Pictures & Parades

This will be a short one, but I ought to check in with a brief update of the past few weeks. Like I mentioned in my last post, August was a busy month with Kasada, Indonesian Independence Day, and Idul Fitri (the end of Ramadan). Well because I live with a Hindu family, Idul Fitri didn’t hold the same significance one might find throughout the rest of Java, but Independence Days tend to be a big deal no matter where you are. It started around 8am, meeting up with a few of my students to catch a ride up to a nearby village where we would watch/take part in a parade. Thousands crowded the streets as over a hundred groups, each made up of about twenty to forty members, lined up in the fog to march their way down through the hills, displaying their Indonesian pride. The majority tended to be students, grouped with their respective classes, but about a third of the participants were community members who gathered on their own time to practice their marching skills.

As far as school goes, things are finally starting to line up a bit. After nearly three months at site, the schedule is finally out! According to the paper on the wall, I teach four days  a week (Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday) for about four or five hours each day. However, it’s been the tendency for one or two of those days to be cancelled each week due to construction or school meetings.

I did manage to teach my first full class though; in fact, I’ve taught nearly seven at this point. I say nearly because, unbeknownst to me (or the students…or anyone else really), Tuesday ended up being picture day. Also unbeknownst to me was that I had been chosen as the photographer. About ¾ of the way through our lesson, my counterpart decided to change gears, leaving our class unattended, and leading me around the school to take pictures of the students and staff. That’s all for now.