March 12, 2008

It was a slow week in Jakarta. Due to some transportation issues and some mis-communications, there were several groups that I didn’t get to work with this week. However, the projects that I did work with went wonderfully!

Cilincing was fantastic as usual. We were back in the musholla again this week and started with the girls first. Class began with some juggling and plate spinning. It was great for me to see how much the kids have learned in the few weeks that I’ve been around teaching them. After the juggling skills portion of class, we practice our clown act, “Tunggu disini!”(Stay right here). It was great to see how much bolder and less inhibited the girls were being today. Even though there were a lot of people watching them as the practiced, they seemed to care less today than they have in the past. This is a great success for their performing process. I think that they will be fantastic in the show at the end of this month.



During the girl’s class ‘Pak Parno, a member of Yayasan Emmanuel, helped the boys finish making their juggling balls. When we started the boy’s class, I was amazed that almost all of them were able to juggle. It was obvious that they’d all been practicing through the week! We spent time juggling and working on our partner juggling skills. Then we began to work on the boy’s clown act for the big show. Most of the boys remembered the act and were very funny!



After class, while we were hanging around outside, waiting for the rest of the YE team to finish, I noticed that all the kids had begun to call me, “’kak dan” instead of “mister”. ‘kak means big brother in Indonesian is a sign of respect and endearment when used to address someone. Another touching moment happened when we were getting ready to leave, several of the kids came to shake our hands and give us high fives as usual. Several of the children shook my hand and placed it to their forehead, which is another sign of respect that young children are taught to do to their elders in the village. While I will always be a foreigner to these children, I’m feeling much more accepted and trusted into their world.






The kids from the OMC house came to JIS again on Sunday and it was a blast. We advanced in our acrobatics and juggling skills as well as getting to know each other better. It was nice to see the JIS kids and OMC kids start to recognize each other, and actually pair themselves together.





I’ve worked out all the kinks in scheduling and transportation and expect next week to be full of surprises and delights!