Creating Home

I've been in Banda Aceh one week today! After vacation I had one day in Yogya before I set off for Aceh. That one day was spent doing all sorts of shopping and errand running in preparation, but also just enjoying the city for one last day (until next time that is). While I do feel busy here, I'm not overwhelmed and am really enjoying getting to know the city, little by little. I live in a beautiful house with three other women: Kristy (a volunteer for the American group Volunteers in Asia, she's teaching at a high school run by the University here), Catherine (an Austrailian anthropologist doing research for her PhD), and Sarah (the other Shansi fellow already here for a year). We all, unsurprisingly, get along very well and last night spent the evening doing yoga together in our living room... The house itself has four bedrooms, one real bathroom, a kitchen, and even a screened sitting room facing our lush back yard. Pretty soon, we'll be setting up a garden. Our house is also five minutes from classes by foot which is amazingly convenient.
While everyone seemed to think Aceh would be an enormous shock, I feel I'm settling in really comfortably. I'm sure this is mostly because of my two cofellows, Sarah and Jesse, and their amazing advice and willingness to explain just about everything. I also recognize that I have yet to do much more than work and sit at home, so have much exploring and learning to do. Living with a researcher and teacher who have been here a year has been enormously helpful and interesting in providing varied perspectives. I get to hear all about the political climate and little cultural facets I'd definitely never hear about if my housemate's job wasn't to constantly observe, record, and critically analyze.
As usual, life is always exciting. My second or third day here was a tremendous event in Indonesian history. Hasan di Tiro (possibly misspelling..) returned to Aceh for the first time in decades. The exiled head of the separatist movement, his return is mostly a symbol of Aceh's newly found stabilization (whew). While I couldn't make it to his speech, we did take a walk the night before to find the streets packed with people planning to camp out, that's how excited the city was.
As for teaching, I started on Monday, and my work week ends on Saturday. I'm teaching three speaking classes -each meets twice a week- and one literature class (yay!). My students range from first year undergraduates to professors, so I really have the whole range which is super interesting and fun.
Of course, I could go on for pages about all the interesting nuances of life here, but I'll save that for later... oh, and pictures soon from vacation and from Aceh (my battery charger never arrived, but Sarah coincidentally has the same charger, yippee!!!) .