Just a quick post (though it will take an hour or more to upload the photos) to show where I've been living and a bit of the neighborhood and school...some interesting highlights of this neighborhood include a skate park and small soccer field just down the street, a train track just beyond the houses across the street (with the cutest, shortest trains I've ever seen delivering gasoline around the region), and the high school (SMA 3) with it's graffiti art wall designed a couple of years ago.
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| This is the home where I stayed, just a 3 minute walk from school. One of Zulfah's former students is related to the owner of the house, a policeman who works far away, and so I was able to stay with a wonderful family (mom, two daughters, and son) in this very nice house. |
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| Just a block away from "home" is the railroad crossing...and it looks very rural and village-like along the tracks. |
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| Seems many becak drivers live along the railroad tracks. Most homes here are constructed of scraps of metal and wood. |
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| And, just beyond the tracks, one finds this sort of residential area. These homes are private homes, most have "gardens" along their driveway and sometimes on the upper terrace too. Bars are the norm for all middle-class and upper-class homes here, and also for schools and stores. |
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| This is Jalan Bilan...a larger street just around the corner from my homestay home. It recently got paved (yahoo!) so some of the dust has settled :-) |
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| Jalan Yos Sudarso, the major street near the school and my homestay home...it's quite busy. |
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| Another shot of Jalan Yos Sudarso - rather calm at this moment and nicely walkable. I enjoy walking, as you know, and so I have walked around the neighborhood quite a bit. Usually, I'm the only one on foot and the becak drivers are beside themselves and confused, trying to get me to hop in for a ride. Walking is not common here - mostly because there are no real sidewalks and traffic is horrendous and quite dangerous. |
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| The entrance to SMA 3. Renovations are under way and you can see the construction in progress behind the gate. It's a bright, cheerful school, though, which I like. |
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| Some of the art students created for the school wall a few years ago as part of a graffiti abatement project. The wall just to the south of this school wall is tagged by local gangs I'm told...haven't seen any gangs to be honest, but then again, I'm not sure what they might look like. Maybe it's the boys from the skate-park up to some mischief at night...ha! |
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| This one is rather interesting to me - those eyeless eyes, soulless eyes, are intense...and the tagging adds an interesting layer over the school name I think. |
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| So sweet and nerdy. Love this one! |
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| This was the "winning" design...to the right is a motorcycle streak which adds a cool effect not in the original artwork :-) |
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| Love it! This design is so western, so urban, so bad-ass...and then the main message at bottom reads: "Without teacher we're nothing." Sweetness all around. |
