Staff Holiday Photo

Here is the gang at SPB wishing you all a happy New Year!

I leave for Australia tomorrow and won't be blogging until I return.

Enjoy your holidays and here's to a happy and healthy New Year.

Teachesr Drama presentation

Your's truly got to be in the teacher's performance. Here I am playing Stacy's mom. What's even harder to believe is that I'm sewing a button on Stacy's shirt! It was suppose to be serious, and I tried my best, but.....

dancers

Three of my primary 2 students (2nd graders) prior to their dance routine. They performed to a song called "I can dance".

My competition

This time the Primary 3 (third graders) performed the gamelon. Bryan was the "gong" man. I wish I had been able to be so relaxed about my performance. He was actually very good!

Christmas Tree Competition

The school had a christmas tree competition. The entries went from very commerical "adult made" to more home-made child particpation". This happens to be Tasha's tree made from blue bottles. For those of you who are old enough (and I know there are plenty of you!) the blue bottles are Vick's Vapor Rub.

Christmas in Cirebon

My first real Christmas tree! This was the night of the Christmas program at Regina and Deni's church. Regina is part of the choir- as she plays the electric keyboard.

Christmas Program at Regina and Deni's church

Deni's parents belong to the church choir and Deni's mother invited me to the Christmas celebration last Thursday night. (December 11th). I thought I'd be treated to a number of Christmas Carols - but the choir only sang one song- an Indonesian one at that. The rest of the service consisted of preaching, and other songs. I knew two of them - Silent Night and Come All You Faithful. I sang in English as everyone around me sang in Bahasa. The program began at 6:00 p.m. and didn't end until 9:30 p.m. Then we all went to a house for a catered dinner. But no eggnog or christmas cookies!

Christmas in Jakarta

Saturday December 13th I went to Jakarta via the school van. Two of the teachers were attending a conference, so Ms. Regina, Tasha, Jason and I bummed a ride to just walk around the city. This is in the Phillip Morris building in Jakarta where the conference was being held. It is a massive building with lo and behold a Starbucks. I actually got brewed coffee and treated the children to hot chocolate.
The cigarette companies have some of the largest building in Jakarta- unfortunately.

Idul Adha Holiday

This is the viewing gallery of the killing of the goats for this holiday. The woman to the far left in the light shirt is Hanifer who is a teacher's aide at the school. (She graduated with a degree in French!!!!) Next to her is her cousin who teaches high school English. Unfortunately, her cousin's English was very limited. Hanifer's mother is the woman holding her first grandchild (Hanifer's daughter and she is called Hani. )This is the family home that is in a village about an hour from Cirebon. This was the second of three stops we made visiting relatives all day. Hanifer's dad (not pictured) said to me as we entered the first home- "These are friendly Muslims, not terrorists."

Festival of Sacrifice

Festival of Sacrifice" is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Issac) as an act of obedience to God. However, God provided a ram in place once Ibrahim demonstrated his willingness to follow God's commands. They slaughter goats here and then distribute the meat by thirds one to the poor, one to family/friends and a third for themselves.This goat's head is lain on the wooden block, that has a niche carved out for its neck prior to it being slaughtered.

After the slaughter

The goat is pulled back from the wooden block where it's throat was sliced - but not completely. The animal is still alive and the breathing sound is very disturbing.

Having never seen an animal slaughtered before I was amazed at how bright red the blood was. There were three goats slaughtered that day. Between each killing the massive blade was shoved into the trunk of a palm tree. From there, the blood slowly dripped off onto the ground.

Prayers over the goat

Only the men of the village can be part of this ceremony. Here they are praying over the goat before they kill it. The man in the hat and is kneeling is the one who will actually slaughter the goat.

Idul Adha Holiday

The sheep skin to the middle left of the picture will be used for clothing later.

Master cook, aka Meidy's mom

Master cook, Ms. Meidy's mom is explaining how to make pepes jamur. Pepes Jamur is a dramatic banana leaf parcel of mushroom slices, hot red and green chillies and garlic and shallots. After that mixture is placed in the center of a banana leaf, there is one tablespoon of egg to thicken the mixture. It is then intricately folded and secured with something similar to toothpicks. Next it is steamed for 25 minutes, and then grilled until brown. Very good, and very time consuming. The process took us 3 1/2 hours to make and less than 1/2 hour to eat.

Final product

The best part-the finished product. We ate steamed crabs, and the pepes jamur. Then, even though it was Saturday - I had to go work on exams at school!

The results of my first attempt

I have a shredded mess! But Medy's mom just laughed at me. We had a great time even though she spoke not a word of English.

My turn

Medy's mom showed us how, but as you can see these two neophytes don't quite have the hang of it. I shredded more leaves than I care to admit.

Reni

This is Reni's job - cleaning and cutting all the mushrooms. Reni is another teacher at the school and she joined us for the "cooking class."

Banana leaves

The pile of banana leaves that are to be stripped of the rough edge and then ripped into uniform pieces. Not as easy as it sounds!

preparing the banana leaves

Meidy's mom hard at work. She made stripping the banana leaf of it's tough edge look easy. With swift hands she was able to strip the side of the leaf and rip uniform pieces of leaf so that we could wrap our rice mixtures inside.

banana leaves

Then banana leaves are soaking in the sun, so that they will be pliable when we wrap the rice. I however, never mastered the art of wrapping!

Hard at Work

I was given the job of cutting and chopping garlic, which would eventually be ground on this stone mortar.

Prep utensils

My prep utensils. A stone mortar and pestil and and a very sharp and rusty knife. We worked outside, rather than in the very small kitchen because there were three of us and Medy's mom.

Beans for the "burnt rice"

These beans come in long pods which we took apart. They are delicious - however, they make your breath and urine stink! These were also mixed

gutting fish

After the fish has been soaking in salt water, the maid gutted the pieces to put into the burnt rice .

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Since they do not celebrate it here, and no turkeys can be found (at least not of the non-human type) I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my celebration. But fear not! I enjoyed the outdoor swimming, as well as the view outside my house, palm trees. Right around the corner are the banana trees. Even though it's difficult to imagine that it really is December, I'm loving not having to deal with cold, rainy/snowy days.

The following pictures are just some of the "hot spots" in my neighborhood.

hang out

This is next to the kiosk, and seems to be a favorite hang out for becak drivers. They are all men, of various ages and they just sit here until someone needs a ride.

neighborhood grocery store

right next to the tailor's is this shed, which sells food, and water, and a little of this and a little of that. The young man has been away now for about two weeks. But as I understand it rather typical, they close when they want and open when they want. I would usually get a banana here as I walked to school.

local tailor

At the end of my street sits this shed, in which a tailor is there late into the night. He has one machine and always seems busy.

local angkot driver

Right outside my school sits this angkot (Angkot. Stands for ‘Angkutan Kota’, which means city transports.) Every morning this man and his wife come and wipe down the angkot, then he jumps in to start it while his wife pushes from behind. I've introduced myself and they have said their names, but unfortunately, they were long and difficult for me to remember.

neighborhood becak driver

I see this old gentleman every day as I walk through my neighborhood. We both smile and say pagi (morning) but one day he allowed me to take his picture. Again, it is fuzzy because of me and because it is the early morning mist.