I had never been to Salatiga before but I had heard a lot about it. Quiet, cool and well-known for the Satya Wacana Christian University (SWCU). I went there in December to attend the annual TEFLIN Conference along with 200 hundred other people involved with English language teaching in Indonesia. Guest speakers were exellent and the eager participation of so many Indonesian teachers was great to see. KGRE made many new friends at TEFLIN especially when I gave away free pins, magazines and stickers. Johan from IALF Bali gave a wonderful Poster Presentation about computers. It attracted a lot of interest!

After leaving Salatiga I went to Jakarta via Yogyakarta. I experience for the first time ever the very worst of Jakarta traffic. The usually 45 minute trip from the airport to Jl. Rasuna Said took a whopping 3 hours. I sat in the taxi on the freeway for three hours. My iPod battery was finished and so was my handphone battery so I had to just sit threre quietly and be very, very patient. That was a long, pretty boring and somewhat frustrating experience.

I arrived at the hotel to just catch the final 30 minutes of AusAID’s Dinner for volunteers in Indonesia. Better late than never they say. The volunteers include people from Australian Volunteers International (AVI), Australian Business Volunteers (ABV), Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development (AYAD) and Volunteering for International Development from Australia (VIDA). All together,  approximately 65 participants. More news on these wonderful people on the January 2007 KGRE AusAID Page.