Oh, immigration...

Sooo...I just thought I'd update (twice in one day, what a treat!!) you all on my current status.

Earlier today, Kathy and I were sitting just chatting at our host fam's hizouse and the phone rings. Well, we didn't think anything of it until I heard Amelia say the world "Immigrasi," which means, I'm sure you could figure it out, "Immigration."

Uh oh.

She hung up the phone and starts explaining that Bu Indra, one of the host mothers who teaches in a public high school, just got out of a meeting with an Immigration officer from Surabaya. Immediately I was like, "We're all getting deported. Great..." And Amelia was asking us what kind of a Visa we had and all that jazz. Immigration apparently thinks we are working (like for money) on our Tourist Visas and apparently is pretty peeved.

So Joice met with them and explained to them that we are just tourists and that we are not actually teaching for money. The thing is that we're not actually here teaching illegally because it is volunteer work, but as soon as Immigration got wind that there were 10 Westerners (8 Americans, 1 Australian, and 1 Taiwanese) here teaching English, they pounced on it. I mean, I guess we are quite the spectacle and you know how people talk...

Here's how it all went down: We are now teaching in public schools, and one of the students in one of the public schools has a parent who works for Immigration in Surabaya. Well, the student told their parent and so now there's this big hullabaloo over our Visa status. What it all comes down to is money, but Joice and our host families are really worried that they might try to either charge us, jail us, or deport us. What an adventure!!

Please don't freak out, guys! (Especially Dad...) Our host families and Joice are handling the situation very well. I had to call an emergency meeting at my house to inform everyone to stop telling people that we are teaching English. So we have to downplay that and emphasize our "Tourist" status. But everyone that we know is behind us, and my host family has connections to Immigration anyway, so I'm sure everything will work out fine.

I just thought I'd share this little adventure of mine because it's absolutely INSANE!! I love this country!! It's just so much fun!!

Just think - I'll be able to start stories like this: "Yea, well this one time I was almost deported from Indonesia..." How cool is that?! ;-)

Alrightythen. I will catch you all laterrrr. Miss you!!

~ Tori =)

P.S. I just figured out that people were leaving me comments on my posts!! So here we go, answering them...

Mom, I just figured out that I can actually send pictures from here from my camera. I took my cords just in case, and it turns out that USB is compatible over here, so that's good news! Next time I come to an Internet cafe, I will bring my cords with me and send some pictures. I may just post them on here if I can figure it out!! And no worries, no more motorcycles for me! One of the volunteers, James, is actually from Taiwan and has a motorcycle license, so he drives a motorcycle around sometimes, but no one else does. All of the volunteers have had at least one ride on a moto, though. ;-)

Erica, Mames, and Michelle!! I am so glad to hear from you!! I forgot the password for the Xanga page, so if one of you could like facebook message me what it is or something, that'd be fantastic :) I'm glad NYC is good, but I totally understand about the whole too American thing. Trust me...this is so the opposite of the US and I'm totally soaking it all in :)