Nov. 3, 2008

    At 8:30 in the morning, we went to the conference hall again. The atmosphere was different from before. The section chief of Ministry of National Education of Indonesia sat below the stage as well. At nearly 9 o’clock, the chairperson required the audience to keep quiet and wait for the coming of the leaders. It turned out to be Mr. Zhou Bin, cultural counselor of Embassy of China, director of Department of Teacher Development of Ministry of National Education of Indonesia and another director. The slogan over the stage was Warmly Welcome Volunteer Teachers of Chinese from China. The chairperson was the female section chief who had come the day before. Now she was chairing the meeting below the stage. While the director spoke, an overseas Chinese teacher interpreted. The director highly praised the cooperation of education between us two countries and welcomed the coming of volunteer teachers of Chinese from China. When Counselor Zhou lectured, he interpreted Chinese into Indonesian. His Indonesian won claps from the headmasters below the stage. Mr Zhou recalled the history of Sino-Indonesia cooperation of education and culture and made demands and hopes on the volunteer teachers. Later, a representative from the headmasters gave a lecture and the team leader from Hainan spoke on behalf of the volunteers. The latter shook hands with Counselor Zhou and two department directors, meaning cooperation. After getting to know one another’s headmaster, the volunteer teachers complained that the accent of their headmasters speaking English, but I felt that we could know their chief meaning when we cared for their characteristics of their pronunciation.

4 volunteers of us to East Java had lunch with the headmasters. At 12 o’clock, we got together at the front hall. We had no time to say goodbye to other volunteers from Chongqing and went to the airport in a minivan with our headmasters. The van was small. With the luggage put in, we crowded in. My headmaster sat at the door and the door couldn’t be closed. That made me worried. The van went for over an hour and arrived at a bus station. We got off and moved our luggage to a big bus, which might be an airport bus. It took us nearly an hour to reach Sukarno-hada Airport, but we didn’t got off there and continued to go to the third airport MANDALA AIRPORT. At the security check of the airport, I was a little nervous. But it seemed that their security check was not so strict. We didn’t give our passports to our headmasters, but they bought the air tickets for us and there were errors in our names.

The most unforgettable moment came. Getting off the plane and taking our luggage, we went out of the airport following our headmasters. It was nearly dark, it was just that there was light in the airport. First WKR left with his headmaster and we felt very sudden, because no farewell word was said. It seemed that we were sold by human trafficker, each was taken away by his new master. Next, CMK parted with ZWY and me. CMK said, “so we parted?”. I summoned up my spirit and answered, “Yes, see you later!”. ZWY and I got on an SUV, and my luggage was put in the trunk. After 10-mimute drive, ZWY and his headmaster got off, leaving me, my headmaster, the driver and the person who was sent to fetch us. The headmaster sat in the front, the accompanying person and I sat in the back seat. The person could speak a little Chinese and English, but could not afford further communication. I had thought he was the person who would accompany me in the following days. Later I knew that he was not.

The SUV drove along the dilapidated streets (possibly in the suburbs) in Surabaya. After a while, the SUV stopped by a roadside restaurant. If food in PPPPTK made me uneasy, the conditions here worried me more. In China, the conditions of any countryside restaurant could be more or less the same. But in my home country, I could eat noodles or hot dishes, but here only barbecue and fried food. And there was a certain sauce, I wasn’t sure what it was made of. What was especially unbearable was that the cooked vegetables were stung by flies. It was a hard fight for me to make up my mind, I ordered a piece of  fried chicken, a fried fish and a little vegetable. I finished eating with difficulty and drunk a bottle of pure water ( this I felt later was an advantage of Indonesia. There were bottled or cupped pure water everywhere). During the meal, the accompanying person hinted that I should not sit facing the headmaster. At this moment I realized I came to a  hierarchical world. After the meal , we got on the SUV and went on the journey. We arrived at a car park and we stopped again. I thought we might stay in Surabaya, because it was over 7 o’clock in the evening. I asked the accompanying person where it was. He said, “mall, dictionaries”. I knew that we were going to buy some books. This mall was large with many floors. The skin color of the booksellers was nearly the same as that of Chinese. I especially wanted to know whether I could buy a usb Internet card here, but I couldn’t ask. In the bookstore, there were some books in Chinese and the dictionaries were in Indonesian and bilingual(Indonesian and Chinese ), but they were expensive, over 80 yuan. The accompanying person said the school had some and the headmaster didn’t buy them. Later I knew the headmaster would buy some books for the teachers every time he came to big cities like Surabaya. The headmaster bought two books for himself, but I didn’t know what books they were.

Getting down to the parking lot, we got into the van and rode on and this timeI realized that we would stay at Probolinggo. In the van, I first sent messages to ZGM to ask their case and he answered, “we are still waiting for the plane in Jakarta. The plane is late.

I sent messages to my wife, telling her that I was on my way to the school and we would arrive there in two hours (in fact it took 4 hours). I also contacted other team members. The first to arrive was CMK, he stayed in his headmaster’s house tonight. The second was WKR, he was arranged to live in a hotel and the conditions were not bad. And the next was ZWY , who stayed in a hotel with his headmaster. Only I was still on my way.

The following were the messages saved until now in my mobile phone.

+6287883170429（ZWY）20:11:58, “Where are you now, Mr. Stone?”

+6287883170437（WKR）20:20:09, “nearly arriving, we are having dinner on the way! Ha ha.”

+6287883170431（CMK）20:51:26, “just finishing dinner, tonight I stay in the headmaster’s house. ”

Though the road was narrow, it was tarmac. In the van I came to feel that my hard times began and melancholy rose in my heart. I asked myself why I came to this place. I simply got what I deserved. I felt sad and tears couldn’t help but flow down. To prevent the accompanying person from seeing that(there were lamps on the roadside.), I didn’t wipe the tears and waited for them to dry. The most were gas stations on both  sides of Indonesian roads, and not far from the one you just saw, there was another one. I saw the price was over 5 yuan a litter.

The headmaster seemed leisurely and pleased. He handed biscuits and bottled water over to the behind silently, indicating the accompanying person and I ate and drank. He got off at a vendor’s stand and bought some tapes and snacks. The snacks were for me. There were 3 boxes and I ate one. I didn’t know what it was made of and the inside was very sweet. The headmaster put a tape into the car audio and played and he beat in the air. The music was somewhat like Indian music, in fact it might be Muslim music. The van went on some distance and stopped again. The headmaster went into a building, the accompanying person said, “praying”. I felt unbelievable on hearing that. Is he so pious? In fact it was so.

The accompanying person said we were near Probolinggo and my wife sent me a message 23:25:42, “What is the name of the county city? Is it far? How many hours’ ride is it?”. And then came WKR’s message 23;33:26, “oh, I’ve just arrived, now I temporarily stay in a hotel! A few days later there may be another arrangement. These days I couldn’t log on the Internet !we can contact with messages! How long will you arrive?” “half an hour,”I answered. In fact it took more than an hour. It seemed that we had to get to the school tonight. At that time I felt sleepy and soon fell asleep. When I woke up, we were passing through a village and the headmaster got off at a house. The house was in a lane with only one floor. He said nothing when he got off and this made me upset. The van turned around and a few minutes later came to a house with a sign in front sekantor . Though it was 12 p.m. Beijing time, there were still some people in front of the door. I saw that the accompanying person took off his shoes,I did the same, entering the house without taking off my socks. They carried my luggage into a house. I wanted to go to the washroom but there was no key for my room. I worried about my luggage, especially my laptop. But I had no way and only let it go. I went into the washroom, there was only a bedpan and a pool in it. There were no other facilities. I couldn’t help thinking, “will I live here from tonight on?”. My room had two beds with two floors. The sheet was brown and looked dirty. The accompanying person said I slept here tonight. I asked him where he slept and he answered he would find other place to sleep.I washed my face and went to bed without washing my teeth because I couldn’t find the water tap. I slept on the upper floor of one bed and put my laptop on it. I took off my clothes and it seemed that I could sleep without a quilt on. Later I found there were many mosquitos and what  especially scared me was some noise from a certain animal outside in the midnight. I couldn’t go to sleep and kept thinking this and that, “why am I so unlucky and come to such a place? Why did I study so hard to get here? ”. Thinking of this, I felt sad and it might be that today I got the feeling that I came from the heaven to the hell.