Entering the Country

01/17/09

Just boarded the plane from LAX to Taipei. From there I’ll go to Kuala Lumpur, than to Medan, Indonesia, then another flight to Banda Aceh. I’ll be interning with Save the Children in Indonesia. Eleven years ago, my family became a Save the Children sponsor for an Indonesian boy. It sort of brings my experience full circle. I recall that last year I took notice to a story about an Indonesian man named Dede with an unfortunate condition where these warts were growing out of his hands and feet that almost seemed like tree branches. Doctors used to try to cut them off but they would grow back. A dermatologist from the University of Mayland visited him and hypothesized that the problem was his bodies reaction to a lack of certain vitamins and was working to cure him. This year as I was looking at the prospect of going to Indonesia, I saw a headline that things are getting better for the “Indonesian Tree Man”.

I was sitting next to a Malay (Malaysian) girl named Ezza, she taught me some Bahasa Malaysia words and told me how some of them may be different in Indonesia. We stopped in Taipei. They have a booth titled “Blind Massage Center” and there was none other than a blind man with strong hands who gives massages, he was good and cured by jetlag headache. When I reboarded the plane, Ezza and I were joined by a Chinese Malaysian girl. I am sitting between them both, I’m loving coach now! I’m learning that Malaysia has 3 main ethnic groups, Malays, Chinese and Indians. I PRESUME that the first 2 also make up a lot of Indonesia’s population. From previous experiences, I recall that in Cape Town, there was a population of South Africans of Indonesian and Malaysian descent called “Malays”. I BELIEVE that their ancestors were brought there as slaves for the Dutch (East India Company). Interesting coincidence that all the foreign countries I’ve lived in so far, are former Dutch Colonies…. Just a coincidence, and nothing else.

Ezza told me that the Kuala Lumpur airport is the best. I mentioned that the Singapore airport is the best I’ve ever seen. She told me to give this one a chance. It is nice, I don’t think anything can beat Singapore, but it’s got these cool elevators and a train to take you from one terminal to the next. It’s not quite the developing world yet, but I can feel the humidity which I didn’t feel in Taiwan. At first I couldn’t find a button for the elevator, it turned out to be at the top of this pole next to it, and I could figure out how to put anything in the trash cans. It looked like there was no opening, then I just pushed the top and it sort of rotated so I could put trash in. My flight to Medan was delayed, but we were given vouchers for free lunch at “Burger King” in the Kuala Lumpur Airport. Two business men were telling an airline staff member that he should try to find another plane. Then they laughed and said, “We’re Muslim, we’ll just jump and trust Allah” The staff member replied “Inshallah”. I smiled, and one of the businessmen asked me if I was Muslim. I replied that I wasn’t. We walked to Burger King together. I let them know that I’d be working in Indonesia. “Aceh?” they guessed. “All the foreigners are working there”, he said after I told him he was right. They were from Yemen and Lebanon, working with a Yemenese company in Medan. They said that Bahasa is an easy language to learn casually.

On the plane I was sitting with a lot of Chinese Indonesian girls who sell Tupperware in Medan. There were also some Indoesian girls wearing headscarves who sell Tupperware in Banda Aceh, so we affirmed that they may see me there. The girls from Medan told me that they were “Chinese Indonesians”, I asked the ones from Aceh if they were Malay, and everyone corrected me that they are “Indonesian”. Now I know, and we’ll see what else I learn.

I haven’t seen my new hometown of Banda Aceh yet.

Exiting MIIS

For the last year and a half, my whole world has only included MIIS, Alvarado Street and sometimes Washington St, and the Wharf. However, that small world has been the whole world, or some of the brightest minds from all over the entire world. I have been able to hear first-hand about experiences growing up in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan. Yet there have been so many potentially good times that were never realized because of so much work to do. The work adds a lot of stress and extreme emotions to the mix, but nevertheless, the skills developed through hard work and the contacts made from our diverse student body shall always be of help to me, without a doubt.

A strong emotion now is how many people I will miss. Though this internship is the beginning of exactly what I came here to do. I know that I enjoy living among other cultures and am eager to learn new languages, but where else could I greet people in 100 languages in 1 day? MIIS is a unique microcosm of the world.