Alone in an Airport
I didn’t do a lot of research before I left for Jakarta. It was a snap decision I made when I decided I needed to get away from all my poor choices. I figured that running away would solve everything. I had one Skype meeting with the director of the school and found out that if I fulfilled my year contract I would have my flights paid for. That was all the information I needed.
I hopped on a plane, with 2 suitcases in hand, and zero awareness of what I was really signing myself up for.
I was about to learn how much I would regret this decision.
After 36 hours of travel and layovers in airports, I finally arrived at the airport in Jakarta. I was exhausted, scared, and didn’t speak the language. I was armed with instructions on where to meet my ride, as the school I was to teach at had arranged a car. I felt like I could handle that much.
But my driver wasn’t there, and all my instructions went out the window. I began to panic and wonder what the hell I had done.
Here I was, 23 years old, alone in a foreign country where I did not speak the language.
After about 20 minutes of freaking out, I finally came to the realization that I was the only one who could get myself out of this predicament. I began to get creative.
In all of my notes, and instructions, I found a phone number for the school where I was to be teaching at. I began walking around the airport using hand signals to anyone who would make eye contact with me, asking to use a phone. Finally, someone had mercy on me and recognized the international hand signal for a telephone. He didn’t speak any English, but he handed over his phone with a smile.
After finally getting a hold of someone at the school, they were horrified to find out I was there by myself, with no one to greet me.
They had gotten the time wrong by 12 hours.
With quick instructions to go sit at the McDonald’s in the airport and wait, I quietly thanked the lender of the phone and went to find the one restaurant I had sworn I would never step foot in again.
Thankfully, the wait wasn’t too long, and about 45 minutes later, I was greeted by my boss, with a massive apology. Tired, emotional, and regretting my decision, I got into the car, and we began the drive through Jakarta. As we drove through the streets, I began to perk up as new sights, and adventure lay on the horizon. I started looking around and began to notice things.
What stood out to me the most was the pollution. There was so much smog and so much trash on the sides of the roads. There were very few areas we drove through that weren’t covered in garbage.
The level of poverty was something I could never have imagined.
Sure, I had grown up with National Geographic magazines, but that never seemed real to me. There’s something that changes when you see it with your own eyes.
At the time, I was so caught up in my own story, and my own ego, that I never realized the effect it would have on me in my later years, to see that level of poverty, and to witness such a massive gap between the rich and poor. On one side of the road were malls, skyscrapers, and Mercedes Benz, and on the other, cardboard shacks and dysentery.