Swimming in the Deep End

This Week’s “High”: The other night, Ibu and I walked over to the compound where her extended family lives, and I got to spend some time bonding with the menfolk. Ibu’s three grandsons—all in their twenties—were there, hanging out in the smoke room and wearing their sarongs (think brightly colored, Indonesian man-kilt). Since we’d already mastered Uno, I got to introduce them to Presidents for a few hours. Language barrier or not, the night was a great way to unwind after a tough week of language training. No one mentioned this week's big news despite the heavy media coverage. Instead, we just talked about football, food, and all that good, apolitical stuff.

This Week’s “Meh”: To ease the trainees into teaching, PC had us prepare warm-up activities for our schools’ English classes this week. At my school, I’d expected the training wheels to last a bit longer than they did, but unfortunately, many of my teachers had other ideas. Case in point: yesterday. My partner and I transcribed lines from The Little Mermaid onto slips of paper and passed them out to our class. Things weren’t going smoothly, so we were relieved when—after twenty or so minutes—the students finally managed to correctly reorganize the story.

Finished, I turned around to signal to the English teacher, letting her know that she could commence with her regularly scheduled lesson. Only… she wasn’t there. Just an empty desk and an open door were behind us, so after a few moments of awkward pause, Allyson and I had little choice but to occupy the kids for the rest of the class period. I get the impression all the volunteers—and not just us—have been having similar experiences all week. And while some of our activities have definitely failed, I’ve definitely developed a much clearer picture of where the students’ English stands and what activities their class sizes for suitable for.

Last night, all of us also headed to the city mayor’s place for what we thought would be a formal, private dinner. However, my impressions of Indonesia’s conservative culture were definitely challenged, and I’m hoping some of our CF’s (cultural facilitators) can offer their perspectives before I try to unpack the evening a bit in my next post. Among other things, who knew the mayor would be a motocross enthusiast?