Our English Program

2nd week of the reading program, and we realized it isn’t a reading program we’re conducting, it’s an English language program! At least it is so for now. This week we had all the kids to ourselves, and we had a lovely time. We’re still getting to know the kids and their proficiency, so lessons are still a bit haphazard, so we won’t bother to describe what goes on in class for now.



It poured the whole night through and spilled right into the morning, but the rain didn’t stop the kids from coming. The skies then cleared for the children to go home, and revealed the northern mountains usually obscured by clouds. Whoever’s planning for a holiday in Bali could add volunteering a Sunday with us here to your itinerary 

A Good Paint Job

29 March, Saturday, we started on the paint job for the walls, Miyuki was the artist, so she had free rein on what color to choose, and she chose….lime green! That did make the difference in cheering up the room, and we hope it will for the children too.

When we arrived, the girls (notice no boys?) who were with us the previous week cleaning up were all armed and ready. We cleaned up the room a bit more, then started work on the painting, which, to the disappointment of the girls, they could not help.

Just when the girls’ energy levels were waning, extra help arrived! Our good friends Tomoe and Ralf, with their 2 friends on holiday from Germany volunteered to burn their Saturday morning with us. They carried on with the rest of the paint job, and in a jiffy, all was done.

Library building, first stage- cleaning up.

We arrived in school, met the principal, told her we wanted to clean up the room (we had volunteered to be the cleaning party), and were told to wait…and when we finally decided that we needed to get our ass moving, we walked out, and lo and behold! the room was being cleaned out by almost every kid in school! This here is an example of Balinese efficiency.

All hands on deck!

Not all...the practice in lounging around starts young for Balinese men.

The junk were moved out, room swept and washed out, and we stood around taking photos of the cute little pupils from Taman Kanak-kanak (T.K. in short, meaning "Kindergarten")who were too young to help.

TK girls in prayer at end of class

In about half an hours time, for the first time in many years, the room was swathed in sunshine...and we were able to take in...what repairs were needed for the room!

Not exactly "gleaming", but good enough, check out the "was" pic in the previous blogs...

Next stage, repairs and painting the room.

The girls who stuck with the cleaning right through to the end, thank you!

Some hiccups with the Reading Program

On 16 March, Sunday, we volunteered at the reading program at Sekolah Dasar Belang Singapadu. This was the school we reported on in the earlier blog, the school that the Bali Children’s Foundation help build the library.

Reading program conducted in library

English dialogue drill!

The reading program was “sort of” already in place, conducted by the school’s English teacher, who was paid to do so. On that day, with leave from the teacher, Made and Siew Cheng each took groups of pupils for warm up sessions of English speaking. It was a rather rewarding session as although most of their command of English were poor, they were really enthusiastic! So much so that most of them arrive for class way before scheduled time!

Surveying the situation, we felt that there were too many pupils for the teacher to handle, too little time invested, and well, the lessons could be better thought out and planned. We decided, we’ll talk to the teacher and work things out.

Going home...

The following Sunday, 23 March, cruising along the scenic route to school, we were looking forward to time spent with the kids...
Didn't quite do justice to the view in this pic...going back to a kampung school, how's that for incentive to go to school?

...but upon arriving in school, we found it empty! Empty it was, but it wasn’t supposed to be...the reading program is to run every Sunday, and we had already informed that we would be here.

Asking around, we found out that the children did come, and had waited for an hour for the teacher who did not come, then went home. We were a tad pissed. We couldn’t contact the teacher, so Made called the principal. There we discovered, that “some” of the teachers in that school can be very ill disciplined. There were cases of teachers leaving their places in the midst of a lesson to go home to attend to matters of no importance! Now, reporting on this, we're not bitching about the teacher, we just hope that should anyone wish to volunteer with the village schools, they would at least be aware of how "informal" their system of education is.

Again looking at the situation, we decided, we’ll work out the reading program on our own, and the teacher may help out whenever she feels like coming in.

Money Money Money!

Yes...we need more money, but we’ll try not to ask for more until we really need it urgent...but what we would like to ask from all of you, your friends, relatives and whoever you can get your hands on, is this- JUNK! Quality junk that is...out-of-season clothes, accessories (the ones you wonder why you EVER bought!), out-grown toys, or whatever you think can be sold in the second-hand market.

We know of a second-hand evening market that sells, yes, second-hand stuff, to mostly locals, and that’s where we’ll be heading when we get all your donated barang-barang sent over. We will personally be there to sell it, or we could get help from another charitable group- the Rotaract Club (of which Made is also a member of) to help us out. All will be sold and all the “profit”, ALL OF IT, will go to the library fund. What do you think of that?

How we’re going to collect them from you and how we’ll ship them over...well, we've not figured that out yet! But we will, so please...collect and keep them for us first, won’t you?

If you’re here in Bali, and would like to sell your luggage’s contents to make space for all your shopping, or would just like to pick up some cheap goodies, you can make your way there too-

Where: Pejeng, lapangan (lapangan means “field”)
When: Everyday from 4pm to 7pm
What: Not quite sure...but we’ve heard they’ve got lotsa second-hand stuff from Singapore! Maybe you’ll pick up that dress you gave away during the relief collections (in good faith that it’ll reach the victims of the last tsunami disaster)! Gosh...
How much: RP3000 (approximately S$0.50) for a lot (floor space) to sell your stuff
Blue circles where we are..and Purple is where Pejeng is

So please, "karang guni" for us so that we'll be able to "lelong" it here :) Email us when you've got the hoard !

Reading Program

So what’s been stewing in the pot? We’ve laid out a tentative schedule for our reading program, it’s sorta like a pilot program, we’ll be testing it out really soon in another school that already has a library, fine tune it, then implement it in the new school library. Here’s how it goes-

Where: Sekolah Dasar Singapadu, Belang (That's Made's primary school!)
When: Every Sunday, 2 sessions for 2 different groups of kids
Time: Session 1- 11am to 12pm, Session 2- 12pm to 1pm
Who: The 4 of us (Made, Miyuki, Siew Cheng and myself), and the school’s English teacher, plus whoever would like to volunteer

In a typical school, the pupils start learning English only at class 3 (that’s age 9!) They have lessons once a week, and the English teacher goes to a different school everyday of the week to conduct lessons. It is difficult to get “proper” English teachers for the schools, thus they usually “make do”...if you get my drift.

We’ll try to include the pupils from class 1 and 2 for session 1, so that’s going to be really basic, then the rest for session 2. It’s not just going to an English lesson though, we hope that we’ll be able to work with Miyuki and incorporate learning with visual arts and movement. Siew Cheng will draw up the lesson plan, and for continuity, the English teacher will hopefully be able to use it during the curriculum hours to support the program.

BUT! As it is hard for us to be volunteering with the program all of the time and be with whichever library we manage to set up, we hope for the school to run this on its own as much as possible. Before we start planning for a school, we will have to speak to the head of the school and have his/her assurance that they will make full use of the library, also how they will be doing so, and if they will need some assistance from us. On top of that, we hope also to tap into the expats living around the area to volunteer long term with the school.

An auspicious date to start work

For reasons not worth mentioning, we will start work AFTER 2 March (this year). Starting work means:

1. Scouting around for schools, though we already have 1 in mind, but that’s just in case we miss out a school that needs it more. How would we know? Feeling, I guess.
2. Sourcing for materials, cupboards, and books in Bahasa Indonesia (of which Made has contacts to get them cheap)
3. Doing up the room. That’s us, cleaning up, giving the room a fresh coat of paint, and with a touch of artistic thoughtfulness, design the room to be (hopefully!) conducive for reading and learning. We’ve got an artist in the house- Miyuki, another good friend of ours, so that’s her area.
4. Move in the furniture and books, stand around and admire our work :)