Rubber time

Public speaking class starts a 7ish a.m. on a Monday. You would think students would be sleepy and not very talkative that early in the morning, but the class went pretty well and I met my second group of students (I had met my first group the previous Thursday.) Pak Bahar told them that we were going to split the class into two groups and, starting the following week, half of the students would meet with me and the other half would have him as their teacher. After public speaking, I had my Bahasa Indonesia lesson and then went to have lunch with my teacher, who invited me to her house. We had some delicious, spicy, traditional Indonesian food; I had the chance to meet her family and we chatted for a while before she took me back to my house to get ready for my evening class.

Mira, my counterpart, had just gotten back from a conference that afternoon, and she called me to ask how I was doing and to see if she could stop by to visit and give me some oleh-oleh. I told her about a weird rash on my arm and she said she had what I needed. Then she came by my house, gave me some skin cream, candy, we talked for a while, and then she took me to campus for my night class. When I got to the classroom there were no students around. The room was completely empty and quiet. I decided to call Pak Kamal, my co-teacher, to see what was going on. He told me that he wasn’t going to be in class because he was feeling sick, and then casually added that the class was canceled for the week because the students were out of town. Good thing I got notified ahead of time! Sometimes I really don’t get how things work here in Indonesia…

The crew and I at a resort in Senggigi.

The next day turned out to be really interesting. I went early to my office at FKIP (did I mentioned I have three offices?) and talked to Pak Bahar, who helped me figure out a system to have Internet at home. We ordered a modem online, but I could use his portable router in the meantime. Then I talked to the vice-rector, got permission to use a room for side projects, and was referred to a professor in the Biology department to discuss an idea I had about starting an environmental club/recycling program on campus. I went to Prof. Sufri’s office and introduced myself and the project I had in mind, and he seemed pretty interested in working together on environmental education issues. On my way out of his office, my day really got out of the ordinary. I got a message from Pak Bahar saying that a group of guys from a tourism office in Jakarta was looking for foreigners to film a promotional video about Halal tourism in Lombok, and at the same time, the same group of guys called out my name from the parking lot and told me about what they were doing. They asked if I wanted to put on a hijab and go with them to Senggigi at that precise moment. After quickly glancing at my schedule and seeing that most of my classes had not started yet or were canceled, I agreed. I got in their car, they took me home to drop off my backpack and get a scarf, and off we were to shoot some video at a resort in Senggigi. I was supposed to be in a commercial for honeymooning in Lombok, so they asked if I knew anyone who could play the husband. No one I knew was available, so they found me a French husband for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, my “husband” was flying back to France that same day… The story of my relationships!

After shooting all afternoon, we ended the day at a beach eating grilled fish while they did a time lapse of the sunset in Senggigi. They asked if I wanted to join them again the next day for an even more intense day around the island, and since it was a holiday and school was closed, I said yes. They would pick me up at 6 a.m. to go to about a dozen places and get some more footage for the commercial. I was tired but excited about traveling all over Lombok and seeing some of the most beautiful places on the island the next day. I didn’t sleep much thinking about which scarf I should take with me... at least I didn’t have to fix my hair!

Gili Kondo.

The boat that took us to Gili Kondo.

Traditional mosque in North Lombok.

The crew picked me up at 6:30 a.m. and we started the trip going northwest. We stopped at every scenic place where they could get their cameras out and shoot something interesting. We went to a pearl store, had brunch in a restaurant at the town where hikers start their trek to Mount Rinjani, visited Sindang Gila waterfalls and a couple of historic mosques, drove through a forest of gorgeous ancient trees, sang along Indonesian love songs (or they did, and I laughed), and then ended up the day at Gili Kondo, a private, desolated, and absolutely gorgeous little island on the East side of Lombok. The guy who took us there went to run some errands on his boat, and for about an hour I thought we were going to be spending the night on the beach, stranded on a deserted island, but he finally came back and we got on the road towards Mataram. A three-hour drive, food stop, and we made it back by 11 p.m. What a long, exhausting, and incredibly exciting day! Sometimes I think that whoever is in charge of writing the script to my life must have a pretty wild imagination. Also, it is funny how a couple of days ago I was telling someone how I was tired of being the pink elephant in the room, but being a ‘bule’* in Indonesia also offers some advantages!

Gorgeous trees in East Lombok.

The rest of the week couldn’t compare to the previous two days, but my classes went extremely well (I finally got a syllabus and some materials, so I know what I’m teaching!), and Pak Bahar took me to buy a bicycle!!! Okay, that’s pretty exciting too. Today I went for a long bike ride and remembered how much I love feeling the wind on my face as I explore the streets on two wheels, powered by my own legs and two pedals. I had a productive weekend putting some ideas together, writing lesson plans, and I also had dinner with the Fulbright ETA’s to discuss some projects on which we want to work together. There have been ups and downs this first month here in Lombok, but I’m finally starting to see patterns in the way things unfold and to feel like the ideas in my head can definitely turn into something real. Time here may stretch like rubber, but everything gets done when it gets done. Or after I constantly annoy people asking for help.

Sunset in Senggigi.

*bule: term used to refer to foreigners