Local Celebrity

Photo 1: One of the articles
Photo 2: Ani and I

Now that I've been in Malang for a couple of weeks, I feel that I’m in a better position to compare it to Yogya. So far I have discovered:

1. It is cooler. A lot cooler. Like I can wear a jacket in the middle of the day cold. Having said that it’s probably not that cold – just comparatively.

2. There are foreigners here. Admittedly there aren’t any were I live, but on a recent trip into the main city area I did spy a few.

3. I don’t seem to be getting any more attention than I did in Yogya. Well perhaps I am, but people here don’t seem to vocalise their excitement with calls of ‘hello mister’ like they do in Yogya.

4. The food is not nearly as sweet. And everyone is obsessed with Lalapan (chicken/fish, sambal, token veggies).

In the last week I have become a bit of a celebrity (my 15 minutes of fame perhaps?). Last Saturday I taught an English class at a local primary school. We just did basic things – letters and colours. Beforehand I was pretty nervous. After all I was teaching 40 of them for an hour and a half. Once I started it was surprisingly easy however. The kids were really excited to meet a bule and seemed to embrace the lesson with enthusiasm. In the end the time passed pretty quickly and before I knew it I was being hustled outside to do interviews with some of the journalists who had come to cover the event. Over the next couple of days the story appeared on Malang TV as well as in the Jawa Pos, Malang Pos and Suriya newspapers. Following that I had people coming up to me at uni and asking if I was the girl from the paper!