Today was another wonderful (and exhausting) day. We were guests at the local junior high school, SMP 2 Kudus, where our host teacher's husband works. Check out the welcome we received:
Everyone else in the program was getting their names on signs, so it was our turn!
The flower necklaces were beautiful and smell exquisite
We were gifted with dresses in the local batik (Kate was laughing at her own middle school entertaining antics from a moment before)
There was an opening ceremony with a local traditional dance by the students, short speeches from Kate and me, and then we sat for photos with EVERY class in the school. My cheeks are still sore from smiling for all those photos!
Beautiful dance in beautiful outfits!
We kept it short and sweet for all those English language learners
The first of 847,389,379,843 pictures
Kate and I then split up to give cultural presentations to as many students as they could squeeze into the room. I had all of 9th grade - 250+ 9th graders all sweating with me in one room! It got hot, but was a lot of fun. I had them brainstorm, then give one-get one with partners, then share with the whole group things they already knew about the US. It led to some really great conversations. We talked about liberty and where in the US we need to improve access to liberty, about colonization and stolen land, about the diversity of the US, and so much more. One student shared that what she knew about the US is that everyone is beautiful and handsome. Boy did we stop and talk about that one! At the end of the lesson, I handed out travel brochures about Portland and Oregon and had the students do some exploratory research. Most of them had never heard of Oregon, so it was fun to show them some of our natural beauty! (Side note Oregon peeps: I kept getting blank stares when I said I was from Portland, OR, so the other day I broke down and told a teacher I was from California, and she looked disappointed and said, "I heard there was someone here from Oregon?" I told her that was me because I lived there now, and she got fangirl excited and shouted, "oh my gosh! Multnomah Falls!" I asked her if she had been there, and she told me she had just seen it on Tumblr and thought it was beautiful. So there you go, I won't fall back on my California origins again)
Students exploring Oregon
One thing the students taught me today: I knew that in Indonesia, the students stay in one classroom all day and the teachers come to them, so they become very close with the 30 or so students that they spend all day every day with. We learned today that (in senior high school at least) they stay with that same class ALL 3 YEARS of high school! That is a LOT of time to spend with the same people! We asked them if they every fight and have to go to counseling, and they said, "all the time!"