An Education volunteer in Indonesia: A Talk with Chloe

In this interview, we hear from Chloe Bridges. Chloe is working as a Peace Corps Education volunteer in Indonesia. What Chloe shares gives us a better understanding of the work volunteers do. We learn about the challenges, rewards, and personal growth that happens from volunteering in a new place. Chloe talks about living in a different country, working with local people, and dealing with surprise situations. Join us as we learn about Chloe’s journey and see how volunteering with Peace Corps can change lives.

Table of Contents

• Volunteer Experience and Motivation
• Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
• Surprises and Challenges
• Advice and Support
• Practical Tips and Language Learning
• Impact of Media and Final Thoughts

Volunteer Experience and Motivation

1. Can you tell us more about serving as an Education volunteer in Indonesia?

School designations in Indonesia

Education Volunteers in Indonesia work at either a middle school or a high school. Middle schools are called SMP or MTSN. And high schools are called SMA or MAN. PCVs work only in public schools in Indonesia. There are two types of public schools in Indonesia, and they are run by two different departments. The SMP/SMA is run by the Department of Education and the MTS/MAN is run by the Department of Religious Affairs. The MTS/MAN schools are considered religious schools but are different from those in the USA, which are typically private.

School year schedule

Schools in Indonesia start their year in July and have two semesters. The first semester is from July to December. There are about 2 weeks to a month break. Then the second semester is from January to June. There is another 2-week to a month break before the new school year starts. During the second semester, there is the month of Ramadan, so school is typically shorter and focused on religious activities during that month.

PCVs’ school locations

The Peace Corps has volunteers in three areas of Indonesia: West Java, East Java, and NTT. These are the areas that the Indonesian government has given its approval for. Indonesia is huge and has about 17,000 islands, although many are uninhabited.

My school in Bandung

I am at an MTS school in West Java, about an hour outside of Bandung (a big city in West Java). The previous capital of Indonesia, and the biggest city in Indonesia, Jakarta is in West Java. The new capital was recently established on August 17, 2024 and is called Nusantara in East Kalimantan.

In my middle school, there are grades 7-9, and the students’ ages are about 11-14 years old. I teach with co-teachers, and I have three Indonesian co-teachers. My school is from Monday to Friday, although some schools in Indonesia go until Saturday. PCVs are only required to go to school from Monday to Friday. My school hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and this is considered “full day” school as opposed to 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., which is considered “half day” and results in having Saturday school as well.

A typical day

My house is very close to my school, so my typical day looks like waking up between 6-6:30 a.m., walking about 1 minute to school, and grabbing food from my host Family’s food stall, go to my office that I share with a couple of teachers, have about 4-5 one-hour classes a day, and plan future classes during any breaks.

In my schedule, I leave for home after my last class and eat lunch at home. That is a very basic explanation. I typically will teach 1-2 different grade levels every day. This semester, I taught about 12 different classes of students, and that’s similar to my previous semesters as well. My host family runs one of the food stalls in the canteen at school, so we live super close to the school. Actually, the side of my house shares a wall with the wall fence of my school.

Breakfast is typically a sweet bread, some fried tempe, and either coffee or orange juice. I would say, usually, I end up coming home around 12-1:30 after my classes are all done. I usually eat lunch around 2 p.m., and it varies in terms of the foods, but it is always rice, a veggie, and some form of protein (usually tofu, chicken, or egg).

2. What motivated you to join the Peace Corps and choose Indonesia?

I don’t have a super clear answer for this question. I’ve been interested in joining the Peace Corps since I was in high school. When I found out they prefer/require a degree. I went to college, but PC was always in the back of my mind. I applied right after college for basically the earliest I could go. I graduated in June and left in September. 

I’ve always loved traveling, and I’ve always liked doing social work/volunteer work. I think Peace Corps offers a great way to explore new places, but also give back to the community you are going to. Additionally, I’ve always loved learning about new cultures and having unique experiences. PC allows you to get fully into a culture and really understand day-to-day’s life and truly connect with people in the place you are.

I didn’t directly apply to Indonesia. I applied to the “Serve Where Needed Most” application. I had mine open to all countries and all sectors except for agriculture because I have really bad allergies to lots of things outdoors. Indonesia was the first post to request to interview me, and I ended up getting accepted here!

Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration

3. Tell us more about your home situation

My host family is pretty small, but we are very close. There is my host mom, host dad, and my 9-year-old host sister. My host mom has a big family, and they all live in the same village, so we see them a lot. Every volunteer in Indonesia is required to live with a host family during their entire time here. I have had host family experiences prior to coming to Indonesia, so I was a bit more prepared for them compared to some of my cohort. I think it’s important to understand that host families come in all different shapes and sizes. Some PCVs are incredibly close with their host families, others aren’t. But you kind of just have to figure out what you are comfortable with and what you want out of the experience.

Transportation to and from the village

I live in a sub-village of a small town. I would say it’s pretty rural, although it only takes me about 2 hours to get to a big city if I need to go there for anything. For Indonesia, currently, there are only about 27 PCVs, so most of them are relatively spread out. The closest PCV to me is about 2 hours away. Since Covid, PC Indonesia has made it so that at least one PCV is less than 3 hours from you. There aren’t a lot of volunteers, and Indonesia is actually pretty big, so we are pretty spread out. I think when looking at a map, Indonesia looks relatively small, but the island of Java is very long. For example, it takes me a 10-hour train ride to even get to the PC office in Surabaya, East Java.

Indonesian food at home

The food is pretty good. If you like spicy food, Indonesia would work well for you. But don’t worry, I’m not a fan of spicy food, and I am able to eat 99% of the food. A lot of the spiciness in Indonesian food comes from sambal, which can be added or not depending on preference. Rice is eaten at pretty much every meal. In fact, if you don’t eat rice, many people won’t consider that a meal at all. There is a lot of tofu, tempeh, eggs, and chicken eaten here. Beef is pretty expensive, especially in rural communities, so it’s usually only eaten during special occasions. Pork is rarely ever found on the island of Java because Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, and Muslim people cannot eat pork. However, some PCVs are placed on the Island of NTT, which is predominantly Christian, and they do eat pork there.

Exercise tips

In terms of exercise, each volunteer has to figure out what works best for them at their site. Some have gyms, some exercise at home, and some go outside. It just depends on what is at your specific site. I would say, if possible, maybe look for more loose-fitting clothes to bring for workout clothes, as some sites are more conservative than others.

Clothing is part of integration

I think clothing is kind of a big part of cultural integration here. I can only really speak as a woman here, but I do know that for men, it is a bit more relaxed. For me, at least, I am at a religious school, so when I go to school, I need to wear shirts that go at least to my elbows. Pants or shirts need to go at least to mid-shin. In general, the teaching profession is pretty well respected, so the dress code is definitely more formal than in the US. In my house, the dressing requirements are more relaxed. However, on my site, I can’t really wear short sleeves out. 

Each site is different, and the advice I always give is to go in expecting the strictest dress code and observe what others wear and maybe ask your host family what is ok to wear out. You just have to personally find out what you and your site are comfortable with. I think for packing, it’s good to have more formal work clothes, and then you can relax a bit once you are adjusted to your site.

4. Any memorable experiences or interactions you’ve had?

I think it is inevitable to have both good experiences and bad experiences in the Peace Corps. This isn’t PC specific, though. Everything you do in life has both upsides and downsides. I think it’s important not to glorify PC because it sets an unreasonable expectation for new volunteers that everything will be perfect. With new environments, experiences, and interactions with new people, it is inevitable that some are good, some are bad, and some are just ok. I think that is completely normal, and it’s important to keep in mind during good times and bad that it doesn’t always stay the same.

Chatting with my host mom

A really simple but meaningful moment for me was when my host mom and I were able to have a full conversation, chatting without having to look up a word for translation. This was small, but it really showed how I was doing in the language and also gave me more confidence to talk about different subjects even if I didn’t have all the vocabulary.

Parents visit and manta rays

I’ve been here 19 months now, so I have had many memorable experiences. A more personal experience I had that didn’t really have to do with my work as a PCV happened while on Annual Leave in Labuan Bajo (an island in Indonesia). My parents had come to visit, and we traveled around Indonesia a bit. We did a day tour and one of the stops included snorkeling with manta rays. Probably one of the best snorkeling experiences I’ve ever had, and the gracefulness of the manta rays was incredible to see.

Students feeling comfortable chatting

One more memorable experience was the first time students started talking to me outside of class. The students are very shy here, and they are often worried about saying something wrong if they try in English. Within the classroom, I have really focused on the students just trying, and it’s not a problem if they are wrong. I think it is important to give the students praise for even trying because learning another language is really hard. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but slowly my students started to chat with me outside of class. 

Typically, in a mix of Bahasa Indonesian and English, we usually just say “hi,” “how are you,” etc. But it is really meaningful for me to see the students feel comfortable chatting with me and not worry so much about the English being perfect.

Surprises and Challenges

5. What has surprised you most about challenges in Indonesia?

I kind of already knew this coming in, but the level was just something I wasn’t used to. Indonesia is an incredibly community-forward society. Everyone knows everything about everyone. Also, even if you have never met people before, they will tell you everything about themselves and want to know everything about you in return. This was really hard for me to get used to, and in some ways, I kind of could only do as much as I was comfortable with. 

There is a mode of transportation here called an angkot. It is basically a small van that has seating in the back and drives around certain towns and can pick up and drop you off wherever you say. Anyways, there are often people who are from different villages on it, so you typically don’t know everyone on there. When I first got here, my host mom was showing me how to use the angkot, and so we rode it a few times together. While on the angkot, people would ask about me because it isn’t common to have a foreigner in my area. I was pretty surprised when my host mom gave them every bit of information about me and even explained where we lived. I was honestly uncomfortable with this because I didn’t know these people, and my host mom didn’t know them either. Once I got more comfortable, my host mom and I talked about what I did and didn’t want to tell people we met.

I do think, in communities that are so tight-nit, that you need to be careful about what information you tell someone. In general, my rule is not to share anything with someone unless I am ok with everyone/anyone knowing the information. I think this really comes up when the information has to do with your personal identity. To protect yourself and your peace, I recommend waiting to share any personal information until you have found a person you are sure won’t spread the information around. My host mom and I have a really good relationship, and if I tell her not to spread things around, she won’t. And people here do not mean it in a negative way. Many people are interested because you are a foreigner, and everyone just is curious about similarities and differences between Indonesia and the US. Even if their intentions are not bad, it’s still totally ok to have and set boundaries of what you are ok with.

6. What challenges did you face while working on Education projects?

Sometimes when working with people from different cultures, you run into some conflicts about practices because you both have different ways of doing things. Part of being a volunteer is learning how to compromise and have a mutual exchange of learning. It can be hard to compromise and understand different ways of thinking because, typically, everyone thinks they know best. I have had issues with my co-teachers to do with fundamentals of teaching, which can be difficult to overcome. 

An example of this was one of my teachers who only wanted to teach from the textbook because she thought it was always correct. But when I reviewed the textbook, I found many areas that were incorrect, and the author clearly used Google Translate to create some of the text. This caused some tension because my co-teacher was so used to teaching from the book and had a hard time collaborating to come up with lessons. 

For a while, this resulted in me creating the lessons by myself as my co-teacher avoided meetings to discuss lesson planning. It wasn’t necessarily malicious on their part, but they were just nervous about not being good at lesson planning, and that that would somehow make them a bad teacher because they couldn’t do the lesson planning. 

The way we ended up resolving this was to talk to each other and explain our sides, and we eventually settled on a lesson planning schedule and started a list of easy-to-use activities that can be used for any topic, so we could look back on when we don’t know what to lesson plan.

7. Could you share some of the secondary projects you have been involved?

I haven’t done a big secondary project, but I have done some smaller ones at my school. I think the most important thing about secondary projects is to make sure the community actually wants it and will use it even after you leave. I get that a lot of PCVs want to do secondary projects, but you need to make sure you are doing the project for the community and not just for yourself. 

Darien Book Aid

For me, personally, there just wasn’t an interest or need for anything when I went around the community and asked. I focused on the school instead. There is a great organization called Darien Book Aid, which will send PCVs free books in English. I applied and asked for a variety of subjects because previously, my school’s library only had English textbooks and no books in English that students could read for fun. I highly recommend this organization for PCV in education because these books can be used in classes and also English clubs, and can make more students interested in English. 

English Day

I also helped organize an English day at my school, where, in between classes, students were encouraged to try some light conversations in English. Also, the teachers would all practice English as well. I created “cheat sheets” with common words or phrases and gave those to all the students and teachers. I also gave different scripts to the people who ran the food stalls so they could join in as well. It went relatively well, and the students did use some English throughout the day. I think this was a good way to have students practice English while not feeling as much pressure as they do in the classroom.

Advice and Support

8. What advice would you give to someone considering serving as an Education volunteer in Indonesia?

I think Indonesia is a really beautiful country, and there are so many great places to go, both in Indonesia and in the surrounding countries. One fun piece of advice is to use your AL (annual leave) days to travel and explore as many places as you can. My philosophy for my Peace Corps service is: I don’t know when I’ll be in this region of the world again. So it’s my goal to see and experience as much as I can. Two years seems like a really long time, but it goes by much quicker than expected.

Being a Peace Corps volunteer can be a great experience, but as with anything, it comes with its ups and downs. I think going into service with the idea that everything is going to be perfect and that you will adjust immediately is unrealistic and harmful to your service. The best advice I can give you is to give yourself grace and remember that what you are doing is hard. It’s hard to learn a new language. It’s hard to live with a new family. It’s hard to teach with co-teachers you don’t know. It’s hard to dive right into a completely different culture and environment. All parts of your service will have struggles and mistakes, and that’s ok. Not everything has to be perfect, and you can take it one day at a time.

Also, as much as you might want to, do not compare yourself to other volunteers in your cohort. Each person’s sites, environments, backgrounds, and experiences are different and unique, and there is nothing positive that comes from comparing those experiences.

9. How has the Peace Corps training helped you during your service?

The PC training is very helpful, but can be overwhelming at times. Especially PST (Pre-Service Training) is due to the 3-month intensive training aspect of it. The single biggest help the trainings has given is the language skills. During the 3 months at PST, you have an intensive language training, which is 3-4 hours of language practice a day. This is extremely helpful, as you often will not find someone who speaks English at your site. At least for me, the only people who speak English at my site are the English teachers at my school. I think the trainings also did a good job giving an introduction to cultural differences and taught how to approach these differences. 

I think the trainings has also helped me even in ways I might not be aware. The training, especially PST, can be long and tiring at times, but they are important. I’ve had times when I’m at my site and having an issue, and suddenly something I learned in training pops into my head and ends up helping me solve my problems.

Practical Tips and Language Learning

10. Anything that you packed or didn’t pack that you’d like to tell future Indonesia volunteers?

There are a few things I use all the time that I packed, and there are some things I wish I had packed. I don’t really have anything I regret packing because if I don’t use it, I’m usually able to find someone who wants it. I would highly recommend having some clothes made while here in Indonesia. Batik is a type of fabric here, and a lot of volunteers have batik clothes made.

Things I packed that I very much suggest:

1. Microfiber towel – Indonesia is a humid climate, and the microfiber towel dries much quicker, reducing the risk of mold growing on the towel.
2. Clothes to wear outside of site – I was mostly concerned about clothes to wear to the school, but clothes that you wear out of the site in bigger cities are a lot less conservative. I ended up having to buy some because I didn’t bring enough clothes.
3. Some sort of gift for host families – I got things that were unique to Oregon because that’s where I’m from. It’s nice to bring a gift to a family you will live with, and it also helps break the ice a bit.

Things I packed that I didn’t use:

1. Water bottle with filter – although tap water is not drinkable, everyone has gallons of drinking water at home. The filter isn’t necessary unless you are big on outdoor activities where drinking water is limited. I prefer a water bottle that keeps the water cold, but that is personal preference
2. Chocolate as part of the host family gift, the chocolate will melt, and there are 3 months before you even get to your site host family.
3. 11. How has learning the language been?

All volunteers learn Bahasa Indonesia (BI), the national language of Indonesia. There are many different languages spoken in Indonesia, but learning BI allows Volunteers are to communicate with people regardless of the region they end up in.

The language program that the Peace Corps offers is very comprehensive. The biggest difficulty with the language at the beginning is the first meeting with the host families for Pre-Service Training. That meeting happens about 4-7 days after you get to Indonesia. The language teachers give you basically an introduction for you to memorize. 

The first few weeks are a lot of using translation apps. Immersion is one of the best ways to learn a language, but the process can be very frustrating. You will see that each person moves at their own pace. That doesn’t make anyone better or worse than anyone else. You should not measure your speed based on others. I think even if you learn one new word, that should be counted as a success. I always tell my students that learning a new word is a big achievement, so why should I judge myself by a different standard than I judge others by? It can be easy to feel down during the process of learning a language, but the key is to just keep trying, and slowly, words and phrases will stick.

Impact of Media and Final Thoughts

12. How do you think your blog contributes to your overall mission as a Peace Corps volunteer?

I have both a blog and an Instagram for my time here. First, I’ll talk about Instagram. Originally, after coming to Indonesia, I only had my personal Instagram. I realized quickly that I would have to change a lot of the posts I wanted to post to make them appropriate for the social expectations here, and that was not something I wanted to do on my personal account. I have my personal account private and created another Instagram that anyone on the site, including my students, could follow. My posts are in line with the expectations of my site, including (but not limited to) expectations around the appropriate dress code. My students really enjoy being able to follow the account, so I would highly recommend making an account for your time in the Peace Corps.

I have a blog that is mostly for relatives and friends back home to learn more about my time in the Peace Corps in long-form blogs as opposed to short Instagram and Facebook comments.

13. Any last comments or observations you’d like to pass on to future Indonesia volunteers?

I hope my Q&A here has helped shed some light on different aspects of service and can help potential volunteers feel comfortable and excited about service. The Peace Corps may have a lot of ups and downs, but it is truly an incredible program. I have made lifelong friends and forged connections both personally and professionally. I would highly recommend the Peace Corps to anyone who asks.

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What are you waiting for? Opportunities like this don’t come often. If you have a passion for service and an adventurous spirit like Chloe’s, apply to the Peace Corps today. Expand your horizons, push your limits, and create positive impact as a volunteer. You never know how serving as a Peace Corps volunteer could change your life.

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The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or Indonesia Government.