Retrospective:My Indonesian ELF Experience 2010-2011 I have just completed a ten-month assignment as an English Language Fellow, assigned to conduct English teacher training and teach other English courses at the Institut Agama Islam Negeri ( IAIN ) in Palembang, Indonesia in south Sumatra, and working under the auspices of the Regional English Language Office (RELO) in Jakarta. In this entry I want to look back on the year and 'take a big picture view' of ...

I'm flying out of Indonesia on June 16, and this likely will be my final blog entry from Indonesia, though I plan to write a long, reflective one when I'm looking back from outside the country. First, I want to explain the title of this blog. It has a double meaning. The more obvious one is that it's the first half of the well-known saying, "No matter where you go, there you are." But the more important one for me is that it's a line from one of m...

Last weekend I went along with a carload of language center staff to the home villages of two of the guys. I was told the drive would be 5-6 hours but it turned out to be 11-12 hours, including rest stops, over narrow, twisty, horrifically potholed roads for much of the way - the final hours in pitch darkness both going and coming - and often in driving rain ( I taught the guys the idiom 'raining cats and dogs', which they had fun making up variations on ).Much ...

I have been back in Palembang for just a week but Banda Aceh already seems like a fading memory, since I quickly got caught up in school etc. here.I did get to 'play tourist' just a bit while senior ELF Michael Kelley was visiting - went to a couple good restaurants, revisited the Cheng Ho mosque and was at the big mosque downtown for Fri. noon prayer - very crowded, quite welcoming though of course I had to stand outside.Since I'm teaching all new courses thi...

Sat morning Feb. 26 - Pulau Weh, "Freddies's" - sharing my balcony with a gray/white cat at the moment. This place is every bit as great as I'd heard.I'm even able to use wifi even from my bungalow balcony, where I am right now, while I look down about 50 feet to the beach and listen to the sound of small waves rolling in.Tall coconut palms are all around me; on one side the jungle begins right next to my balcony.As darkness fell last night I walke...