Where I'll be and what I'm doing

For those of you who don't already know (it should be very few) I am leaving for Indonesia on Friday morning (less than 48 hours from now!). For what you might ask? Well I received a grant to teach English as part of the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program. The teaching contract is for 9 months however I intend to stay up to 2 months beyond the grant duration in order to see as much of SE Asia as I can. I also reaaaalllly want to go to Australia.

Upon arrival in Indonesia I will spend a little less than a week in Jakarta getting all of the necessary "official business" out of the way. After Jakarta I will be shipped off to Bandung with the rest of the ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) (there's about 30 of us) for Bahasa Indonesia lessons and teaching orientation. This portion of the trip will last for about 3 weeks. After Bandung I will be off to Kudus, a small town in Central Java where I will spend the following 8 months. The name of my school is SMK Muhammadiyah Kudus. As far as I have gathered the school is a computer science vocational pesantren (muslim boarding school).

Map of Indonesia:



Kudus is located in Central Java (the island where Jakarta is located). You won't find Kudus on most maps but the largest city closest to Kudus is Semarang (which is an hour west).

And here is a link to the desolate Wikipedia page for Kudus. I can only hope that this is not a harbinger of what lies ahead in my soon to be home :)

Best,
Kal