Update No. 2

Time does fly! 8 more days and we are off to our last adventure: BALI
 I didn't really like the idea going to Bali in the first place, but since Padang it is as non-toursitic as possible, I'm really looking forward now to go there, just being a plain and inconsiderable tourist among others. No one staring at you, asking for pictures or shouting BULE at you....

The last couples of weeks went by so quickly and a lot has happenend.
Just a little inside of my daily life here in Padang:

just some curious school kids

At 5am the loudspeakers mounted on top of the mosque next to our house go on and the muezzin (using a microphone) starts to call for prayers. The volume is turned up so that the call for prayers can be heard at the entire neighborhood. If you want to know how that sounds: Azan - call for prayers. Unfortunately the muezzins voice is most of the time not as nice and endurable...
At the same time at least 3 alarm clocks in our room go on and ring for one hour  in snooze mode until the mum enters the room and kicks the girls out of bed. Although they are supposed to get up at 5am to pray, they just keep sleeping and don't even wake up at the most annoying alarm clock sounds. BUT I DO!
So 5-6 hours sleep a night is also what I needed to get used to...

I always have school from 7am to 11 or 2pm. Most of the time I'm in class with another teacher, but its also no surprise anymore if one morning I have to improvise because a teacher got sick or surprisingly went to Jakarta for "business".
In this case the best you can do is trying to find the one or two kids in class whos english skills are at least good enough to communicate and use them as interpreter.
Even in senior high school their english skills are so low, they  hardly can answer questions like "How are you?", "What did you do today?" not to mention trying to start a conversation with them. Add to that the incredible shyness talking to a "Bule". Only the really tough and brave kids are bolt enough to aks questions.

Bule is how western people are called in Indonesia. They explained to us, that it is not ment to be insulting or anything, but when someone on the street calling you Bule, pointing at you und taking pictures of you secretly, it feels kind of weird. And think about it, if in Europe everybody would shout at e.g. black people and call them names, I would say it's kind of racism (even tough in a positiv way).
Just another circumstance we all needed to get used to. 
I could write about school for hours, just because it is so different from what I have ever experienced.

Dicipline: There is no! If even the teachers answer their phone during class, how are they supposed to learn. Chatting, laughing, going out, coming in while the teachers is explaining something is totally normal. If you ask for silence and concentration they keep their mouth shut for max. 30sec. After 3 days of teaching m y voice already got hoarse because of trying to drown them out constantly...
But there are also many many really nice kids who try their best talking to me and some girls even learned a couple of phrases in german to impress me.
All in all, the school is one of the unorganised institutions I have ever been to. But I love teaching the kids or at least try my best to convince them that being able to speak english is the most important thing they can learn in school and that they can only benefit from it.

morning ceremony: flag hissing

After school we often meet in the central mall: Plaza Andalas, go to the traditional market, plan our next weekend trip or hang out at the pool of the pangeran beach hotel, where they don't mind if some western guys chill at their pool for free :)

traditional market

one of the biggest mosques in town