Teaching, teaching, teaching! We began with a Lesson Planning Workshop for the English-Teacher-Students. About 35 students came, along with the Superintendent for one of the districts in Sumatra. He was impressed (?) and wanted us to speak to the teachers association. Sure, why not?!! At the end of the Lesson Planning class, everyone wanted a picture with us (the big tall white people). We’re such an oddity. We had an hour break, and then back to teach a second session of Lesson Planning. We were moved to the Library, which holds more students. It was packed (50-60), and it was HOT. A breeze was beginning to blow, and the students shut the windows. Argh! With sweat running down my back, one student pulled her sweater from her backpack. Really? We finished around 4:00, and Jacob and I went to the Ramayana (grocery-type store), the Indomart (a Quickie-Mart), and the Bread Top (with great bread – no rice!). It was dark and beginning to rain by the time we got home.
Tuesday, July 12
Phew! A solid day of teaching. Nancy began at 9:00 am teaching a workshop on: Teaching Younger Children Grade 1 – 6. There were 45 students in the steamy library, and it was an award-winning, active workshop (she said). We were whisked away by “our handlers” and driven by mini-van to Balatak, a small village 20 minutes outside of Siantar. We were driven there by the superintendent of the school, Marolo. He wanted us to present a workshop to the teachers gathered from the Teacher’s Association. It was GREAT! We drove into the school and the children were just leaving for lunch. They looked adorable in their crisp white shirts and red shorts or skirts with their beautiful brown skin and dark hair. We went into an old (relatively speaking) one level concrete building, complete with sagging ceiling, openings for windows with bars, concrete floor, and a stage set up in the front. We were invited to the stage and the presentation began. There were 40 teachers from the area sitting in plastic chairs, excited to listen and learn from the American teachers. They were in their uniforms – yes, all teachers wear a uniform that looked very much like a military outfit: khaki colored, button up the front, straight skirt for the women, creased pants for the men, a little emblem on their chest…. But the best was the uniform for the Teacher Association workers: it was a black and white floral/spiral/funky print sport coat. Really! Regardless of the dress, the people were welcoming and excited to have us there. We started our presentation, but quickly stopped and went to Q&A – and it was a time of great sharing. While at the front table, the other guys (men in the funky sports coats – the big wigs) were smoking, and Jacob was sitting there trying to smile and be polite. What a trooper. While we were talking, the students had their faces in the windows (well, there wasn’t any glass, but the open window area) and were staring in at us – especially at Jacob (of course). He would give a little wave, they’d giggle, and run away. They were adorable! After some time of discussion, we had a late lunch 1:00 – a box lunch brought in from the local shop. It was in a pretty pink and white cardboard box, and had a plastic tray in it with a big scoop of white rice, a tiny piece of chicken with HOT spicy sauce (according to Jim and Jacob), some green-kelpy looking stuff, and a green bean/jalapeno mix. There was also a tiny, cute little banana. We ate, and answered a few more questions, and then the picture taking began. It was crazy! And it was hot! They presented us with beautiful ulus, a traditional Batak cloth, and wrapped it around us to show friendship. Like wearing a blanket… in 95-degree weather in the concrete room. Still, we were honored and humbled. Each teacher group, teacher team, sports-coat-guy wanted their picture taken with us. We are such an oddity here!
We were quickly escorted out, taken by van back to Nommensen just in time for Nancy to teach her 2:00 class – which of course ended up not starting until 2:30. Another packed house! Then, at 4:30 we went with Berta, by mini-bus, to her church and the volunteer radio program she began. It’s an English-speaking, Christian radio station run by volunteers. At 5:00 pm they have a special program with call-in guests. What we loved most about it was the tiny recording room was air conditioned. Ahhhh. We did a one-hour program on cross-cultural programs. Jacob played his ukulele, playing and singing a few WOW classics. The announcer, Sartoli, was friendly, a dedicated volunteer at the radio station, and had a very pleasant voice. Another guy, Sinyo, came in and joined us. He’s 22, a singer and sang a duet with Jacob. He hopes to become a singer someday.
Berta took us to two different stores on the way home. Jim had told her he needed pans for baking his bread. She thought he’d said “pants” and walked us up to the clothing area. We silently cracked up. Then we all went to a Chinese restaurant for fried noodles. Very tasty, and very spicy. Berta went back with us on thebus (mini-van) and dropped us off at Nommensen.
Wednesday, July 13
Another dry, hot day in Siantar. Our first class on bilingual skills was well attended and a lot of fun – we did symbols on the keyboard. We then sat one-on-one with lots of different students to review their lesson plans. Jim taught a 2-hour workshop on software which the students loved (especially discovering the thesaursus!). We jumped on the mini-bus and went back to the radio station with Berta. The “loyal listeners” would send in an SMS (text message) to ask us questions about culture. Questions ranged from politics, to favorite NBA teams, to how to greet a “white person” on the street. We wrapped up at 6:45, Berta headed home, and we went to the only known Western eating establishment – KFC (per Jacob’s request, of course). We walked in and, of course, everyone stared. Several tables of senior high/university girls were trying to take pictures of Jacob. It was so obvious… finally Jacob just turned and smiled at them. And then, he just got up and stood with them and took pictures, and the girls giggled and smiled and waved. KFC in Indonesia does not serve potatoes or French fries… but rice, of course! It came wrapped in a paper that looked like a biscuit from McDonald’s. There are NO utensils at KFC – fingers only.
Friday, July 14, 2011
We were up early, and Jim left the house to get internet pix to add to our Cross Cultural presentation. As we were walking to the library for our assigned class, we were stopped by Reina who said, No, actually you are going to HKI for the day. Okay. We are flexible. It’s just that we are Americans and we love our schedules. Ah well. So, we hop in Dean Tagor’s van and drive to HKI. We meet with the Pastors for one hour to share/discuss/practice English, then we went to the orphanage, a 20 minute drive through villages and rice fields.
The orphanage (Panti Asuhan Zarfat HKI) is operated by HKIIt is operated by the HKI (Christian Church of Indonesia). I Kings 17:7 tells the story of Zarfat (oil and flour…. Eat it and die… and Elijah). The orphanage has 42 children ages 4 – 22. It was bright and pretty with many flowering trees and plants. When we arrived the children were at the public school, just the youngest and the oldest were there. The orphanage had a chicken coop and three big ol’ fat pigs – all part of an organic farming/animal husbandry project sponsored by HKI (to teach the children job skills, too). The children’s rooms were sparse and neat, concrete floors, little shoes lined up by the door, bunk beds, one or two soccer-posters on the walls. Compared to some of the living conditions we’ve seen, this was quite clean and nice. The two women who lived there are deaconess’ in the Lutheran Church. They had been there 9-10 years and all the children call them mama. Just the way they talked, you could feel the incredible love and compassion these women had for their children. The love within the walls of the orphanage enabled you to overlook the rocky, dirt soccer field with goal posts made of sticks and nets of old string; the ancient, rusty playground equipment; the broken concrete and rocky area under the wash lines… The children came back from school and changed out of their uniforms and came to say hello to us. These were the young boys, ages 6-9. They were clean and smiling and very kind to the strangers who stopped by simply to say hello. God is definitely at work at Panti Asuhan Zarfat. Please pray for this ministry.
Back to HKI, a quick bite of lunch, and then a Sunday School teachers presentation, complete with Jacob sharing music, the acting out of Bible stories, and lots of Q & A.
Fun facts:
We asked where to take our trash. Marnala said, “just put it outside over there.” Yes, people just pile up their trash outside, by a tree, and burn it.
Recycling: none.
Diet Coke: none. There is CokeZero, but you have to carry it in your backpack while walking on a busy street on a broken sidewalk with motorbikes zipping by… needless to say, my Diet Coke consumption is dropping rapidly. How sad.
Biggest Lizard: 8” – including the tail. Jim saw a bigger one at HKI in the bathroom…
Speaking of bathrooms: these pit toilets (at HKI, University, shops) are killers for those of us with bad knees.
Dog howling contest – at 4:00 am.
Jim says our front porch here is just like our porch at home. He can sit there and watch the world go by. Many students are walking on their way to class, motorbikes drive by, etc.
I was going to stop at the Bread Top (one of the few bread/pastry shops), but when I saw the girl behind the counter clipping her toe nails, I decided not to.
The duck truck: a small flat bed truck, with tiny wheels, and at least 1,000 ducks sticking their heads out of wooden crates HONKING loudly!
Good news: I watched as a “medium sized bug” crawled up the wall by our dining room table… and it was being stalked by a “medium sized lizard.” The lizard won – and then disappeared in the ceiling!
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