Some things that my friends have asked me about Darmasiswa:
Did you have housing near ISI or did
you have to find an apartment?
On the very first day we came to Bali
(or the day I arrived back to Bali because I had already been there),
our advisor Komang had only given us a list of addresses of possible
kos to stay at. However, they were only addresses without
phone numbers and so we were also given an option to either rent out
a room at the university dorms (which hardly seemed a welcoming space
since it was still the off-time and you would be the only students in
the dorms on campus...).
Luckily, I had reserved my spot at Ibu
Arini's or Ary's kos beforehand. This is housing borders ISI,
but we had to walk a long backroad to get to the campus since they
blocked the other gate that was more direct ever since the student
riot in around 2008 or 2009 around the Rektor Rai situation.
Was housing expensive?
Ary's
kos at the time cost me 800,000 rupiah (IDR). During the 2012/2013
Darmasiswa Year, your scholarship was 2 million rupiah a month. The
exchange rate to the dollar made the rent roughly a little more than
$80 USD.
Did you have a roommate or live
alone?
The
rooms at Ary's kos were designed for a single person, so I lived
alone in my room. But there were 10 rooms total during this year.
Since then Ary has probably moved into the house he constructed
within the kos
so that adds one or two more extra rooms to rent out + another one
that he had finished during the time I was there. In any case, there
was at least more than 8 of us living at the kos
other than Ary and his family.
Going
back to the first day in Bali after the orientation in Jakarta, the
sunlight was getting orange and I had just walked out of the compound
when down came walking a number of the Darmasiswa and I had invited
them to check out Ary's kos.
After that, Ary let five or six of us other Darmasiswa stay in the
kos
for that period so they would have a place to stay or also give them
time to check out other places tomorrow.
After
six months, many of us would be living together in that kos
and many times a month, we would have Ibu Arini visit which I was
very grateful for. One of the nicest and most heart-warming Balinese
I've got to be with.
Did you have to go to the
orientation in Jakarta?
No. There are reasons you will
experience that will make you not like the orientation as I didn't as
well. But I will tell you it gives you a chance to network with
Darmasiswa from all over the world and you also get an immediate
sense of the program and how everything is organized (because it's
organized Indonesian style). It's probably a fraction of the sense of
all the people joining this program but that fraction is still very
powerful.
Did you have enough money to get a
motorbike?
Yes. I went with one of my Balinese
friends sometime around November and he helped me look for a
second-hand motorbike. I got a Yamaha Xeon 2010 (I think) for 9
million rupiah (a little more than 900USD at the time). This
motorbike has a bit more horsepower than the usual motorbikes but it
was also the less popular brand at the time so the motorbike
decreased in value faster. It was bright green and I called it Leaf.
“I'm a leaf in the wind was my motto” as I drove around the roads
of Bali.
I'm seriously considering doing Darma Siswa next year and would like to pick your brain about it. I'm sure you had ups and downs, what were they? How was picking up the language? What was your living situation like? Were able to travel while there? How was the school load? How much money did you bring? You went to Bali, correct? I'm considering going to Sunda.
About the Darmasiswa, since it is late
I will be as succinct as I can but please ask more questions if they
come up:
Ups and Downs:
UPs: Year-long visa, and living with
Balinese families and going to ceremonies, meeting Darmasiswa as well
as those outside of my university and seeing ex-pats and all kinds of
people in Indonesia, traveling to Solo for a month, studying movement
over there, meeting the Bali celebrities/great teachers and people
connected to Gamelan Sekar Jaya and so forth, if you go to Bedulu,
Bali, go and see Diane Butler, making friends having them as family
in Indonesia, getting to really know some Indonesians and hang out
with them, a year is a good time span to not be in a rush and really
soak in the tempo of Indonesian life. If you're in a city, you won't
recognize it as fast as if you're in the village -- there's still
tons of villages around, go and see! -- also getting to be in a
different state of mind and thinking differently about religion
DOWNs: ISI Denpasar, like many of the
Darmasiswa institutes don't actually give you much academic support
(this is partially a PRO because I was able to just go out and find
my own teachers and have more of a free schedule than those who had
to take language classes with the program), the program seems very
unorganized so it will start off kinda slap-dash but once you find
your own teachers and what you wanna do there, i think it's easy to
soar through; now I'm just coming to realize one of the biggest
culture shocks for me in Bali was how they treated money-- to me
everybody seems to try and rip everybody off - so it's always nice to
have an Indonesian friend around to make sure you get proper
treatment especially when there are those who try to siphon money
from tourists because they think they have all the money to buy the
world; wifi, internet, and cell-phones are very prominent around the
cities (but this is also a good thing if you need to get in contact
with family or friends)
Picking up the language: it's easy to
get the basics of Indonesian down to get to a good survival point.
Indonesians are also friendly in helping you out to learn the
language if they aren't embarrassed to correct you. if the place
isn't already international with some knowledge of English, you'll
make friends easily who can also help you along the way
Living situation: During my Darmasiswa
time, I lived close to the university for the first 6 months and then
I moved to another touristy area in another city/village. I stayed
close to the Darmasiswa who were serious about learning music there
and we all got to hang out and learn about Bali and music together (a
lot of unserious Darmasiswa just use it as vacation time)
Traveling: Yes, you do get to travel.
Many of my Darmasiswa friends vacationed around the island and got to
visit the home of some of our Balinese friends in North Bali (ISI
Denpasar is South Bali). Some also went to Sumatra, Jawa, and Lombok.
I went to Solo and we all went to Yogyakarta for the closing
ceremony.
School load: non-existent. it was many
all practice if there was class. They had us start on a gamelan but
then the teachers started to be absent all the time so the students
wouldn't come and we all gave up on that. It's still pretty corrupt
in terms of teachers and pay. Teachers in the university come for the
money. So most learning was done outside the university.
Money: Bring extra money. The stipend
they will give you will cover food and rent at the minimum. I suggest
bringing at least 1000-2000 USD on top of your plane ticket.
NOTE:
If you're going to West Jawa, be careful with the month of Ramadan,
you'll be hard pressed to find food-- but by then, you'll probably
have found in friends to take care of you or travelled to somewhere
else.
Are you able to visit Pengosekan
frequently or is that too much of a hassle cause its far away? I have
heard from Emiko too that Darmasiswa is very much about independent
learning and finding teachers on your own like you said. Are you
living in like an apartment or small guest room? Is driving the
motorbike feeling more comfortable or just scary as always? Are you
trying to learn indonesian or just picking up pieces of the language
while you're there? Are you mainly hanging out with english speaking
friends or balinese people?
Are you able to visit Pengosekan
frequently or is that too much of a hassle cause its far away?
I've gotten used to the drive now. It's
30 minutes from Denpasar. however, I've decided to move to Pengosekan
because that's where two of my teachers reside and it's their gamelan
that I'm focusing mainly on. I get a bit tired after a drive so
sometimes driving isn't the best option but the half hour goes by
quickly.
Are you living in like an apartment or
small guest room?
I live at Ary's Garden. Ary is the son
of Ibu Arini and so I'm basically on her land. It's a wonderful place
close to ISI and also a serene garden to live in. The housing is a
room and a bathroom. Living like the Balinese is great, me thinks,
much more outside nature and less house to hide in. Here's another
important note: finding housing at first was a bit difficult. All ISI
gave us was a list of addresses for available housing - no phone
numbers ... so we all had to walk to these addresses. Luckily,
someone from Sekar Jaya had hooked me up with Ary, so I already knew
where I was going. There are many places to live close to ISI but
finding them at first was a bit scary for the Darmasiswa. --They're
currently renovating their dorms, so I have no idea how that's going
to turn out.
Is driving the motorbike feeling more
comfortable or just scary as always?
I felt like I got a good grasp of the
motorbike after a month of picking it up. It was a steep learning
curve and everybody falls, just like riding a pedal bike, but the
Balinese look out for you in traffic. -- It was very scary at first
but the thing now is to not get too comfortable and always be on the
look out. It's very easy to be on a motorbike and lose perspective of
the road when you think you have a grasp of the motorbike. Motorbikes
can weave in and out of traffic a lot more than cars can do that in
America and there's a very different driving culture here. It's much
much much more dynamic. One trick is to approach slowly and calmly
when weaving through traffic. Notice the condition of the road
(potholes, raining, pedestrians, intersections and many places where
vehicles are entering traffic) I haven't found a comfortable way to
not have a motorbike in Denpasar. It's like one of those convenient
but inconvenient technologies nowadays... like cellphones.
Are you trying to learn indonesian or
just picking up pieces of the language while you're there?
I'm trying to learn Indonesian... ISI
only helped out a bit for the first couple of months. But I have some
books in Indonesian that I bought. Going through them slowly because
I spend more time on music...
Are you mainly hanging out with english
speaking friends or balinese people?
Mainly hanging out with English
speaking friends. I'm trying to make an effort to hang out with
Balinese people ... but the circles that I'm in just make it so easy
to only need to speak English. I like the pembantu at Ibu Arini's
though... she doesn't know English so I get to make offerings and
speak in Indonesian with her and she shares gossip with me.
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