankful for:
This week two new Peace Corps Trainees will come visit my site and spend 2 nights at my home!
My extension cord that provides power to the little fan on my desk quit totally last week (I've taken it apart and rebuilt it 4 or 5 times)and I was able to get a new bigger, better one made at the electrical store!
One of my co-teachers loaned me some traditional clothes: kabaya – long tight shirt and lacey, flowery long sleeve top so I can wear the appropriate thing (with a jilbab of course) to our grade 12 graduation ceremony!
We have new baby chicks in the yard and in box in the kitchen at night! (It's okay, Dr. Leo, I'm very cautious about bird flu and don't go close.)
I found a secret spot down a narrow path where 2 rivers join and sometimes I go there on my morning walks!
The smell of diesel in little butter tubs under the feet of the dining room table truly doesn’t bother me as much as it used to! (And it really does keep the ants off the table!)
And I’ve come to love that cold splash of water on my hot body twice a day when I wash all my cares and my sweat down the drain!

I keep telling myself this is just a test. In the event of a real emergency I will be given instructions on where to go and what to do!

There’s a little gecko crawling on the floor near my toes.

Love you guys, Colleen

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Here’s my new grandson – Arlo Stephen Young. He’s a week old now and my son says that he already has a really great personality. “He’s optimistic, but realistic at the same time.” David and Anna are thrilled to be his parents and I am pleased to show him off to the world.

I'm sitting in my bedroom at my desk, drinking some herbal tea that my daughter sent and thinking this is a really good Mother's Day. I may be far from my children and grandchildren but with all the pictures in my room I see their faces all around me.

The night before Mother’s Day a neighbor came to my house and gave me a 3 hour massage for $3.00! Actually it was only supposed to last for 2 hours but I think it takes her longer to do my bigger body. Indo. massages are a little different. My host mother put a 4 inch thick mattress on the floor in front of the TV and turned it down low and she and my neighbor talked while my body was gently and not so gently kneaded and pulled. It ended up with her walking on my bottom and thighs while she held my leg for support. By the end of the session I was ready to sleep and this morning I feel great – there are a few muscles that I’m more aware of now…overall a great experience.

As I was walking this morning I saw a group of teenagers riding their bikes. One of them had a monkey on his handlebars. I laughed and told him, “Wonderful! I like your monkey!” The monkey seemed to be enjoying the ride as much as the boys.

I was able to talk with my three children and skype with 2 of them so I’d say it was a great day. And I am in the process of figuring out how to get an internet cable to my house so I can watch the youngest Young grow up over the 14 months that I will still be here. It costs a little more than the modum usage fee I now pay each month, but the current signal is often so weak I can’t even get my mail and I really want to keep my eyes on this beautiful new baby in Boston!