Taught some English!

Hello readers and followers!

Today was another busy day. We're all pretty tired. In fact, I think half of us are already in bed (I'm sacrificing my sleep time to blog for you loyal readers!). The events from today include:

Woke up a little bit earlier than usual to put on some nicer clothes: skirts and dresses. We headed down for breakfast at 7am which was the Indonesian hotdog (hot dog with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, and sauces) with french fries. Blog followers I must be honest with you: we're all a little grumpy about the food right now. Some of us have and are still a bit sick, so any food isn't much of an option. Also, we're going on more than a week with our experiencing different foods and I think we're just craving cold cereal, waffles, etc for the breakfast menu! However, we're pushing through, enjoying ourselves throughout our last week. This morning was a bit sad too as it was the last time we'd see Miranda in Indo before she boarded her plane. We'll miss you Miranda and we all pray for safe travels! After saying goodbyes, we loaded our bus to head back into Binong village to teach English in a different school than the one we worked at yesterday.

Like I've said before, the village roads are a bit sketch. It's practically less than a one car road, very tight spaces. Most of it isn't paved either, creates for a bumpy ride, one where I swear we get some air on. To get to the school we were helping out at, you had to go up this ridiculous looking hill. The bus and bus driver have done an amazing job weaving themselves in and out of this village. However, we weren't so lucky this time...and ran into a roof that hit one of the windows. It was pretty scary and intense, but somewhat exciting as well. Emily and Katie got a little spray of glass on them, but everyone was completely safe and laughing afterward!

Our poor bus window, spider webbed and broken. The roof in the background is what we ran into!

Poor little Emily got a little glass spray. But she was tough, didn't shed a tear or nothin! Took it like a champ!

We headed into the school ready and willing to teach some English. Okay...we weren't completely ready as none of us knew what to do or how to teach English, but we pretended like we were ready anyway! We split into four groups and went into classrooms ranging from 2nd grade to 7th grade.

Activities included: Singing songs like Old McDonald and Bingo (is that what the song is called? B-I-N-G-O!), playing hang man and Simon says (huge hits!), and talking about where we are from, the sport we play, etc etc. When we played hang man, the kids were super good at it! They speak very little English, some more than others, but they were guessing words like Washington and basketball, with very few letters on the board! Simon says was also a hit with the kids, they were laughing it up the whole time! This school is apparently "middle class," but it's in an area that looks a lot different than our middle class. It also doesn't have air conditioning. We were sweating like crazy, it was a shock to think that they go there 5 days a week to learn. It was a great experience for all, getting to interact with extremely cute kids, and experience the joy they have while at school and for us being there.

Such cute kids posing for a picture!

They wanted to see one of the groups play soccer. It was a bit difficult to do a lot while wearing skirts, but we managed! They were a bit shy, especially the girls. Notice them grouped together not really participating!

Whenever we came into a classroom, they'd all stand up and greet us with a "Good morning Miss." They were extremely polite!

After teaching, we loaded a couple cars and 2 public transportation vehicles to get us back to UPH while the bus gets fixed. For lunch it included fried shrimp, octopus, and white rice with a veggy and shrimp/octopus soup. Again, we were still a bit "grumpy" about the food right now because we aren't feeling well. But some did enjoy the fishy options! We had about an hour to relax before and after lunch, so people went to computer lab or Starbucks (we love us some starbucks coffee, especially that 50% off if you bring your own mug deal!)

Around 1:30pm we walked over to SPH, the location for our weekly camp with the girls. It's less than a 10 minute walk, so not bad (except on the way back when we're all tired!). For the camp today we focused on shooting! It included four stations and drills, one being world cup and another penalty kicks! We ended with our usual scrimmages, except some of our girls made a team to play against the campers. Jessica also talked about perseverance with them, pushing through difficult situations and finishing strong! After camp ended, the girls took on the SPH staff members (all guys) in a friendly match. I believe the girls won 4-1. Apparently we can't be beaten in Indonesia!

World cup action!



Jess talking about perseverance.

We're all about the team pictures now; after everything!

a little friendly match against staff members.

seriously, we love the team pictures.

Disclaimer: Soccer camp pictures taken by Benny Flores. This is some of his "work." He is very proud and wanted to be mentioned.

We came back to UPH right in time for dinner. And we were all extremely happy to see "satay" and "gado-gado". We ate up almost all of our meals in extreme happiness. We couldn't snag a picture as we were too busy stuffing our faces.

At 7:30pm tonight we met with the student executive board at UPH to discuss, listen, talk, get to know each other and the way UPH's student body works. It was great to meet new friends and get to know them a little bit more. I'm pretty positive there will be Facebook friend requests in our future. We're all very burnt out and tired from the long day, so like I said we're pretty much resting/sleeping now. We look forward to going back to the Binong village and to finish off the court we started on Tuesday. Soccer camp with our girls in the afternoon at SPH too. Should be another busy and tiring day. See you guys tomorrow, this little lady is going to bed.