It was a bad day to be a sheep.  Eid el Adra celebrates the time when Abraham was tested by God to sacrifice his son.  We will not talk about which of his sons was involved. At the last moment, God told Abraham he had passed the test and provided a ram to sacrifice in place of the son. People around Garut sacrificed rams (and a bull or two) and gave the meat to poor people. My family had four rams and a rather large bull. For dinner we had the meat from both kinds of animals. I think the poor people must have gotten the better cuts.

I feel like taking.

I have had some interesting things going on here of late and want to share them with you all.

The In Service Training conference was in Bandung this month. I was rather looking forward to learning how to get to this large city so I could escape Garut from time to time.  Bandung in only 2 hours away from Garut but requires a number of Angkots and a bus. One of the English teachers lives in Bandung and commutes by public transportation so I asked him if I could join him on his way home, He very agreed.  He very agreed to the point to driving his car the day I needed to go. Because of traffic and being in a car and not a bus the two hour trip took 4 ½ hours. Instead of taking me to the hotel I booked for the night before the conference, he took me to his house to meet his three very nice daughters and his wife. And a very nice house it was too, with lots of plants on a very quiet street. We had tea and cake and pictures. When he got back into his car to go to the hotel, he said it was about an hour from his house.  Bandung is a really big city. That evening I went to a mall and experienced heavy duty culture shock. I was sure I was in America but knew that I was in Indonesia.  I had dinner at Wendy’s in the mall. There was nothing I needed or even wanted at the all but I spent a couple of hours just walking around watching the Indonesians spend huge amounts of money of American and other foreign goods.  

The first three days of the conference were about Peace Corps things. PC is now so large, international and politically correct that there are sessions that every PCV in the world gets at specific times during their service. We had sessions on nutrition, safety issues, personal security, health concerns and unwanted attention. As you may have understood from earlier entries, I get no attention, unwanted or otherwise here in Garut. A couple of us asked for a session on how to get attention.  We also had lots of sessions about TEFL. These led into having our counterparts show up for the last two days of the conference. My counterpart was not at all happy about having to go to the conference until he realized that not all of the PCVs are 82 year old men. I had to have a couple of talks with him about how to act around 24 year old American women. He was not prepare to listen to me.

I thought I could have the learning experience of how to get back to Garut from Bandung but my counterpart snagged a ride in a car for us so that route will be new to me the second time I go to Bandung.

The day after I got home from the conference was my birthday. I say I’m 82 now. I didn’t mention the occasion to anyone here in Garut but accepted an invitation to dinner at a little restaurant just down the street from my pond where the daughter is an English Education major at the teacher training university here in Garut. The family is very friendly and have students coming and going all the time. I had a great meal. We played UNO after dinner and one of the students taught me an Indonesian game with dominoes[JT1] .  

The week of school I missed was not a miss at all.  It was mid-term exam week.  I can’t believe the school lost a week of teaching time giving silly tests. I had repeatedly offered my help to my counterpart in writing our students’ tests but he didn’t take me up on the offer. My first day back at school I thought I was going to be grading exams but found that my counterpart has accepted two student teachers who he had do the grudge of grading. Twelve percent of the students passed the test. My counterpart should have accepted my help.  Some of the questions has no correct answer. Some had all correct choices. Some had questions about stuff the students had not been taught. The reading comprehension was about “The snow white,” which, if it hadn’t mentioned seven dwarfs I would have thought it was about white snow.

Following the week of testing there was a week of “remediation.” There were retests. I pushed and lost for there to be review before the retests.

While the students were bring retested, I took the few who passed and made simple little books to give to the first primary English students at the school I pass on my way to my school.

The retest was not a big success. A rather unique way of grading brought about 75% up to passing grades.

Since Pre Service Training I have known there are English speech contests at the high school level.  When I first got here in June I asked about these. I have asked every couple of weeks since. At the end of last week, about October 25, I asked again and was told that our school will host this year’ contest November 6, 7 and 8. Two students have been chosen to represent our school. This week they (and I) were told the topic for the speeches.  I have no idea if I will be able to help our students prepare. I do know that I have been chosen to be one of the judges. Twenty schools are sending two students each to give seven minute talks on “The role of the Madressa (Islamic school, like mine) in the character building of Indonesian youth.” Forty speeches at seven minutes each will take three days. Well, two and a half since Friday is a half day. At least the judges get served lunch.

I thought my three English clubs had bit the dust because teachers were forgetting to remind students about the meetings, gave too much homework on club afternoon or insisted the club be held at a time when no student were at the school. I have been waiting for an English teachers’ meeting to resolve the issues. It seems getting the four English teachers to all be in the same room at the same time is not easy.  Today I was told I had to have English Club for class XI. OK, I made a template for masks, went out and bought candy and was prepared to do some Goal Two of PC – exchanging culture - and celebrate Halloween.  I guess I was the only one told about English Club class XI meeting today since no one came.  I’m glad I bought the kind of candy I like.

I know a lot of this sounds depressing and even negative and it is but I continue to hold hope that what I am doing is having an effect on the students. If I didn’t think that…..

And now for something completely different. (Thank you Monty Python.) October 25 was New Year’s Day Hegira. (The Islamic calendar dating from when Mohammed left Mecca in about 724 A.D. (Zero H.).  The day starts at sundown the day before. I wondered if there would be anything going on the night of October 24. I asked my host family if there were any special traditions or customs going on and was told “No. It’s a very quiet holiday celebrated at home.”  October 24 I went for an evening walk and saw hundreds of kids in parades with their parents.  Every child had a flaming torch. It looked a little dangerous but it also looked fun.  I wish I had been prepared with my camera.

That evening as I turned into the walk to my pond, men on the verandah of another house on the pond before mine invited me to join them for the first meal of the year. It was the first time I had been invited to a neighbor’s for a meal.  I had been inside this house before when students invited me to play UNO but this was the first invitation by the adults. I was thrilled to go. The men grilled eel. Did I eat it?  You bet I did.  I was not about to decline part of my neighbor’s first invitation to dinner. I’ve been in Garut since June 9. It was the evening of October 24. Grilled eel is not even in my top 200 things to eat, but I waited a long time and did a lot of work to get to this point. I ate what I was served.  

I’m going to take myself to Jakarta for the weekend. I have no idea what I’m going to do there except a few tourist things I have heard of. I’m just going on a solo adventure. I will write about it later.

I don’t feel like talking any more.

---

 [JT1]

Pictures I took on a walk down my street.

Pictures from my street in Garut

OK boys and girls. It's PICTURE TIME

Last week I took a walk with my camera.  I went on only one street in Garut, West Java, Indonesia.  This is what I saw.

I beg your pardon for it being so long since I last wrote. I had a little medical condition. When I was in Madagascar I had Giardia, a form of amoebic dysentery. I got it again last month. The Peace Corps doctors tell me that having had it before made this bout not as bad. Alhamdu Allah.

One of the teachers had reason to celebrate and treated the whole staff to lunch one day.  I ate something new. Jengkol. The name in English is “Dog Fruit”. The next day three of us teachers were sicker than dogs. I joined them in blaming the Dog Fruit. The day after that the other teachers were well but I was not. Nasty runs and amazing burps reminded me of the Giardia I had had in Madagascar but this time there were no cramps. I waited about week to see if it would ‘run its course’ sorta speak. When it wouldn’t stop running, sorta speak, I contacted the Peace Corps doctors. I was told to go to a local clinic for tests and buy the medication for Giardia. Ten days into the course of medicine, the belches were still there but the runs had stopped.  Stopped completely. The doctors told me that one aside effect of the medicine was often a complete stop. I still had the belches because of eggs still in my system. I am now in the last days of another medication to kill off anything nasty still living in my digestive track. I can’t say I was ever in pain.  I was inconvenienced and had the energy drained out, sorta speak, of me but never missed a class. I missed a lot of evening walks but have gotten back on track since the second medicine has kicked in.  I’m ok, well and almost back to being regularly normal, sorta speak.

School has started. I started with four eleventh grade English classes taught by two different teachers. Each class meets for four hours a week. Sixteen is about the average number of hours an Indonesian high school teacher teaches. When I realized that one of my counterparts was always at least half an hour late for class and often didn’t show at all, I dropped his classes and took two more with the other counterpart. I felt a little badly about leaving the students but Peace Corps reminded me that my job is “Teacher Trainer” not substitute teacher. My one counterpart has an advanced degree in English Education. Ihsan is always thinking of new ways to make his classes more interesting and effective. He takes any idea I have and runs full speed with it.  We are getting along very well.

One of my ideas was for the students to keep English journals. I told the students to just write in English.  I don’t care about the grammar or punctuation or (as you might guess) spelling. If I could understand what they were saying it was good enough. I collect them every other week. (160 high school journals a week is a little much for me to read.) There have been some very interesting entries. It’s interesting to read how many of them LOL at their BFFs, BFs and GFs.

In class Ihsan and I work as a team. We both go around checking on 

homework and classwork so have more time for new material and practice. Last week one topic was “Giving Advice.” We had the students write on a piece of paper one of their concerns, worries or problems.  The desk-mates exchanged papers and offered advice.  One boy wrote, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”  His buddy wrote, “Take a bath.” We have fun in class.

We have nothing BUT fun in English Club. Almost three hundred students signed up for English Club. Classes of 40 students sitting at desks is one thing. Three hundred in folding chairs?  NO! So, we have three English clubs. We sing songs and play games. The only kinda teaching is the vocabulary for the songs and games. We have a good time.

Bu Noureine, my home stay ‘mother’ (younger than I) took their daughter to Bandung for a week where she will study for a Masters degree. Pak Ahmed my home stay ‘father’ (also younger than I) and I, were without Bu Noureine’s well cooked meals. Breakfasts of eggs, toast and coffee were not difficult. I went back on my Ramadan lunches of noodles in a paper cup. Each evening, Pak Ahmed led me through a maze of side streets to a little restaurant he knew and Bu Noureine approved of. A couple dozen different pre-cooked dishes were on display in the window. We pointed to what we wanted and ate. It was an adventure.

The maze of allies were almost as much of an adventure as eating in the restaurant. We walked between a mosque and an Islamic boarding school, past ponds and the homes of several of my students who all seems to be sitting out when we walked by. By the third evening the two minute walk was taking about a quarter of an hour.  “Mr. Jay!  This is my house. Come in. Meet my father – brother- sister- cat.” Getting to the restaurant was more than half the fun.

If I go out of the door of my room at home, walk across a bridge and out into the middle of one of Pak Ahmed’s fields (planted in cucumber and tomatoes at the moment), about 25 yards from my door, I can see my school.  However, because of the fields I cannot walk there directly. I was walking out to the main street, two blocks down that street then two long blocks up to the school.  Pak Ahmed showed me another maze I could use to get from home to school more quickly. It would be quicker if I could walk without interruption. These little allies are at the most four feet across. Yet, at 6:45 a.m. there are people selling cooked stuffs for breakfast, mothers checking their kids school uniforms before letting them go off, old men (probably younger than I) having their morning coffee and chatting, and kids everywhere.  I pass three schools on the way to mine. I have visited all three. The students all know me. They ALL (street sellers, mothers, old men and students) know me. Little kids (little age and size) all say, “Good Morning.” Or, “Good Afternoon.”  I started out greeting the older people in Bahasa Indonesia but most of them have now switched to “Good Morning.” Mothers yell into the houses to have pre-school age children come out because, “Mr. Good Morning is here.”

I had a rough time getting started here. The school was closed when I arrived, Ramadan meant nothing was happening, most of the teachers live far from the school, living in a family compound, even on a pond, is not conducive to entering the larger community and needing to being close proximity to my western (sit) toilet at home have all held me back a bit. But now I have started teaching, interacting with the teachers at school, getting to know the people in my neighborhood and am feeling well, all seems to me falling into place.

Please share letter with anyone you think will read it. Make sure all my friends get it since I don’t have all your e-dresses. Write soon with your news and views.

It’s been many hours since I was Mr. Good Morning. It’s time for me to be Mr. Good Night.

The fish send their greetings.

Some pictures from my walk home from school today