Village Life

Hanging out with some of the kids

Yeah Im kinda crazy

Geh Deutschland

Having lived my life in relatively decent sized cities, I am mainly a city boy. That being said, I loved the feel of Arkansas, going to school in Fayetteville which felt like a smaller city and had anything and everything you could ever need (in fact writing this i really miss it there) The city now even has a world class art museum, broadway plays, mall, many wal-marts, SEC Sports… I never really knew what life would be like away from the city. That being said when I moved to San Fran right after Arkansas, I had a panic attack, the traffic, the rent costs, how do I find friends and my way around such a ginormous place, I wanted to pack up and go back to the so called sticks.

 

Well now I find myself in the sticks….yeah I may be an hour from a big size city but regardless this is the village lifestyle. I have maybe 6 neighbors in my village (whom my lazy sleep who has been sleep deprived has yet to really meet). Being from the city I have always wondered what people did out here to entertain themselves. I see my fam gather around while someone does laundry and just watches. I am lucky and have yet to experience boredom (well outside of school where I sit there for hours doing nothing besides chatting with fellow teachers and playing table tennis) But at home I have plenty to do, so lets look at my daily schedule (this is no longer the case thou, because of the WORLD CUP, but ill touch on that later)

 

Monday-Saturday, I go to school.

Alarm is at 6:08 (im wierd and hate 30s and 00s)

Mandi (shower)

Eat around 635 (normally soup, fried chicken, eggs, fried noodles, fried potatoes)

Lay in bed until 655

Leave my home at 7 (yes thats the start time of school but I like to exercise Rubber Time, Integration is key people)

7-1:00/2:00 School, where currently I sit around and answer the same questions over and over again or playing table tennis

1:00/2:00 Eat Lunch at home

1:30/2:30-430- NAP TIME or movie time!

4:30-5:30-Reading

5:30-Mandi (shower)

6:00-Eat dinner

6:30-8:30- Watch the news with my family

8:30-bed time/ watching movies

 

There you have it, my daily schedule, no more guessing games right.

 

Of course like any other thing there are variations to my schedule but thats the gists of it.

 

 

This past sunday, I went for a walk to the nearby city Ngrambe because some how I went through 20 US dollars worth of Cell Phone minutes in about 3 days. While there Bu Har called me asking what I was up too and surprised I was in Ngrambe which is about a 40 minute walk with a steep hill along the way, which people repeatedly calling me strong because I made the journey…lol not really.

She took me to the local tourist spot called Jamus, which is a giant Tea Plantation area, it was very scenic and beautiful and nice and chilly!!! I loved the temperature. Besides the scenery they have pools and some tourists shops.

After a stressful week of adjusting to my village, I decided to go for a jog today, which failed as kids and other people were hanging out at my schools field where I was planning on jogging, in the end this turned out to be a good thing.

 

I went to my favorite place in the area which is the farms with rice and sugar cane. Although today I was adventurous and wondered into the jungle to see what I could find, and I found more farms, old abandoned roads and bridge, to a village…pretty flipping cool, I had amazing views of fields and the giant mountain that I live on the base of.  I meet some people and practiced my language skill. There were about 7 boys playing with a type of firework/loud cannon. The people I came across were in shock to see a bule/foreigner in their village. Although I had to race home to make it before the sun went down, I did take lots of pictures and of course some selfies because since Peace Corps I have been in a selfie type of mood, thanks Ben!

 

NOTABLES

-Never give out your phone number to students, I get text messages from two students who I gave them my number to contact me if they wanted to come over and study english, instead I get at least one message an hour asking me what I am doing.

-Its amazing how people (the same person) asks the same question every day and yet isnt bored with the same answer

-Instead of teaching other teachers here, people seem to care more about teaching me about Islam, making going to work very stressful as we have very different views of certain things.

-I am going to Jogja in a week!!!!! And I cannot be more excited as I will be meeting up with 6-7 other volunteers for some relaxing and fun times!

-This sunday I will be going to the local market, so that should be fun.

-Every time I play table tennis here, I get a smile on my face and think of Forrest Gump and how Asians love table tennis.

-One of the chickens here had babies, well interested me wanted to hold one, well mama chicken didnt like that and flew at my face with her claws, Robert Ran…lol

-Bu Har received a new nickname, Bu Gila (Ms Crazy) because after an electrician fixed my room, she thought it was too messy and reorganized ALL of my belongings.

 

 

WORLD CUP!!!!!!!

So if you know me then you know I LOVE SOCCER!

So one month out of every 4 years is the WORLD CUP, where 32 nations from around the world compete to win the championship.

Theres not much in this world that would make me get up at ungodly hours, but Soccer being my religion is one, yesterday I woke up at 1:30 in the morning to see the opening ceremony and the first game, and tonight, I should be asleep as I will be watching the game at 11pm, 2am and maybe 5am.

Soccer to me is just amazing and its hard to explain, I thought my village would be more into soccer as thats what I was told that they wanted a soccer coach (they dont have a soccer team) and that my village is soccer crazy (about 70 percent of the people here could care less)….aka some how I received very false info. I am shocked that I could find more fans in America then in a soccer friendly country., did I say I miss Batu, where I could rely on at least my brother to be up watching and cheering with me.

But never the less, you can guarantee that I will be awake in the middle of the night watching and cheering as quietly as possible as to not wake up my parents as the rest of the world and I cheer on our favorite teams.

Geh Deutschland!