Adjusting to Site and Break from School

I haven’t posted for a while.   A lot has happened and I’m now at my permanent site.  There was a semester break so I didn’t have school for about 2 weeks.  In my host family’s house, there is no wifi so I couldn’t really post anything here.  I’ll be uploading this when I am back at school.

During the break, I mostly stayed at home.  Peace Corps has a guideline that volunteers should not travel outside of their site for overnight trips for the first 3 months of their time there so the volunteers have a chance to get integrated into the community.  So, even though I didn’t have school, I still mostly stayed at site/around the house/village.  Because the break was during December, PC made a special exception for some of us in West Java to get together for Christmas in Bandung.  Bandung city is about an hour away from my site by train and it’s the second biggest city in West Java after Jakarta.  One of the PC volunteers has a family member who lives in Bandung and they graciously allowed us to stay a couple nights at their house.  There was 5 volunteers total who came, some of the other volunteers had family visiting at the time.  There are a total of 6 PC volunteers in West Java but only 3 including me from my group (called ID15).  The other volunteers have been here about a year so they are able to travel unlike my group right now.

Christmas was really fun and we had a really nice Christmas Eve dinner at a hotel near the house.

It was great just being about to be around other people who are in the same boat.  Although there is recognition of the holiday here, people don’t really celebrate.  This was a really fun time and I hope to be able to get together with the other volunteers even if it isn’t for a specific holiday.

Below are some photos from the past ~3 weeks.

Another volunteer and I on the Whoosh, a fast train from Bandung to Jakarta. What normally would take 3 hours by train is shortened to just 30 minutes. Up to 350 KM/per hour (~218 miles per hour).

Adorable cat in the house we spent christmas at. His name is Cheeto! Very aloof and likes to act all cool. On the last night he warmed up to me and laid on the desk in my room.

My new host sister at my permanent site. Her name is Alina. She is 8 years old. Her and I are enjoying some ice cream/shaved ice that was delicious!