The Winds of Change Have Come

After 10 weeks of training, and 4 ½ months of service we made it to In Service Training (IST). The two weeks before leaving to Surabaya, the anticipation grew. We were all excited about seeing each other (some friends we hadn’t seen since swearing-in on June 15^th). Plus most of us hadn’t been back to Surabaya since the day we flew into Indonesia.

The day we arrived to Indonesia still sticks in my mind. We got off the plane to see security with automatic weapons, the extreme heat and humidity felt like we had just stepped into a sauna, no one was speaking English, all the signs were in Bahasa Indonesia, and the city felt dirty, way over crowded and confusing. The voice in my head, was screaming, ‘Get back on that plane and go home’. I kept quite because I knew I was just overwhelmed and I wasn’t about to freak out in front of Daniel and all the other volunteers. As they were possibly having the same thoughts.

That first night, we arrived to the Hotel Oval, feeling like we had just been dropped off in a Motel 6’s bad attempt at a nice hotel. The décor was cheesy, the rooms were very simple, and had that dirty motel feeling. I remember not wanting to use the comforter (since Oprah always said those things were never washed). The first three days in Surabaya were a blur.

Since those first 3 days in Surabaya, the 10 weeks of training in Tlekung, and our new home in Caruban, we’ve slowly grown accustomed to life in Indonesia. I know there are things that occur here that from an outsider would be bizarre, but to us, we don’t even think twice about it. Going back to Surabaya for IST really opened our eyes to how much we really have changed. We stayed at the same Hotel Oval which was suddenly luxurious! There were chandeliers that sparkled in the romantic lighting of the lobby, elevators, marble flooring, a huge bed, air conditioning, and hot showers with great water pressure. And don’t forget the American style toilet with toilet paper (aka no water on the floor). Hotel Oval was amazing. And we spent the next two weeks lapping in luxury and exploring Surabaya with our friends. With our new eyes, Surabaya is a really nice city. It is crowded but relatively clean. There are at least 4 huge malls, and restaurants displaying foods from around the world. We feasted on hamburgers, French fries, linguini carbonara, sushi, quesadillas, cracker sandwiches, and washed it all down with a few beers and mixed drinks. It felt like America, except we spoke Bahasa Indonesia.

We shared stories of successes and struggles with our friends. We have 26 new friends that will always have a common bond of Peace Corps. They all understood what we are going through as they were going through the same stuff. Every volunteer had a counterpart come to the last three days of training. It was great to get the counterparts involved as we hope we can continue to build that teamwork and friendship as we carry on through the rest of our service. We had two weeks of solid training and have come back to our site with lots of new ideas and motivation for school.

After 2 weeks we were ready to return to the real-life. My only hesitation to going back was returning to the never-ending heat of Caruban, as A/C had become my new best friend. But I packed up and jumped on the bus with everyone else and arrived in our town to RAIN! The rainy season had finally arrived. The air was fresh, and cool, and Caruban felt clean and new. We couldn’t help but think the transition to the rainy season mirrored our own personal growth with life in Indonesia. Things have been tough at times, and we’ve poured our blood, sweat and tears into making this new life everything we want it to be. And thanks to IST, we were gifted with the knowledge of how much we have already succeeded. We are refreshed. We have been reminded how little we need the western style luxuries to live and enjoy life. The hotel life was great, but we are just as comfortable in our little room, in this little town. We have a host-family that was excited to have us back, as did our community. We are loved back in the states and in Indonesia. We are blessed, healthy and couldn’t be happier.