How one 23-year-old’s decision to teach English in Indonesia led him to an unexpected
Travel & Leisure
From Indonesia With Love
2010-02-04 16:07:20 - How one 23-year-old’s decision to teach English in Indonesia led him to an unexpectedly life-changing love affair
When 23-year-old Robert Clarke left his dead-end office job in London behind to teach English in Indonesia last March, he never thought it would be the start of a life-changing adventure that would see him falling desperately in love.
But, just three weeks into his new life abroad, Robert found himself nervously waiting for Astrid Citralokam, a course consultant at
the school where he teaches, to finish work so they could watch a movie together.
They may have missed the first 15 minutes of Monsters Vs Aliens, but the rest, as they say in the movies, was history. Twenty-two-year-old Astrid thought Robert, who is originally from the small village of South Normanton in Derbyshire, was “funny, friendly and a little romantic” and the couple have now been seeing one another for nine months.
“My family are happy for me,” Robert explains. “They hoped it would settle me down a little and my mum was pleased to know that there was someone to look out for me, as she always worries when I travel abroad.”
The duo are so dedicated to one another that Astrid, who is now a teacher herself, is taking an online TEFL course with TEFL specialists i-to-i so she can join Robert on the next step of his TEFL adventure when he moves to China in March.
“I want to do the course and teach in China so I can learn, while seeing the world and being with my boyfriend,” she says.
“It opens better opportunities for me to improve my English and Mandarin, as well as earning a better salary than if I were to stay in Indonesia.”
It’s not all plain sailing though – the couple could be apart for up to a year before Astrid, who has Chinese family, can move to China. And, with a traditional family in the background, she will need to make some big decisions about her future if she is to join Robert in Dongguan in southern China. “Being apart when Robert first moves to China will be the time for me to think about my decisions,” she explains, “because if I do go to China it means I will have to be his wife, as my family are very traditional.”
Robert remains resolutely optimistic about things, predicting a long and happy future with Astrid: “I know that I will miss Astrid tremendously when I move to China, but modern technology should make it easy to stay in touch and we both have MSN on our phones, so we won’t be stopped by huge phone bills.”
So, just as teaching English abroad has seen Robert gain a deeper understanding of Indonesian culture than he would as a tourist, his love affair with Astrid has turned into something much deeper than a holiday romance: “I suppose I hoped I would meet some when I moved to Indonesia,” says Robert, “but I never thought that if I did that I would meet someone as fantastic as Astrid.”
While i-to-i can’t guarantee the kind of life-changing romance that Robert and Astrid have experienced, their TEFL courses do offer people the opportunity to find paid teaching jobs abroad, everywhere from China to Chile.
From Indonesia With Love
