Time for a little R&R

The week between graduation and the start of the new school year, I took a little break away to Malaysia. This island (3rd largest in the world) of Borneo is shared by three countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. The Indonesian portion is called Kalimantan and is separated into 5 different provinces. With just a 5-hour car trip and 45-minute plane trip or 12-14 hour car trip you can get yourself across the border to Malaysia, specifically the city of Kuching. We go there for visa work but we also go here to shop and enjoy things like Indian and Thai food or yummy McDonald's french fries :)

So what does a little R&R look like...

Look tall buildings! With multiple well-stocked malls and fun places to eat within walking distance or short taxi ride from my 14th story hotel room

Look its a bathtub! Ok so I wasn't a big bathtub person in the U.S. but I love a good soak here. Unfortunately for 3 of the 5 nights my hotel didn't have hot water (which they apparently didn't think was a big deal). I will confess that one night I resorted to filling the tub with mostly tepid water and then adding several of the kettles of hot water from the kettle provided in the room :) It wasn't great but it did work. 

I am not a huge fun of McDonalds in the U.S. but sometimes a girl just needs some french fries and a chocolate milk shake. 

I am not usually one of those girls who takes pictures of their food usually, but I also had a delicious seafood meal at TopSpot and some pretty delicious Indian food plus Pizza Hut and McDonalds. There are also numerous much better stocked stores in Kuching including places to get a large amount of cheese. Yep I was that girl with 5 kg (11 pounds) of cheese in her carry-on plus bacon and ham! The poor customs guy just about had a heart attack when I told him that there was pork in the box. Pork is considered unclean for Muslim people, so he had to go find someone else to inspect my baggage. Anyway, all in all it was a good trip. I am ready for my next vacation to have a little more adventure though - maybe Bali. There are definitely benefits to living in SE Asia! Anyone want to join me?   

The Haze

With the dry season well upon us and lasting a long time, the haze has set in. This is annual occurrence here in Indonesia, as land and jungle is burned for planting. In the not so distant past it was mostly famers who used this method to clear small areas of land but in more recent years with the money to be made with palm oil tree plantations and other cash crops, large portions of land are being cleared and burned each year. For several years now this has caused numerous problems with the air quality both here in Indonesia but also in neighboring countries like Malaysia and Singapore. For the most part those who use this illegal method have not been punished and it is just something we all have to deal with. Partially, because while it is the local people starting the fires they are under intense pressure to clear the land by the owners, many of which live in big cities on other islands and even other countries.

This year though the dry season has lasted longer and the haze has reached extremely high levels, affecting the health of many. Here in Indonesia kids don't get snow days but instead smoke days off from school. There have been several reports of people, especially children, dying because the smoke causes an asthma attack or pneumonia. Our hospital here has seen a large increased in lung infections and asthma. Airports are also closed for much of the day, causing problems. Plus of course this only increases the rate of deforestation.

Here are a few pictures to illustrate what is happening:

Air Quality (or lack thereof!) in our nearby city of Pontianak. Anything above 350 is considered dangerous. Other cities in Indonesia are even higher. In comparison for those in the Northwest, on this same scale your air quality this summer at the peak of your forest fires was mostly between 150-350. 

The view from my house on a normal day

The view from my house on a smokey day. You can barely see across the soccer field. 

But at least we know how to poke fun at ourselves too. This comic has been making its way around social media lately. You are looking at the flags for Indonesia (right), Malaysia & Singapore (left). Indonesia recently celebrated its 70th birthday and apparently they all got together to celebrate...

Please join us in praying for rain, for those responsible to be held accountable, and for the health of all affected by the haze.

For those interested, you can read more here:
A good basic article on what is happening here.
And an article on the arrest of some of the executives here:

A New Class

So it all starts with a...

This is basically a nice brochure the school puts together that outlines the curriculum, the application process, and costs etc. There are also banners put up around the area with information about registration.

Then over the next two months young people (mostly high school seniors) come with one of their parents and register. They have to meet requirements such as height and weight, provide a picture, and pay a fee to register.

Then in mid-August they come to campus for the entrance exam. This year we had 78 register and 60 show up to take the test.

Lining up the morning of the entrance exam

 The test has four subjects - Indonesian, English, Math, and Science. It is a total of 100 questions and they have 3 hours to complete it. It is actually really hard, especially considering they are not allowed to use a calculator.

Hard at work taking the test

Once the students are done taking the test, the correction team gets to work. Each answer sheet is coded, removing the student's name from the answer sheet, to help prevent cheating. Each year members of the correction team receive offers of bribes from family members of those who are applying. There is also temptation because many who apply are local kids and some have extended family members who work at the Nursing School. We also have each answer sheet checked by two people and then a third if there is any discrepancy. After the grades are entered, we make a final decision as to how many students will be accepted. We usually try to make it a definitive answer like they passed in at least two of the subjects but this year we didn't have enough to reach that point. The average was quite low unfortunately.

We don't have a scantron machine, so each correct answer block is cut-out by hand and then corrected by hand

Waiting for the results to be posted

In the end we accepted 50 students. They still had to pass a physical exam though and go through an interview. Our final class new freshmen class has 46 students. It will be a lot of fun to get to know them in the coming three years. I will be providing academic counseling and support to 3 of them: Nimrod, Gusniati, and Dolina.