Cultural diplomacy pays off, envoys say

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America's other Army: Inside the Foreign Service

Fourth in a series

In September, five Americans took up assignments as English teachers thousands of miles from home, determined that, by the end of the school year, their students would not only speak some English, but know much more about the United States.

"They welcomed us with open arms," Craig Dicker, a Foreign Service officer who helped to place the newcomers said of the schools that hired the teachers. "They were thrilled to have Americans teach there."

There would have been nothing exceptional about the teaching assignments had it not been for the particular schools: Islamic institutes in Indonesia that prepare teachers for the country's large network of religious high schools, known as madrassas.

Mr. Dicker said the idea came from Nur Fadil Lubis, vice rector of an institute in Indonesia's third-largest city, Medan. He had hosted a Fulbright scholar before and thought that his students would benefit from having an American in the classroom.

The first group of American teachers organized by Mr. Dicker, at the time an English-language officer at the embassy in Jakarta, arrived in the fall of 2002 but had to leave almost immediately because of the terrorist bombing in the resort of Bali that October.

The current group ranges in age from 25 to 55 and all have master's degrees. Their annual salaries, averaging $34,000, are paid by the State Department.