Until we meet again…

For nearly ten months I kept to myself at UNG, sequestering myself in my little office with the AC where I tried to keep up with the rest of the world with my slow internet connection. I showed up for my classes on time, taught in the sweltering hot classrooms, then went home to shower off the dirt and grime from the day and, if I had any energy left, treated myself to a DVD. On weekends I met my American friends to go diving or travel around Indonesia. Occasionally, I would have dinner with one of the other lecturers. Never once in all that time did I consider my students to be potential friends. Although this outlook started to change with our class trip to Saronde Island, I was still caught off guard by the outpouring of emotion and heartfelt goodbyes from my students at my UNG farewell party and in the days that followed.

The fact that the English department even threw me a party at all was touching. I don’t think anyone has thrown a party for me since I was kid and my mom planned birthday parties for me at roller skating rinks, Burger King, and Gymnastics World. Even when I left my job in Switzerland after five years, I had to throw myself a party and buy all the food for my colleagues. This event was in a league of its own. I walked into the multi-purpose room to find a HUGE sign that said “Farewell Party Julianne Reynolds, M.A.” The head of the department, the dean of the faculty of letters and culture, and even the rector of the university himself gave speeches – and surprisingly personal ones at that. Then two of my students, Amad and Ucha, got up on stage to say a few words. I could feel the tears forming as they spoke and a slide show of pictures of me with the students from throughout the year played in the background. Somehow, through all the barriers I created around myself this past year, I had made a difference to my students and they were genuinely sad to see me leave Gorontalo.

As I sat there feeling all emotional, I was summoned to the stage to say a few words. It was horribly embarrassing because I was crying in front of a room full of colleagues and former students, but I managed to say a few words to thank everyone for the kindness they have shown me this year. Then it was time for the souvenirs. I stood in the front of the room as gift-wrapped presents from the department, the staff, the students and individual lecturers were ceremoniously given to me. I accepted each gift, kissed the giver on the checks or shook hands, and then placed the still wrapped gift on a silver tray so it could then be whisked off to a parked car outside.

Then it was time for songs and dances. Several students and lecturers sang to me, six of my guys performed a choreographed dance routine and then Class B came up to the stage and started singing ‘Assalamualaikum’ – the song we sang together on our trip to Saronde. Not only did they sing it, but they also beckoned for me to come up to the stage and sing it with them. Vana had even printed out the lyrics for me! So up to the stage I went and we all swayed and sang together, with me stumbling over the lyrics into the mic. But it was all good fun and I loved it.

Goodbye Class B! I will really miss you.

After a lovely lunch, I went back home to start packing up my house. But I wasn’t alone. A couple members of Class A came over to give me a beautiful photo album of us throughout the year that hilariously also included several ‘hidden camera’ shots that one of the students had taken of me during class! The students had also filled the album with personal messages. Near the end there is even one page called ‘Attendance List’ where they all signed their names in fancy ink – a stylized version of what I ask them to do every day in class! As the delegates of Class A were on their way out the door, delegates of Class B arrived and presented me with ANOTHER beautiful, thoughtful album of photos and memories. Then they stayed to help me open the rest of the gifts that I had received earlier – beautiful kerawang fabric of Gorontalo, traditional fans, and keychains made from recycled newspaper, among other things. Then Ibu Elsje came to pick up my furniture. When I sold her my sofa set and mattress, I had asked her to arrange for someone to pick them up. I was expecting her to show up with a van or a truck but instead she came with a roda – a traditional horse-drawn cart! My students helped the driver load the furniture and waited with me while the driver made a couple trips between my house and Ibu Elsje’s.

So many presents to unwrap!

The goodbye sendoff continued into that evening and the next couple of days. After we loaded up the furniture, we went back to campus where other members of Class B had been preparing a bbq for me! My students grilled up fresh corn and fish outside the language lab and we sat around talking and joking for a few more hours. But the day had been a long one, so I eventually bid them goodnight and went home. The next day I arrived at work bright and early to finish calculating my final grades and pack up my office. While I was scrambling to get all my work done, members of Class C appeared to invite me to dinner at one of the girls’ houses. Very reluctantly I told them that I couldn’t go because I HAD TO finish up my grades and, besides, my neighbors were already planning on taking me out for a farewell dinner. Time was short and there was still so much to do. Unfazed, Class C showed up at my house the next morning to accompany me to the airport. They had rented a car to follow me!

At the airport with Class C

All along I have been saying that I will definitely come back to Gorontalo to dive. But now I feel have another reason, too. I will really and truly miss these students of mine - these students who have now added me on Facebook and tell me how much they love and miss me. Instead of feeling like this is the end of an era, I feel like this is just the beginning of some new lifelong friendships. I will be back.

Saronde Dance Videos!

Here are the videos of my students and me with our 'Canyuhswim?' dance on Saronde Island. Actually, the word 'Saronde' refers to a type of traditional Gorontalo dance. Our dance is hardly traditional, but it was a lot of fun!

Saronde Island

I had heard tales about Saronde Island since I first moved to Gorontalo. Many of my writing students last semester wrote about it when I asked them to tell me about interesting places to visit in Gorontalo. This past Sunday, with less than two weeks of my fellowship left to go, I finally went to Saronde with about a dozen students from one of my speaking classes. It was one of the best days I’ve had in Gorontalo and now I kinda wish I didn’t have to leave.

We met on campus early Sunday morning and squeezed ourselves into an angkot or minibus for the hour long ride to Kwandang, a village on the north coast of Gorontalo province. We stopped at Vana’s house, where, much to my surprise, her family had prepared some food for us to take to the island including palm sugar cakes, a huge tub of delicious melon juice, and dabu dabu iris! I had made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I thought the plan was for everyone to bring their own lunch, but apparently, the new plan was to grill fish on the beach! YES!

Squeezed into the angkot

Stocked up with provisions, we drove a few more minutes to the harbor. Here, a quaint little boat called ‘Taxi Saronde’ was waiting to shuttle us across to the island, about half an hour away. En route we stopped at another island to buy some fresh fish at what turned out to be Vana’s boyfriend’s home village. While the boys went ashore to buy the fish, Ucha asked me what Indonesian songs I liked. I told them I liked ‘Assalamualaikum’ and started singing a few bars of the refrain. They squealed in delight and soon we were all singing it together. I also told them I liked ‘Jika Cinta Dia’ and we sang along to that one too. It was great fun.

Heading to our destination in the 'Taxi Saronde'

Soon we pulled ashore at Saronde Island. Without a doubt, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The entire island is ringed with about1 km of beautiful white sand beach. The water was every possible shade of blue imaginable and the beach was strewn with shells and coconut husks. In the middle there was small collection of huts and two cottages. I walked around in a daze and kept repeating how beautiful it was. Finally, Novah had to beg me to stop staying ‘beautiful’ so much. So then I rattled off a list of other adjectives: stunning, gorgeous, breathtaking, sublime, heavenly, magnificent and on and on. This is no exaggeration.

I love Saronde Island!

We all love Saronde Island!

Look at this white sand beach!!

We set ourselves up at one of the little huts near the water. It was midday so several students disappeared to go grill the fish over the coconut husks they brought with them and I stayed behind to play cards with Ucha, Novah, and Deysi, while several others looked on. We were in the middle of Rummy 500 when the others came back with the freshly grilled fish, elaborately served up on a palm leaf! We put the cards away and dug into the dabu dabu and packets of rice that someone had brought along. The dabu dabu was particularly spicy and my hiccups came out in full force, much to the amusement of some of the students!

My students posing with fresh grilled fish and dabu dabu salsa!

After lunch, Amad and I went for a walk around the entire island. Since it was so small this only took about 20 minutes, including the time we stopped to take pictures. Have I mentioned how beautiful this island is? As we finished our walk, we noticed that many of the others were already playing on the beach and in the water. So we joined them and thus began several hours of hilarity. One thing I love about Indonesians is that they can be very lebay. This is a slang word that means doing things in an overexaggerated fashion, especially posing for pictures. Since Amad is a pretty decent photographer, I gave him my cameras for the day and he took most of the pictures. Here are some of my favorite photos of the day:

These are our swimming clothes!

Indonesians are experts at instantly posing for group photos

Vany looked very photogenic in her pink jilbab!

There was an afternoon shower but then there was also this beautiful rainbow!

Amad's underwater self-portrait. Love the reflection in the goggles!

Probably the most lebay moment of all came when we decide to make a video of ourselves dancing to a song we made up that consists of three words, “Can you swim?” On the boat ride over to the island, I had asked Vany, who was sitting next to me, if she could swim. However, in my American accent, this question came out as one word - “Canyuhswim?” and Vany did not understand me at all. Once I explained that I was asking “Can you swim?” everyone thought this was hysterical and we took turns asking each other, “Canyuhswim?”. If you say it kind of fast and repetitively it turns into a sorta catchy tune. And thus our dance was born. I'll try to upload the video when I have a faster internet connection.

Surprisingly, many Indonesians cannot swim. There’s no such thing as swimming lessons as part of gym class here, so only people who grow up near the water ever learn. I would have thought that in a beach town such as Gorontalo, many people would know how to swim. What I learned this year is that people only learn if they’re literally within walking distance to a swimmable body of water (like the people of Torosiaje who live right on top of the ocean). So, even Vana, who grew up in the village of Kwandang, can’t really swim. I gave her a lesson though – we practiced blowing bubbles, breathing to the side and kicking. I also lent her my goggles for most of the afternoon. She had never seen underwater before and was transfixed. She’s really good at holding her breath and she would go under and report back all of the cool things she saw – blue starfish and ‘Nemo’ being at the top of her list! The next day I got a text from her, “By ur goggles I aware seaworld is beautiful… I see thng tht never I see b4. Thanks a lot.” While my English lessons may or may not stay with her once this year is over, I think I have left her with something else that will last forever – an appreciation of the underwater world! I’m so proud.

We stayed on the island until sunset and then reluctantly got back on the boat to head back to Kwandang and our waiting angkot. I could barely keep my eyes open for the ride back to town though. After a day spent swimming, running around the beach, turning cartwheels, giving swimming lessons, singing loudly and talking non-stop, I was utterly exhausted. But I loved it. My students are really a lot of fun to be with. It’s sort of ironic. All year long I have been keeping them at a distance – refusing to add them on Facebook, telling them it’s not appropriate to turn up unannounced at my door in the evening, and explicitly stating second semester in my syllabi that they are not to text me randomly at 10 pm to say ‘Miss what r u doing now?’ I kept them at bay because I thought, as their teacher, I was supposed to keep a professional distance. The thing is, my concept of ‘professional distance’ seems to be an American one. My fellow lecturers at UNG are friends with their students on FB, they encourage students to drop by their homes to ask questions and talk freely in what they see as a more comfortable environment and they text each other day and night. I’m afraid the only effect my ‘professional distance’ attitude served this year was to isolate me from a community of fun-loving, curious and friendly people. But I hope it’s not too late. I hope my students will add me as their friend on FB now and I hope we can stay in touch.

With Vana on the 'Taxi Saronde' at sunset

"Going Around the World with Culture"

For one night only, my students ditched their jilbabs, conservative clothing and university jackets to model different fashions from around the world at UNG’s second annual cultural show, which marked the culmination of a semester of CCU classes. My co-teacher, who taught the final 8 weeks of Cross Cultural Understanding, supervised the production of this magnificent all-day event. The first part of the day was filled with a lunchtime sampling of international foods from Indonesia, America, Korea, Japan, India and Saudi Arabia while the second part of the day consisted of wonderfully choreographed and costumed song and dance numbers. I was invited to watch the performances and was even given my own costume for the night – a traditional Gorontalese wedding dress!

A real highlight for me was seeing some of my most conservative students break out into a choreographed hip-hop routine to the Black Eyed Peas’ song Boom Boom Pow. It was a fun surprise to see Mary, a shy, jilbab wearing girl who sweetly smiles at me in class, suddenly standing on stage in a tracksuit, wearing a sideways twisted baseball cap and a hardened “don’t mess with me” look on her face. There were also some great martial arts displays by students dressed as Japanese ninjas. They did a couple of very technical numbers and then, in the middle of one number, the music suddenly changed to that old 80s one-hit-wonder, “Hey Mickey”, and the ninjas started pirouetting and doing other flouncy, girly dances. It was great!

Here's a picture of me with the "Indonesia" food group. Notice how most are wearing their batik!

And here's a picture of me in my Gorontalese wedding dress. To my right are students modeling other wedding dresses from Java, Sumatra and South Sulawesi.

Post-show, my ninjas struck a pose just for me!

It was a really fun night. I may have been horrified by my CCU students’ writing skills, but they are wonderful, funny, and kind people and I really look forward to having them for another semester. Plus, I’ll have them for Writing III, so I plan to set a few things straight!