Tuesday, May 11, 2010

One week already?!

We've been here in Indonesia exactly a week, how crazy! It almost feels like we've been here longer, not in a bad way of course. We only have one week left, and it's going to be a busy one.

Here are the events from today; it was a long, exciting, tiring, fun, hard working day!

First, we had to be up a little earlier than usual for chapel at 7am. We got dressed up a little bit and went up the escalators to the fifth floor for an early morning chapel service. A psychology professor spoke to us about Matthew 11:28. This verse talks about growing weary and being tired so putting our strength in the Lord. It's UPH's finals week, so it was a good verse to look at for them. But it also related a lot to us because we've started our busy week of camps and service projects which have been a tiring, yet rewarding experience.

After chapel, we headed back down for breakfast which was egg, cheese, cucumber, and tomato sandwiches with tea to sip on. We headed back to our rooms to change into our work clothes before loading the bus to Binong village for our 3 day service project. Binong village is located right by Lippo village, it's semi confusing to describe. All of a sudden you're in Lippo village (where we're staying, where UPH is located) and you turn down this one road and then you're in a village/city. However, this village is nothing like Lippo, it's quite opposite (see pictures below). It was crazy to see the transformation from nice, large buildings to "houses" pushed together, mom and pop "stores" slash grocery/food lining the half dirt half paved roads. There was considerable amounts of trash along the roads and in random spots. We made our way to the school after a very bumpy bus ride. The sun was shining bright for us too, but don't worry, we almost all somewhat put some sunscreen on! Groups before us started this project to build a court in this school. We were now finishing it by painting the court and measuring/taping lines and painting those. On Saturday we will have the opening ceremony for the court which we're anticipating to be a very exciting event! This school is a TON poorer than the SPH schools we've been at. The toilet is on the ground, with a huge bucket next to it full of water and a cup (I'm assuming you poor the water in the toilet when done). Surrounding the school is a few houses with "yards" full of garbage and other nick-nacks. It was an extreme experience to see this area compared to what we've seen before in the richer areas. The kids however are full of life and passion. They are so extremely cute and bubbly. They loved taking pictures with us and running around with us before we started painting. While painting they just sat and watched us. It was fun to jabber with them despite them not speaking English and us only knowing one or two Bahasa words! We're exciting to come back on Thursday and tape/paint the lines, as well as finish the court completely for Saturdays opening ceremony.

The court when we arrived, hasn't been painting yet!

Working hard or hardly working? Rachel and Shannon painting each other!



Cute little girls watching us paint. When asked if they wanted a picture, at first they screamed and ran away!

Allison and Regan, blue painters!

Sealing the court before we paint it blue!

A classroom. There were no books in this school that we saw...

Marty and Benny watching the supplies and delegating!

Team picture with SPH students who helped too!

The village

More of the village.

We got pretty roasted out there, a few of us came back with some sun burnt calves and shoulders. However, you gotta take advantage of that sun when you can, we don't see it like that in the pacific northwest! While working at the village, SPH provided us with some sack lunches that included an Indonesian hot dog (had cucumbers and lettuce on them), with some jo-jo fries and a banana. A lot of us weren't really feeling that hot dog, maybe cause the sun was draining us! However, when we got back to UPH, they had also provided us with some lunch. The seafood people got their fix because lunch consisted of sushi, shrimp, rice, and the like. We only had about an hour before we loaded the bus and headed to our all girls soccer camp at SPH!

About 40 girls came out again which was great to see. Today we focused on dribbling. We had four stations/drills that worked on the fundamentals of dribbling. We were able to get out on the field because it wasn't raining/thundering which provided us with some more room. The girls worked extremely hard and were very excited to learn. There were still a select few that didn't speak English which made things interesting when explaining drills and fundamentals, but the challenge was great! Erin also talked to the group on another character trait, hitting on integrity, not only in the realm of sports but in all that we do. To finish off the camp, we did more scrimmages. Overall, the girls are learning a lot and have a great time. It's so encouraging to see them be excited about soccer and excited to play and be taught. We almost feel like we're getting more out of it than they are. They are teaching us as well, it's been an amazing two days with them.

Dribble, dribble, dribble!

Katie's tiger team!

The warrior team!

For dinner tonight we went to Eastern's which is a nice Chinese restaurant. We were accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Parapak. He is a very important man for UPH. The food was delicious, especially if you like seafood. Some people did some experiencing and tried new foods. A lot of it was shrimp based, even the rice had shrimp in it. A fish, including the head, was served with some sweat and sour sauce. We also had pigeon soup...which was interesting, tasted a bit like chicken. I think that was everyone's first time eating pigeon! It was great company to talk and eat with Jonathan and Anne as well.

The internet is acting up a bit again at the school so we were limited on the pictures posted. I hope you enjoy! Tomorrow we're heading to a school to teach English in the morning and then soccer camp in the afternoon with a friendly match against the SPH faculty!

Also, today was Miranda's last day with us. We're very sad to see her leave us. She is heading to an Alaskan cruise with her family in celebration of her dads birthday (Happy Bday Jim!). Miranda: enjoy that cereal with cold milk. We'll miss you!

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