Saying Goodbye
Trip Start
Sep 07, 2010
1
61
Trip End
Mar 01, 2011
Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
On Tuesday one of the girls out of the intermediate 3 class had heard that we were leaving this week and had bought Dan a traditional Indonesian Batik which is a patterned shirt which was really nice of her as relative to the money they have they are quite expensive, she was really pleased when he put it on and it fit him.
On Wednesday lunchtime we were invited to Ayu's (one of the teachers) sons 1st birthday party, we met all the teachers at Star at 12.30 and went by bike, me with Ima and Dan with Harto. Ayu has an internet place on the ground floor of her house which explains why she is always on facebook which is where she held the party. All the teachers are Muslim and all the women where a headscarf to school, Ayu is a practicing Muslim but not as strict as some and she didn't have her head dress on at home it was incredible how different she looked. We didn't stay too long as we had classes we just had lunch and the obligatory photo session.
Wednesday was also Naufals 5th birthday and Panut was having a party for him in the evening, he picked us up from Star at 6.30pm to take us to his home. He had some Taiwanese guests with him who were on holiday but had previously volunteered for OIC. The Taiwanese were crazy they had never met Panuts family before but were really over familiar when they arrived, helping themselves to things taking photos of everyone with the camera about 2 inches away from the kids faces and manhandling Kancer into all sorts of strange poses. I know we are English and very polite and reserved but it was mental especially as they kept telling us how shy they were! Naufal really enjoyed his party we bought him a spider man watch which he decided had turned him into spiderman and tried to climb the walls.
On Thursday Maman had invited us to his school for the afternoon, Maman teaches at a private Muslim all day school on the out skirts of Medan. (all government schools are mornings only where as the full day private schools teach 7am till 4pm). We met Maman at 12.30 in Medan and after lunch he drove us to his school. We arrived around 1.30pm and it hit us straight away how primitive Star is. Mamans school was really nice with grounds for the children to play in. He had arranged for around 70 children to join us in an outside area which is used for praying, it had a stage and all the children and teachers sat on the floor while we had tables and chairs at the front to sit at. We were each given a microphone and we introduced ourselves to the children and answered there questions about us and England. If you had of asked me 6mths ago if I would have stood up in a room in front of pushing 100 people and talked on a microphone I would have said no chance but we really enjoyed it. After our questions and answer session some of the girls performed a traditional Javanese dance for us they were really good it was mad how fast they moved.
After a break we played some games with them we each read out a story which had been cut up and the children had to put it in order and we had to walk around and check them. Then we played a describing game where we took it in turns to describe words to them and they were split into teams and had to guess what we were describing. We were really surprised at their level of English some of the words were really difficult and they got them all and understood our accents which is a pretty big achievement. Half the kids at Star still don't understand us and we have been there 6weeks.
Before we knew it it was 4pm and time for the kids to go home so we gave a short goodbye speech and gave them our facebook details (so I guess we are soon to have another 50 Indonesian facebook friends we don't know)
Maman dropped us off at the shopping mall in Medan so we could buy some gifts for everyone, it took us a while but we eventually found something for everyone.
Our flight is at 9am on Saturday morning so Friday would by our last day at star and rather than have classes we just went around all the classes to say goodbye to the kids and have our photos taken with them.
Dan wore his Batik from Isma, it was really sad particularly as we did a little speech in each one about our time there and some of the older ones thanked us and asked us not to forget them.
We also had to go to the foodstall next door where we have been having lunch everyday and say goodbye and ask them for a photo. As they don't speak English we took Tri with us to explain.
Lisas father Mr Jono who lives opposite us had offered to host a leaving do for us at 8pm, his family and all the teachers and friends we have made were invited to attend. They put on some amazing food and every single teacher attended some brought their husbands and children and Maman and his family came. Panut and Naufal came but unfortunately Dian and Kancer couldn't as Kancer wasn't well which was a shame as we didn't get chance to say goodbye and had never got a chance to take a photo of Dan and Kancer together. (Kancer is the first baby that hasn't cried when she was with Dan, she was the complete opposite she loved him and would have a big beaming smile every time she saw him).
We gave everyone their presents and they all seemed pleased, we got all the teachers a watch partly as a joke as they are always late and get fined by the school if they are late for classes, some of them got it but I'm not sure they all did. We gave Harto, Maman and Panut a t shirt that said Star on it and got Dian and Jijan a brooch.
Panut, Maman and some of the teachers gave a speech about our time there and we did a speech on our experience, it was really sad we didn't want to go everyone has been so kind while we were there and we had such an amazing time.
We were surprised to get gifts, the teachers had clubbed together and bought us a t shirt each and Panut gave us a certificate of appreciation from Star. Leni bought us some sweets and Ronnie bought us a picture, Ayu and Mila gave me a bracelet. Mr Jono and his wife bought Dan a Batik and I got a skirt and top. While we have been here we haven't had much chance to get to know Mr Jono and his family as they speak no english so it was nice to spend some time with them. They took lots of photos and we were last to leave it was nearly midnight by the time we left.
Panut and Harto picked us up at 6.30am and we said goodbye to Lisa and Zul, we bought them a present for the baby and they bought us a watch and a scarf and some banana chips (dans favourites). We arrived at the airport in plenty of time for our flight and said our goodbyes to Harto and Panut.
After checking in and 6 weeks without a drop of alcohol we headed straight to the bar and had a couple Bintangs before boarding bound for KL.
