Thanks to a little help from my friends

I am leaving tomorrow to travel to Indonesia for my Teachers for Global Classrooms fellowship, and I am feeling a lot of excitement and a lot of gratitude. My partner teacher and I will be staying in the host community of Kudus, Java, and working with an amazing host secondary teacher in her school and community. In order to return the hospitality we will be greeted with, it was suggested that we bring gifts for our host teacher, family, school, students, and community. The gifts should reflect our home city and state, so I reached out to local Portland businesses asking for donations to the cause. The Portland community was extremely supportive, and I have a number of businesses to thank. If you find yourself in need of any of these products, I hope you will start with these wonderful businesses.

http://www.hotmamasalsapdx.com/ Hot Mama Salsa donated half a case of full sized hot sauce. Check out their website or visit them at local farmers markets!

https://www.amitysoapcompany.com/ Amity Soap Company donated 30 bars of handmade soap! You can order online or find them at the Portland Saturday Market

http://floatingworldcomics.com/ Floating World Comics donated a nice array of comic books that showcase American culture, as well as some local Portland made comics

https://www.travelportland.com/ Travel Portland provided me with all kinds of Portland swag - bike key chains, rose stickers, bridge city notebooks, etc

I am deeply grateful to all the wonderful people here in Portland that helped make this trip possible and all the wonderful people in Kudus that I have yet to meet that are getting ready to welcome us into their community. My next post will come from Jakarta!