Our first field trip and it was a big one!

This last Saturday we had our first field trip ever.  We left at 6 am and got home at 10 pm, so it was a doozy!

We had originally signed up the whole family to go for this full day language immersion experience, but Dave was sick with a "cold" last week .  His symptoms were not quite typical of a normal cold, and by Friday, I finally determined that he had pneumonia.  So no fieldtrip for Dave.  I didn't want to try managing both boys on such a long unusual day so Joshua had to stay home with sick Dave. I arranged a few babysitters during the day so Dave could have a break.  They survived the day, but just barely, I would say.  Dave got a nice fat lip from Joshua during his bedtime tantrum.  The fieldtrip was too special of an opportunity to pass up though, and we felt God's leading for Jonathan and I to go ahead an go even though the day would be rough for Dave and Josh.  Jonathan was so excited to have an adventure with his sekolah friends.

Jonathan and I left the house at 6:15 am and hopped on a little blue minibus to get to the rendezvous point where we eventually boarded this nice air-conditioned tour bus, complete with karaoke, TV/DVD player, and tour guide.  If your wondering, the price for this once-every-two-years field trip was $15 per person.  It included one square meal and snacks.  At one point the kids all took turns singing songs in groups and solo numbers. Jonathan was happy to grab the mike and give a rendition of "Star Light, Star Bright."

After a 3 hour drive, we arrived at this ancient temple site.   It's high in the hills (the locals call them mountains) and we had to switch to smaller buses to get up the steep winding roads.   The temple is left over from the days before Islam came to this country.  It's a pyramid actually.  I was surprised that we only stayed at the site for 15 minutes.  The teachers pointed out the 3 giant turtle statues (one of which they stood on for their group photo) and everybody posed for some pictures and off we went when it started drizzling.  Before we left, 2 of the teachers mounted the staircase to the top of the temple and before I could stop him, Jonathan quickly clambered up after them.  It was quite high and the stairs quite steep.  Do you think he was afraid?

Extreme close up ......nope, definitely not looking fearful. 

After leaving the temple, we went back down the hills past fields of rice, carrots, corn, ginger, and many other things.  We had lunch at a local restaurant:  rice, chicken, veggie soup, rice crunchies and and ice cream treat.  Then we were off to our next destination, and old Dutch sugar processing plant that has been transformed into a local amusement park.  Our main purpose/learning experience at this place was to ride a real, antique, functioning steam train!  We also got to go swimming though.  I didn't know there was going to be swimming, but we improvised with an extra shirt and shorts I had brought along.  Jonathan had a lot of fun frolicking in the water with his sekolah friends.

Frolicking in the water

A mini water slide made of tile

After swimming, we were supposed to immediately get on the steam train, but we ended up having a 2 hour wait.  Apparently they were expecting another group of "important visitors", who got priority on the train.  The important of adult visitors did not even arrive at the park until our large group of small children had already been waiting for an hour after swimming.  We had scheduled this long in advance and we were the only group in the park that day.  This delay was frustrating for the sekolah teachers, but fortunately there was much to explore including a small playground, a sandpit, cages with various animals including a flock of geese, an inguana, a family of monkeys with young, pigeons, and a large display yard of antique gears and pistons from the old sugar processing plant.

Jonathan enjoyed the antique sugar processing plant parts and ran around pretending they were all grinding up sugar cane.

Jenn's favorite part was watching this family of monkeys -- 2 sets of parents with 2 babies.  

Finally, we got to have our  30 minutes steam train ride!

Another view of the train ....upon arrival at the station with the group of "important visitors."

For our interested friends, here are a few close-up pictures of some parts of the train that we thought were especially cool....

The fire box and cab

The coupling

The derailment

When we finally were all loaded on the train, we went about 10 meters and then went bump, bump, bump!  One of the carriage wheels had nudged off the track.  The teachers were practically crying at this point after such a long wait.  They thought it was all over, but the workers did a trick with some blocks of wood out of the tender and got the wheels back on the track.  The steam train inched along the track very loudly around the dilapidated sugar plantation and our ride ended just as it was getting dark.

Riding in the carriage with a classmate ....

The rest of our field trip consisted of a stop at the souvenir shop, dinner at another restaurant, and the 3 hour drive home in the bus, during which all the kids went to sleep.  We were dropped off at the rendesvous site in a torrential rainfall!  We shared a taxi home with some of the teachers and Jonathan was tucked into bed around 10 pm.

The best thing about the day is that Jonathan had such a fun time with his sekolah friends even though he couldn't talk to them much.  It's the kind of experience I've dream of for him.  All of the kids were really kind and understanding with him.  I hope that this day will be the turning point for some better days at sekolah for all of us.  Thanks for praying!

Sekolah 3

Taking a few morning whacks on our sturdy tree.  It does not complain when hit.  

     On Fridays the boys wear their red uniforms.  My friend saw the pictures and said "They look like kilts!"  Uniforms come in all colors here and each school has their own "motif."  I've seen one school whose uniforms are all white -- perhaps appropriate for a nursing school but this was a preschool!  I've also seen some little boys running around in all pink plaid uniforms.

     I noticed that when we got to school, Jonathan had a lot of nervous energy and struggled to keep his hands to himself.  So my new strategy is to get the boys out into our yard 15 minutes earlier than usual to get out some little boy aggression and wiggles.  We start out by taking turns banging on one of our giant trees and then have races around the house.  The boys love the races and it does help us to get out the gate with smiles on our faces.  The morning exercises do help the boys to settle down for circle time at the beginning of the school day.

Morning races around the house help get the blood flowing and the wiggles out before school.

This day we worked on motor skills with lacing cards.  

Jonathan adores this school friend, but they haven't figured out how to BE friends without hurting each other.

     As the Lord leads you, please pray for Jonathan's interactions with his school friends.  He especially loves one little boy in the class, pictured above.  They always find each other at the beginning of the day and greet each other with a hug.  It's sweet to see, but sad when said friend comes up to Jonathan later and pinches him hard on the leg or punches him, literally, in the face.  Since they can't communicate with each other in the same language, they struggle to find other ways -- pinching, punching, bumping.  Sometimes they do play peacefully together -- looking at books or playing "mirror" but more often than not they have to be separated by the teachers.   It starts out innocent, but then it escalates when one will actually hurt the other, who hits back hard in revenge. Jonathan is confused about what friendship is all about and I am working hard with him at sekolah to help him navigate these hard waters of cross-cultural friendship.   He does have some ex-pat friends he plays with well at the Mountainview playground so I'm thankful he is having some positive play experiences.  Whether or not this improves is one big factor in whether we will decide to continue at this sekolah next school year.

Locked out....

     At every national school in this country on Monday mornings, all of the students participate in a very formal patriotic flag ceremony.  It last about 15 minutes and includes standing at attention like soldiers, saluting the flag at multiple, specific times, reciting in unison the 5 national virtues and singing the national anthem and other patriotic songs.  It starts exactly on time and those who are tardy are LOCKED OUT until the ceremony is over!  Here's a picture of the late crowd (including us) a few Mondays ago!  I've since decided that we will not attend the flag ceremony until the boys know more language and are more mature.  It's just too hard for them to stand still at attention for so long and they disrupt it for everyone else.

Pet therapy on the walk home after sekolah.

      The walk home after school is full of fun.  This nice dog lives just a few doors down from the sekolah and we always stop to say hello to her.  We don't usually mix with random dogs, but we've met the owners and "Sheri" is well cared for.    The boys also enjoy putting their hands in gravel, looking in the waste-water ditches, poking sticks in the mud, collecting ladybugs to bring home to our yard, watching the neighbors chickens, banging on lightpoles to disrupt the ant nests inside and pointing out ripe fruit in the trees or butterflies passing by.

Loving the gritty feel of gravel on the way home from sekolah.....

Sekolah 2

As promised, here are pictures of the the boys in their Wednesday uniform.  It's the PE uniform and on Wednesdays the class usually does more physical games like taking turns jumping on a small trampoline or taking turns kicking a ball.

Pak Dody and the kids gather around a bucket of water to learn how the game works.  

On this day, we went to the alley behind the school and played a water relay game ....uh, kind of.   The pacing was pretty slow, so the line of the bucket brigade became very zig-zaggy and stretched out at times as little feet wandered!

Joshua receives the "bucket" from a classmate.

Some of the older kindergarten girls really enjoy playing with Joshua.

After the exercise time, there is snack/break time.  When the kids finish their snacks, they have some time to socialize and look at books or play with a few wooden toys.

Jonathan really enjoys looking at books during break time.

The classroom (really a converted garage) is transformed for table work.  

My favorite days are when we have table work.... only about once a week.  The boys seem to do better when they have their own place to sit and an individual task to perform.  

Josh is excited to be sitting at his own table!

Rare moments of focus....

On this day, the kids were working on a puzzle worksheet.  The pieces would eventually be put together to form the letter K.  First they had to use a perforating tool and a padded board to perforate all the puzzle pieces, so they could then be punched out and then glued onto the puzzle.  I was amazed at the amount of focus Jonathan was able to give to this project!  He and Joshua really enjoyed having a hands-on tool to work with!  They stayed on task much longer than the other boys.

As you can see, most of the boys have left their work and only the girls and Jonathan (and Joshua with some encouragement from me) are still on task.  

Going to sekolah has been much more difficult than I had anticipated.  It's only 2 hours a day, 3 days a week, but I feel like it has changed the entire rhythm of our lives and we haven't found our balance yet.  The 100% instruction in the local language just sounds like gibberish for the boys and the pacing is so slow that they just have a hard time staying engaged.  It would be one thing if the classroom control is good, but the reality is that most of the boys in the class are running wild most of the time.  When we decided to attend this sekolah, we knew of it's weaknesses but we chose to move forward.  Now we're feeling the weaknesses very strongly.  We are committed to sticking it out until the end of May, when we will start our summer travels.  God has given me the gift of persistence, and I'm just holding on to hope that someday soon, the language will start making sense to the boys.  We'll turn a corner and start having more good days than difficult days.  As the Lord reminds you, please pray for us in this endeavor!  

My eventual goal is to be able to leave the boys in class and just wait on the porch until class time is over, however after 3 months we're not at the point yet.  Another American mom, who used to teach preschool in the US, had been encouraging me to just drop the boys off at the door.  She has since started spending some time at the sekolah as part of her language learning.  Last week, after seeing the classroom experience firsthand, she told me "I get it now.  I understand why you will never be able to leave them there alone!"  I gave her a big hug!  

 On the plus side:  although our school days are still difficult, the boys' attitudes are already changing.  Jonathan used to say "I don't like those kids.  They don't speak our language."  Now Jonathan and Joshua both know the names of some of their school friends and talk about them at home.  They both are using more local language words at home and both sometimes sing some of their sekolah songs at home.  Joshua especially seems to be absorbing a lot of language and has learned several songs that he sings often.  Jonathan is more interested in learning local language words so we are all more motivated to be learning more language.  

This Saturday there is going to be a day long field trip to some local sights.  We'll leave at 6:30 in the morning and get home at 8 pm or later!  It will be quite the language immersion experience and we're hoping that the whole family can go!  We've all had colds.  Jonathan and I are better, but Dave and Joshua are improving more slowly.  I hope we all can be better by Saturday so we all can go!