Well, I am here.

I am here. It is lovely. Although a bit hot and I have a little bit of culture shock! Mostly the shock comes from how they drive here. I thought I might die about 200, not exaggerating, during the 2 hours drive from Jogja to Salatiga. But I didn’t. Obviously. So that was nice. Also the way they shower and some of the bathroom habits are new. I knew about mandi, but I didn’t really think about wet bathrooms. Mandi is how they shower here. They have a big “tub” that they keep water in and you use a bucket to dump the water over your head. Thats all good. Not as nice as a long, hot American shower but it gets me clean. That is what’s important anyways. The concept of no toilet paper in the bathroom, just using water to wash yourself off is a bit strange for me. I am going to have to buy some tp. The house that I’m staying in is neat. It is open air and has some beautiful Javanese architecture and trimming. No AC, but I’m used to that. They have TV, which I’m not so used to but it could come in handy. Listening to the language helps. I am terrified about my program though. I don’t speak enough Indonesian. I just don’t I understand about 1/3 of what is going on and that usually isn’t enough to gather info from context. So I’m struggling. I probably will for the next two months. I’ve lost a lot of Bahasa Indonesia that I thought I still had. Some of it did come back today during orientation. Some. We will see what comes back over the next few days. I’m also going to study the Bahasa Indonesia books I brought with me. A LOT. So that should help some. I just need more vocabulary back in my head. I  know sentence structure and grammar but man my vocab is minimal right now. I feel a bit like a child. These other kids in the program are waaaay more advanced than me. They seem to understand everything that is said. But they are nice and they are helping me. So… ya, struggles and some help. This is how I get better though, right? Right? This and my books. So, language here we come!