The other day my counterpart, Pak Warai, sat next to me as I prepared material for English club. Suddenly he asks, Mel, what can we do to make students study outside the classroom? Pak, I laughed, if we can solve that we would improve education all over the world! He sighed. I feel putus asa. … Continue reading
In light of some other incidents that have happened this week with PCV female friends*, I took the following pretty hard. Today was the last day of teaching in one of my favorite classes. This class is full of boys in 11th grade—43 of them to be exact—and it has often crossed my mind, especially … Continue reading
Back in the day, teachers may have received apples from students. In Indonesia, entire classes of students celebrate certain events (such as getting through reciting the entire Al Qur’an) by giving all teachers food boxes. This is a common affair, but today I broke a record. Today alone, I received THREE food boxes and some … Continue reading
My decreased blogging has not been in vain. Over the past three months, five other volunteers near my area and I have been working incredibly hard to organize a leadership camp for 10th and 11th grade girls held at my school, MAN Bondowoso, from Thursday, March 28th to Sunday, March 31st. Since November of last … Continue reading
During Idul Fitri, the biggest Islamic holiday of the year, I had way too much time to think about life and generally, I was having emotional overload with all the new experiences and information. I felt a lot of things that I couldn’t really blog about simply because it just wasn’t very clear. Now, after … Continue reading
and definitely NEVER in the Peace Corps. Yay! No Friday classes! I definitely had to rearrange my teaching schedule for that one. Are you going to take a nap? Indonesians get up so early they usually must nap in the afternoon in order to survive the day. Ugh, I have to go to school on … Continue reading
This week we started teaching practicum in a real Indonesia school. The volunteers in my village and I walked into a madrassah—an Islamic school maintained by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Although, I have never walked into a prison, I imagine that that was what it feels like. Not because it was gloomy and oppressive. … Continue reading
in the land of dragons 