Building a Routine (and breaking it down again)

Halo Teman-teman Saya! (Hello my friends!)

I am now at the end of training week 5, which marks the half way point of PST. It also means that I just finished my school practicum last week and that I only have one more week of Bahasa Indonesian classes left. Everything has been flying by and as I sit here to write an entry about my daily schedule (which I meant to do in my second week), I find that the “normalcy” will change for the third time at the beginning of next week (and will be completely turned upside-down the week after).

Anyway PST started with us having language class 4 days a week from 8-12pm and spending the afternoon going around the village or having “link” (where three villages come together for a training session in TEFFL or safety and security) in another village. This lasted for 2 weeks and in week 3 our schedules changed to fit in our practicum. For the last three weeks we have gone to our practicum school 4 days a week and then we switched our language classes to the afternoon.

The language is coming along well. I don’t think that there are many language programs better than the one that PC has in place (simply because you are required to learn it as fast as possible). I haven’t tried to learn anything other than Chinese, but you certainly do pick everything up a lot faster when you are studying a language for four 4 hours a day and going home to a host family that primarily speaks Indonesian. That said there is absolutely a cap on how much you can take-in in one day. Sometimes you really can’t cram in more than 15-20 new words even though you have 40 written down. Although I am far from understanding everything that people say to me, I do feel that I have the ability to express my thoughts most of the time. I even felt confident enough in my language to purchase a Bible and Goblet of Fire this weekend (along with good and reliable dictionary). The Bible is in both English and Indonesian and I have all the HP audio books, so with those resources and the dictionary I feel that I can slowly muddle my way through both books.

Anyway back to the schedule. So most mornings I wake up around or a little before 6. This time did change to about 4:45 when I was doing my practicum. I think that will be the more realistic time when I start working at a school full time. Both times usually give me enough time to mencuci (wash) my clothes from the previous day, mandi (bathe), read/study for about 15 minutes, eat breakfast and pack lunch, pack my bag and be on my way. After that I head to my morning activity.

For the last three weeks the morning activity has been school. The first week we only watched classes and worked with our counterparts to lesson plan for the next week. Week 2 we started getting more involved in the classroom and we did 20-30 min. activities with the students. Our village split up into two groups and we each taught 2 or 3 classes that week. Then this last week we each taught full classes with our counterpart. I will give you a bit more detail on all of that in another post later this week (I promise because it will be written tonight!).

When we have language in the morning then we usually have link in the afternoon. These can be very technical, but they are necessary for people like me who have not taught English before. Peace Corps Indonesia tries very hard to make sure their sessions are not lectures. This is good because they recognize that you learn more in other ways, but at the same time can get tiresome to always break up into groups and talk or try to put a puzzle together. The reason I am not always a fan of these situations is because I am never sure if I am getting all the information that they want me to get. In general I do feel that they have provided me with more than enough resources. I believe I am set for at least my first month of teaching (although I could be wildly mistaken).

After link or language I usually arrive home around 5 (sometimes a bit later, but always before 6). I sit with the family for awhile and/or mandi again. I usually sit with my family again until I am told that it is time for dinner. I tend to eat dinner on my own, but sometimes the older of my two younger sisters eats with me. We then head back into the living room and sit around again and sometimes watch tv. Then around 7:30 or 8 I head into my room and unwind for a little bit. I am always in bed and asleep by 9pm (but usually 8:30) and soon a new day begins.