the best love story I know

I know, I know I contradict myself a lot.

A few months back I described this country as a bad boyfriend and I’m sorry Indonesia, you aren’t bad. The truth is Indonesia is easily the love of my life.

I fell in love with this place somewhere around the age of 6 or 7. Yes, young love. Indonesian was the language offered at my primary school and for whatever reason, it fascinated me. My memories from my early days of learning Indonesian include repeatedly watching a documentary on Waterbomb Park in Bali and dreaming about going there (which I still haven’t got around to doing) and watching another video about some teenagers and laughing that they were listening to a band named ‘Gigi’ because I thought ‘teeth’ was a ridiculous band name (who knew that 15 years later I would watch that very band live).

As a six year old, my parents took me to the Indonesian embassy in Canberra. I mean it’s a building with some random information about Indonesia, but to me it was everything (look how happy I look). That’s what being in love with a country was like back then, I was always enthusiastic about my Indonesian studies, spending hours looking up things in the dictionary and probably driving my teachers crazy by asking them to translate random words.

it makes sense that this incredibly dorky kid would grow up to be the incredibly dorky adult I am today

At my primary school graduation, I won an award for the most enthusiastic Indonesian student in my school. I don’t keep in touch with anyone from my primary school, but I’m pretty sure I’m still the most enthusiastic Indonesian student to this day. J

I continued my Indonesian studies in high school. My favourite memories from high school were my teacher loosely translating “dude where’s my car” to “ay, dimana mobil?” and me saying that repeatedly, my crazy teacher who wrote weird songs in Indonesian, going by the name Kartini in class as we had to use Indonesian names (one of my classmates insisted on being called ‘Belalang’ for some reason) and Indonesian still being my favourite subject. At the end of my last 2 years of school, I also won awards for the top student in my class.

the Indonesian room was also the most beautiful classroom in my school

From that point, it made sense to continue studying Indonesian in university with the plan to one day become an Indonesian teacher in Australia.

I took a one year break from studying, so when I started university and I walked into a classroom that was fully in Indonesian, I was lost. I remember my first oral exam when my teacher asked what I thought of racism in Australia, all I could manage to say is “I’m not racist”. I was the worst student in my class… easily (and I’m not saying that, I seriously often had no idea what was going on in class).

But it wasn’t from a lack of effort. I spent my free time writing random stories in Indonesian and  listening to Indonesian music. I googled key words such as “lagu cinta” (love song) and downloaded random songs. That’s how I started listening to Rossa, Peterpan and Sheila on 7. And all the songs I listened to had the word “cinta” in the title due to my stupid search criteria.  

Over time, my knowledge of random Indonesian music increased rapidly but my speaking skills were always questionable as I was always too shy to speak. So, I went through university as the worst student in my class but probably the only one who drove to class blaring Kebyar Kebyar from her car stereo. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Other memories of university were making a mockumentary titled “Penyerahan Tugas Ekstrim” (Extreme Submissioning), getting a homework task that was a list of English swear words with the instructions to “find an Indonesian and come up with the Indonesian equivalents” and sometimes getting drunk on the weekend and speaking Indonesian because apparently I was capable of it (if only we were allowed to drink in class).

don't judge me

And thennnnn, finally, after a 15 year long distance obsession with Indonesia…. I went to Indonesia. In the beginning of 2011, I and 20 other students from my university undertook an intensive summer semester in UGM Yogyakarta. I feel like I should go into this time as a student in Indonesia properly some other time but the main point is: I fell even more in love with Indonesia from the moment I arrived there. And I’ve never looked back.

After getting back from that first 7 week trip to Indonesia, I knew I was trapped. Suddenly there was a voice in my head that started screaming at me “you’re supposed to be in Indonesia. Why are you here? GO BACK TO INDONESIA”. It felt physically painful to be away from Indonesia after that first taste and I couldn’t handle it. As soon as I could (the next summer) I headed back to Indonesia for a five week holiday travelling around Java, Bali and Lombok.

The day I got back from that trip it started again. The same emptiness. The same desperation to go back. I can’t even explain why it felt like that. It was just a physical pull that I could do little to control. The day after I got back, I found myself bawling my eyes out to my mum saying “I don’t want to go back to university, I want to live in Indonesia” she told me to stop crying and go live in Indonesia.

So I quit my post-graduate course on the first day and started researching how to move to Indonesia. I worked part time and was incredibly strict on myself reminding myself constantly “do you want to buy shoes or do you want to move to Indonesia?”. Indonesia always won and I lived very simply as I saved to do my TEFL course.

I did splash out on a few things at that time. My (incredibly regrettable) Garuda Pancasila tattoo as well as a tattoo of the words “merah darahku, putih tulangku”. Yes, I was willing to spend (A LOT) of money on those but wasn’t willing to buy myself shoes, excellent priorities you had, 2012 Sammi.

so regrettable because 1. it attracts so much unwanted attention. You have no idea how many people have saluted my thigh. :( 2. it's probably disrespectful in general. 3. it's completely redundant as I got it so a piece of Indonesia would always be with me and then several months later I moved to Indonesia and yea, it's been 6 years.  

I actually still like this 

And we know the story since then. Years of adventures full of detours, feeling somewhat uncomfortable at all times and having enough go wrong that I have started to expect even the most unlikely complications… yet my love for Indonesia is constant.

So yes, this is the best love story I know. Have you ever heard of a 22 year long love story (that started with a 15 year long distance relationship) and to this day is quite likely completely one-sided?

I doubt it.

So, to the love of my life on your 73^rd birthday, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me grow into the person I am today. Thank you for being a big part of almost my entire life. Thank you for being my home, my inspiration and my lifelong obsession.

I hope you get better and better. I hope you keep making a little more sense to me each year but I hope you keep being you- the crazy, confusing, unpredictable and complicated place I call home. 

I love you, Indonesia. 

My 4 month "East Java tour"

Goodbyes are always sad

In the last four months I:

• Lived in 5 different cities.
• Taught in 8 different EF schools.
• Took 2 trips to other islands as well as countless weekend trips and adventures in East Java.
• Went to Singapore twice.
• Slept in 11 different beds (this sounds suss, but it really isn’t).
• Taught 1,500+ different students (estimated).
• Took 8 flights, 8 trains, 4 “travel” cars and travelled along the Surabaya-Gresik toll road 17 times.
• Earned 4,013 GOpoints (and 625 Grab Points).
• Went to 12 different malls (this is super depressing).
• Fell in love with one gelato place (and visited it 5 times across 3 cities).
• Laughed a million times.
• Got accused of being “a spy from head office” three times.
• Took hundreds of selfies.
• Completely changed my long-term plans twice.
• Visited my old office for no real reason more times than I can count.
• Made the newspaper twice.
• Cried 2 times (almost 3, thanks Sidoarjo) actually lost count in the end.
• Met a load of new friends and (hopefully not, but possibly) made some new enemies.
• Felt bored exactly 0 times.

And, I’m exhausted.

Well, it’s been a long and tiring but mostly enjoyable journey and as of yesterday, it’s complete. Last week, even a GoJEK driver commented that I went to a different EF school every day and I started to think that things had gotten out of hand. So at the end of this long journey let me share with you some of my favourite moments of my East Java/ world tour. 

MALANG

I loved living in a walkable city, being able to walk to work put me in a good mood for the whole day. Breakfasts in the Library (the best café ever) and working with a load of fun people made things easy. I experienced a brief “culture shock” when we were about to go out for after work drinks and everyone kind of looked at me weirdly for changing my clothes. Wearing the uniform after work would never happen in Surabaya, but when in Rome… By the end of my 3 weeks here, you could find me out after work wearing those beautiful khaki trousers.

JEMBER

This was the most surprising as I thought it was going to be really painful and that I’d hate it there. You know that life is unpredictable when the place you dread going to the most ends up being the one you love the most. I had a social life, I had amazing people around me and I would absolutely love to repeat this month over and over again. Not much to say because it’s all HERE but looking forward to reuniting with my Jember friends again soon.

my Jember family <3

SURABAYA

Many, many highlights including seeing my family, marathon hang out sessions with Devita and Lily, sleepovers with Tria, taking baby Jazzy for her first girl’s day out. It’s somewhat therapeutic to go back to my old office of 5 years and teach again after I thought it was all over. When I said goodbye last time it was teary and sad, so another chance to see everyone again and not be an emotional wreck was much appreciated.

any chance to stalk her is good for me :D

SIDOARJO

The highlight will always be eating ice cream and chocolate on the swing set outside Aditya’s boarding house with Adit and Amanda, laughing about everything that happened and bonding over oranges (wish I could tell that story here but I can’t). I was seriously exhausted most of the time I was there but it was good to know that at the end of the day there was a swing set waiting for me and good people to have a laugh with.

who knew oranges could bring people together?

KEDIRI

This place was the calm after the storm that I needed. And I loved it for everything being simple. I was well looked after and had positive and fun people around me the whole time. I got to eat delicious food, climb a volcano, made it into the newspaper for no real reason and got to run a workshop which allowed me to treat the teachers like kindergartners. 

GRESIK

Though I got sick of spending two hours a day commuting to work pretty quickly, there were actually some great times. Chatting to Yoke on the way to work, laughing excessively about all the “semen Gresik” signs (‘semen’ is Indonesian for ‘cement’ which is what Gresik is known for) and again, working with a bunch of cool, positive people.  

This International "Semen" University made me laugh every day

Not only will I carry these memories with me, but I also have souvenirs. I stole something from every office I worked in ranging from pens, scissors, a pencil case (they were quite practical initially), a full packet of blu tack (and I ended up distributing it to all the teachers in Jember which made me feel like Robin Hood), a button, a colour picture of oranges, a binder clip and correction tape. If any of my bosses are reading this, I’m sorry for stealing. Please don’t fire me.

And what’s next?

Tomorrow I’m moving to Malang for 3 months. I’m excited for now to really get to know a place, to not spend my weekends travelling between cities, to not have to figure out a new school every few weeks and to actually be able to get to know some student’s names.

But I will miss my travelling. I’ll miss meeting cool people in every new place, sharing ideas and trying new things. So, finally, a big thank you to everyone who was part of my “East Java world tour”. I’m so grateful for everyone who took care of me along the way. It’s been really fun.

Until we meet again on my next tour. :D.