Since I’ve been in Aceh...

While I will not claim that my entire lifestyle has changed since moving to Banda Aceh, my perspective on living it is quite different. For the first time in a very long while, I have a permanent home for two consecutive years. Everything I buy is an investment into this space that I will be inhabiting and helping to improve, and making it into truly my space. I also realize that every subsequent year others will also live here, and at one point, I no longer will. But for the time being, I can buy plants, and put them in a garden, I can buy kitchen equipment knowing I’ll want it for years. I have a job and a contract for that job, and so automatically have a semi-permanent position – and purpose. Because I started teaching only days after I’d arrived, I was thrown into the lifestyle I will effectively maintain for quite some time. Consequently, even though I only today found a shop five minutes away from my house, I feel as though I’ve been here for months and months. It amazes me that I’ve only been here a few weeks.
Since moving to Aceh, I’ve gained ten years, which still makes me ten or twenty years younger than my literature students- my very favorite class. My youngest students are only 18 and 19 and also loads of fun. These students are just beginning their college career and eager to discuss anything they can possibly find the vocabulary for expressing- dating, religion, governmental corruption, and the latest fashion. I also teach new teachers, and while this class is an intensive and free course for teachers who want to eventually pursue their masters, these classes are notoriously poorly attended. In the past two weeks, though, my class size has doubled. I can only hope this is because they are entertained and learning, and not just because their schedules freed up. In any case, it’s nice to have new faces- even if they are several weeks, and continuously at least twenty minutes late.
More to come later...