Converge

Sometimes a lot of different things converge at the same time. This was one of those weeks.
For months I have been working on assuring that the imposed implementation of a set of consular services by an outside contractor works for our post. It has been challenging and I am grateful for the help of a great colleague in Jakarta who was great about remembering the needs of our small post throughout the process. We are the customers to some degree but it effects our customers for visa services and we want it to be done right. This entailed going over everything that was proposed and making sure that it was as much as we could before it launched. Part of the service includes a Web site for making appointments for visa interviews. The experiences I had in my previous job were very helpful for managing this and also seeing the mistakes that were being made. But after months of delays, it launched this week! Very exiting, but now we still have a lot of work trying to figure out how to make it work for us and pass on lessons learned to others who have not yet made the change.
We also had some trainers in this week to refresh and update us on the consular computer applications we use every day. They are still working with us but have done a great job so far helping us use the applications better and more efficiently.

Meeting with students at a school after a presentation

On Saturday I worked at an education fair promoting education in the United States. We had a great turnout. I got to stand at a booth representing the consulate and answer questions. I was joined for a few minutes by another colleague of mine, and the Consul General herself, and even for a few minutes with the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia who was visiting Surabaya! I had some interesting questions and felt like I said, "I don't know," quite a bit. "What is the best university for a masters in accountancy?" "What university is the best for a degree in aquaculture?" "How long does it take for me to get an immigrant visa?" "How can I get a scholarship?" That last one was asked dozens of times. 4 hours, hundreds of people, routine and crazy questions. Pretty fun. I also got to speak for 45 minutes about how to get a student visa. Seems like a pretty dry subject to me. I tried to spice it up, but really couldn't think of a good way to do it. It's a little like math, do this and this to get this. Necessary but hard to love unless you love technicalities. (I love technicalities, so I get into it a little but I know not everyone shares the love.) There were probably 100 people in the room listening to my presentation. It was standing-room only! I struggled to find a few minutes this week to put things together for this and some other presentations I needed to do next week that were cancelled or postponed at the last minute. But it all came together in the end. You will probably be able to take a look at information and pictures from the fair on our consulate Facebook page very soon, http://www.facebook.com/Surabaya.USConsulate.
I think I have to thank my previous job for a lot of experience in many of the things I did this week. That certainly made it a lot easier and less stressful than it could have been otherwise.
I guess in a way that means even my previous job converged into my week. And it seemed to work out.

Still warm

Rice Fields near Poso

Last week I went on a business trip to Central Sulawesi, one of the provinces of Indonesia, and visited the cities of Palu and Poso. I had some interesting experiences there, met lots of people, had fun visiting some schools, met some U.S. Citizens living there, and met a family living there who are the only members of my church in Palu. Sometimes in our church we think it is challenging to have a demanding church calling, a lot of church activities, etc., and it is. But it is also a big challenge to not have any other church members to do anything with and always just being on your own. It was good for them and for me to meet.

Drying cocoa beans by side of road

The whole area has beautiful thick forests, high mountains and the sea. The part of the province near Poso has tons of cocoa trees, rice fields, and fish. There were goats, chickens, some dogs and cats, and people wandering around on almost every street. It was great.
I didn't write about it when I got back because our internet was down all afternoon and evening Sunday when I have time to do it. Then during the week I was sick. I don't like being sick especially since I feel sick enough not to feel like doing anything but not sick enough to not actually do anything.
I gave another talk in church yesterday, but the time was pretty well out by the time my talk came up so I had to cut things down and just share a little and do my best in Indonesian. It's a little more challenging to do that in another language, but luckily a week before I had spent a whole week in Central Sulawesi listening to and speaking with people in Indonesian. My usual daily interactions in Indonesian are much shorter and less in depth so this was a big boost to helping me communicate. The talk worked out fine.

Cool Mosque in Palu

I must be out of practice blogging because I'm having a hard time writing. My apologies to any who read this.

Veggies!

River near Poso

Boats off the shore

Homes over calm water

Rats!

The exiting thing last week was that we found out what has been making noise in our ceiling for a couple of months. We all had our guesses: a mouse, a bird, a lizard, a gecko, nothing. But we had a trap put up there to catch whatever it was (someone went up before that to take a look and told us it was a small tikus, which could be a big mouse or a small rat). Anyway, as you may guess by the title, it was a small rat. The great part about it is that it does not wake us up at night anymore and we don't hear anything scratching around up there anymore. The bad part is that it sat in a cage in front of my house before someone came to take it away and kill it! The bad part about that is that I went to look at it and I thought it was kind of cute in it's own way. It definitely has beady eyes! Anyway, that was about the most exiting thing to happen around here and is still a topic of conversation for us.

The actual rat, and a random snail friend in the corner.

Now the only thing we hear in our ceiling is an occasional drip from the rain. It's rainy season here right now, which does not mean that it is cold. The temperature is pretty much the same as always. The difference is that usually every day it rains for a couple of hours in the early afternoon, maybe again around sundown, and then often during the night. The ground is always wet and mud is abundant. Sometimes we have floods when the rain is particularly heavy which makes traffic even slower. It took me 1 1/2 hours to get home from work a couple of times last week. If there isn't much traffic, like on a holiday, it only takes about 1/2 hour for me to get to work. Most of the vehicles on the road are motorcycles and the rain doesn't stop anyone from driving them. They just put on their rain gear, take off their shoes or sandals and sometimes even drive with their feet up high on the stem  of the bike below the handle bars. Motor bikes still get around faster than the cars since they weave in and out of traffic and cars, not just down the lane between cars but also between the cars as in the tiny space between the back of one car and the front of another until they're at the front of the light. Many of them then don't even wait for the light if there is one and just go if there is any break in the traffic and they think they can make it. It's pretty cool but also a little scary to watch sometimes.
Church is sometimes a bit challenging too. Today none of the Elder's Quorum presidency showed up (it's been weeks since they've been to a priesthood meeting). Today is supposed to be the lesson taught by the presidency. Since I conducted the opening of the priesthood meeting I felt like I should help out. I asked if anyone had been asked to teach and no one (out of the 5 in attendance) spoke up. I was pretty sure that no one had been asked so I started a discussion about something that seemed relevant. It seemed to go okay, but I did get a lot of looks like they were really concentrating to try to understand me. I wish I could speak this language better, and I'm sure they think the same thing!