The librarian emailed me: “Would you like to come and do school visits? I have 4 schools that would love to have you. We’re across Indonesia.” These are the invitations I dream of. And so we packed our bags and flew to Indonesia to do school presentation in Pekanbaru and Duri on Sumatra, in Surabaya and on Borneo (Kalimantan) in Balikpapan.

Pekanbaru on the island of Sumatra, has a small airport. I had wondered how the librarian would recognize us but it turned out that we were the only westerns, so not much guesswork.

The city seemed a jumble of small houses, muddy roads, dogs, children, vegetable and fruit stands. There was lots of fabulous wicker furniture for sale along the streets. Too bad I can’t bring it back. The school here is in a compound and quite isolated. The company staff and teachers live in large bungalows surrounded by lush gardens. After lunch we walked around to explore the surroundings and saw lots of little black and large brown monkeys on the lawns and in the trees.

“Our” house is a spacious bungalow on the edge of the rain forest. The table in the dining room was set with silver and china for two. Dinner was waiting and served to us by our “house boy”. We had a hard time not to get the giggles: here we were sitting across the table from each other being served dinner while outside the gibbons call in the trees. How did that happen?

The house boy is a lovely, friendly young man who not only cooks and cleans, but does the laundry and makes sure we don’t have to do ANYTHING. I’m measuring him up to see if he fits in my suitcase ‘cause he’s a keeper!

During the day I do presentations at school while Kees explores the compound. It is a very small school, 35 children in preschool, kindergarten, elementary school and middle school. There are 5 teacher couples with a principal and a librarian. Some are from the States, some from Canada, an Australian, a Colombian, a Porto Rican. It is an interesting, special group of adventurous educators. We have dinner with a different family every day and they are all so interesting. They have all taught overseas for several years: in China, Burma, Zambia, Argentina. Living in Asia is relatively cheap and summer holidays allow them to travel across the continent.

One day Kees hires a taxi to go into town. He visits a huge islam mosque. Then to a museum. The building was nice and new, but the displays were almost non existing. Four guards excitedly followed him around and took photos of the western guy who came to the museum!

On my first day off we were asked what we’d like to do. We said we’d love to go for a jungle walk. To our surprise it took some doing to find someone willing to take us there. Apparently most people did not want to go into the rain forest. Many locals were too afraid. The person who ended up taking us knew the path well. It was overgrown with liana’s and vines. Rotan, which is used to make all that gorgeous wicker furniture, turns out to be a spiky vine. We saw foot prints of wild pigs by water and heard gibbons in the distance. We also saw two spiders the size of Kees’ hand…

Then we boarded the bus to Duri, a three hour ride across a high, winding road. The road is not wider than two cars. The traffic is crazy. Everyone passes even in curves going uphill when they have no idea of what is coming. The road is lined with palm forests and small villages of wooden shacks. Kids on bare feet, scrawny dogs and chickens scurrying around. It’s very, very hot.

The company town at Duri is very similar to Rumbai but larger. We are assigned our own house again. Lunches and suppers are at different houses so we get to meet many different families and are learning lots from all of them. The kids in this school made large bulletin boards about me and my books. I was welcomed with a play about two Java warriors and presented with a gorgeous ‘chicken’ quilt with my Emma book covers on it - something I will always treasure.

Security here is very tight. It is obvious that Indonesia is not a country where you can safely travel on your own as a tourist. Oil companies are main terrorist targets even though 85% of the profits of the oil companies are turned over to the Indonesians. The government uses the money to build fantastic government buildings and to pay good salaries to the civil servants so they drive huge cars. However those who don’t have a government job are poor and left to fend for themselves.

On one of our bus trips, there was a guard with an AK 47 sitting near us…

Compounds where the international schools are, are heavily guarded. Not only with large fences around them, but the gates are crawling with guards and every car entering the compound is checked with a mirror underneath the car. There are guards at the gates, at the school entrance, driving around the compound day and night and even on the busses when people leave the compounds. When we traveled here by bus we were surprised not to see a guard. However when we arrived 3 hours later we discovered that a Jeep with armed security people had been following the bus the entire way. Some time ago a gang stopped the bus and robbed every passenger on that bus so we were lucky.

The bus trips across Sumatra are so interesting. The road winds through small villages of wooden shacks with thatched roofs, some on stilts. Many palm forests. Shacks along the road selling jugs of gasoline (often in old 2 liter pop bottles), or cold drinks, and rambutans (spiky red fruit with slimy white fruit inside). Some shacks are restaurants selling nasi.

We saw two trucks on their side along the road. One tank truck, one truck carrying logs. Both had obviously hit the edge of the pavement and flipped.

One night something fun happened. There was a knock on the door and a sales man came with art work to sell to us, foreigners. He asked if he could come in, then sat on the floor and spread out his wares: masks, carvings, trinkets, etc. It was fun not to have to go barter somewhere and he had great stuff. We brought home some locally carved masks.

Kees had to fly back home so I took him to the airport with a company car and driver. Afterwards, the driver drove me through Pekanbaru, which was bustling even on Sunday morning. He took me to a batik store where I bought a kaftan. Then to a modern, sparkling shopping mall and a batik store where I bought a Java pillowcase. After a swim, I had a massage... Massages in Asia, and especially in Indonesia, are out of this world. The masseuse came to the house. An hour long full body massage costs $10.- That night, the librarian and several other teacher families took me out for dinner: nasi goreng, kroepoek, shrimp, chicken, beef, vegetables. I love it. But after my day off, it’s back to work: writing workshops with kids and teachers, slideshows and talks.

Pekanbaru was very busy with motorbikes and cars, people going to work and school. The streets are continuously being swept by city workers with tiny bundles of branches. I don’t understand how the people, especially the children, stay so immaculately clean while living in shacks and along dirt roads. The children all wear bright white socks, school uniforms are clean and pressed, hair all combed and immaculate, yet all around is dirt and dust.

I am told that there is a lot of unemployment since logging of the rain forest became illegal. Has that really stopped?

Everyone here is incredibly friendly, smiling and helpful. A young man immediately started a conversation in the airport, wanting to practice his english. He said “Everyone says we live in such a beautiful country but we have to learn how to protect our forests and wildlife. And our government is so corrupt.” Now I’m flying from Sumatra to Borneo: stay tuned for the continued adventure Indonesia!