Tues. Feb. 15 - Banda Aceh

This is not where I'd expected to be but I'm glad to find myself here, especially since it turned out that the class I was supposed to help teach at IAIN never materialized, so I would've just been sitting around doing nothing for the next two weeks.Instead, when I met with US Consul from Medan on Thursday afternoon and he found out I was free, he immediately asked me to come here to help a group of about 20 students getting ready for grad study in the US - all to receive scholarships from the Aceh Scholarship Commission.That's basically all he told me and all I knew when I got here, except that he later SMSed me names/phone #s of 3 contacts, one of whom met me at the airport and brought me to the guest house on the Training Center grounds, just a minute's walk from the classroom.Yesterday I met the students and an American woman who had been teaching as one of several volunteers- all of whom were happy to turn it over to me for 2 weeks.Luckily I had brought some handouts to start with and sent a student to get more made, which was just enough to get us through 4+ hours.I left instructions for more copies to be made for tomorrow - today being a religious holiday ( the Prophet Muhammed's BD), as it turns out.I'm waiting for Pak Taufan, my 'counterpart' here, to pick me up and take me around to a celebration and do some sightseeing.

I found out that the ASC gives many scholarships each year to many countries though this will be the first group going to the US.They have been taking what turns out to be a mostly makeshift class for 6 weeks and are still feeling anxious about their chances on the TOEFL iBT - they all need 550 or higher.They'll take the exam on Mar. 13, in Jakarta.They also need to take the GRE; I doubt I can help them much with it but I'll try.

Wed. night Feb. 16 - Banda Aceh

My second day of classes also went well.The coordinator, Taufan, and his wife said the students told them they were very happy with what I have them doing, which so far is a bit of a grab-bag of things that have always worked well for me over the years.

Yesterday I went with Taufan and his wife to a morning outdoor lunch hosted by a wealthy friend in honor of Maulid, Muhammed's birthday.Just the usual assortment of rice, chicken, gado-gado, rendang.Dozens of women in colorful scarves, sitting ( mostly ) separately from the men.From there we went to the wedding party of one of her former students, just an obligatory call at least for Taufan, and we didn't stay long or eat.He said they'd been invited to 3 such parties yesterday, but were skipping the others.I did get a couple of photos of the lucky couple, including a slightly blurry close-up of her henna'd hands ( both sides ).Later he took me to a favorite coffee shop and gathering place for lots of his 'pals', whom I met.

I got back here before a very intense and long tropical rain storm began; I sat on my covered terrace and watched it all.Then Taufan picked me up again in the evening and we went to dinner at an outdoor place where you pick your own fresh whole fish to be grilled, as in Yemen but with rice rather than bread. We were joined by some high-level visitors from an international ( lots of Arabs ) university on the Malay-Thai border, who had excellent English though most of the conversation was in Malay.

After class today he took me back to the coffee shop for a mie goreng lunch and then to pick up fresh chicken, veggies, and other food at a small market owned by a friend. I'd hoped to find muesli here but since virtually all the expats left in 2008 all the shops that catered to them are long since shut down or have greatly reduced their import inventory. ( I still hope to find some English-language novels left around by departees. ) Back here I checked email and printed out a few more activity sheets in the ACS office and briefly met Pak Qismullah, the governor's scholarship program advisor, who is the one that the Consul originally called to arrange my visit - turns out he went to OSU! ( as did another person working here, but long ago ).

Taufan and I have also agreed that I will visit Pulau Weh, a small island just N. of the coast via a short ferry ride, the weekend after this, Feb. 26-28.I will fly back to Palembang on Mar. 1, ticket also arranged today by Taufan.I'd hoped to get out of town this Sunday to see villages and farms and leftover visible signs of the tsunami, but it might not happen since Taufan and his assistant will be out of town and public transport to go anywhere is either nonexistent or very slow/confusing.On Monday afternoon I did take a 'labi-labi' (angkot/bemo ) downtown and visited the huge central mosque, which had lots of white-veiled women and girls hanging out in the fairly plain interior.I walked along the main pasar but it was too late for most fresh foods; mostly I just saw dozens of jewelry shops.( just a coincidence they're next to the mosque? )Otherwise I saw no shops of interest downtown or nearby, and walking over the river bridge yielded no picturesque views - not that I'd brought my camera anyway.And the 'supermarket' I'd been told would have a good selection of stuff was a big disappointment.

This place has by far the most mosquitoes I've seen in Indonesia.I've killed about a dozen inside, three after they got to me first.I hope I've gotten all of them now.

Sat. eve. Feb. 19 Banda Aceh

I had not killed all the skeeters - have whacked another 8-10 since I wrote the above, and at least one is still evading me.

So - I will get out into the countryside tomorrow, with several students, who have been discussing where to go ( in Indonesian ) during every break and after class for 2 days.They're a classically Indonesian fun-loving and social bunch, especially the women.

Classes have gone very well over the past three days.I just throw one activity after another at them, 'mixing it up' a lot so we don't get bogged down, and we haven't.It's a lot of fun for me, naturally - all the more since their English is, if not excellent, far above the level of my students at IAIN.And they're infinitely more motivated.A month or two from now I know I am going to be looking back on all this very nostalgically….

I've only been back into town once - yesterday afternoon after class.I was looking for La Piazza Restaurant, which I'd heard has shelves of books for trade.I had approximate instructions, which turned out to be right on, with the place tucked away along an alley off a little side street.As for books, there were two short shelves half-full with a hodge-podge, not all in English, but I was able to trade the 5 books I'd brought for 5 good ones.The unexpected bonus was that they have outstanding food too, and a rooftop terrace with a view over the city to the mountains not that far away (though mostly hidden by clouds yesterday. ).I sat up there alone and had a Thai seafood soup that tasted exactly like ones I had in Thailand with lemon grass and other flavors, and packed with seafood, plus a delicious seafood pasta.All for 9 bucks.Their menu is huge - page after page, all sounding great.I ate so much I felt like walking it off and ended up walking all the way back here - actually not that bad, maybe a bit over 2 miles.It's not like I was in any hurry.Unfortunately there really was nothing of interest to see along the way, just the usual disorganized assortment of city buildings.Certainly there are no visible signs of sharia law being enforced - I guess it just prohibits Muslims ( women ) from doing things they don't want to do anyway, whether here or in Palembang or elsewhere.I see many young women in form-fitting jeans and blouses as usual, with the usual scarves on their heads. Everything seems absolutely normal, by Indonesian norms.

Mon. night Feb. 21 - Banda Aceh

Yesterday I got to see the countryside around Banda Aceh, specifically the NW coast.One student drove me and 4 others about 60 km. along the coast road, which was amazingly reminiscent of the coast highway in Oregon, alternating between sections along the beach and twisty-turny climbs around headlands, the road looking hundreds of feet straight down at the sea, with many bridges over streams and rivers.The differences of course were jungle vegetation and development right on the beach - stands selling dried fish/octopus andfood/drink places with open-sided thatch shelters just above the shore, one of which we ate at - my second time to have whole grilled fish here. We also went to a fairly photogenic waterfall, which only the guys were allowed to climb to the top of, since at some time in the past a young couple went up together and 'did something bad.'Not there but elsewhere along the road we saw lots of monkeys - one looked ready to jump inside the car when we slowed and I started to roll my window down to take a picture!

Much of the time we were driving through areas totally devastated by the 2004 tsunami, so virtually everything we saw had been built since then - including all- new bridges and highway, built by Korea using US funds -- and new mosques/schools.The replacement houses all were identical small rectangles with corrugated tin roofs, arranged in straight lines - unnecessarily so, and looking very out of synch with all the structures built by local people that surround them.In general far fewer people live near the sea now, but for fishing families there simply is no alternative and they quickly moved back to the shore.We did see and visit one building that survived intact: the home ( now a museum ) of a heroine from the war against the Dutch, which was built of hardwood posts/boards on 3-meter-high pilings and fitted together without nails.The tsunami came up to the floorboards but didn't knock anything down.It is inland quite a ways, so the force of the ( three ) waves was diminished by intervening vegetation and buildings.We were able to walk through it and see the furnished bedrooms with canopy beds and brightly-colored furnishings, plus the meeting rooms with handcarved wooden chairs and tables from ( as I was able to guess, much to their surprise ) Jepara.There was also an outside well, extended up to the second level with an extension walkway to the house, for fear of it being poisoned! BTW her picture is on the 5000 rupiah banknote, I noticed later.

I was interested to learn that only one of the students had visited these places before, though they're within a couple hours drive from here.If anything, they enjoyed the trip even more than I did, and there was lots of laughter and kidding around ( bordering on flirting? hard to judge culturally ) among them all day.

I got a variety of good, though not great, photos ( portraits, land- and seascapes ) to add some variety to my Indonesia slide show and Facebook albums.

Thus night Feb. 24 - Banda Aceh

I had what amounts to almost my ideal dinner this evening, courtesy of Taufan, Sari, and Pak Qismullah:we ate at a seafood restaurant ( choose your own ) looking over the water, and got there just in time to see the sun set over forested hills, lighting up the edges of clouds in front of it.Unfortunately, I had not brought my camera - I had no chance to go back to the guest house after class.Anyway, I had a cracked crab in a flavorful gravy and some big prawns in a spicy BBQ sauce.Before that we had done a personalized 'tsunami tour', including not only climbing the huge ship swept 5 km inland but also passing the home of Taufan's wife's mom, who was killed along with most of her family - 370+ relatives in all.Almost everything we drove past was built since thetsunami, and the coastline we drove along used to be 500 meters further out.There the tsunami was 20 meters high! I really couldn't think of anything to say.Comparing it with Katrina doesn't work since Katrina didn't kill many people, relatively speaking.Also Qismullah gave me a quick historical account of the settlement of the region by Mongolians, then Vietnamese, then Chinese, then Arabs ( Yemenis! ), Portuguese, Dutch, British in order - all attracted by the spice trade ( now defunct ) and the key location.

This evening KiKi, one of the ACS staff, went to considerable trouble to set up my stay at Freddies's on Pulau Weh for tomorrow-Monday ( after having first been told it was booked up ). Qismullah arranged for a driver to take me to the ferry tomorrow morning - after breakfast with Taufan - and pick me up on Monday.And at the end of today's ( final ) class, the students gave me a soft-sided attaché case hand-embroidered in Acehnese designs - too beautiful to actually use except on special occasions.Wow!To say I feel appreciated is a vast understatement.The two weeks here could well end up being the highlight of my first ELF year.And to think it happened so suddenly, in a way I could have anticipated or planned or even imagined possible.If I had decided NOT to stay a second year as an ELF, I would definitely be kicking myself now for not having had more faith in the possibility of great opportunities like this coming up.

Yesterday after class I went to the English school Taufan and his wife have as a side business, and ended up in a sobering conversation with 4 of her teen students, two of whom lost their entire families in the tsunami and another who lost a younger sister (another sister was picked up by a fisherman, and yet another was able to climb onto a high roof. )Then they took me to their house for snacks ( jackfruit - good ) and homemade fresh melon juice and just to relax a while, then to dinner at a favorite cafe, near La Piazza by chance,where I had shrimp fried rice when it turned out they had no crab.

The last week of classes went very well.I varied the mix even more, supplementing straight TOEFL prep with fun activities that they loved while still practicing English.I urged them allto email me with scores and later on with stories of their adventures in the US.

BTW I just killed 3 mosquitoes in 5 minutes.They all came to me, basically.I've seen 2 more too.