Where have you gone!?
Inbox vomit.
happyarethose-whodream asked you:
Well, I’ve been wondering the same thing. Just last year I was a laid back, schedule hating, rule breaking nobody. Now, every minute of my day is scheduled, I am constantly making and enforcing rules and dozens of families are depending on me (and my employees) to educate their children. So, I guess I’ve gone into whatever abyss it is that eats preschool teachers alive… and I love it.
garotadancar asked you:
you seem to be the most down to earth mom i have encountered so far on tumblr. and when i say down to earth i mean “the most real.” for example, your post about how you felt when you first saw your son seemed more like reality than the rainbows-and-sunshine-oh-look-at-my-cute/heavenly/celestial being-baby-i-just-spent-400-million-hours-in-labor-for other blogs have. I applaud your efforts to have the courage to be a western mom in an eastern world. :)
Thank you so much for your kind words. There aren’t many things that I’d rather be called than “down to earth”. And I certainly didn’t give birth to a celestial being… more like a super-annoying crying and pooping machine who turned out to be a pretty freakin’ awesome toddler. NOt totally sure whether it’s courage or craziness tht keeps me here… perhaps a bit of both.
Anonymous asked you:
I married a a guy from Malaysia in 2000 and would like to know how you learned the language of your husband. Are you still doing updates to Western Mom Eastern World?
First of all, Indonesian is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn, so it wasn’t as heroic as learning Mandarin or something. Secondly, we live in Indonesia so I didn’t really have a choice about learning. Not many people here speak English, so if I was going to make it I had to learn. I never took any classes or anything, I just spent lots of time with my neighbors and watched the local news. I do intend to continue updating to this blog, I’m just super overwhelmed with work having just started my own school. And hey, good choice marrying a Malaysian… Eastern Asian guys are hot.
rollawaythedew asked you:
I was searching about the eastern world and I came across your blog and I am so glad that I did! After reading your bio and looking at your blog, I was so excited because you are living the life that I dream of. You are such an inspiration to me to make my dream of traveling the world and doing good in the world come true! I wouldn’t mean to take up your time, but I would love to hear some experiences and stories from you! With much love, Mike
Hi Mike! It is so nice to know that there are people out there who still dream of doing good and not just living for themselves. Life is so satisfying when you live for something greater than your own life. I tell people this all the time, but no one ever takes me seriously: If you really want to live this life and travel the world, just choose a place, pack a bag and buy a plane ticket. People try to make it all complicated, but it really is that simple. Trust me, I’ve done it more than once. And hey, stick around, you’re sure to hear some experience stories.
lalifeasus asked you:
update?? how is the school going? how is the house coming along?
Everything is coming along very quickly. I can hardly believe that we are half way into our second semester. Our number of students grew so rapidly that we had to move out of the school. We now have 21 kids… so fun! The little house we rented is perfectly quaint. It’s a bit moldy and a bit primitive, but it’s just what you expect for $250 a year.
There is an angel who lives a city away who is in the process of buying a very large piece of land for us to build a school on. This means that hopefully, by the end of the next school year we can be in our own place. I am so excited!
Bath-time as Mavvo knows it. What am I going to do when he outgrows the bucket?
Look at the size of this butterfly! It landed on the tree beside our swing set this morning. The kids couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. My husband says it’s called an elephant butterfly. Amazing. It was 11 inches wide!
Talking about the giant elephant beetle on the ground...
- Mavvo: Mommy, look at that beetle!
- Me: Wow Honey, I see it.
- Mavvo: He's huge!
- Me: Ya he sure is....
- Mavvo: Huge like a crocodile.
- Me: A crocodile? He is pretty big. Ha ha ha
- Mavvo: He's a Crocobeetle!
Best Weekend Ever: number one.
Last week Mavvo learned how to ride his tricycle. At the very moment I saw him come riding through the house with the world’s biggest smile on his face something in my heart died…. and something else was born. The following Saturday morning we took him to the International School behind our house where they have this awesome, Sumatran soil running track.
Watching him ride along with all the confidence his little body could hold was among the best times of my life. My husband and I beamed with pride-fear-joy (that’s a thing that only parents know about).
Munchkin crashed a few times, but a kiss fixed everything and he was right back on his feet… er, wheels.
Later in the morning Mav decided that he wanted his face painted like a tiger. Request granted.
He was super into looking at himself in the mirror. So funny!
After his nap, we headed out to the train museum in the next town over. Mavvo wanted to keep his face painted, and against my better judgement I allowed it. We get so much attention anyway, the last thing I wanted to do on our only day off was draw more gawking and staring our way. Oh well. The train museum was free and pretty well maintained.
As a expected, the bus loads of kids on field-trips began laughing out loud and saying stupid things as soon as Mavvo took of his motorcycle helmet. It didn’t last long though, once I told them all they needed to ask before just running up and taking pictures of us they realized I could speak (and understand) Indonesian and felt really embarrassed for being so rude. We enjoyed the rest of our day exploring the dozens of antique steam engines they had on display.
It was so much fun to have the freedom to open all the hatches and pull all the rusty levers. Thats the thing I love the most about the developing world, the freedom in the lack of enforced laws. (It’s also the thing I hate the most. Whatever)
Eventually we gave in to the paparazzi and took pictures with some of the sweet little girls that were following us around.
Mavvo spent a good hour running up and down the tracks saying things like, “Traintastic!” and “Ah Bumpers!”. Thanks Chuggington.
And then there is this photo from inside on of the boxcars. Dirty knees, weird face, huge shoes… when did he get so big?
All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. We are so busy with this new school that we make the most of every moment of our Saturdays. This weekend we went up to the mountains and explored ancient temples on horseback. Cool! That post to come. I’ve gotta go come up with a preschool craft for K is for Koala Bear. Thank God for Pinterest!
Bedtime Stories by Mavvo, Ed. 01
As we are laying down to sleep for the night..
Mavvo: Mommy, I wanna tell you a story.
Me: Sure Baby, go for it.
Mavvo: Once upon a time, there was a little boy and a Princess. The little boy’s name was Mavvo and he had a magic horse.
Me: What was the Magic Horse’s name?
Mavvo: Tricky Moon.
Me: Great name. What was special about tricky Moon?
Mavvo: He was special because he could fly. He flew high, high in the sky. And he loved to eat.
Me: Eat what?
Mavvo: Kacang Ijo (Mung Beans) and chocolate milk. And after he ate it, he grew big and he was an elephant.
Me: Wow! That is big. Then what?
Mavvo: Then he went to bed, Mommy… the rooster didn’t say “kakadoodledoo” yet so he can’t get out of his bed. You have to sleep too… and me… cuz we are huge elephants too. We ate chocolate milk.
The Day We Went Crazy… And It Worked.
July 7th, 2012. It was my husband’s birthday and we had decided to get away for a day and forget about all the stress of being unemployed and trapped in Visa issues that didn’t allow me to work. We have friends in the little, mountain town where we met, so we headed on up to spend a night.
While we were there, the friends that we were staying with told us of the need in town for a full English, International standard Preschool. We thought about it for a couple hours, and then made a decision. We would drive around, and if we could find “the perfect place” to live and start a preschool, then we would do it. We had nothing to lose.
An entire day of searching turned up nothing that seemed right. Then, in the shadows of dusk we decided to make one more swipe of the area we expected to be way too expensive and over searched by renters.
There it was! A man had just put up a sign, “For Rent” on a house with a big wrap around yard. Perfect! It was 8PM by the time we got back to our friends house and called the owner of the prospective property. By 8AM the next day my husband had signed the 2-year-contract. The contract alone was for more than 16-times what we had in the bank, not to mention all the work it needed. Still, we signed on the line, in faith that this was the right thing to do.
Four days later we left Yogyakarta, the city we loved, to move to Salatiga… the little town where we met 5 years before.
When we arrived in Salatiga, we had to borrow money to pay the moving truck. Embarrassing. We moved in to the house, by faith, without having paid the contract.
Within less than 3 weeks time we had received enough help from friends and family to get the place looking somewhat like a Preschool. We had an open house at the 3 week mark, and opened our doors with 8 students on August 8th.
Now, two months later, we are running smoothly with 17 students. God is so awesome. It was a crazy decision that we gave little thought to, and it worked. We just took a flying leap and landed on our feet. Thanks be to a God who is gracious and friends and family who are generous!
Sorry for not updating while this was all happening, but as you can imagine I’ve been a little busy. Did I mention that the school is in our house? Ya, busy.
So there’s my excuse. I can even prove it. Head on over HERE to see what our quiet little life has turned into.
I really do intend to keep blogging here, especially since I have so much blogging-fodder with 17 toddlers in my house every day. So much craziness!
Fate, Jungle Schools and Tribal Ties
Last week I wrote about how my husband and I are both out of work. I may not have mentioned that we are also out of a place to live as of February 2013. I’ve been stressed over the situation, understandably, until a couple days ago.
On Saturday I decided that there must be a reason that our professional life has suddenly come to a screeching halt, and I decided to not worry about it any more. I figured, God has never forgotten about me in the past, surely He won’t now. And with a prayer and a deep breath, I gave up the burden of trying to fix my life on my own, and left it up to God to make a way where I couldn’t see one.
Monday morning brought a call from a friend. She had met a woman at her church who was living in Kalimantan (Borneo) running a Kindergarden. This woman told my friend that she came to Yogya (where we live) for vacation and that she really needed a partner to work with her in the village in Kalimantan who wanted to start an Elementary School.
My husband and I have always been working toward the goal of starting a school (several, actually) in a rural village somewhere. We would love to move to Papua (Irian Jaya), but so far we haven’t found a way. My friend knows our heart for education in Indonesia and asked this random woman if she had time to meet us.
Today, they showed up at our house at 9:30 AM. After introducing myself, I discovered that she belonged to the same tribe as my husband, Toba Batak. Then, when I asked about her family clan we both paused with open jaws. She and my husband are even from the same clan, Tambunan! Small world!
So, she stayed until well after lunch. We talked and laughed like family, and analyzed whether or not we are a good fit for becoming the partners that she is looking for. My husband and I both feel like we are, but it’ll take some time in prayer and waiting on everyone to agree. And a survey trip for my husband, too.
I’m not sure what is going to happen, but I feel like this woman, my tribal sister-in-law, is going to be a catalyst for a big change in our near future.
Moving would be a huge deal. It would mean really hard work, a new twist on the language, completely different culture, semi-primitive living conditions, limited food/entertainment variety and a lot of temporal uncertainty.
It would also mean rainforest, orangoutangs, endless adventure, potential to use our talents and passions without boundaries, invest our lives in a needy and forgotten area of the world and bring light to a place where people need help seeing in the dark.
I can’t wait until I can write an update on this post. I’m excited to see what is going to happen. Maybe slightly nervous too, but I wont admit it.
(photos of Kalimantan are not mine. Click though links are set.)
Day 2 of Weekend for The Boy
After filling Saturday with big trucks and dinosaurs, it was only fitting that Sunday be dedicated to horses and the beach. The nearest beach is south of us- the Southern coast of Java Island bordered by the Indian Ocean. It sounds super exotic, but it feels much less so.
As soon as we got there, Mavvo saw a man on a horse. He lost his mind. He ran as fast as he could, jumping and screaming… so excited that he was going to ride a real horse. We found three little island horses for rent, two of which were pregnant and one who looked like she would disintegrate at any moment. I was worried that Mavvo would bounce and kick while we rode along, so I chose the half-dead horse over the pregnant ones.
I strapped the kid into the frontal carrier (paranoid? Maybe.) and planted myself into the saddle with ridiculously short stirrups. We rode for half an hour, which let us cover a decent portion of the shore line. Mavvo was so serious! There was no bouncing or kicking like I expected. He just held those reigns and told the horse to “Giddy-up!”.
It was so windy! The sand whipping through the air reminded me of the sand-storms in Sudan, only much less adventurous. I love this picture of Mavvo with his hair all crazy.
After giving the horse a sufficient amount of hugs and kisses, the kiddo headed straight for the water. The tides at this beach a terrifyingly strong. The locals say that the Green Goddess of the South Sea requires that a certain amount of people be sacrificed (drowned) to satisfy her revenge. Whatever. I say knee deep only and let the Green Goddess eat fish.
Mavvo feared neither the wrath of the Green Goddess nor the swarms of little crabs in the sand. He also didn’t seem to care that he was the only one on the entire beach on a bathing suite. That’s one of the funniest things, to me, about living in an Islamic country… seeing women fully dressed, heads covered, splashing around in the waves.
The day wouldn’t have been complete without digging a big hole and getting sand stuck in every possible crevice.
Mavvo is yet to stop talking about how he rode a real horse. This morning we were Skyping (that’s a verb, right?) with my Mom and Mavvo goes, “I’m a horse junkie!”. So cute, even though I’m certain he doesn’t know just what he’s saying.
I think it’s safe to say that we were successful at creating some good summer-time memories. We have another horse filled weekend planned, but in the mountains. It also happens to be my husband’s birthday on Saturday, and we’ll be in the town where we met. I better start scheming now on how I can make it special.
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