Visiting and Learning

Thursday, July 27.

The day is beautiful. The hotel is full today so the wait for the elevator gave me time to admire the view from my 10th floor perch. I just realized there is a school nestled over there! I've been so distracted by the deserted building and fantasizing about why it is deserted and avoiding slipping on my Toe Shoes to go explore it, that I completely missed the school! Duh!

Lasma says if we were on the other side of the hotel, from here I could see the coast. I may try to sneak into a room after someone leaves just to see the view!

I made it downstairs for breakfast. I love that everyday they have potatoes cooked in different ways! A Scots-Irish girl will never go hungry!

The breads here are to die for! Always so fresh and yummy! So I had a full tummy heading to school to finish the presentations and watch the kids' drama the wrote!

Lasma picked up in the trusty Toyota and we were off to the Department of Tourism to learn more about Lampung. We met Kakak Budi who is Irianto's brother. He gave us some GREAT resources to share with our classrooms at home. THANK YOU

He found time to meet with us. We talked about Lampung and flowers and he served us some GREAT black coffee! He had interesting Lampung artifacts in his office!

I really appreciate Kakak Budi taking time with us!

Then it was off for more Chinese Noodles at Mie Lampung again! Christy did not get a chance to eat there before due to her stomach issues, so we did a replay. This time, I remembered to take a photo BEFORE I ate it all!

YUMMY!

Then Lasma had some business to do at UNILA, so we headed over to the University. We stopped in to visit with Ibu Flora and wish a graduate student luck on his English exam for a TOEFL degree! We also got to meet a couple of Flora's students.

We had good laughs about how to balance school life and home life and about the PR work they are doing in their villages to get more people into education and to learn English.

Then we went to Irianto's office. He works as a journalist for the online newspaper Saibumi.com. He said they are the number one online resource for Bandar Lampung and have been in existence for three years.

The journalists asked some thought provoking questions about US culture.

It was interesting to learn how they put out an online newspaper. They also treated us to several traditional Lampungese snacks and black coffee.

I think I'm in love with the coffee!

Lasma took us to her mother-in-law's house where they live until the new house is complete. She gave us a short tour and we met some of her family. She has an Arowana fish, almost as long as the one I had during college. She was surprised that I fed mine nightcrawlers by hand as they tend to be a bit aggressive and voracious eaters! She laughed when I told her he would jump out of the water trying to eat my cat when Molly would lay on top of the tank. Guess this is natural behavior since in the wild, they would jump up to eat birds on low hanging branches over water!

Then she took us on a short walking tour of the neighborhood. We stopped for a moment at the cemetery.

The neighborhood is a maze of narrow twisting streets only reachable by foot or motorcycle. It was a very informative walk.

As one might imagine on an island, property, especially in the city is very expensive. I asked how some people afford housing. Lasma explained that people will just find a place that has room for them to build a temporary structure out of wood or bamboo. These tend to look like little more than shacks. Then they pay a small rent to the land owner. If the land owner decides he needs the land, he tells the renter they have to move. The renter will take the house apart and move to another location.

Many people that but land start out with similar some houses and save money to add brick and concrete walls, and other "up grades". So that getting a nice house takes many years.

Lasma also explained that neighborhoods in Indonesia are not separated by socio-economic class. A very poor family in a self-made shack may live across the street (or next to) a brick and mortar house, and next to these may be a more expensive and modern house. Or maybe there is a market in the front of the house three doors down.

I didn't take photos of the neighborhood, but did get some of Lasma's flowers.