Last Day in Indonesia

Today is our last day in Indonesia. We have spent the past 2 days in Bali. On Saturday, we went to the Seeds of Hope orphange, which supports over 80 children! The kids are so talented! When we arrived, they put of a concert for us! There was traditional Indonesian music. Then a group of kids played guitar and sang while three little girls danced with tambourines. I was quite impressed! After the show, we did some arts and crafts with them. We showed them shrinky dinks. They used colored pencils to color on one side of the shrinky dink, which is like a plastic sheet. Then we baked the shrinky dink in the toaster oven and the shrinky dink will shrink.
Yesterday, we had a day of relaxation. We hung out Seminyaka Beach in the morning and headed to Kuta Beach in the afternoon. Our hotel is right on Seminyaka Beach which is beautiful at night. No one is out and we can see so many stars in the sky. Before bed, we've been hanging out on the beach, looking out for shooting stars and wishing that we could share the amazing night time beach moments with the Polehan kids.
In a few hours, we will travel back to Seeds of Hope Orphanage. We might do a paper airplane project and some more arts and crafts with the kids. Then we begin our journey home. Tonight, we fly back to Surabaya. In the morning, we fly out to Hong Kong and then back to America! We looking forward to sharing stories with loved ones and biting into a delcious hamburger! See you soon!

Final Teaching Day at Polehan

The team has smoothly transitioned from teaching at Wesley International School to teaching at Polehan.  Polehan is the name of a lower income area of Malang, Indonesia.  The leader of our site at Polehan, Winny,  used to teach at Charis, a school with more affluent kids.   She wanted to make quality education accessible to all kinds of children.  She told her manager at Charis about her vision and the manager heard about Polehan and how the leader was looking for a successor.  Winny became very excited but then was diagnosed with cancer before she was able to take over the school.  She became sad because she thought her vision was just a dream.   Then, as she was going through chemotherapy, she decided to bravely take over the Polehan school.  With her husband's help, the school has grown from 6 children to 50 children.  Polehan offers after school programs that works with both children and parents.  Some of the children's fathers are in jail for stealing (the children don't know this).  As such, the staff at Polehan teaches the mothers and children life skills so they can have a way to make money.  The mothers make handcrafts to sell, and the children make cards.

I feel that being able to show these children our passions (writing, art, science) is such a treat for both us and them.  We take language classes every morning, but still need translators to communicate.  Still, the children seem to have a good time.  I've been trying to teach the kids about engineers: observe nature and solve problems based on observations.  I've asked them to observe birds, fish, and turtles and see what we can learn from them.  Then we make paper airplanes based on our observations.

Today, I will teach the kids about density and buoyancy.  Their design challenge will be to make a floating object out of 10 straws, 10 inches of plastic wrap, and scotch tape.  The floating object must carry at least 25 pennies without sinking.  We'll see how they do!

"I'm drawing a vampire face"

Today was eventful and successful. Michelle, Rose and I (Sarah), taught our first classes and had lots of fun. The kids at WIS are amazing, talented and refreshing. I can only imagine what it'd be like to move to Indonesia as a child and grow up here, and meeting these kids really expands the imagined reality I could create. Today our theme was creating because we are are given an imagination to create with and we all created cool things. The younger kids I worked with, as a group, came up with a poem about a wonderful polar bear who is 5 years old, likes to grow and eats seals. One of the boys said he would like to ride a seal. They were all sad that the polar bear ate the seal but they were also glad that the bear got to eat. We can learn so much about creativity from children, who always do what they love and forget the rest. If a child isn't interested in what you are doing, they will either tell you, or ignore you and do something they want to do. That's pretty amazing to me. Such freedom. Rose and I encountered this boldness again when she was telling a boy something and he told her, "Can you talk slower, I don't understand what you're saying." But it wasn't like he was trying to be nice about it, he just stated it matter of factly. They're so cute. I am enjoying everything but one thing, well one thing that really sticks out, the smell of burning trash, burning lava, basically just smoke, constantly in the air and it's starting to give me sinus headaches. I include mention of this solely that you may have some conflicting drama to read... Oh, and I haven't watched any TV since arriving in Surabaya, 3-4 days. That's a lot for me. I am so grateful for this trip, I really am learning a lot and enjoying it!

Hari Tiga (Day Three)

Selamat malam!  We've finally arrived!  Our team made it out alive through roughly 13 hours to HK, 8 hours in HK, 4 hours to Surabaya, and 4 more hours to Malang.  As I write to you all, it's only 10:30 pm here, but it feels like 3:00 am.  

Today, our team spent the afternoon at WIS (the international school), an all English campus.  I found it so amazing to meet all these kids living in Indonesia with interesting life stories and experiences.  Some of them would tell me how they were actually born in Australia or somewhere like Brea, California, and for various reasons, ended up here in Indonesia with their families.  Their world view must be so different from those who live boxed in one place all their lives.  I can't wait to get to know these awesome kids better in the next few days and watch them create beautiful things.  Get this - I met a mother who attended the middle school in California at which I presently teach!  Small world. 

Until next time ~ Michelle

We've arrived in Hong Kong!!

We've arrived in Hong Kong! During our 8 hour layover, we had a friend take us to Victoria Peak / sky terrace and enjoy the city view. I'm posting this from the sky terrace. We'll leave soon to catch our flight to Surabaya. Tomorrow morning we have language classes (I think crash course Indonesian) and preparation for our arts camp. We're super excited!

Art Auction Fundraiser

Today was fundraiser #2, the art auction. It was quite successful. We sold handmade cards, a few photos, and a few handpainted picture frames.

This fundraiser was a last minute activity. If we had more time, we would've publicized it more and more people would've come by our table. Next year, we will plan such a fundraiser months in advance.

This year, we're happy with the fact that we raised over $100. Thanks to all who came out! Your donations are much appreciated!

Taco bar fundraiser

The taco bar fundraiser this past weekend was amazing. I am touched that so many friends and family came out to support us and listen to us talk about our trip. We raised around $900!!! In case you weren't there, here's a quick recap:

Food: make your own street taco - carne asada, pollo asada, 3 salsas (hot, medium, and mild), cilantro, onions, tomatoes, guacamole, spanish rice, chips. For me, the tomatillo sauce (medium salsa), was off the hook.
Music: Indonesian boy band pop, Indonesian percussion (mostly bells), and the Brothers Landau (Sarah's musician friends)
Location: The Li's house. I mostly hung out in the backyard area.
Weather: cloudy
Attendance: >30

Thanks to all who came out to support us! Be looking out for our support letters. They should be out by the end of this week!