God Bless America, Australia, Canada, and all the Ex-Pats

Coming to Indonesia, I expected to see few English speakers and certainly not anyone that we weren't interviewing. By chance we stayed in Kemang, a small area in South Jakarta, that is perhaps the only ex-pat dense area in the city, perhaps the country. We found friendly faces in restaurants asking what young Americans could possibly be doing in Indonesia and found common ground in our out-of-place-ness. I learned that the oil industry is quite active over here and over dinner we met a mix of Texans, Canadians, and Australians who have bounced all over the world before settling for a tour in Indonesia. They treated us like one of their own. Everyone we met was more than willing to go out of their way to help us with our research and put us into contact with someone who can help. The kindness and generosity shown by the tightknit ex-pat community here is one of the many amazing things I'll remember about my brief stay in Indonesia.

The Canadian parents we never had or knew we wanted