In those 46 days on the Indonesian island, I understood...

When talking about Indonesia, at first I could only think of beaches, coconuts, and the island of Bali, whose name is similar to Paris. There were not many reasons for choosing Indonesia. Maybe it was because air tickets in Southeast Asia were cheaper, or maybe I was impressed by Esek who interviewed me. The Muslim girl wearing a headscarf said to me sincerely, Shannoon, I hope you can bring changes to my hometown. So, after finishing the history exam, I went home to pack my luggage and embarked on my 46-day trip to Indonesia.

Indonesia has four main islands. I went to Sulawesi in the east. While most EPs went to relatively developed cities such as Surabaya and Yogyakarta, I came to Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, which is relatively backward.

When I first arrived in Makassar, to be honest, I was a little disappointed. The city is very big and chaotic. On the way from the airport to the host family, you can see luxurious residential areas and shabby ones. A miserable ghetto. Houses of worship and shopping malls seem to encompass all the city's gorgeous architecture.

The chapter I came to is Hassanuddin University AIESEC in Makassar

UNHAS. Hasanuddin University is the best university in Sulawesi, and this summer, they have five programs a year. The project I am working on is in the education category. Since Indonesian high schools start in mid-July, I arrived in Makassar at the end of June. In the first three weeks we taught children in the orphanage, and in the last three weeks we left Makassar and came to Selayar, a small island in southern Sulawesi, to teach high school students.

The English proficiency of the children in the orphanage is relatively low. My partner Jan, a Czech brother, and I basically started teaching them the alphabet. Every day we went to the orphanage, the children were running around happily and entertaining us with their best food. Before leaving Makassar, the children at the orphanage drew a picture for Jan and me. One girl told me that she wanted to be like me in the future and do her best to help those in need. At that time, I suddenly couldn’t stop crying. I will eventually be a passing guest in their lives, and there is really too little I can do. But from her, I saw the impact I had brought, and how I had come. The real reason to go to Indonesia.

After three weeks in Makassar, I went to the small island of Selayar. From Makassar to Selayar, you need to take a bus first, then take a boat and then a bus, which takes 10 hours in total. This experience made me deeply understand the unpunctuality of Indonesian people. After the bus was delayed, we missed the boat and were forced to stay in the port for a day. There was no hotel and we had to sleep in the bus. The temperature was over 30 degrees, there was no air conditioning, the bus didn’t even have windows, and the bus was full of people. The smell of sweat and carbon dioxide is almost suffocating. But under such circumstances, what moved me was that not a single OC or EP complained. On the contrary, everyone actively adapted to the environment. We took the opportunity to wander around the port, and after walking for more than an hour, I met the most important person in my life. The most beautiful beach, bar none.

This made me suddenly understand that as long as you stay positive and face life, life will always reward you inadvertently. In that case, even if just one person starts complaining, the outcome will be very different.

Selayar is a very small island. You can cycle around the city center in 30 minutes. During the day, the residents here basically don’t close their doors. When walking on the road, most people know each other. It’s really It makes me feel like a paradise.

We teach English in the high school here, and the teachers in the school are very good to us. Almost every day, we are invited to eat at home. In Selayar, eating seems to be the biggest task every day, Thai girl He once joked to me, shannoon, you are like a pig. Almost every day after school, students will take us to various places on the island to play. You can see the sea from everywhere. The seaside is a five-minute walk from my host.

In Selayar, I experienced true inner peace and harmony. The people here are really very simple and unsophisticated. We only did a little bit, but got the greatest reward from everyone.

In addition to these accidents, I also have a deep feeling about religion in Indonesia. In China, it is difficult for you to feel the religious atmosphere, but most people in Indonesia are Muslims. They get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to pray every day and do not eat pork or drink alcohol. When I first arrived in Indonesia, it was the fasting period. Everyone stopped eating between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. every day. After the fasting was over, it was Eid al-Fitr, just like the Chinese New Year. Everyone would visit relatives and friends’ houses and eat. Eat eat. Here I tried to wear a headscarf for the first time and entered the chapel. When everyone prayed at the same time, I also felt the sanctity of religion.

In these 46 days in Indonesia, I have experienced so many things that it is impossible to write them all down in words, but as a Pakistani guy said on global village, it is one of the most amazing experiences in my life.

How lucky I am to have met you.