We arrived in Jakarta last Saturday night and were straight away hit with the hot, humid air of the city. After sorting out bags and money etc. we made our way to where we are staying. We got a huge shock. We are staying in a palace! Well not exactly but it feels like one. It is a large, beautiful house made from marble. We are living with a really lovely family who are so hospitable and look after us so well.
So Jakarta is a real bustling, busy city. I think the number of people here ranges from 11 million at night to about 15 million during the day. Traffic is crazy, packed with cars and motorcycles.
There is quite a contrast here between the rich and the poor. When you drive around you really feel it with the fancy skyscrapers together with slums next to rubbish filled rivers.
We have had amazing food and it has been fun learning to eat the Indonesian way - only with your right hand.
This first week in Jakarta we have been teaching English to children at a community center/school in a slum. The organizers of this place 'believe' but are in a community that doesn't 'believe'. So they have to be careful about what they say. We taught kindergarten in the morning, went out 'talking' to people who live in the slums after that and then in the afternoon we taught older children. On Friday we had a bit of a change and we cleaned up around the school in the morning. It was a bit of a task! This slum is built around a illegal dump site so there is rubbish everywhere. But the kids really helped us and it was so cool to see. In the afternoon we talked to the parents of the kids trying to encourage them to continue to send their kids to school. It was a really busy week but when we had to leave on Friday it was quite sad. The kids are just amazing.
Well that's all for now. Next week we will be teaching English at a different slum.
All the best :)
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