Sea Tribe

We haven't been posting to our blog enough so I'm going to tell a couple stories...

We just arrived home from a 50 minute motorbike ride back from the city. We had a meeting we attended this morning. Well, as we set off to drive back to Kota Baru we saw a possible rain a brewin'. No big deal, happens all the time. About 10 minutes into our journey it starts pouring, big drops, big amounts, big rain (literal translation from Indoensian - Hujan besar). the roads flooded. In Indonesia the roads ARE the drainage system. Under the bridges massive amounts of people were waiting it out - not us, this was entertainment and a challenge. Bring it on. At one point we went through a stream in the road which splashed up and soaked our bottoms. Usually just your clothes get wet, but this time our skin was dripping inside our clothes - "soaked to the skin" - not quite the bone. next story.

Our cat had two kittens - this is her second litter and she's only a little over one year old. Once they were old enough we were going to give them away. Some friends from the school took one. The other one we gave away to the group of guys who hooked up our internet. Free cat, hey, we thought they'd probably sell it. a week and a half later we hear a raspy distraught kitten calling at the top of her lungs right outside our front door. Somehow, she had found her way back from - somewhere far probably. Pretty amazing for a 2.5 month old kitten. She's never been more affection starved then now. After that experience she's the perfect pet-me cat. In fact, we might name her that.

Futball

On more than two occasions the BAIS boy’s soccer team held practice in the rain. The kind of rain that soaks you to the bone. At the beginning of practice it was just a gloomy sky but gradually became a steady downpour, but, practice continues. The guys didn’t let it stop them. There was no complaining- no whining. In fact, their intensity increased hand in hand with the rain. It seemed, the larger the mud puddles, the greater their love for soccer.
These were moments that brought out the true soccer players of BAIS. Those players who never wanted to give up, and who would push through any confrontation, on or off the field, if that meant the team would benefit. Together we could rise, and together we could fall. It was all evident in those difficult moments.
Their hearts were tested through the season in difficult and unorganized games. But it always seemed that they would gather together through the testing. They were a team in the difficult times, as well as a team in the best of times. Their final and ultimate test was yet to come.
True to the hearts that were seen on the practice field during the hard rain, during the ISSAC tournament, BAIS players had hearts of hard leather. There in Surabaya, eight teams battled for the most revered title in the league, and BAIS won it. ISSAC ’08 Champions. The team with hearts, soft and tough, like leather boots.

This is David's ESL classroom.

And this is Tiffany's Preschool classroom (she also teaches middle school art but in a different room).

School starts on Aug 19th

<--This is our walk to school every morning.  It's a new development on the outskirts of Bandung.  It takes us about 20 minutes to get from our house to the school.

Well we made it safe and sound. We have begun to settle into the house the school has rented for us.

This first week is orientation for the new teachers, and the second week is In-Service teacher preparations. We are at the end of our first week and have had a crash course of Bahasa Indonesia. We'll continue with language lessons into the next few weeks.  Tiff and I have seen our classrooms, it's beginning to feel more real now.  We're starting to get our classrooms prepared for the students to come on the 19th. 

Ok here is a piece of our first Indonesian language lesson:

Kami tinggal di Kota Baru Parayangun.
We live in the new city of the Sundanese land

Here We Are...

Tiffany and I will be teaching this year at a christian school in Indonesia. Bandung Alliance International School. Tiffany will be teaching preschool 3 and 4 year olds. I'll be teaching middle and high school ESL. We'll be there for the next two years. Info post:

In the map above, the school is not yet pictured, but our apartment is there somewhere in the top right housing development. The school is almost finished being constructed, and if this picture were up to date, it would be attached to, what looks like an arm going off to nowhere, on the mid left part of the map. You should be able to put your mouse over the square and see it say "Bandung Alliance International School." Yep, there it will be/ already is. (If you want to zoom out and see the larger picture, click the minus symbol in the top left corner of the map).