Busy Days in Siantar

It is early Saturday morning. I'm making a big sacrifice, I've walked to the campus center even before my morning cup of coffee to write this before we leave on a recreation trip with the seminary students to Lake Toba. It sounds like fun, the group is renting a boat and we are visiting a waterfall, having a picnic (we're curious to see what will be served...) and swimming. Tomorrow we plan to go to church with several Nommensen students. The campus has a wi-fi hot spot in the center of the buildings. There's nowhere comfortable to sit, outside of a few little "huts" (photos to come) and also the concrete benches. So I have found a spot inside the big classroom building, which is open because it is being cleaned prior to exams this morning.

As the title suggests we have been really busy for the last two days. That is also my excuse for not providing an earlier update to the blog. On Friday we met with students in the morning (and Jacob went to the market with Ester, Andi and Jensen), were taken out to lunch by Friska, Solomon and their daughter Sarah, met with our friend the lecturer and Methodist school teacher Herman, went to the Kihm's English Course, and then met with Siska, Anna and Leonni to set our schedule for major events during the rest of our stay. Friska is a lecturer at Nommensen who served as an interpreter during one of our SS Teachers workshops. Her husband Solomon is a pastor of a charismatic congregation, and their daughter Sarah is in 4th grade and speaks English almost fluently. They all communicate well with us and that is a pleasure. It means that you can relax with them and really connect as opposed to struggling to understand their point. They took us out to the Awai noodle shop, which is one of the most famous in Siantar. We all had the "jumbo" bowl and were absolutely stuffed. By the way, most of the food here doesn't taste hot any more.

It's "tea time" break at the seminary. We've found that
the super sugared tea is drinkable if you mix it
one part tea to nine parts hot water.

On Thursday we spent the morning at the seminary teaching English lessons. Ester joined us and was a big help, as many of the seminarians will only work on their English if a teacher is right in front of them. In the afternoon we held a workshop for Nommensen students on Classroom Discipline. This time we found the key to the library, had the power turned on, and our friend Hermoko set up a projector and a screen. Thanks for the support from the campus crew! Classroom Discipline is a big issue in Indonesia because the classes are overflowing with 50 students and misbehavior seems to be the main focus of these students. We are also told that the parents don't really want to hear about how their child behaves in school, so it is up to the teacher and the school administration to keep things rolling in the right direction.

We sat with this little boy on the microbus. He was either very tired
or terrified to see us...or both!

On Thursday afternoon we headed over to the radio station, joined by Ester and Esra. Augustina, a Nommensen student, served as the DJ and did a great job. Jacob played a few songs. We are concerned about Jacob, he has a sore throat and you can hear it when he sings and speaks. Afterwards we stopped at a new place (with free karaoke) for mie goreng (fried noodles) and had fun. It was different than any other shop we've seen, as it had wood paneling on the walls, posters of Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Corbain, and it was packed but nobody near us was smoking. We enjoyed a great meal for the six of us and it cost less than $10. Now that's a bargain!

News flash: the rain has stopped. We have gone for over 48 hours with no rain. My shoes, which were completely drenched on Wednesday, have almost dried out.

Yesterday was the start of Ramadan. The Ramayana, our power retailer nearby, is holding their big Ramadan sales. So for those of you who are worried about Christmas and Easter being commercialized, it applies to Ramadan too. Last night after dark we heard three or four fireworks. We could not see them because of the trees but we know that distinctive sound. I assume someone was partying it up since it was the first breaking of the fast for Ramadan.