This morning I was meet in the Lobby of my hotel at 5:30am by the Curriculum Head for Ogan Ilir. Mr. Marsudi would be bringing us to the village today to visit the school for the 1st time! I was so excited to see where we would be spending the next 2 weeks, and who we would be spending them with. The drive there was bumpy and long...traffic (LA has nothing on this traffic) just seems to be a way of life here...that is why people ride motorbikes and scooters in mass, so they can just weave through, or off-road past the traffic. We dropped our bags off at our hosts home; she is one of the teachers at the school we were teaching at.
To get to the school from our home stay was always exciting! We got to 1st ride the motorbike (which was a wonderful break from the heat...love some moving air) and then take a BOAT down the Ogan Ilir River!
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| The coolest kind of school bus! |
Once arriving at the village, I scrabbled awkwardly out of the boat and up the muddy hill. We walked through the village towards the school where we were greeted by the most excited and cheerful group of kids! They had made us welcome signs, they arranged a welcome ceremony, they prepared food for us...I was overwhelmed, but soon realized, this type of greeting would not be the last.
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| On their way to work! The teachers walking through the village to the school. |
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| What a welcome!!! |
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| YUMM!! Best food I think I have had yet; it was prepared for us my the Head Master...I will get back to you on the name of the dish, but it had delicious peanut sauce, rolled rice (kinda like tofu) and veggies :) |
The students performed some traditional dances, sang traditional songs, and performed a short play about students learning English. Again, I cannot emphasize enough how extraordinary this welcome was, and every welcome to every school we visited; I felt somewhat unworthy of the gestures, it was simply too much, but very, very, very appreciated.
Oh, and I almost forgot, I gave my cultural presentation, which seemed
rather lame after seeing what the students and teachers had put together
for us.
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| My less than impressive, by comparison, cultural presentation |
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| Kids playing around after school. |
After school, we walk back through the village to take the boat back to our new accommodations. We made friends with some of the students along the way.
Once we got off the boat Jaqueline and I were introduced to one of the many forms of transportation we would encounter here in Ogan Ilir, a motorbike with a sidecar...really built for one, or 2 very little people...
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| Opps, sorry about the sideways view...this woman is making the most popular snack in this region. It is made of ground up fish (every part of the fish), which is made into a little disk and then cooked over hot coals till it puffs into a fish-ricecake. |
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| Humm..Im a little worried.... |
We arrived at the home of Delta and her family early in the evening in desperate need of a shower, but we had many introductions to make and many pictures to take. The only member of the family who spoke some English was the youngest daughter Regie, who was absolutely charming, kind, and so smart! She was so eager to practice her English; it was a lot of fun talking with her!
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| Regie, Me and a curious neighbor |
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| Well, I know Dad is in the white shirt, I am not so sure who the other fellas are. |
So Finally the sun was setting and it was time to take a shower (a shower before the sun goes down it pretty much pointless). Well, as to be expected the shower was a big bucket of cold water with a scope to dump over your head. To add to the difficulty, it is expected that you wear a wrap as you wash. Now I know I should be appreciative of some cold water when it is 110 degrees out, but yikes, this was a shock! Never try to take a "mandi" with gum in your mouth, you will choke on it when you start inhaling uncontrollable from the cold water!
After cleaning up (the feeling of clean lasted about 10 min.) we ate dinner. What is on the menu?? FISH of course! The people of Ogan Ilir utilize the river in many ways, one of the most prominent is as a food source. So we had local fish, with home-grown rice. YUM!!
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| Checking out the family's rubber trees. Dad sells the rubber at the market, where apparently the price of rubber has been cut in half recently (I found this out through one of our English/Indonesian hand gesture/drawing conversations :) |
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| Rubber! |
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| I cannot tell you how much I wanted to jump in the river with the kids that were swimming and playing. |
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| Many of the Villagers do their laundry and bath right in the river |
