What do I know about teaching English?!

If the title of the blog didn't tip you off, I had a mild 'What the hell am I doing here?' moment today. Our time in Bandung so far has been spent in large part on preparing us to become English teachers, which is mildly hilarious because sometimes I can hardly speak the language, and now I am in charge of imparting my knowledge to 80 or so high school boys (I found out more about my pesantren, but more on that later). It will be quite a challenge to be up in front of students and to be happy, energetic, and confident enough to truly make an impact with them, but as has been mentioned to us (the ETAs) many times, our primary goal is to simply create a friendly environment where the students are able to practice conversational English. This week has done, and the following 2 weeks will do, a great deal to prepare us, but it certainly will be a challenge unlike any other I've faced.

As part of our preparation was to visit schools here in Bandung. That was very interesting, and as not all the ETAs went to the same schools, highlighted just how different the various schools can be here (the Indonesia school system is quite a jumble of possible paths, organizations, school types, and funding availability). The result is that my situation will be entirely different from many (if not all) of the other ETAs. My position is particularly interesting because of its location. As I mentioned earlier the school is about an hour from the nearest ATM (of note because that is my only way to get money), but that might not be too big of a deal because I won't really have anything to spend my money on because by the sound of it the school complex is completely out on its own (i.e. not in a village even). I'm not positive of this, but at the very least it is pretty remote. As for the school itself, I think I will be teaching roughly 80 boys. I think that I will (due to necessity and my own interest) become very involved in my school, which should be incredibly interesting.

One thing that will make this much more possible is that we've also been taking Bahasa Indonesia courses since we arrived here in Bandung. The classes haven't been all that informative to be brutally honest, but they've provided me with the motivation to start studying more. I'm quickly gaining words and how sentences are put together, but as is normal for me, having significant problems hearing and understanding the spoken language.

Bandung is a pretty interesting city, and certainly MUCH nicer than Jakarta (cleaner, less humid, we're better located, etc.). I've done a fair amount of walking around the city as I've been looking for some more clothes (things are definitely cheaper here, but not the dirt prices I was actually expecting, unless you really hunt). This is really a city of malls and shopping; which also means food courts which is a good, safe way to get some cheap food. I mention safe because I've been dealing with some stomach issues for a week now. I think I'm just now getting things sorted out (I was trying to wait it out, and I think I got two different bouts). Unfortunately, that has kept me from doing some things: I missed out on hiking in a volcano on Sunday, but other than that just some hanging out drinking with some of the ETAs. There hasn't been a whole lot of partying by us, largely due to Ramadahn going on (tonight we took part in a breaking fast dinner: enak! (delicious)).

Other than that things have been pretty mundane; still getting to know the group here even better: it's quite a diverse group, there are people from all over the country (Florida to Vermont to California to Oregon with a bunch of the states in between represented).

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but that will have to do for now and hopefully I'll get a chance to write more later. If people have any questions about anything feel free to send them on to me because I don't remember what I have told to who and I also don't know what you all might want to know.