We're Here in Indonesia!

We made it safely to Indonesia! We've been here almost six days and have been settling into our house and orienting to our new surroundings. The trip was long and pretty difficult with the kids, but overall it went okay. Our first couple of flights went fairly well actually, including the twelve hour flight to Taiwan. We had been worried about the kids not doing well in the beginning because we left at 11pm and had to take a short flight to Vancouver, B.C. first, so the kids didn't get to sleep until 2am when we boarded our longer flight, but they did amazingly well. The airport in Taiwan was rough though and it kind of went downhill from there due to all of our exhaustion. The kids would take turns waking up on the flights and screaming or crying, sometimes we'd have two at once that were crying.

When we arrived in Jakarta mid-day, the heat stepping off the airplane was absolutely stifling.....almost unbearable. No one could have prepared us for that heat, even though we have heard how hot it is here. I've been to the Philippines, Honduras, and Mexico several times, but I don't remember it being THAT hot! We stayed in Jakarta the first night at a mission house and the next day took a short flight to a smaller city called Semarang, then rented a taxi and drove to our little town called Salatiga where we'll be attending language school. It was a beautiful drive once we got out of the big cities, with green jungle everywhere. Salatiga is definitely more of a jungle town with a lot more green than the cities like Jakarta, and is slightly cooler (though still pretty hot!). And no, we don't have a/c in our house so that is something we've had to get used to. Hopefully soon we'll be able to at least have an a/c in one room.

The first night I encountered a giant cockroach in our bedroom, probably the size of a golf ball. Luckily we haven't seen one since! We have, however, seen many other critters, including spiders, mosquitoes, geckos, and lots and lots of ants. The ants are everywhere and anywhere there is food. They crawl all over the kitchen counter and it's pretty much impossible to get rid of them all. We've heard there are things you can do to minimize the ants, but that "eventually the ants will win." It sounds like many people who have lived here a long time have just learned to co-exist.

We've definitely had our share of difficulties since we came, but we also have had an amazing team welcoming us, both MAF families and expats from other organizations that have really tried to make our transition as smooth as possible. We didn't have water for half of the first day in our house, but luckily a friend was able to figure out the problem. Also both of our showers broke, though they were still somewhat usable, and Eva came down with a fever and GI issues and was pretty miserable for a few days. She is doing much better, but now I (Ellie) have it. On the positive side, we've been shown some amazing restaurants here in town that are pretty inexpensive, a nice pool to swim in, and many other of the "perks" of living here. Here are a few pictures....there will be much more to come....

 Long flight to Taiwan

 

 The airplane headphones were too big for Callie's head so we improvised

Resting in the Taipei airport.  The double stroller came in handy as a luggage cart! 

 View of our yard

 

 When the weather is good we can see this beautiful volcano from our yard

 

 We have a banana tree and a guava tree in our yard!

 

This is the spider that lives in our banana tree. We call him Pete #4 since there are three other Pete's that live here! This picture does not do him justice....he is about the size of my FACE, with yellow and black markings. I will be sure to stay far away since I am terrified of spiders. No picking bananas for me!

 



 Callie playing at a nearby pool

 

Blake having fun with the other kids/families that are here