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Friday Sept. 17
At IAIN I attended my first staff meeting this morning, and didn't even need to leave my own desk to do it. Six of us who are sharing the teaching of the new 25-hour-a-week English program for 30 selected faculty met to decide who will teach which skill areas and at what times. Three of the teachers are ones I hadn't met, and all are very experienced; in fact, one won this year's 'Teacher of the Year' award for Palembang and was first runner-up for all of South Sumatra.One is a woman, the only one on the team. Raidul ( my Arabic teacher )and Yani ( Herizal's administrative assistant ) will be the other teachers. I'll teach part of the speaking and listening, from 10 to noon W-Th-F ( or R-K-J here ).No textbooks, just photocopies, which for this group ( and this group only ) we will provide and pay for. Minimal homework, and then only 'suggested' since they're all busy and we don't want to scare them away. There will be people at many ability levels all mixed together, so we need to offer activities that everyone can handle to some extent.No grades, no real 'exams', no pressure, just periodic 'progress checks'.The course is in such demand that the administration has already decided to 'cut off' the first group in January so we can offer the course to another 30 starting in February ( so much for my visions of having February off… ).Herizal says all the teachers here are his friends, and will continue to be, so it's difficult for him to say no to anyone who 'wants in'. Herizal led our meeting of course, but in a very consultative and at times even deferential way. He wants everyone to teach what they want to teach, at a time that suits them. Everyone did seem perfectly satisfied with what they got.
Like all of Herizal's conferences with his thesis students, much of the meeting ( mostly the side remarks ) happened in Indonesian ( or Palembang-ian? ), as did the 'brunch' afterwards, which was a new experience for me ( although much of the general office talk was in Arabic at American U. in Cairo ).It's fine, I think; it's unreasonable to expect them always to make the effort to say everything they'd like to say using their adequate, but far from fluent, English just for my sake, even if it is an English program. I just wish they'd translate the funniest jokes at least - clearly I was missing out on a lot of laughter opportunities.But even if I were fairly fluent in their language, the repartee was flying so fast I'm sure I couldn't have followed it very well.Surprisingly for people who have studied foreign language acquisition, it's clear through frequent remarks that they all seem to expect me to become fluent in Indonesian before long; after all, it's such an easy language, right?I'm afraid they're going to be disappointed, though I'll study reasonably hard.
While we were meeting, someone had again ordered food delivered for all of us.This time it was omelets wrapped in paper 'envelopes' along with a baggie full of a delicious curry-like but not too spicy sauce to be poured over the omelet ( though some didn't ).I had had a big breakfast but it was there and it was tasty and I thought I'd just skip lunch.Think again: Herizal got a call inviting us to a Lebaran ( yes, 8 days on it's still being celebrated ) lunch at the home of a vice-rector (?) I met last week.
We drove over through searing heat ( and still no AC ) to find a crowd already there, men and women in separate circles on the floor enjoying icy drinks and snacks, including the best pempek I've had so far - "uses a different kind of fish; NOT Palembang-style". Most of the men were not IAIN-affiliated, spoke no English ( though one tried - I couldn't understand anything he said ), and showed minimal or no interest in me.Beyond a cursory hand-shake I wasn't even introduced.A bevy of 7-8 year giggling girls stared at me from the next room; when I waved hi to them they fled, briefly.Soon the men all left for the Friday noon prayer at a nearby mosque, and the women immediately invited me over to their circle. Several spoke English fairly well and we ended up in a fun and wide ranging conversation about ( of course ) family, guns in the US, cooking, my teaching style, TOEFL vs. IELTS, and more. It turned out one of the young women will be in my Curriculum Development class. Two others are broadcast media students.Then the men returned and lunch was served. I was already full but ate a bit more than enough to be polite ( I hope ) - not difficult because it was very good, and healthy too. For the second time I got to try fish in a durian sauce, and this time the distinctive durian taste was much more prominent.I could see why many people find it distasteful and 'stinky', though to me it just tasted 'interesting' and I had no problem eating it. Clearly, though, it would be at best an 'acquired taste' for non-Asians. There was also a mild-flavored vegetable combination with seaweed, and peppermint leaves served as a garnish, the local equivalent of parsley it seems. Of course, many people added fiery red sambal in liberal amounts. No thanks! And no dinner tonight for me.
After eating most people left quickly, although the guy next to me 'lit up' and I couldn't politely escape. Actually, I've had to back off on my initial hopes that second-hand smoke would not be a problem here - lately I've been subjected to it several times, though not at IAIN, thank goodness.
Herizal brought me back here early, but he and Yani still had work to do at school. He called a while ago and will come by in a few minutes to ( finally! ) take me to see a house I might live in, near IAIN and owned by a teacher there.
Another cultural note:I talked with the young teacher Wahyu this morning about batik shirts. He told me that batik can only be worn on Fridays and Saturdays here; it's somehow 'excessive' to do it on the other days. No explicit explanation offered, but reading between the lines I'm guessing that it's because even cheap batik is more expensive and a lot of people are too poor to afford it, which they might be reminded of by seeing others wearing it all the time. He said Westerners come here and get carried away with buying and wearing batik shirts. I was glad to find out about a local no-no, for sure; guidebooks don't seem to provide that level of information. He says buy just 2 batik shirts, one long-sleeve for more formal situations and one short sleeve - as he and most of the other guys had on today.
( later )Yeah! I have a house! I can move in in 7-10 days, assuming IAIN approves the deal. Herizal and his wife and the baby took me over - she found the house by accident while chatting with the teacher on the phone today, and I'll be thanking her all year. It's less than a 5-minute walk to my office, in the area behind IAIN that Yani drove me thru on his motorbike and that had really appealed to me at first glance. It has 3 BR and 2 baths, with only Asian toilets ( which is OK with me, having gotten used to them ages ago ) and 'mandi' for bathing, but the owners will put in a showerhead and IAIN will put AC in the main bedroom, which has a huge, new-ish foam-mattress bed. The kitchen has a 2-burner gas stove, a double sink, and a good-sized fridge. I'll get it already completely furnished, even with sheets and pots and pans etc. There's a front yard with bonsai, a mango tree, and many potted plants, but no back yard. We all sat in the dining area and chatted a while; she's an English teacher at IAIN but is going N a couple hours' drive to be with her husband, who works up there. No fewer than nine boys came into the yard to check me out, and no doubt will be coming over a lot.They had less English than I have Indonesian but I expect we'll be working on that - we already were 'trading vocabulary' for objects around us. In age they range from maybe 8 to 15.
We already agreed that Herizal's family will come over for dinner as soon as I get settled in, and his wife will help me with that - take me shopping, etc. Great family!!!
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