Perspective and Gratitude

Each year, the school takes a week to do a service trip as part of the International Baccalaureate program. Students are required to complete a Service as Action and each school shapes this differently. Our school creates a service trip for the entire grade level from 7-10. Each year the groups go away for longer and go further. Since I have a grade 9 homeroom this year, I went with the entire grade 9 class (60 students) to the island of Sumatra. 

From Jakarta, it is a mere 26-minute flight to Lampung, the shortest flight I have ever experienced. For a girl used to 12 plus hour flights, this felt like a mere blink of an eye. We hardly got up to altitude before they were telling us to put our seats up for landing. 

Once there, we first had our spiritual retreat at a hotel in Lampung, then we headed out to two different SLH schools, schools run by the same organization as the one I teach at, but for local kids. English is only taught as a second language and not used as a language of instruction, but I will get to that later.

Our students were there to interact with the school and its students. They played games, taught lessons, and painted the outside walls of the school with a beautiful new coat of paint. I can’t brag on my students enough for the patience they showed. These kids are used to air conditioning and modern bathrooms. They worked hard and they painted the outside walls so much faster than they were expected to that the school was pleasantly surprised and pleased they got so much done.

The sun was out and in full force just a few degrees south of the equator. And despite wearing sunscreen and always being under an awning or my umbrella, I still managed to burn on my face and arms. This led to an interesting conversation with my students where they wanted to know if I could get tanner as they did in the sun. Most of Indonesian decent, they told me, don’t really burn but tan a darker shade. I told them I could tan a little but mostly I burned and it wasn’t fun (my skin is still peeling a week and a half later). 

But back to the school. The English teacher there was excited to have me come to his third-grade class. The students were so happy to get to practice their English skills with a native speaker and wanted to ask me all sorts of questions about my life in the states from what I ate for breakfast to why I came to Indonesia to teach. They were so excited to get a picture with me (shown above). 

Their teacher was so kind and thanked me many times over for coming. I can’t help but feel admiration for those teachers. Teaching is really a calling for those in small-town Indonesia. They have so little to work with and yet are so passionate about educating the next generation. They are so grateful for what they have and enjoy their work. I was humbled by their spirit as I too enjoy all the comforts of a modern world at my own school. I am quick to get so upset when the WiFi doesn’t work or the schedule is interrupted. I think I needed this little dose of perspective. 

Indonesian words:

Susu: milk

Sate: meat on a stick often served with peanut sauce

Tempe chips: chips made from soybeans 

Pop Mie: an instant noodle

-Rachael

P.S. 

If you are wondering, I did indeed create the Merida dress over the Christmas holiday. Here is the link to the making of video in case you are interested: https://youtu.be/cPxl085_KJc

Create Something Every Day

The world is full of consumers. We consume constantly. We buy food, supplies, and pretty sparkly things that have no use. We get on Facebook and consume other people's lives. We spend hours on Pinterest adding pins to an all-purple dream house or collect images of the Scottish vistas we long to visit (or is that just me?).

But when do we create? When do I set aside the time to make things and not just take them?

As a teacher, I am nearly forced to be creative on a daily basis. My lessons as a middle school teacher are half content half theater. I am looking at new ways to engage and inspire.

And it is exhausting.

When I get home after a day of creating for others and fixing issues on the turn of a dime, I don't want to be creative for myself. I want to sit on my couch and watch Brooklyn 99 whilst eating chocolate. I want to consume content the way I consume food.

But recently, I have been challenged by the idea of creating. I encourage my students to create constantly, and yet I rarely do it for myself.

Because creating his hard. Creating is risky. Creating takes effort and forethought. Creating means putting your work out there and other people could *gasp* not like it. Creating means you are willing to be criticized by others. Others who, may I point out, are often not being creative themselves.

Because it is so easy to criticize. It is so easy to say this or that isn't done right. To say something could be of better quality or stronger or prettier or (fill in the blank). It is easy to sit back and consume what others have made, judge, and then move on to consume more. It is so easy most have made it into an art form. Consuming and judging to the point where we get upset when others interrupt our consuming time. And yet at the end, unless the consuming has a goal, what are we left with? Knowledge? Information?

I know what you are thinking. "But Rachael! I have to consume to learn things!" And while that is true, if you watch a thousand videos on boat making but never actually make a boat, what good is that knowledge? If you don't share your insights with others and the world, why bother learning it at all? Consuming or learning information should lead to creating in most cases, yet too often in my own life, I find myself just consuming and then moving on.

Because I forget the benefits of creating. Creating might be hard, but I often learn about myself and master skills while creating. Creating may be risky, but it can yield high rewards if you succeed and a valuable lesson if you fail. Creating may take effort, but it is the kind that makes you proud in the end. Creating may expose you to the criticism of others, but this will only help you learn to be less critical yourself.

So here is the challenge, to myself and anybody reading this: create. Put those hours binge-watching YouTube videos on how to cook to use and go cook something! And if you don't know how to do something, go learn! That is one of the coolest parts of having the internet at my fingertips daily: if there is something I don't know how to do, there is probably a video of someone trying to do that thing already.

So here's to creating. Here's to those who dare to make and not just take. Here is to those who do not count the day complete until they have made something, until they have given back to the world.

In the spirit of inspiring creativity, I have a list of upcoming projects I am in the process of planning:

1) A Merida dress from the movie Brave (because the two princess dresses I have are not enough for me apparently)
2) Youtube video explaining how I do my hair (tentatively titled "4 bobby pins or less" because I don't have time for more than 4 in the early mornings)
3) Second drafting a science fiction novel I have been writing for two years (finally)

Indonesian words:

Membuat: To create (normal use)

Mencipatalcan: To create (higher-order use, for great accomplishments)

Menarusukan: to go forward

-Rachael

Motorbike Rides and Living Life In Translation

Living off campus this year means I need to find a way to complete 20 minute walk from my apartment to the school each morning. The cheapest and fastest way is by motorbike so each morning I order one with my Grab app (Indonesia’s version of Uber). They come in less than five minutes and I wrap my hair in a scarf to protect it from the wind and hop on the back for the two minute ride down the boulevard. Which costs me all of eighty cents.

I enjoy these little rides immensely. 5:50 a.m. is the coolest part of the day, normally around 74 degrees. This is also around sunrise and so I look up through the trees and see the rosy colored sky.
It is moments like this, hanging on to the back bar of a motorbike as we whizz through the morning air, that I am struck by how different life is now. How I never would have guessed that I would find myself in my second year teaching halfway around the world in a country that many people don’t remember where it is. Sometimes I just laugh at the absurdity of it all when I go to buy a towel and the clerk weighs it on a scale before placing on the price sticker. Because apparently some towels are sold by weight here.

I am also easing into living life in translation. When I go to a 

Professional Development seminar, led by a man from Scotland, we have a translator for my Indonesian coworkers. When I go to the store, I speak a broken mix of English and Indonesian with the cashier (mostly I try to see how far I can get without them knowing how little Indonesian I know). When I got to Bible study, we are split into groups according to language preference. 

I get the privilege of teaching an ELA class this year ( for English Language Learners). And while English is the second language for most of my students (for some it is their third) some students need just a little extra help. So they end up in ELA. I attended a conference (pictured above) with all the ELA teachers from our five campuses. It was so good to learn and see what was being done across the schools and gave me a new appreciation for what some of my students are struggling with. 

Some of these kids are crazy smart but the are just struggling with language acquisition. As someone who is struggling to learn a new language myself I can tell you how hard it feels. The conference reminded me that sometimes they ask for directions to be repeated, not because they weren’t listening, but because they are sometimes still struggling to understand and process. That sometimes they turn in projects half finished because they didn’t understand the directions and were too shy to ask. 

I need to be more patient with these brave souls who take on an education in a secondary language. They are living in translation. 

Indonesian words:

Pergi ke: to go

Pasar: market

Bahasa: language 

-Rachael