A lot of firsts

A friend of mine was recently writing about how he believes that life is made up of Firsts and Bests. If that is the case, these past two weeks have summed up a lot of Firsts for yours truly. Not sure if they’re also Bests but I guess we’ll see about that later on 🙂

1. First time I’m traveling alone. Big first there. One I felt quite doubtful about. I really  did not know what to expect and so far it has probably taken me through all the range of human emotions: fear (mostly caused by that “if something were to happen to me now, who would now?” thought); panick (extension of the former feeling); excitement (look at me now suckers!!!); loneliness (missing people and wanting to have someone who really knows you with you); complete and utter freedom (you can literally do whatever goes through your head!!!); pride (I can’t believe I actually did that!!!). I heard a lot of people saying that what they miss most when traveling alone is having someone to share that with. I don’t necessarily have that. I just never realised how much i took good conversations and witty remarks for granted. And I sometimes miss those. Cause you have times when you really don’t want to meet new people and talk about your life histories again. You just want to talk about whatever and make silly stupid jokes!

2. First type on means of transportation that I would normally be scared shirtless of. Namely, boats and scooters. Yesterday I just took an hour long boat ride from Lombok to Bali. Now, Indonesian boats (or any transportation methods for that matter) don’t place that much emphasis on safety. For some reason however, and despite the fact that no was petrified,  I ended up riding on the roof of the fast boat…basically me and 6 other French people. For most of the ride I kept thinking “am I insane?? What was I thinking??”. For the other part of the ride I kept telling myself ” this is amazing!! I should do this every day!!”. Yes, I a a Gemini, hence ambivalent 🙂 Today, I also had the pleasure on going for one hour on a motorbike…the owner of my hostel took me, as I had to get to the previously described temples, and this was the only cheaper way! So I armed myself with all the courage I could muster and I went! It was quite a smooth ride (apart from a few fast racing maniacs) but more importantly than that…the scenery was lovely!! Absolutely stunning! And I was relaxed enough to actually be able to enjoy it!! If that is not growth than I don’t know what is!

3. First time I went hiking alone (I will write about my mount rinjani adventure in a bit also). I was not necessarily alone cause I went with a group. But it was the first time I didn’t have anyone i knew and trusted with me. It was a bit weird. And what I found was weird was that I missed mynhiking people mainly when it came to motivation. Turns out, people are quite selfish when hiking…especially if it’s a strenuous hike (like this one was). They want to save any type of energy or motivation they might have for themselves and friends. If you are “friendless” then it’s only up to you to stay motivated . And when that freaking mountain is tall and difficulty…welll…you might need an external push once in a while 🙂

4. First time to try out Indonesian stuff. So far the most memorable have been the snake fruit (weird stone like texture but crunchy and quite yummy when you eat it) and Arak (local alcohol concocted from coconut). The latter one is quite disgusting when on its own, but they drink it with lime and honey which makes a loooot of sense! And which restores happiness to my tastebuds 🙂 I also had some rice wine from locals, only that was very similar to what I had in Japan… So no first there I believe

5. First time that I’m travelling without having any idea of where I will be or hat I will do tomorrow I had written earlier also about how Malaysia makes you live VERY in the moment. Well…my trip is like that too. And I cannot say I hate it. On the contrary…it raher fun and relaxed. I still am not sure of how i will get to yogyakarta in 2 days time but I am sure I’ll figure it out as I go along 🙂

I am very grateful for all these Firsts. Especially because, since I’m coming very close to 30, I had thought to be somewhat past the age when you can have so many Firsts in so little time. The even better part is that I am sure that many other Firsts will follow in the next 2 months that I will still spend in Asia 🙂

 

 

Hindus know their shit!

When Elizabeth sees for the first time Mr Darcy’s Pemberley estate she has a remark along the lines of how there has never been another place so well situated so as to make the most of its natural entourage. Well. This morning I visited such a place, though definitely not in England.

Yesterday at lunch time I arrived in amed. This is the general name given to about 10-15km of the North Eastern coast of Bali. It encompasses a few fishermen villages spread along the coast and so far it is by far the most beautiful place I’ve seen in a long while. On the one hand you have the sea, and on the other big and green mountains, culminating in Mount Agung that overlooks over everything from its 3142m height.

The funny thing is that I didn’t even refer to this place when I wrote the first paragraph!! Since the main occupation here is diving and since my relationship with the sea is still undergoing some building and strengthening, I decided to take the less beaten path and go up the mountains! After 30mins of motorcycle ride (will write about that soon enough also) I arrived to the Pura Lempuyang temples.

Imagine a big mountain (I believe it reaches about 1800m) where the Hindus have built (like 2000 years ago) seven temples. To reach them you just need to go higher and higher and higher…sometimes on unpaved road, but mostly on stairs…1700 of them to be precise!

Now, there’s nothing necessarily special about it so far. I’ve visited similar  Buddhist temples in Japan, though granted they had fewer steps. But they greatness here came from the views. It was amazing. Almost every turn of the road would show you a new perspective and an even further outlook.
I was quite early there (highly recommended as after 10am clouds tend to hide the peaks of the surrounding mountains) so I got crystal clear views of Mount Agung and all the villages around it. I could see far onto the sea….so far that I could even make out Lombok!! I then read that if you’re super lucky you can even make out Rinjani on extremely clear days. This was not one of them unfortunately but I was extremely happy with what I saw anyways.

Apart from the absolutely amazing views (I am not kidding you…it made you feel grateful and humbled and powerful at the same time!), this expedition had some extra massive points:
– there were very few tourists!!! I basically had the whole walk to myself. Which also meant I was a bit lonely when the grey monkeys appeared (crazy stories go on about it so I was a bit scared) but it also meant it was super peaceful and quiet. And I could take it all in…the sounds of the jungle, the peacefulness of the temples, the sweat of the climb 🙂
– there were quite a few locals. Who were super nice and talkative. They explained to me about how they pray and the ceremonies they perform there (I got to be in one too:)). They told me about the holy water that they get from the bamboo trees at the last temple, but only if they are truly worthy of it. And they let me take photos of them all in their pretty costumes. And hug their kids…super cute babies in this country!!
– the ride from Amed to get there is absolutely jaw dropping!! Such green and beautiful scenery! And I got to buy fruit from a lady selling it on the side of the street. So now I officially ate snake fruit (weird but I like it!).

I am now relaxing on the black sand beach, waiting for the sunset. Indonesia is truly beautiful!

Ubud

Today I spent the day in Ubud. And I got reminded of what it feels like to fall in love with a city. Or better put with a place.

Ubud is special – noisy but artsy, busy but filled with culture. Lots of small streets you can get lost on. I think I even like it more than Melaka. But in my present mood I could not survive a whole day in this chaos though. So I was really happy to go on a 8.5km hike in surrounding villages. Which is when I realised that I could definitely stay more in Bali.

I just loved the vibes of the villages and of the green rice paddies so close to the city. I loved that the locals were sowelcoming, still trying to sell you things but way more willing to engage in normal conversation when their first aim failed. I loved the fact that every entrance looks like a temple but when you get in you see it’s just a house or a school or something. I love the Balinese door carvings. I love that my malay helps me understand basic things and make small conversation. And I love that they have proper coffee!!!

 

How did this all happen?

About three weeks ago I was announced that my center was closing. Our main sponsor was hit pretty bad by the financial crisis and decided to stop funding our project.

Lots of different feelings emerged. Disappointment, failure to honor promises, excitement, uncertainty, sadness, maybe even anger at times, confusion, relief. It was a weird time and it was followed by an even weirder stretch of weeks. The news had various effects on various people. My SOLS friends (for most of whom this also meant the end of their contract or at least a change in the way they do things) began a frenzy of plnning of trips and life after this. It reminded me a lot of the thoughts I had in the beginning of my time here… How life as a field worker in an NGO always feel so temporary and almost transitory towards something else (though most of us have no idea to what). It felt like this now more than ever.

Giving the news to my community was probably one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. It produced physical pain and complete emotional distress. It also made me want to give them 100% of me while I was still there. In time but more than just time…in attention and energy. This surprised me…I’ve always been a strong advocate of a clear professional-personal life separation (I still think that’s probably the healthiest lifestyle possible) and here I was letting my ” professional ” life take a definite toll on my personal life. See, once you spend energy on some people, you become incapable of giving the deserved amount of energy to anyone other. I felt that and I chose deliberately. I am still wondering whether I hurt someone in the process. But it was a conscious decision and I would probably do it again. Those people became in a weird way so much more than my students. They were my daily motivation and inspiration. My family oversees. Even now, travelling alone, i still feel I have like 10 uncles watching over me and giving me advice.

But most of all the news of the early departure produced lots of confusion in myself. Was I happy about it or not? Did I want to go home early or was it just the annoying extenal circumstances bringing about an undesired change of events? My internal compass gave me the answer to this pretty soon though…I was definitely sad that the center was closing. The community was really benefiting from the program, was enjoying it and really wanted it to continue (actually, the news also stirred them to start looking for sponsors of their own ..lovely initiative but unsuccessful by the time I left). But I was definitely ready to leave Malaysia.

I had considered leaving early before. But it was always accompanied by this annoying feeling that I wasn’t done yet. That I had not accomplished anything (not sure I can say what I’ve accomplished now though). That I had not learned enough or not everything I could. But now, it felt like …yes, it is time. I am ready. So even though the opportunity presented itself to continue on a different position with SOLS until August, the decision was easy to make. I was done.

It’s really funny how some decisions seem so clear cut. The step to leave was such. And the decision to travel alone was also such. I am still wondering why. I did have the doubt (that still sometimes torments me) of: “maybe I should just get home and enjoy my awesome family faster and longer”. But something said that if I don’t do this now, I never will and I will regret it. Part of me is wondering what I was thinking. Part of me is really looking forward to the 14th jue when Jan will join me. Part of me is excited and discovering thisd new me…me when traveling alone!

It might come as a surprise to many of you (and partly to my surprise also), anutza travelling alone has not been as open and talkative as she normally is. I did end up going for food with people from the hostel here but socialisation happened awkwardly. And I am not very invested in it. I was thinking about it today…about why that is. And I think it’s all about needs. In a way I regard people now as a “logistical need”. Since for my other purposes for the trip I don’t really feel I need anyone (the reflection,processing,relaxing etc). But that is not a good way to think about people. It does not bring out the best in you, it does not show genuine interest and it definitely does not create bonds. And I guess until that changes I will never truly find “my type of people”.

Another beginning

I am in Bali. It’s almost surreal that I ended up here. In a hostel that looks as taken out of a backpacker dream. An oasis in the middle of a tourist haven. On the outside it looks as any random garage door. You step in and it’s this beautiful house with lovely rooms scarcely furnished, with a long terrace where the most comfortable longchairs in the world reside and with an amazing garden, filled with greenery and a beautiful pool. It’s truly a jewel! The owner is actually interested in selling but with a bit of marketing skill, he could make a fortune on tourists. I would definitely pay more than the 8euros per night I am currently paying to stay here. Oh…and the bathroom has old marble in it! It’s just lovely! So lovely that my 2 night stay here has extended to 4 nights.

I am still a bit confused as to what I want from this trip. Or better said, I think it’s time for a bit of a decision…do I want this trip to be about tourism or about relaxing and processing? The last period has been a bit hectic on all sorts of levels – so hectic that I didn’t even have the impulse to write anymore. And so hectic that I literally refused to think about difficult things because it felt that I lack the capacity to have any valid opinion or thought on it. Now however, for probably the first time in my life, I feel a big urge to write. To split the last year into chapters, to go through each and clean it up! In my control freak head this should be a highly organised activity. When I know that in reality all the chapters will intertwine and become all messy and muddy together. I don’t even know what I expect to get out of it. Some clarity? Some suddn revelations? Who knows?

Add to all that the excitement to me undertaking a whole new travelling experience. Namely travelling solo. In a weird way it felt like a natural next step. Travelling alone seemed almost impossible 1 year ago. When I found out I had to leave Malaysia sooner I didn’t even think about it…I just had to decide on destinations. So here I am now, at the beginning of my 6 weeks of alone travelling. In which I hope to conquer 2 countries: Indonesia and Nepal.

Sad to say that my start was not really the best possible one. Yesterday at immigration in Bali I got stopped because it was weird that I was the only Romanian on the plane. I got questioned about my entire life history. And it all ended with me being strip searched – lucky for me, all my orrifices were drug clear!

This did make me think though. I had not really taken many precautions about my trip. As in, people sort of new where I was, but no specific details. To be honest, if someone would happen to me, who would notice? Luckily, friends are somehow always there. But I realised I should not take it as lightly as I first did.

Anyways…getting back to my initial dilemma. Tourism or time for myself? I am torn between doing things and just relaxing, enjoying places, spending time at the beach. I came prepared to hike but I am not sure I still want to do that. Especially as Nepal will probably provide more opportunity for that. At the same time, something in me just makes me want to do and see everything!!

Students graduating

The program that I am teaching here is a basic English program that is supposed to take 6 months. As a consequnece, this week, two of the classes I have been teaching for the past 6 months have finished the program and will be graduating. Part of me goes: Yeyyy! We’ve made it! The other part goes: Nooo!!! I like you guys! You’re nice and fun! What will I do without seeing you every day???

The more I do this job, the more I admire and respect teachers all over (and yes, mother, now I understand you better than ever). And it’s not just the work itself. Sure, it’s quite difficult, requires you to be full speed and full energy on a constant basis, to be there 100% all the time (even when you’d rather be under a blanket sleeping your misery away), requires you to be flexible, pay attention to everything and everyone, and it’s just literally exhausting. But it’s also the emotional part of it. You seriously get attached to these students (and I am really not just referring to the children). I’ve come to realize that the only reason why you could go through all the above motions is because the students give you so much at the same time. So it feels truly heart breaking to sort of “break up” with them 🙂

Then there’s the whole responsibility part that I had never felt so intensely before. I proably should have felt something similar in my previous job – you know, big corporation, big money, big impact etc. But I didn’t. Not the way I do now. And that stems from various causes. See, I’m not a professional English teacher. I thank the Heavens for Mrs. Ambrosie (my highschool English teacher) whom I am utterly and shamelessly copying many times. She actually explained grammar in a way that makes me able to transfer the knowledge. But even so…I’m seriously playing this by the ear. People say that I’m doing a good job but there’s no real way of knowing. There’s no proper evaluation of the work you’re doing (or at least not one that is worth while) apart from the degree of understanding of your students. Which is all very relative, volatile and that also depends Beverly on how good of a day that person’s had.

But I guess what gets at me mostly is just the simple status you are given. In Malaysia, the mere fact of being a foreigner gives you some sort of “special” (and by that I do mean superior) status. When

You add the “teacher” word to it you’re basically unbeatable. The word seems to have supreme power and it generally means that “teacher” can never be wrong. One of my teenage girls waited for 2 months before telling me that I had been pronouncing her name wrong. When I asked her why she didn’t tell me earlier, she just went quiet and shy and mumbled something about “being afraid…teacher wrong…teacher never wrong…”.

Last Saturday I came back on the train from KL and two little Indian Malaysian girls started talking to me. They were super cute and talkative and when in the end I told them I teach kids like them, they went “uaaaaaaa”, then went to their mother and said in a very reverent tone of voice “Mummy, she’s a teacher!!!”

All of the above gives you power. Power you don’t sometimes realise you have. Only when students start sounding like you, or talking like you, or feeding back to you things that you’ve been saying, do you realise how much power you actually have. And it’s sometimes scary to think that maybe sometime they will not understand you well, or will take out really the wrong thing from what you’ve been saying or even that you’ll be teaching them crap. And you might never realised how you’ve impacted someone’s life.

PS: As a thank you, we got traditional Malaysian clothes from our students – baju kebaya 🙂

Far Off…

Lately, I feel very far off. From everything and everyone. It’s a really weird feeling. Not sure what brought it about.

Last week I was sick…very sick…sicker than I’ve been in a loooong time. I guess it was just a virus but it had super weird symptoms, and just made me feel completely weak. I basically was walking around for 5 days with my head pounding continuously. Adding to that the fact that I still had to teach, and you basically have a walking zombie trying just to make it until the next day. Needless to say that by the time the cold (or whatever that was) was over, so was I. I was utterly demotivated, depressed and asking myself all those wonderful existential questions that really lift up our spirits always!

I also realised this “living until the next day” way of looking at things, is really characteristic of my whole life here and now. People ask me about making plans and I literally cannot look further than a week in advance. It’s impossible to imagine that far in advance. Which is super weird considering that I used to love planning! (and was quite good at is also).

My rationalisation is that this focus on the short term really reduces my view on what’s happening around me. That and my current lifestyle (which basically involves sticking just with my community at least 5 days out of 7, and having limited access to internet). As a consequence, it feels that a lot of the things that I was concerned with before, just don’t matter anymore. Cause they are just not related to me somehow.

The funny thing is that I knew I was aloof, but I had not realised how aloof I was until yesterday. When Bruxelles happened. See, when in autumn the Paris attacks happened I was terrified. Like I literally could not sleep thinking of the fact that my brother had lived there one month before, wondering if all my friends were safe and just trembling at the thought of a loved city (and one that I am so comfortable in) being destroyed. My reaction now however was very different. It’s obviously a horrible piece of news but I sometimes felt it as very far from me. Even though I have friends living there. Even though the same considerations would normally apply. I don’t know. I’m trying desperately to hope that this does not make me a horrible feeling. But I just feel very far off.

 

MY taxi drivers!

Yes, they are mine!! All mine!!! 🙂

To explain. In winter, one of my students asked me to hold some workshops for taxi drivers. Those went so well, that we decided to try and set up a class especially for them! Which worked out very well…in Malaysia taxi drivers are basically entrepreneurs so they set their own working hours. As a consequence, their schedule is super flexible and they fill in very well my morning slots, when no one else can attend. So, we started! I didn’t really know what to expect but at this point in time I can just say….BEST IDEA EVER!!!

My experience so far has been that everywhere you go in the world, taxi drivers are special. They generally talk more, are willing to share their opinions on everything and are some of the people that really give you a taste of the place you’re in. Add to all that the fact that in Malaysia (and probably in most other developing country), taxi drivers are also a bit suspicious. Will he use the meter or will he try to rip me off?

Well…I can honestly say that MY taxi drivers are the nicest, kindest and funniest people ever!!! They are incredible! Super motivated and always making fun of everything. As you might have noticed from my previous posts, I live in a rather conservative community. But these guys have no problem discussing about sexiness, making jokes about second wives and just being generally naughty!

Furthermore, they know way more about the world and general knowledge things than my teenagers (who should be currently learning this) and my adults (who all have at least medium education) put together. Because, believe it or not I have been in the position of explaining to my adults what a continent is; that Paris and London are not countries, but cities; that there is no jungle in Europe and so on and so on. And no, people here are not stupid. But they are living in a system that is teaching them only Malaysian history and geography (and even that not in a very good way) and that is not encouraging them at all to search, to expand, to seek answers.

My taxi drivers on the other hand are brilliant! They know lots of stuff from all over the world, most of them have extra jobs (one actually owns a travel agency, and was laughing that his employees don’t know he’s a taxi driver too:)), they always ask questions (and really good ones I might add), and are genuinely interested in anything new or different! Plus, they all actually LOVE what they do, which gives them an unbelievable energy!

So now our mornings are beginning in a much more awesome way than before! Not to mention the fact that one of them is one of the funniest people ever…so it’s basically like I got myself a MAlaysian dad (his wife is awesome also…she decided to come to the class too, so she is now the only woman in the whole group of men. And not at all shy! But confident, strong and funny!). And another one of them is like our granddad…you just want to hug him all the time 🙂

It’s just unbelievable how much warmth and energy they can give! Not to mention the free taxi rides 🙂

So, this happened…

Two weekends ago I went out with a friend of mine. We walked, we talked, we ate and we got to that point in time when the only thing left to do was to buy a bottle of wine and go drink it in a park.

Obviously, alcohol is prohibited in public spaces in Malaysia (Muslim country, remember?:)). So we were careful to have a proper camouflage for it. It was about 8.30 pm and we were very innocently sitting on a bench, drinking a bit of wine and talking. I would like to stress the innocently part…we were literally 1m away from each other and we were just talking!

Completely out of nowhere two policemen appeared. WHo obviously spoke no English, so the whole conversation happened between them and my friend (who luckily is Malaysian) and with me goggling my eyes at them, struggling to catch a few words. It was quite obvious that they wanted our IDs. After which apparently  their first question was “Are you married?” And they didn’t even want to know if we were married to each other! But they were wondering if we were married to other people and hence, on our way to obviously committing adultery!

It felt a bit surreal. I was already considering how much money they will want as a bribe (such instances are well known here so I had heard many stories). It took forever! They kept moaning and groaning and checking our IDs…apparently they were impressed that I was a teacher (it says so on my visa). After which another surreal conversation: why are you sitting here and not where there is more light? To my friend’s “the bench there was not clean” answer, they did not seem very impressed. And continued talking about how sitting like this in the dark can make people think weird things. And why would we want that? We should just sit in the light so that there is no danger, and people don’t get weird ideas.

This whole conversation in MAlay lasted about 5min. They then finally gave us our IDs back (I had been terrified that they might not give my passport back!) and left us with the wise advise: “You can stay here but where there is light”.

You might not be surprised to find out that I was quite happy to just get out of here. To realise only afterwards that, had any of the two of us been Muslim, they would have called the Islamic police and two options would have been in store: either we got married or we went to jail…