TRAVELS WITH MY TEXT BOOKS 2

Work has recently become somewhat hazardous to the health of its staff and students as building work has claimed the corridors and we've all been comically tripping over homeless chairs and desks. Several teachers have developed an interesting cough since the introduction of some suspicious paint, whose cheapness and potent smell suggests it may be laced with lead. Not that expensive paint would deter the students from graffiting the freshly painted walls. My cheekiest six-year-old resolutely claimed that despite outstanding evidence that he was holding a pencil and sitting next to wall which very recently had been decorated with his name that it was not him. The fact that he is probably the only child in a fifty mile radius with this particular nickname was clearly just a coincidence.

Our move upstairs to the new staffroom was delayed when it began to rain. In the midst of the worst of the thunderstorm, the corridors vibrated with the sound of what we finally identified to be frogs. It was then that we realised that it was raining inside. Through the new staffroom and down into the old one. Through a light fitting. Since no one thought to put a bucket underneath the drip, the carpet was saturated. Luckily, this counted as an emergency and it was fixed on 'Western time', distinctively different to 'Indonesian time', which occurs approximately one week later. We're now happily installed in the new staffroom, a whole floor away from the clatter of over-enthusiastic children and teenagers.

My greatest source of amusement in the last fortnight has to be a class of four and five-year-olds whose classes I substituted. Firstly, it should probably be made known that I do not sing solo in public. Ever. And yet somehow I found myself wearing a self-fashioned racoon mask and singing a song about racoons and beavers purely as a means of entertaining them. Remarkably, they seemed to quite enjoy it and even tried to join in. After that humiliation, one child spent ten minutes relating a story - in Indonesian - about Ben 10 (some sort of brightly coloured cartoon) to me, complete with actions and sound effects. He then ran in circles around the classroom chasing another student in an attempt to kiss her whilst a third looked on shrieking in absolute hysterics. By the time I managed to calm them all down, I'd mentally composed a letter to their parents, maids, nannies and drivers forbidding the consumption of any sugar prior to the lesson.

In another lesson with these particular students the same child attempted to remove all of his clothes and convinced a fellow student that this was a sensible idea. Although this class always leaves me absolutely exhausted, I can never claim that I am bored and the rest of the day feels like a complete breeze; ten-year-olds in hysterics after writing each other's horoscopes for the week, and fourteen-year-old girls demanding I teach them the English national anthem, which they recite with more vigour and enthusiasm than the entire English football team.

But the last fortnight hasn't just involved odes to British royalty and self-humiliation. It has also provided a chance to see more of Indonesia in the form of a much-coveted three day weekend. I headed off to Pulau Pramuka, one of the thumbnail flicks that make up Pulau Seribu (or Thousand Islands), off the coast of Western Java. Even the drive to the boat proved eventful - I saw a small monkey dressed in a blue and red t-shirt sitting beside its owner on the side of the main road. The marketplace proved an inexpensive place to catch the boat and also gave me more insight into the working lives of Indonesians. The setting was crowded, muddy and chaotic; interesting fruits and animal entrails were on offer, and our ramshackle boat swayed gently in water the colour of sludge, littered with the occasional dead fish. When the boat contained approximately fifty more people than its maximum capacity, we set sail and arrived several hours later to beautiful clear waters, sandy beaches, and a bright blue sky. The added bonus of travelling with two Indonesians meant I didn't have to protest that I earned rupiah to avoid Western prices. In three incredibly relaxing days, I sunbathed on a private beach, snorkelled through the coral with turtles, starfish and seahorses, as well as a menagerie of brightly coloured fish, and ate what was probably the best calamari of my life. The freshly caught sea urchin had, 'unfortunately', run out. After over a month without leaving Jakarta, it felt incredibly luxurious to escape from the crowds and the pollution and to justify doing almost nothing for days. The only minor glitch was the speedboat back, which broke down in the middle of the ocean just as a tropical downpour began. We swayed greenly from side-to-side, the lights of Jakarta glinting in the distance, until it was fixed. I think this was Indonesia's way of saying I should have taken the non-tourist option.