Aasha's Life Adventures : My First Days in Jakarta

I left for Jakarta, Indonesia last Tuesday (June 19th) from O'Hare in Chicago. The flight was 15 hours long! I flew with another teacher, Ike, who was also hired at the Bina Bangsa School. We spent most of the flight trying to sleep, so we didn't talk a lot. We talked mostly during meals. I watched a lot of movies and listened to a lot of music when I wasn't sleeping.

We arrived in Hong Kong at about 8 pm on Wednesday. Our cab ride was over $40 US from the airport to the hotel. I had a room to myself. It was so nice to lay down in a bed instead of trying to sleep in my seat on the plane. The hotel room was small, but very clean and nice. When we first got there, we could not figure out how to turn our lights on. Haha, silly Americans. I finally figured it out that there was a card slot on the wall where you inserted your room key and they would turn on.

My flight from Hong Kong to Jakarta was just over 4 hours long. Not as bad as the first part of the trip. We arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia around 1 pm Thursday. An agent from the school was waiting for us to help us with our visas, and he waited with us until we got our luggage. Then a driver from the school brought us to our apartment.

After I was dropped off in my apartment, I had no idea what to do! I didn't have to go to orientation, since it was already early afternoon. When I first walked into my room there were bugs crawling all over!! I thought it was so disgusting. They were on my bed. I didn't want to sleep in there, so I went out on the couch and turned on the tv. I took a little bit of a nap, and waited for my roommate to come home.

My roommate's name is Amber, and she is from Tennessee. After she got home we both realized that we did not like the bugs in our apartment at all. She informed me that they were cockroaches. How disgusting!! She introduced me to some other teachers in our building (Ike's roommates). We decided to sleep in their apartment, because they do not have nearly as many cockroaches as we do.

On Friday morning, we got up and went to school. Our driver that picked us up from the airport is the driver that takes us to school everyday. We learned about our duties and responsibilities and played some get to know you games. All of the other teachers are very nice. At lunch time we had KFC chicken. It was the first meal I had since I arrived.

After school we went to the mall that is close to our apartment building. It's quite a walk, but we made it. Everywhere we go people stare and us and laugh. The people are very friendly though when you ask them for help. My roommate has a Indonesian phrase book, so we try to use that as much as we can. It is a challenge when you are out trying to shop, because not many people speak English here. It's kind of crazy that this city has so many malls! They are huge malls like the Mall of America, yet there are so many poor areas.

I received all of my books on Saturday and need to start lesson planning for 3rd grade Science, 4th grade English, and 4th grade Math. I have to have at least one week of lessons done for each subject by the end of next week. We also have to do a lesson demonstration on Tuesday or Wednesday. I have a lot of work to do!

Amber and I are still not sleeping at our apartment, because the bugs have not gone away. It's getting better, and I'm sure it will keep getting better. I just have to get used to things and give it some time.