My last travel in 2013—Indonesia

By Huda’s invitation, the end of 2013 I went to Indonesia to join the Youth Camp. Although it was my second time to Indonesia, I didn’t have much memory about my first visit. First time to Indonesia I didn’t have the chance to go around and meet people. I was glad this time I had the chance to get to know the country more and working + living with the people.

My impression about Indonesia

People said one of the special things about Indonesia was the traffic jam. Really, traveled here took a lot of time in the traffic. I was surprise to see many people going for work around 6:30 in the early morning because of the traffic. People need to go out earlier in order to be on time and at the same time practice patient. I am a fast person without much patient. Every time facing the traffic it seemed to tell me “I don’t need to rush all the time, there is enough time for everything, don’t worry.”

This was my first time lived in a Muslim community. Even I knew Muslim pray 5 times a day, I was still surprised to see people live in this life style. To pray 5 times a day needs a lot of discipline, and it is not easy, especially when during the day so many things are happening, yet I enjoyed seeing my friends doing their praying. Every time knowing + seeing them doing their prayer, I felt so nice that they can get so closed to the Higher Power frequently and regularly. When it was the prayer time people just stop whatever they were doing and went to pray. For me it seems like a “pause” in the day. This might be something I need, because I always had a rush day. I did many things very fast and after I finished my work I still had the fast speed in my mind and need to take effort to slow down my mind in order to get rest. And this kind of “pause” helped me to slow down and reduce making mistakes in what I was doing.

My Challenge in Indonesia

There were three things challenged me a lot in Indonesia. The first thing was taking cold shower. In Taiwan no matter cold or hot weather we always took hot shower. I suffer not only in Indonesia, also when I travel to different South East Asian countries. I still could take it just didn’t enjoy having shower with cold water.

The second one was spicy food. My dad and my brother can take spicy food but I don’t know why I can’t. It was really surprised to see at breakfast time instead of taking strawberry jam, they used chili sauce to eat with bread. And a lot of time I like the taste of the food and was enough taste for me, but they still add a lot of spicy + chili. Very grateful to friends here took care of me a lot. Whenever we had meal they would check whether there was non spicy food for me. So I enjoy eating in Indonesia with the non spicy food.

The third challenge was the paper money. The currency was too big for me, too much zero behind. This was another thing I didn’t understand about myself. My dad used to be a math teacher and my mum is good at accounting. But I am not. It made me crazy to count, especially with all the zeros on the paper money.

About the Youth Camp

I arrived few days before the camp started. I had no idea what I could do and what kind of role I was playing in the camp. Running camps for me is easy, since high school I have been trained to organize activities and performances. After graduated from uni I run camps minimum 4 times per year. Coming to help them I need to keep reminding myself, the core team was young and new, a lot of time I shouldn’t act and react too fast. During the Youth Camp I still got involved too much because they all knew I was the one keep changing things in the camp.

I enjoyed the Youth Camp a lot. In Taiwan usually I was the one to take care of everything and needed to do a lot of administration works. Coming to this camp, there were fewer responsibilities on my shoulder. Mainly I was helping with the program + family groups + run a workshop. Another mission I gave myself was to take care of the committee. They were the people easily got into work and forgot to take care of themselves. So this time I didn’t interact much with the participants.

I enjoy working with the committee each night for the next day program and saw them performed well in the front. While planning with them I could see they had good training about IofC messages and they had many ideas about what / how to present, they just lack of experiences, did not have enough confidence to stand in front of the crew. It was their first time to run the Youth Camp, and I thought the camp for me was amazing in many ways. Of course there were much more ccould be improved, but I felt we often forget to affirm what we had achieved and tended to blame the part we did not do well.

Attending this Youth Camp, seeing young people working (I think I am still young but surprise to know among the committee I was one of the old people) gave me different ideas about what else I can do in Taiwan. It is nice to be there.

I hope in the future there will be more chance for me to visit Indonesia. Not only for the camp but also for some relax and playing time.