some neighborhood happenings

Went to the barracks this week…so fun to help my friend, Santy, teach English to her 4 faithful students. They have been learning WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, and HOW words and associated phrases…The girls invited us back to their place to hang out last Saturday night. We walked ("jalan-jalan") around the barracks (in the mud, in the dark!), singing songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, London Bridges Falling Down, Someone's In the Kitchen with Dina (a classic of my mom's!), and any other songs the night air stirred up!

Sam (the 9 year old son of my Singaporean colleagues) and I were walking through one of the neighborhoods near our house the other evening, and we turned down a new, tree-lined road. All of a sudden several (we’re talking 20 plus) kids and young people came out and greeted us. They asked if we could come back and teach English, so, the next day we carried our whiteboard and pens with us and ventured out on the 10 minute walk to where they live. An older woman in the neighborhood opened her home up for our lessons! We didn’t really know how our new teaching venture would fare, but the kids are SO eager to learn English that all they could do at the conclusion of our first class was urge “besok, besok”, meaning “tomorrow, tomorrow”. So, today was our third class, and we’ve covered some good ground…How are you? I’m fine. It’s nice to meet you. What is your name? I am ___ years old….From age 4 to 14, they come faithfully before we arrive and are seated on the floor with their pencils and UNICEF-sponsored notebooks in hand. Their favorite part of “class” is when we sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (knees and toes!)”…the song gradually gets faster and faster with each repetition until the kids just burst out in laughter…Today about half the class accompanied Sam and me back to our house… tomorrow we’re all going to play futbol (soccer).

By the way, is anyone keeping up with the World Cup? It’s a huge social event here; people stay up almost all night to watch the games! There’s a theory circulating that our constant power cuts are the government’s way of cutting down on the nightly noise pollution from the cheering futbol fans (just a theory (smile!)) ...these are some of my friends living out their dream of playing in the Aceh Cup!

The opening of the kindy is this Sat...three goats have been purchased for the celebration meal…banners are being designed by the community committee…final touches are being made to the building and program…should be exciting! Dawn is coming in to run a training session for the teachers this Wed. We are all looking forward to having the MTI directors here…

There are two frogs jumping across my living room floor right now, headed for my feet!