The New Neighbors...

Today we were invited to a cultural performance exchange put on by the University for a group of visiting Koreans. Most of the visitors were here for a week-long program, culminating in several dance and musical performances. There were also a couple traditional Acehnese dances with musical accompaniment- this was the first time I’d gotten to see these things in person and they were wonderful. There was one particularly amazing performance, though, by a Tae-kwon do champion. He performed what I had only before seen in movies. He broke tiles with his hand, kicked cups full of candy off the heads of his students, and leaped over several students to kick something or other perched high atop another head. All this to cheers of admiration by the audience of foreigners and Indonesians alike. This is our new neighbor (well, relatively close by) who moved here a week ago with his wife, two sons, and daughter. It was a pretty amazing introduction to this new family. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the future – not just in sparring attire.
Incidentally, Sarah, Jesse and I were also introduced during speeches as the three visiting Americans who are also participating in cultural exchange. This speech was given by the assistant Rector of the University who has been a huge help recently in aiding us to find what we’ve been looking for at UnSyiah (which for me has been a recent connection to the arts department). His speech highlighted the importance of such exchanges and how we as a community should work to make these things more widely accessible (he lamented the fact that this particular performance was held in a tiny auditorium and little publicized). Hopefully, more will happen in the future. It was nice to hear a University spokesperson support, essentially, our purpose here as Shansi fellows when often that particular purpose is lost in a realm of unsolicited classes for which we are not always the most qualified.
As for the Acehnese performances, they were pretty amazing. I’ve just started learning how to play the Surunikali which is somewhere between an oboe and a clarinet. I’ve had one class so far (and will have my second today) where we spent nearly three hours working on circular breathing (where you play continuously, breathing in through your nose while breathing out through your mouth into the instrument). Today I got to see my teacher perform with three drum players as accompaniment for a women’s dance performance. And, sure enough, he played continuously the entire performance. The dancers looked like painted versions of the women I see everyday. There is a history behind all of the current Acehnese culture and these performances are the evidence. I hope to find out more about this past very soon.

Resolve.

I’m back, laden from travels, not with memorabilia and knick-knacks, but dirty clothes and many resolutions. I know, I haven’t even talked about my trip yet (by the way, we went to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Siem Reap), but I will, and right now these current thoughts are more important to get to you, if you’re still reading and checking for updates. Along these lines, one of my vows is to write at least biweekly given I am in Aceh, and hopefully even if I’m not. That said, I returned to Banda Aceh last night (Sunday) and am now sitting on my comfortable couch looking out at my partially demolished backyard. It’s full of ridiculously large pieces of wood, a ten-foot tree trunk, and rubbish. All this fenced in by our castle wall. Luckily, both Kristi and I have returned from our trip with new domestic resolve and a great urge to landscape. Hopefully we’ll be using those strewn about pieces to create a beautiful garden. And, by the time any of you visit, that cement wall will be cheerily painted and adorned in passion fruit vines. Also luckily, the bulbs I planted right before leaving have sprouted up a good foot and a half, so at least some things have been growing. We’ve got quite a bit of work to do, but it’s all exciting.

But back to those resolutions. Next to me, I have the Oberlin Shansi annual report in which there are descriptions from all my senior fellows all around Asia telling of their experiences and feelings of connectedness within their respective communities. While I am happy for them and look forward to a similar feeling, I am a bit sad recognizing how I am not yet at that point. Every two months since leaving the USA, my life has changed pretty drastically. I look forward to this next semester –which has little more than an occasional three-day weekend holiday- as a chance to really and truly set down roots. I came here for two years to give myself a chance to understand a new community and to be a part of it. And while in any context the one semester I’ve been here would never be enough to truly feel connected, I am still impatient for that moment to arrive. I hope to find my niche this semester-whether it’s with the ladies at a new aerobics class I tried with Sarah or with a music group I hope to join soon, or maybe I’ll finally find those windsurfers that have disappeared with the onset of the rainy season. Either way, I will be improving my Bahasa Indonesia and working much harder on many aspects of my social and work life. More about my trip and Aceh to come very very soon.