Wow today has been an interesting day.. actually its been a little overwhelming but its not too bad.. Today we got up, found out some info on our host family, cleared out of Surabaya and made our way to Malang. The scenery was really beautiful and all the villages/cities we passed through were just something else.. I dont think i really felt like i was in Indonesia until i left Surabaya..
After about 2.5 hours we made it to UMM the university in Malang.. it is huge! they have the biggest buildings it is really pretty there.. I will only be going to campus once a week on Fridays to meet up with the whole group.. other than that i will be in my village with my three other volunteers. So we got lunch at the University and then set out for the grand adventure.. It is sooooo pretty up here.. all the mountains and rice paddies and its so green! I guess last year they didnt really have a dry season up here.. it kinda rained all the time.. which is what it is doing as i am writing this.. I am only about 10 minutes away from UMM but i feel like i could be hours.. it is a totally different place.. Daniel, who is the closest to me, got dropped off first.. He only has a host mother, or Ibu, and she is about 66 and she makes and sells cookies.. she was really nice of course started yammering away to me in Indonesian.. ahhhhh! lucky i still had some of the people from peace corps there so he translated for me.. She called me pretty haha :) after that we went to my family.. im not too far from Daniel but im back off the street up an alley way.. we walked up to the house and my host mother walked out with her daughter with a big smile on her face.. it was a good sign..
my guide walked me in and sat down for a moment while i went to my room to find my dictionary.. I only know like 20 words in indonesian and... none of it is very relevant to me at the moment.. so my guide left and the moment i was dreading came.. i was alone in a house where no one really understood english.. i meet everyone and i have one Ibu (mother) one Bapak (father) a little sister, who is 5, a brother who is 12 and a sister who is 19. I also have a grandmother.. its pretty neat being in a full house and little did i know the house would be so big that my Bapak’s sisters live in the house/surrounding area.. pretttty crazyy..
but anyways.. the house i really nice and its bright lime green.. its not a bad color but it makes everything glow.. pretttty nuts.. as we sat down and watched some tv the little sister kept starring at me. it was funny and i kept trying to look at her when it happened and she would always look away. I got fed some rice, vegetables and eggs and it filled me wayyyyyy up.. i felt bad saying no to the food so i was struggling to eat it all.. i didnt want to have my house mom throw it away. its going to be an interesting few weeks until i can figure all this out and how to talk to them.. hopefully it doesnt take too long to adjust or im not sure i can do this.. the language barrier is enough for me to want to go some where and practice for like a year before coming here.. i feel so frustrated that i dont know anything.. makes it a little difficult.. though it turns out that my eldest sister knows some english so she has been translating what she can, which is helping a lot..
well im about to pass out.. its been a long day and tomorrow will be even longer..
love you all :)
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