Week 13 -- ". . . where everyone knows your name"

This is my last week at LATIN and I’m both happy and sad to be finishing here. I’ve really settled in here in the last while. On the way to work and on the way back home people are shouting out “Hello, Meester Chris!” There are a group of kids who live in my neighbourhood who all come running out and say hello to me over and over as I walk home at the end of the day.

While I’ve experienced so much here, there will always be stuff I regret not doing. Like learning the language; when the VSO volunteer was here the other week he did a little introduction speech in Bahasa and it got a good response from the group. Unfortunately language training was never going to be a part of my placement and with everyone at home and work speaking some English it was easy for me to get by without learning to speak the local language. But I know that being able to speak Indonesian would have really enriched my time here.

Last weekend I attended the Environment Education Day that was set-up by LATIN and some other groups for a bunch of students from Jakarta. They all had hats and shirts provided by the Women’s International Club (WIC), and I managed to score a hat. It was cool to see some of the work done by LATIN. An environmental club from the local university was doing most of the activities with the kids, while the ladies from the WIC chilled out. The ladies came back to LATIN for a catered lunch and they all asked me the same two questions, “How long have you been in Indonesia?” and “How do you like it?” I gave them all the same answers, “Three months,” and of course “I really like it here.”

My attitude towards my time here has been flip-flopping lately because I’m not sure how I feel about living in another culture so deeply. As a tourist you tend to stick to touristy spots with other tourists, but working and living here has been very different. When people here tell me I should do something the “Indonesian” way I get a little resentful and want to tell them that I am Canadian and have my own way of doing things. But before I say anything I think about how we treat foreigners in the west, what with demanding that they speak English and such. While everyone here has recommended that I learn to speak Bahasa I never felt really intense pressure. It’s been enlightening to see things from the other side and there are definitely parts of the Indonesian culture that I really like and admire, but I know that any Indonesian mannerisms I picked up will fade pretty quickly once I’m back in Canada.

The other day I was zoning out while watching TV and started thinking about the fact that I’m leaving here in a few weeks. But it felt weird to say I was going home. I’ve been calling my home stay here home, and once I leave I’ll be moving around more. I decided that the concept of home is pretty fluid to me. By default my parents’ place in Victoria is the closest thing to home just because I lived there the longest and since moving out I’ve moved almost every three or four months. The last two school years in Kamloops have been the longest I’ve stayed in one spot in quite some time. You could say I’m a wanderer and I’d agree since I’ve been feeling good lately about my little holiday to the islands of Lombok and Bali coming up, just because it’s a chance to hit the road again.

These last few days at work have been somewhat frantic with my being a confirmed procrastinator. I presented the website to Arif, along with a press kit in English I put together to introduce interested people to LATIN. There are still some details that need to be updated or clarified for both the website and the press kit. When I get back from Bali I’ll be back in the office for a couple of days to help them get all the material totally done and ready to be put out there.

Then I will be on my way back to the Great White North. I’ll arrive in Vancouver around noon on August 26th, so if anyone wants to pick me up at the airport and give me a ride to the ferry terminal just send me an e-mail and I’ll give you my flight number and a more specific arrival time. It may seem a little shameless to ask for a ride like this, but I know that I’ll be super jet-lagged and I’m not looking forward to dragging my luggage, along with my tired ass, on two BC Transit buses to get to the ferry.