But, that said, we had a great day with exciting events. We taught a workshop on English teaching in the morning, and then went straight to a junior high school for a quick tour. Here's the classroom we stepped into. The students were invited to speak to us in English, two brave girls volunteered. They said hello and introduced themselves, then said nothing else. Students here are ashamed to say something that is not perfectly correct, so they bowed their heads and said nothing.
This is the name of the public school. It was a special "environmental school" located in a grove of palm oil trees, well off the road. The grounds were landscaped nicely and we saw no trash on the ground, a pleasant change from the norm.
There was a lively soccer match going on. Please note that these students are wearing shoes on their left feet, but not the right. Some players were barefoot (like the players at Nommensen) and a few had both shoes on. The extra shoes were piled up as the posts for the goals. I imagine the "one shoe" guys were perhaps the better players and had the one shoe as a handicap.
Here's the keeper. Stephen, notice his goalie uniform. I don't think you ever guarded the goal while wearing a tie! The pile of shoes is one of the goal posts.
Shoes for goal posts. We've seen sticks tied together at other places for the posts.
We were on our way out of the school when we were randomly diverted to an "English Lab" where students in class listen to CDs of spoken English. However, we lucked out as there was a dance class going on. These girls are performing a traditional Batak dance. We were impressed, as they all knew the intricate steps and hand movements, and performed with great confidence.
In one of the dance moves, the girls formed a circle and stepped in to the center.
Of course all the girls wanted to have their photo taken with Jacob.
Jacob introduced himself to them and they transformed from very confident, self-assured dancers into giggly little girls.
As we waited for the car, many boys gathered around for a photo. Though some students at this school are the same age as Jacob, they are all at least a head shorter than him.
This teacher also wanted to have here picture taken with Jacob. She is hugging him closely, which is very unusual in this culture. Even the people we know best here only give us a hand shake.
This is the entrance to the buildings of the public junior high school.
We moved to the teacher meeting, held at a primary (elementary) school. Just as at the teacher meeting last week, the students were curious as to what was happening, and peered through the windows and came into the classroom.
Even though the students were crowding into the classroom, they still kept their distance from us! We believe that we look like Martians to them: we are very tall, very white, and dressed differently. Sometimes babies start crying when they see us!
It was lunch time and the teachers each received a plastic bag of water and a brown paper sack with something gray sticking out of the top.
We tried to guess what was sticking out the top, when one of the teachers decided to share her lunch with us! We opened it up and it turned out to be a fish tail sticking out the top.
The fish had a very big wide open mouth and included many bones. But the meat I was able to dig out was tasty. That's some sort of artichoke below the fish. Atop the rice is a spinach and mysterious sauce combination, which included some minced meat.
Here's our more tame box lunch. Rice, meat chunks in spicy sauce, fried potatoes in spicy sauce, and green beans and carrots, surprisingly not spicy!
After the session was the traditional photo opportunity, with every participant getting their picture taken with their cell phone.
Note the gentleman in the brown uniform at the far left. He is the head of the teachers organization. He chain smoked during the entire time we were there. His assistant also chain smoked. Secondhand smoke is a real irritant here.
This is the school principal, seated at here desk in her very nice office. Standing by her is Mar, who is a supervisor from the teachers organization. He organizes our visits to the schools and the teachers meetings.
These schools were about ten miles away from campus. On the way we drove through plantations of rubber trees.
After we returned from the teachers meeting it was time (actually we were late!) to go to the HKI headquarters for our Sunday School teachers workshop. On the way we saw these guys on a motorbike, carrying another bike. Note the drainage ditch at the side of the road. All roads in the city feature these ditches. They are not open sewers but they are full of soggy trash. During the rainy session, starting in August, I imagine these are full of water.
This is the name of the public school. It was a special "environmental school" located in a grove of palm oil trees, well off the road. The grounds were landscaped nicely and we saw no trash on the ground, a pleasant change from the norm.
There was a lively soccer match going on. Please note that these students are wearing shoes on their left feet, but not the right. Some players were barefoot (like the players at Nommensen) and a few had both shoes on. The extra shoes were piled up as the posts for the goals. I imagine the "one shoe" guys were perhaps the better players and had the one shoe as a handicap.
Here's the keeper. Stephen, notice his goalie uniform. I don't think you ever guarded the goal while wearing a tie! The pile of shoes is one of the goal posts.
Shoes for goal posts. We've seen sticks tied together at other places for the posts.
We were on our way out of the school when we were randomly diverted to an "English Lab" where students in class listen to CDs of spoken English. However, we lucked out as there was a dance class going on. These girls are performing a traditional Batak dance. We were impressed, as they all knew the intricate steps and hand movements, and performed with great confidence.
In one of the dance moves, the girls formed a circle and stepped in to the center.
Of course all the girls wanted to have their photo taken with Jacob.
Jacob introduced himself to them and they transformed from very confident, self-assured dancers into giggly little girls.
As we waited for the car, many boys gathered around for a photo. Though some students at this school are the same age as Jacob, they are all at least a head shorter than him.
This teacher also wanted to have here picture taken with Jacob. She is hugging him closely, which is very unusual in this culture. Even the people we know best here only give us a hand shake.
This is the entrance to the buildings of the public junior high school.
We moved to the teacher meeting, held at a primary (elementary) school. Just as at the teacher meeting last week, the students were curious as to what was happening, and peered through the windows and came into the classroom.
Even though the students were crowding into the classroom, they still kept their distance from us! We believe that we look like Martians to them: we are very tall, very white, and dressed differently. Sometimes babies start crying when they see us!
It was lunch time and the teachers each received a plastic bag of water and a brown paper sack with something gray sticking out of the top.
We tried to guess what was sticking out the top, when one of the teachers decided to share her lunch with us! We opened it up and it turned out to be a fish tail sticking out the top.
The fish had a very big wide open mouth and included many bones. But the meat I was able to dig out was tasty. That's some sort of artichoke below the fish. Atop the rice is a spinach and mysterious sauce combination, which included some minced meat.
Here's our more tame box lunch. Rice, meat chunks in spicy sauce, fried potatoes in spicy sauce, and green beans and carrots, surprisingly not spicy!
After the session was the traditional photo opportunity, with every participant getting their picture taken with their cell phone.
This is the school principal, seated at here desk in her very nice office. Standing by her is Mar, who is a supervisor from the teachers organization. He organizes our visits to the schools and the teachers meetings.
These schools were about ten miles away from campus. On the way we drove through plantations of rubber trees.
After we returned from the teachers meeting it was time (actually we were late!) to go to the HKI headquarters for our Sunday School teachers workshop. On the way we saw these guys on a motorbike, carrying another bike. Note the drainage ditch at the side of the road. All roads in the city feature these ditches. They are not open sewers but they are full of soggy trash. During the rainy session, starting in August, I imagine these are full of water.
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