My new Home

My pre-school teacher meetings are now done, and my classroom is almost set for classes to start on Tuesday…or at least as ready as it is going to be before school starts. All last week I tried to get up with the sun in order to exercise and explore the town before I had to be at or 8am meetings. Then I typically stayed at school until 9pm or so working on my classroom, trying to get it ready! It has been a very fun and exciting yet also tiring week.
Some highlights were when my roommate(Valerie) and I bought used bikes in the market. That way I can get to school quicker, explore/navigate through the town, exercise, and ride out in the mountains by the rice paddies…so beautiful!
On Friday, we had a worship service with all the national workers, and then went out into the nearby streets and park and did some clean up.
We also had a family reunion once all the staff had returned with team building activities, burgers and potluck and fireworks. I never thought baking my favorite cookie bars could be such a complicated process(trying to say, find, and buy the ingredients, get the stove to work)
I constantly find myself trying to say things in Spanish. The language barrier makes doing just about anything outside of the Mountainview English speaking community extremely difficult.
We had to hire a new helper named Ibu Citi that does most of our grocery shopping (in the market), cook us a meal a day, washes all our laundry by hand, and cleans our house. Hired help is essential when being a foreigner and trying to also teach. When I first got here, I doubted how much we would need here, but know I understand. Shopping is done mostly in the market and involves going to many different stores and bargaining in Indonesian for each item you buy. Having Ibu Citi’s help makes a big difference! We have internet at our house, but it also broke twice this week, and we had to go home for someone to fix it.
Today I rent a car with five other teachers to go to Semarang with a walmart like place, movie theatre, and mall. And tomorrow will be back to work after church!