Hello Jakarta! (Week 1: Sept 5 - Sept 12)

Seeing Jakarta in the morning made me realize that it is very similar to the cities in Metro Manila. As the days pass by, I would find out that there are more similarities between the Philippines and Indonesia. Sad to say, one of the things they have in common is the issue of pollution. When I looked out the window of our hotel room, I could see that it was very foggy outside, later on I realized that it was smog. Our buddies from UHAMKA would also tell us that plastic is one of the most problematic of waste in the country (same as in the Philippines). But everyone is aware of the issue and is doing action to solve the problem.

Mr. Purnama would meet us at 10 o'clock that morning. For breakfast we had to fend for ourselves. So went outside and found an Alfamart, these are shops similar to 7-Eleven or Ministop in the Philippines. They don't sell rice meals though, so we had to settle for bread and chocolate milk. Both tasted yummy.

We went to UHAMKA at around 11AM. The hotel is near the FKIP Campus so we just had to ride an Angkot. We had to wait at the administration office for a couple of hours. There we met our first buddy Fika who helped us buy and activate our Indonesian sim cards. Fika also suggested that we try Seblak a traditional food, so we bought some. And when we went back to the office, there was already lunch waiting for us. Chicken with vegetables, I found out that they call jackfruit as "nangka", almost the same in the Philippines which we refer to it as "langka".

In the afternoon, we went to our host school PKP Jakarta Islamic School. We meet with the Principal and English Teachers of all three Departments. MI (Elementary School), MTS (Junior High School) and SMK (Senior High School). We also went on a mini campus tour to get acquainted with the place.

After taking pictures, we were escorted to Asrama Putri (girl's dorm). The school opened a boarding school this year and there are currently girls from grade 7 and grade 10 staying here. We were given a room in the 3rd floor. In the evening we had dinner in the shared dining room and met the girls.