How do you solve a problem like Mbak Noel?

I have not blogged in a long time—a few things and/or not a lot of things have happened since my last post, depending on the perspective. School and life have been chugging on in a routine that is sometimes boring, but most times comforting. Semester three ended. I settled into my new home (I love it so much, except for the birds). I did some training events. At the end of October I visited my parents in Hawaii (with a quick 18-hour stop in Manila on the way) and had an amazing week spending time with them. Thank you Aunt Cathy and Uncle Lou, again, for letting us use those sweet digs. Being back on American soil was not as strange or jarring as I anticipated—on the contrary, the whole week was very chill and relaxed, and I was happy to come back to Indonesia.

I’m now into my last of four semesters (at this school at least*) and am starting to feel the press of the all-too-quickly approaching end date (May-June-ish). Five months left is not a lot of time. I don’t feel pressured in such a way that ‘OH GOD GOTTA DO SOMETHING BIG TO SECURE MY LEGACY QUICK HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD A STATUE OF MYSELF AND MAKE EVERYONE FLUENT IN ENGLISH’; it’s more that I want to make sure that I make good use of the rest of my time (not squander it watching TV in my room) and keep a good handle on the relationships I have.

This week in particular—the start of a new semester, back from holiday vacation, new students and new classes—I’m seeing inklings of what my impact has been on my community/school, how the things that I’ve tried to do will be sustained after I leave. It’s bittersweet (because I won’t be here forever, a lot of the day-to-day challenges remain, and I haven’t achieved everything I wanted to in two years, which, admittedly, was foolhardy and those goals were tossed out the window three days into my service), but mostly it’s heartening to see that, yes, I think a little but of what I’ve been doing (intentionally or not) sunk in and had a positive impact on one or more persons.

Here are three anecdotes (about my co-teacher, my students, and my neighborhood kiddos) from this week:

Cip is justifiably super duper excited about a workshop he attended

My counterpart, Pak Cipto came back from the semester break extraordinarily excited to tell me about his experience at a workshop he attended. While we were leading English Club on Tuesday afternoon, he said, “I couldn’t wait to share about this amazing experience with you.” He was surprised (and proud) to have been invited to a civil servant workshop (he is not a civil servant, and he was also one of the youngest participants in attendance) and, further, to be spotlighted as a ‘model teacher’ and asked to present a session about lesson planning. He taught the other 90 (all more senior than him) teachers about lesson planning and how working with a PCV and attending training has helped him become a better teacher.

He was astounded by the awe and excitement expressed by the other teachers following his presentation, and their intentions to try and share these new “so simple and fun” methods. He said that he came a bit late to another session during the workshop and he asked some other attendees what he had missed; they told him, “We haven’t been doing anything, we’ve been waiting for you to teach us more.” I was so happy not only to see how Pak Cipto independently and enthusiastically passed on this information, but also how excited he was to tell me about this event and how proud he was to share with others how his experience with Peace Corps has improved his teaching.

The beauty of Batik Bojonegoroan

On Saturday, several students from my school presented at an expo for Project Based Learning (basically, educational projects funded by grants from the Sampoerna Foundation). One of thirteen schools, their booth was on the production of batik, and the science, art, and history of batik in Bojonegoro. They demonstrated how to paint batik, presented on their studies, sold the products, and modeled some super fly self-designed clothes. They worked hard on their project and it showed. Not to be biased, but SMANESS definitely had the best booth at the expo. (SMA Dander also had some tasty snacks to sell.) Photos can be seen here.

I was really happy to go support them and spend a morning hanging out, joking around with the students (especially Johan and Ayu, two of my best, most motivated, smartest students from last year, who asked me beforehand to help prepare an English presentation for the exhibit), and I got a pang of sentimentality over how I’m going to miss them. And miss beautiful Bojo batiks.

It was probably unsafe to have that many kids jumping on my bed

Today, when my kidlings were hanging out at my house (as they are wont to do most every day) and asked to take drawing paper home with them when they left, they said ‘thank you’ (unprompted and in English, no less), which was a big step since we’ve been working for a long time on politeness, socializing and manners (also basic music theory, art, English, cooking, football, and how to be a dinosaur).

I’ve recounted to a few people that I often feel like Maria Von Trapp in my neighborhood (minus any romance, intrigue or Nazis), and I don’t mind it. I kinda like it. I’ve unwittingly become an afternoons-and-evenings ward to 8-16 children; I’ve taken them to the market and (not) impressed them with my (in)ability to juggle tomatoes, we’ve run rain-soaked through the streets, I’ve led sing-alongs while wearing a kerchief, and have comforted them during a thunderstorm…no alpine-themed puppet shows yet, but there’s still time. They’re fun companions, and it’s nice to know that the parents like me and that the kids are learning something.

I still have a text message from Johan (the student mentioned above) from a few months ago, on a day with the kidlets and I went to the market to get lemons for tabbouleh (they didn’t love it, but they were excellent mint leaf pickers): “Miss… who is the childs together with you, when you’re in the pasar??… They look so happy with you and they’re so cute..hahah… xD”. Here and here and here are some photos taken by the kiddos (burgeoning photographers all).

*So with five months to go at this assignment, I’ve requested to extend my service (originally 27 months) for a third year at another site, either in Java or another province (dependent on if the program and Indonesian government wants/needs/can use me). All of this is tentative until final decisions are made, but I’m really excited for it.