The Tikus and The Kitty

Well, it's official.  I saw my first tikus in the kitchen 3 nights ago.  I walked in to make dinner, and there he was, looking up at me.  He then hopped away through a crack in the cabinet on the floor, and he was gone.

Julianne, thanks for the help with the text to Tanta Yeti.  Maaf, saya tidak ada air dan saya lihat tikus besar di dapur.

Yeah, for those of you who are translate savy, I was also out of water again 2 days ago too.  Seems it gets shut off if they notice I'm not actively using it.  Hmmm.....

The last 3 days have been fun.  I went to the campus and met the Dean of the Languages Faculty.  There are 7 Faculties in the school.  Not the owner of my house, BTW.  Turns out it's the Dean of Engineering's summer house.  I met a few of the students there.

I am huge, but TALL!

The library.  Kinda sad, huh?

Marko working on his thesis in the library.  Excellent English!

One of the buildings of the Foreign Language Fakultas

No classes yet.  No schedules either.  Seems maybe there might have been, and that's why they were hanging around, but nope.  Things like that are very laid back here.  Imelda said many of them will be here for the couple of days to find out their schedules, and then go back home until after the holidays.  Things like schedules and attendance are pretty relaxed here.  I hope that's true for me too.  The ELF's are planning our own trip to Bali for the holidays, but it is not set yet when exactly I need to be back.  Before I left the US, I was told the 17th would be fine.  Now class may start on the 13th (Julianne and Mark say probably not).  Imelda has told me that it is fine to stay away with my friends, but she's also the one who told me my internet would be free, so waited for confirmation from a higher power.

Speaking of which, I haven't seen or spoken with my counterpart since Friday.  It's now Wednesday.  I hope she isn't upset with me about my reaction to the house.

I did go to try and meet the Head of the English Department a couple of times.  She never showed up the first time.  Well, she did actually, but was busy, and then left in a hurry for Manado.   I was taken for Chinese for lunch, which was wonderful.  Here was a gorgeous view on the way home.

Rice patties and mountains in the distance

People keep asking me if I like the food here.  To be honest, I haven't really had that much.  Just the couple of outings I have been on, and 2 of those have been Chinese food.  There are no restaurants in the nearby village except the kind that have food sitting out in the windows (Padang).  When you sit down, they bring everything over.  When you're done, they return it to the wondows.  Not sanitary in the slightest.  Germs from other people , first of all.  Second, it just sits there all day, and third, seeing glances at where they are preparing this food, kinda makes me wanna ralph.  This was one of the major warnings from both the orientations, as well as from Julianne.  Not gonna risk it yet.  I need to wait and find bigger or crowded ones (thanks for the tip Michael).  So, instead I've only eaten at a 3 walled Chinese place, including today.  Today I got to wipe dirt off of my plate, though.  Yum yum.

So instead, I eat soup at home and raw and peeled veggies that I have scrubbed in the sink.  I can't to salads, because I have no way to clean the lettuce.  :(  I will miss my salads.  They will probably be the staple item whenever I go on vacation while I'm here.  I also bought a pre-cut packaged veggie thing with a sauce packet.  Like everything was cut and included for me, including a cut up chicken meatball.  It was DELICIOUS.  Not sure is this was the recommended preparation, but it sure tasted good.

When I finally met the Head of the Department yesterday, she asked me what my name was, and what my qualifications were as a teacher.  She also asked how long I was going to be there, and what I would like to teach.  Very interesting.  Didn't you know I was coming?  My counterpart not being there, my other helper, Imelda was there to lend a hand.  I basically got to pick my own classes and schedule.  Sweet!  2 sections of Speaking III, 1 of Writing II, and 1 Cross Cultural Understanding.  Afterwards, we all went to lunch at the Mayor of Tomohon's house.  Not with the mayor or anything...in between elections, the house is lived in by the "caretaker" of the city.  His wife is a lecturer at the school.  She had surgery a while ago, and is still bedridden, but enjoys company, so instant 20 person lunch!  The grounds were absolutely beautiful, and the house was HUGE.

Robert, the Kajur, and the Secretary of the English Department.
The Kajur is the Department Head.

One, yes only one, of the main rooms of the house.

A totally different main room.  They probably have rabbits too.

Speaking of houses, this lack of water at appropriate times thing that I have going on is going to be a problem.  I woke up yesterday, and plugged in the pump.  Nothing.  Lucky though, Tanta Yeti was about, and they fixed it.  The pump was sounding worse and worse.  It has since been "kinda repaired" and isn't nearly as scary to plug in now.  I had water when I woke up this morning, no problem (which was good since I woke up 20 minutes before I was supposed to be picked up, because I had set my alarm for 8:25 pm instead of am.  Whoops!  At least I randomly woke up on my own).

I have even more rabbits.  Lots and lots of rabbits.  Today there was a whirlwind of activity as they boarded up a bunch of holes throughout the house, in an effort to curtail my rabbit problem.  They did this, because yesterday the fix was to give me a cat to live in the house with me.  I nixed that.  I mean, I have Mina at home, and I do miss her, but I will probably be very allergic to this new cat (as usual) and I don't really think they have baby power scented kitty shampoo here, nor flea collars.  And, as a person who has been bit by fleas while sleeping, it's not something I want to risk.  So, boards it is.  Good times. We'll see if I wake up with this again tomorrow.

Little presents all over my sink.

Yes, that's rabbit turds in my bathroom sink.  Good times.

I have however, been keeping on top of the mosquito issue.  There's this stuff here called Force Magic.  It is a bug killer which is pretty nicely scented.  I use it with a heavy hand.  It is pretty fun to spray it around the bare bulb in the kitchen and watch the bugs literally fall out of the air.  I then have to sweep them up, but I have no problem with that.  In the morning too, there tends to be about 20 dead insects on my kitchen table.  Again.  I do not have a problem with this.  Dead mosquitoes and gnats to not bite me.  I do however have a big problem with a possible side effect.  I haven't had nearly as many geckos around.  Then last night I found one in my sink after I washed my dishes.

Very sad looking, totally water logged gecko.  :(

I thought he was just hiding in there, but then I realized that maybe I had poisoned him and I got really sad.  Then I thought that even if I hadn't, maybe I had drowned him while doing my dishes.  I scooped him out, and he was moving a little.  I went to flip him outside onto the grass so he could get out of my toxic kitchen, and....I kid you not....I flung him against the outside wall of the house instead.  I am SO uncoordinated.  He was crawling on the ground a little after, all limbs functioning, but so slowly and sadly.  I checked on him a little while later, and he had moved about a foot.  He was not there this morning.  I am in denial again, and believe he regained full function and scampered off later in teh night to go hang with his gecko friends.  They of course all have British accents.

Today at school was INTERESTING.  I was told yesterday that there was going to be an introduction for the Semester I students.  They wanted me to be there so they could show me off.  That turned into sitting down in the front of a lecture hall with 400+ students and staff, and being whispered to, "You will make a presentation about how to learn a foreign language."  "30 minutes is ok?"  Um......sure.  I hastly wrote down an outline (always carry a paper and pen) and gave it a go.  I think I did OK.  I even spoke a little Indonesian to make the students giggle.  I tried to upload a video here of all of the students singing a grammar song.  It was really cool.  Too bad my computer isn't cooperating.

 I still saw lots of texting "out of sight" like in handbags, backpacks, and behind papers.  Just like home!  :)

Like I said, when I got home today, there was a flurry of hole covering.  Here are some pictures of my house BTW.  It really is cool.  It's just a really cool wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere, which would be awesome as a summer home (which it is).

The "main" room.  It is a pretty sweet micro-suede
couch.  It just happened to be covered with
spiders and dead insect carcases when I first got here.
Febreeze to the rescue!!!!

My awesome kitchen.  Complete with 1 hotplate stove
and holes in all the screens.  My precious "Force Magic" is on top
of the cabinet (the only storage) with the yellow cap.

 Yay!  Home is getting better.  Then there was a huge downpour.  It was fun.  I was sitting in my room, checking my e-mail, and then I realized that it was raining in my room.

My room.  Notice the awesome bedspread, and
the still living out of suitcases that I'm doing.
The rain came in by the pink curtain.

Oh crap.  Seriously, will it ever end?  I grabbed a bucket and prepared to sit it out...Until it started in more than one place, and I didn't have any more buckets.  I gave up and shouted at the workers next door, "Maaf, saya ada air di kamar."  Boom.  They were on it!  Climbing into the roof with a homemade bamboo ladder and mailing more stuff to the house.  The rain blew away as this was happening though, so I'll need to wait to see if it's fixed.

Just another adventure.  :)

Here's a random picture of some chickens that live with me.
Did you know that roosters do not start cock-a-doodle-doing
when the sunrises?  It's more like 3:30am.