Sumatra Conferences: Medan

My island is Sumatra, which is physically one of Indonesia’s larger islands (and the world’s sixth largest), but definitely not the most populated. We have four ETAs: Raj and me in Palembang and John and Vidhi in Medan.

ELFs are English Language Fellows; they have master’s degrees, teach at universities, and are older than most of us, the English Teaching Assistants. Both the ELF and ETA programs are run by AMINEF, the American Indonesian Exchange Foundation. Most ETAs (and ELFs) are concentrated on the island of Java, which has Jakarta, Yogyakarta, etc. Our region’s ELF is Adam, who lives at the southern tip of the island in Bandar Lampung.

Adam told us about his idea to do two collaborative workshops, one in Medan and one in Palembang, at the mid-year conference. Unfortunately, Raj had school during the first week of April, but I was off for the week because my students were taking their mid-terms. The workshop also happened to be over Easter weekend, which was nice, because it’s always more fun to be around other people who are at least familiar with the same holidays, even if they don’t celebrate it.

Here’s what I learned about conferences in Indonesia: it’s nearly impossible to disappoint Indonesian teachers. At first, I was reluctant to present myself as some sort of education expert, but, honestly, we Americans bring some new ideas to the table (the desk?).

In Indonesian schools, English is separated into four different subjects: writing, speaking, listening, and reading. It’s incredibly confusing. Whereas Americans tend to view languages as a whole, Indonesians try to segregate individual skills. In “listening” and “writing” classes, students never speak. The teacher usually writes some vocabulary words on the board and explains them. Then he or she writes some sentences the students have to complete on paper, or teachers play a tape where students have to listen and write down what they hear. But wait, you say, isn’t that writing and listening at the same time? Yeahhhh. And don’t you technically have to listen to be able to speak? Again, yeahhhh. It’s kind of a hot topic here, actually. For the most part, younger teachers want to teach all skills at once under the larger umbrella of English in general, whereas older teachers want to keep it the same.

I remember my Spanish language classes in high school. We were constantly singing, playing games, working in partners, cooking Spanish and Mexican foods, watching movies in Spanish, and even making piñatas. (Mine was a flamingo.) It's not like that at all here.

I know the education system in the United States is far from perfect, but there are a few problems here that seem particularly aggravating. The requirement to segregate skills is one; another is that the classes are huge. I’m lucky—my school is very wealthy, and my classes usually have between 25-30 students. Some schools here, though, put up to 60 or 70 students in one class.

I understand the attractiveness of standardized testing, I really do. And to a certain point, I’m in favor of them. But here, teachers really just teach the test. My seniors, for example, took the ujian nacional (national test) back in April, and now they’re done going to school while the rest of the high school continues. Because the national test is completely writing, reading, and listening, students are never evaluated on their speaking skills, which the government says is the most important. As a result, many schools produce students extremely capable of writing and reading in English who can hardly speak an actual word.

So the goal of our workshop was to show high school teachers some new methods for motivating students and teaching the required lessons in a way that doesn’t make the students want to stab themselves in the eye. You can teach English and still have fun.

Vidhi, John, me, and Adam

with a group of teachers from Vidhi's school

English has always been my favorite subject. I know it’s different when you’re learning it as a secondary language. After all, foreign languages are not my cup of tea. Or my taza de té. Or my mangkok the. Hah! Don’t tell me I don’t retain. Anyway, my favorite part was that English wasn’t like math—there’s not always a right and wrong. English is about communicating, and that’s why they teach it here. But somehow, English has become like mathematics in Indonesia. Students are truly paralyzed with the fear of making a mistake. They emotionally or intellectually check out, do the minimum to get the answers right on a test, and most are never really able to develop a passion for the language.

In the conference, Adam presented on “Large Classroom Management Techniques” and some cultural issues. Vidhi tackled “Practical Classroom Management Strategies.” John and I combined “Using English Inside and Outside of the Classroom” and “Making English Fun.”

I’m not sure how much the teachers retained, but I suppose it’s a positive thing any time they at least sit and think about other ways teaching. I hesitate to say better… but ok, better ways. This is my blog, right?

We actually held two separate workshops; the first was at Vidhi’s school for about 40 teachers. The second, however, somehow spiraled out of control, and we wound up with 250 college students studying to become English teachers. It was incredibly hard to involve and engage 250 teachers, especially when most of them were just there to meet four Americans. Instead of having everyone play the games we taught, we had to use a group of students to be an example. I think they would have had trouble staying focused through 3.5 hours of any presentation, let alone one that wasn’t in their native language.

Bostodoff... close enough.

We were expecting a break, but we didn’t get one, and we wound up with about an hour’s worth of extra time. Luckily, Adam saved the day by teaching them to sing “Row, Row, Row your Boat” in rounds and explaining the lyrics to the Cops theme song “Bad Boys.”

Afterwards, they gave each of us an ulos, which was really sweet and generous. Then we took about a million pictures each. I’m not exaggerating. Each of us stood and smiled for pictures for 45 minutes after the presentation.

With our new ulos-ulos

While I was in Medan, I also got to visit Indonesia’s second largest alligator farm. Yikes. You could pay $3 to feed a live duck to one of the gators. While I secretly hoped someone else would want to do it, I decided to draw the line between watching someone else commit a violent act toward a duck and actually stepping up to do it myself. Especially since it was Easter, and I couldn’t help but think of those cute furry little yellow chicks.

I hope someone fed him a duck earlier.

The sign saying you can buy a duck for about $3

and watch while an alligator eats it.

I also visited John’s school, which is a Catholic private school. While my students have a huge range of abilities (and we separate by 1-5 for ability), almost all of his students come from villages and struggle a lot more with the language. But my God, those kids loved to sing. In one class alone, I think I was serenaded by 7 different groups. They begged for us to sing, and I have such a hard time saying no to a group of shouting, eager students, even if I know my voice hardly resembles that of the Americans they see on television. John and I wowed them with what I’m sure was an inspiring duet rendition of “Hotel California.” One of his students even kissed me on the cheek, which is pretty shocking in Indonesia. The class screamed for about 10 minutes before calming down. The boy said he’ll never wash his lips again, and I felt guilty about not showering that morning.

One other note: at John’s Catholic school, the student uniforms consist of pants for the boys, knee-length skirts for the girls, and button-up t-shirts for everyone. My poor students have to cover every inch of skin from their ankles to their wrists, and they have to wear a wool vest and a tie on top of that.

The Sumatra Conferences, Palembang version is May 7. My teachers are excited already, mostly to meet new “bules.” As dear little Sry says, “I am girl for who be flirty is a must!”

Extra! Extra!

I’ve been MIA from my blog for a while! Fortunately, I’ve been busy traveling, which means I’ll have lots to write about in the next few days. But first, I wanted to share these articles.

First, from a conference in Medan last week (more coming on that later). This was published in the April 4 edition of Waspada:

The newspaper in Depok printed an article about Christine a few weeks ago which included quotations and facts that were completely fabricated. It’s not anything she was upset about; it’s just funny. The story basically explained how Depok had been such a struggle at first, and then she’d fallen in love with the city and its people. Hmm.

When I returned from the conference in Medan, the teachers said there had been an article about me in the April 6 edition of Sumatera Ekspres. My school took the pictures weeks ago, but I thought they were just for memory’s sake. The article even includes direct quotes from me in Bahasa Indonesian! (There’s no way I said those things. But I think given the opportunity, I might have said what they printed anyway, so all’s fair.)

Sadly, while IGM has official school make-up and traditional costumes, we do not have a scanner. So you’ll have to settle for a picture. I’m feeling awfully special, given all this hot-off-the-press attention.

TO-BA! TO-BA!

My guidebook says unless they’re coming from southern Sumatra, most travelers will enter Medan from the rest of Southeast Asia and put the city on their “worst places I’ve ever visited” list. The good news is that I WAS coming from southern Sumatra, and therefore I was quite happy and Medan seemed like a serious step up.

I flew into Medan on a Thursday, and fellow ETA John and I set out for Lake Toba the next morning. Not before, of course, attempting to exhaust Medan’s culinary possibilities (read, a couple food stands and one large grocery store). I’m constantly surprised by the products well-known brands sell in foreign countries that I’ve never even heard of in the US.

Lays brand “seaweed chips?” Hmm. Pringles sells “basil and garlic” and “salt and pepper” flavored chips here, as well as crab-flavored and:

Valuable lesson learned: just because it comes in pink doesn’t mean it tastes good.

Actually, we didn’t even come close to skimming the surface of Medan’s food offerings. Since a large number of Christians live there, you can find meats like pork and… yes, dog. They label the stands so as not to offend Muslims, though: B1 is dog and B2 means pork. Sadly, I only saw one of those stands as we drove past it quickly.

Getting to Lake Toba required a 30-minute becak ride (a motorbike with a sort of side car), four hours on a hot bus that doesn’t stop, and a 45-minute ferry ride from Parapat to the city on Samosir Island with what must be one of the coolest town names ever: Tuk Tuk. It’s pronounced “took-took.”

Toba is the largest lake in Southeast Asia; it was created by a volcanic eruption tens of thousands of years ago. Samosir Island, which is actually bigger than all of Singapore, sits in the middle of the lake. And it’s the 14^th deepest lake in the world.

“Danau Toba has been part of traveler folklore for decades. This grand, ocean-blue lake, found high up among Sumatra’s volcanic peaks, is where the amiable Batak people reside, largely untouched by the rest of the world. The secret of this almost mythical place was opened by the intrepid… Expect a chorus of ‘horas’ (‘welcome’) to greet you at every turn, as the locals quietly strum away the afternoon on their guitars while passing around a flagon of jungle juice—the locals are proud, debaucherous Christians who love a drink.”

One of my friends in Palembang told me an old legend about the area. Apparently, Lake Toba was once a beautiful lake with no island in the middle. There were many men who enjoyed fishing out in the clear, blue water. Once upon a time, a fish fell in love with one of the fisherman. She begged God to turn her into a woman so she could marry this man and spend her life with him on land.

God finally agreed to her plan, on one condition: that the (fish)woman nor her husband could ever mention that she had once been a fish. She agreed, and God turned her into a beautiful woman. The fisherman quickly fell in love with her and asked her to marry him. She told him how she’d spent years admiring him from under the water while he worked.

For years, they were very happy. The (fish)woman thought she was the luckiest (fish)woman in the whole world when she became pregnant with a son. Unfortunately, after the boy was born and started growing older, the husband and wife began arguing more and more. Soon, they couldn’t agree on a single thing, especially on how to raise their child.

One night, the fisherman got so upset he screamed, “What do you know?! You’re just a stupid fish! You’re not a real woman!”

God was angry that the fisherman had broken the promise. So he immediately turned the woman back into a fish and she lived the rest of her life in Lake Toba. As for the son, God decided he didn’t have to be a fish, but he couldn’t travel land freely like the rest of humankind. So God built Samosir, an island in the middle of the lake. The son spent the rest of his life there—stuck on that small piece of land and surrounded by the water where his (fish)mother swam.

Fortunately, there were no signs of (fish)women or scorned sons on our trip. Our hotel was unbelievable for the value—hot water and only $5 a night. And a pretty great view:

Good morning, Lake Toba.

Toba definitely gives you the feeling—appropriately, I suppose—that you’re at a lake; it’s no Bali. The air is cool enough at night that we didn’t even need an air conditioner.

Lake Toba has some of the most delicious pizza in all of Indonesia. Or maybe they just have real cheese. Either way, yum.

We rented a motorcycle and visited the Stone Chairs, which are more than 300 years old.

Rock solid justice

The king sat in the biggest chair, and the accused sat across the circle from him. The king and other prominent village men decided the sentence. If they chose death, the condemned man was beheaded.

This nice little boy volunteered to demonstrate.

Too bad we had to eat him.

First they “rubbed” out all the bad magic from the criminal, often stabbing or cutting him. Then they cut his head off. If the executioner wasn’t able to cut off the criminal’s head in a single chop, then he was beheaded. Quite a high-risk career, no? Then they rubbed the body with chili and garlic… and ate the criminal. The whole village would take a piece, believing they were made stronger by the man’s flesh and blood. The Bataks were cannibals well into the 1800s.

The tour guide we hired (for about $2) to lead us around the chairs and the Batak houses on the museum grounds showed us some traditional utensils, musical instruments, and wedding garb.

Batak houses have little doors.

He also pointed out the large masks and symbols adorning the houses. I thought it was interesting that he said they used to be magic until the Batak people discovered Christianity, and now they’re not magic anymore. He didn’t at all imply that the people were ever mistaken about magical powers, just that as the faith of the villagers evolved, so did the significance of their once-magical symbols.

We also tracked down the spot where Lonely Planet took their picture of Lake Toba. I was very excited about this. Although it’s obvious we either came on a very overcast day or there was some serious photo-editing going on.

My camera just couldn't decide what to focus on.

I know the feeling.

We still had the motorcycle for a few hours, so we decided to just drive around and explore the island a little. It certainly didn’t feel as big as it is. There were hardly any tourists on the island, and it was nice to just zoom around and look at the views. We came to one crossroads, and John said “left or right?” I picked left, and I’m glad I did, because we found one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.

I’ve had a place in my heart for water buffalo since my freshman year at BSU when we read that horribly disturbing chapter from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried where a soldier beats and kills a baby buffalo. Luckily, these buffaloes were much happier. Children were climbing all over them and were happy to let us join.

"Is it licking you?" "Yup."

They said, "Stand up!" I said, "Why not?"

John asked what the family what they used the buffalo for, and they said meat. I’ve never heard of anyone eating water buffalo… and I’m just not going to think about it.

John and Kate + 13

John is way better than I am at speaking Indonesian, which is both very helpful and a little annoying. He says communicating in Indonesian is like swinging a big club—you can say so many different things with the same words. English is more like a scalpel, which you can use to say exactly what you mean and in a number of different ways. That’s so true. And I’ve never been good at swinging clubs anyway.

I’m especially glad that I spent the weekend still on the island of Sumatra. I feel like so much of the traveling I do involves going somewhere else, which is nice. But island pride feels good.

Bye bye, Lake Toba.