Where school meets style

Sarah, Saaji (of the O3 group) and I went to our practicum school on Saturday morning not to teach but to view the school's anniversary festivities. They were celebrating their 17th anniversary. We got prime seats right in front of a stage errected on the soccer court and were given at least 7 meals over the course of the four hours we were there. Bu Inna (left) is one of the teachers Saaji and I have taught with during practicum. She's the sweetest. 

We watched traditional dance from west javanese dancers then the school gave food bags to 94 poor families from the surrounding community. 

We were feasted with yellow rice (traditional birthday food) then saw a recycled fashion show. It was part of an art week going on. The students - high schoolers - made all of the dresses in the past week. We were so impressed.

On Sunday my cluster of 7 led an English camp at a nearby orphanage/school for poor students. We paired up and led three different stations that the students rotated between. I brought my blow-up clear globe with different greetings written on it in dry-erase marker and had them throw it around in a circle and use whatever greeting  their fingers touched to start their introduction. It was a smashing success I thought. 

We then practiced drawing and describing parts of the face.

We then played red light, green light and concluded the camp by passing around my globe and reviewing what we learned. I think it's one of the smartest things I brought.

Site announcements!

You could cut the already thick and humid air with a knife this afternoon. We all went to the university today after teaching/observing in the morning to find out where on the island of Java we will all be living and working for the next two years. I've never been one to get nervous over decisions like this that are completely out of my control so I just watched everyone, bemused. 

Peace Corps staff drew a chalk map ("not to scale" Country Director Sheila warned us) on the sidewalk then called our names. There was clapping, there was tears and then our regional manager led us to our spot on the map. 

Before.

During.

After. From my new perspective.

I'm relatively near the beach. Ish.

More perspective.

E'ryone else. East Java is more populated. 39 in East, 25 in West.

I don't want to form a lot of impressions before getting there but I already think I have the best school. It's a madrasa high school with 531 students. The school offers afterschool drama, martial arts and Arabic classes. It looks slightly urban but I can't really tell. I'll be living with a dad, mom, daughter (no age specified), maid and two twin neices. I'm also near some ID7's whom I've already met. They're an awesome married couple. 

In other news, I was extremely flattered to recieve the below poem from a student I taught the day before yesterday. The lesson was on expressions of love and sadness. For homework I assigned them to write a "roses are red" poem. I guess I should be careful what I ask for in the future. The other volunteers had a good laugh about it. Don't worry, I'm not into middle-school boys. 

Wow, we might finally be teaching!

I don't feel like I have a lot to write about because I've hit a rhythm and am becoming used to many of the subtle differences here (or maybe what once seemed vast now seems subtle.) But we are still moving through PST at a steady clip. As of last week we now have language class in the afternoon (as opposed to the morning) and school visits in the morning. These are.....interesting and definitely informative. We have to leave our village at 6 to take a 15 minute angkot ride to a nearby school. The school is stunning. It has the vibe of a zen meditation retreat.

This school is where my group of 14 will be doing our teaching practicum for the next two weeks.

In case you wanted to know what the days of the week are in Indonesian.

The bule is a guy from ID5 who taught there. Apparently they do find a purpose for some of the thousands of pictures they take with us. 

Outside the main office, where we've spent most of our time thus far. I didn't get the whole length of his bottom legs in the shot very clearly but it was definitely bigger than any of our hands.

Look Emily, they even have a dinosaur-oid thing. May be a Komodo dragon?

There's some city flora for you dad. Not in great focus cause we were on an angkot.

I say the school is interesting for several reasons:

1. It's immaculate and high-tech to boot. None of the schools I've visited so far match up with the description we're given from Peace Corps of what to expect when we get to permanent site.

2. Time management. Oh lord, I can already tell my time management skills aren't going to improve while I'm in Indonesia. On our first day we got there at 6:15, waited until school started at 7:30 before the teachers and principal arrived to greet us. Some of them didn't even know we were coming. Then we waited until 9 to actually start our tour of the school.

3. The students. They were sweet and really engaged when we talked with them but for some reason they shout their answers, in unison, to whoever asks them a question and it's really, really loud. I think we all stepped back a foot when that first happened. 

So next week (starting tomorrow) we will wake up at some ungodly hour to get to the school well before we're needed and then meet with a temporary counter-par to begin lesson planning. Another volunteer and I, who are paired with Bu Ini, are going over expressions of love and sadness the first week and expressions of anger, embarrassment and annoyance the second week. That should be fun. From what I've seen so far, Indonesian students absolutely love idioms regarding love and the trials thereof.

Some days we just observe an Thursday is our big Language Proficiency Interview, which is what actually influences where our permanent site will be (those less fluent in b. Indonesia will continue language courses and will be placed in an area that speaks b. Indonesia. Those more fluent will have more flexibility of placement and will start learning Javanese or some other dialect.

We asked the university students to write down one thing they wanted to learn about English and why they thought it was important to learn English.

Presh. Another quick annecdote before I get off this train of thought of our time with the university students: I never realized how similar kitchen and chicken sound until I played charades with a class of Indonesians. We were all quite confused when one girl started acting out chopping up a chicken and then started flapping her arms when the word she had drawn was kitchen. 

Even more presh. These kittens and their mom live at the school I'm doing my practicum at. I HAVE KITTEN ACCESS FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS. I can die happy now. (They seem to be well cared for. They don't seem to have fleas.) 

As an end-note about cuisine, I have never had funnier thoughts in my head as I try and guess what my ibu has cooked that day. I usually regret it when I ask. So far I've knowingly tried cow's tongue, this weird fish dish that smells (and tastes) like dog vomit (how do I know? I just do) and liver of some animal. I didn't auote catch what it was. I'm still holding out chicken feet and chicken head...tbc.

A visit to Punten in photos

Yesterday after our half-day of language class I went to visit some other volunteers with Saaj, a girl in my class. It was roughly 45 minutes away by angkot then foot. It would have taken less time had we gone the whole way by angkot but that wouldn't have been as picturesque. Punten is a gorgeous place. 

Working backwards, this is a poster outside of my language class. Just took a picture of it because I haven't seen any evidence of recycling initiative here yet.

One cool thing I would have potentially never learned had I not come to Indonesia: Orangutang means "people of the forest" from the words "orang" meaning people and "hutan" meaning forest. It is thought to have originally been used by the Dutch to describe forest-dwelling people in Malaysia, not monkeys.

Sweet view of the mountains in Punten.

As one PCV so eloquently photoshopped it, this is what is so funny about bakso to us Americans. Usually the conversation with a stranger goes like this: "Miss, dari mana?" "Dari Amerika." "Oh Obama! Bakso!" *we nod*

 

Brick production is a big industry in Punten so we saw people hauling rocks out of the river a lot. I'm not exactlysure how the river rocks become red bricks but somehow it happens.

Also in rivers... Sorry for the lack of focus.