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U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

Indonesian rural homestay




A few weeks before we left on this trip I had been in touch with a guy named Yudi who runs a home stay program in the countryside of Indonesia. He has a great website and was recommended by the Lonely Planet so Sean and I decided to book a few days with him so we could live with a family and see what life was like in the rural parts of the country.

We weren’t that sad to leave Jakarta and on our third day we slept in and hung out at a café for awhile before we decided to undertake the long trip out of the city and into the country. Getting to the southern bus station of Jakarta was tricky as it takes about an hour to get there because of traffic. There’s no direct local bus that goes there and although very cheap, the city’s 'busway system' is super confusing. Yudi had sent us specific directions on how to get to his house along with useful phrases in Bahasa but we still knew it would be a challenge.



Our first step was navigating through Jakarta’s numerous dishonest taxi drivers and meter scams. We failed horribly. Though we were using the supposed reputable company, our first driver drove us around in circles for about twenty minutes. After Sean noticed the same fountain that was near our hostel, he yelled for the driver to pull over and let us off. Our second driver had a meter that increased at an astronomical rate and promptly got pulled over for reckless driving. Needless to say we exited that taxi also. We ended up walking back to our hostel and hiring a private car to take us there. The whole experience was really frustrating but didn’t really surprise me since a) we’re obviously tourists b) we can’t speak the language and c) we aren’t aware of the best routes to take where. ($6 breakfast, $3 taxis, $11 private car)



The bus station that we arrived at is almost never visited by tourists (according to Yudi) and he was right. We got a lot of curious stares and interested questions about where we were going, why we were there and where we were from. After some confusion and lots of questions, we eventually found the correct bus that was headed to the tiny town of Cianjur where our home stay was. The other riders were very friendly and wanted to sit by us and chat. They were all shocked we were going to Cianjur and wanted to look at our paper of directions. Many asked if we could speak Bahasa and a few could speak limited English. ($5 bus, $1 minibus)

The trip was long, the seats were miniscule and the bus was crowded but the scenery was beautiful. We wound around rice paddies, volcanoes, jungle and small villages with terracotta roofs. I was surprised at how steep and hilly most of the journey was and found myself struggling to trust the braking system. Since the bus driver knew exactly where we were going as we were the focal point of the bus, they made a special stop at the entrance to Yudi’s neighborhood. As Sean and I stood there with our packs on staring at our sheet of directions and feeling slightly lost, a small red mini-bus screeched to a stop in front of us, looked at our directions and took us to Yudi’s house for about thirty cents.



All the neighbors were hanging out on the porch and we were greeted with a crowd of people when we pulled up. Yudi and his wife were really nice and welcoming and gave us a quick tour of the small house. Then they gave us some cold fruit juice and heaps of fresh papaya while they talked to us about their goals of the home stay program and the possibilities of what to see and do while we were in Cianjur. Yudi’s goals of the home stay program are to “show Indonesia to the world” as well as provide jobs to the community. He employs locals to do some chores around the house, act as guides, transport guests and do laundry. The daily fee that we paid him included accommodation, all meals and snacks, transportation, laundry and internet. ($39 food and lodging)



Since much of Indonesian food is similar to Chinese food and Yudi knew we taught in China, he had arranged a menu of dishes unique to Indonesia. For dinner we had pickled cabbage with tangy tofu, spicy potato cakes, rice and tea. After dinner, two young friends of Yudi took us around the town on their motorcycles. They were a lot of fun and extremely excited to talk to us, hear about America and practice their English. They took us to try a traditional dessert in Indonesia called ‘martabak’ which is a big sweet pancake filled with chocolate and peanuts – it was awesome! (Total for 2 people = $65)

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Sarah Sanderson edit post

2 comments

  1. Kate on January 27, 2011 at 11:11 AM

    I think it's great you were able to do a homestay. You got a real feel for how the locals live, and you helped the local economy out at the same time.

     
  2. Anonymous on August 26, 2014 at 9:38 PM

    Come here again, i love to share with you about everythings in indonesia, and its free, ask me at facebook : Wahyu Huntelaar , and blackberry mesenger 74CE62B6

     


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    I am currently in Mandarin language training as a new diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service. Sean and I depart for Wuhan, China in November 2019 for my first tour in consular affairs.
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