Jogjakarta

Hello everyone!

Last week I was in Jogjakarta for a couple of days. I visited a friend who studies in Jogja. It was my first trip since I came here and it was even better than expected! I saw so many places in just 4 days thanks to Bastian who was a great tourguide! I arrived in Jogja on thursday. Basti picked me up from the airport with his motorcycle. One minute after we left the airport we had a flat tire and had to stop at the next "mechanic". Bad Karma?

 When we arrived at the homestay where Bastian lives, and I got a room for that time, I was surprised at how nice it was. (I already got used to Indonesien standarts)

We even had a built-in kitchen. The first one I have seen in Indonesia, usually a kitchen here consist of a camping stove!

Built-in kitchen!

 For dinner we went to a nearby restauran...or rather a warung (Indonesian type of cheap local reastaurant). And it was totally vegan! YAY. Made my day...

Who says vegan food can't taste good? It was delicious and cheap!

Borobudur

 The next day we got up at 4.30 in the morning and visited the Borobudur and the Dieng Plateau. The Borobudur used to be one of the 7 wonders of the world and is a huge Buddhist temple.

Bastian and I infront of the Borobudur

The view was amazing, good thing we went so early...hardly any tourists and not too warm.

The entire Borobudur is covered with reliefs. Most of them are more than a thousand years old, as the Borobudur was probably built between 800 and 900 a.c..

Eating at a warung after a tough morning.

The Dieng Plateau is just beautiful.

A lake at the Dieng Plateau. It contained much sulfur...thats what it smelled like, too. But at least it was really colorful and pretty.

A hot spring at the Dieng Plateau. Full of sulfur, too, but really cool.

On Sunday we went to see the Merapi vulcano. Unfortunately it was so cloudy that you couldn't see the top. Later it started raining, too, so we decided to return home instead of visiting one of the cities that were destroied by the vulcanoes erruption last year. Later we found out that this was the right thing to do since so much ash and dirt came down the mountain because of the rain that many cars had been wrecked. I don't think anybody was seriously injured.

The Merapi without top.

The museum Merapi.

On my last day in Jogjakarta, Monday, we went to see the Prambanan. Like the Borobudur it is also a temple and was built at around the same time. Unfortunately we went a little late and there were tons of tourists. Most of them Indonesians that were visiting Jogja with school classes or something.

It was horror.

We felt like Justin Bieber beeing thrown into a pit of crazy, braces wearing, screeming teenage girls.

As soon as we entered the place everybody was focused on us, the white people.

'OMG Mister, can we take a picture with you' 

We must have heard that phrase like a million times, maybe with a little variation, since they don't speak English very well. And yes they always say mister, doesn't matter if man or woman!

So one person asked us whether he yould take a picture with us and the next thing we know is an entire school class, literally running to us while screeming like little girls.

Happened more than once!

They probably took more pictures of Bastian and me than of the temple.

Our 'No eye contact' wasn't very effective.  Another group, wanting to take a picture with us. I got them first. HAH!

 After the temple we went to the oldest basar of Jogja...unfortunately there aren't any good pictures of it.

Can you picture me, working on a rice field?

In Indonesia the stamps have to be glued on the post cards. These to are going off to Germany and the USA.

A group of becaks in Jogja. In Jogja there are becaks and in Lombok we have cidomos. Cidomos are not being pushed by people but pulled by horses...I have to post a picture of a cidomo next time.

Batik. The traditional Javanese clothing.

Me riding a becak.

Presents

    

As I already explained the sponsors are usually not allowed to send their sponsored child gifts but from time to time it does happen. If one child gets a present, of cause all the others have to get one, too. So thats the time when Inge has to gather all the small presents and give-away articles she wisely brought from Germany. Because we have almost a hundred children in the Oasis it took hours and hours to wrap all the presents. But it was worth the efford, the kids were super excited and happy about the presents. It makes them really happy to know there are people in Germany and elsewhere that care about them enough to send them presents! Makes them even happier than the presents themselves. :)

PS: If anybody knows how to arrange these stupid pictures on this stupid blogspot I would be happy about help!



Letters from friends.


 

 

                                           

                                                                                                                   I know my parents will especially love this one! ;)

  

Ceremony

On Thursday night there was a big ceremony in a hindu temple in Jagaraga, where the Oasis is. I stayed at Ida Ketuts house, the English teacher of the Oasis, and I went there with him, his brother and his nephew. It was very interesting and we met many kids from the Oasis. Of cause everyone was wearing traditional Balinese clothing and some girls from the oasis even danced a traditional Balinese dance infont of all these people. There were also obsessed people. On Friday morning the ceremony continued but I didn't go to watch it because that was the part of the ceremony where the obsessed people drink the blood of living chickens. So they bite off their heads and drink the blood. Didn't have to see that.
I took a lot of pictures but unfortunately I managed to erase most of them...yes, I AM pretty mad at myself for that. But here is what I could rescue:


Me and Ida Ketut infront of his house. I had so many more pictures of me wearing traditional Balinese clothing but unfortunately this is all that is left.




All of the offerings the people brought.This was only one of the many tables. And afterwards everybody takes it home and eats everything. Once the gods received the aura of the offering through prayers it doesn't matter what happens to the offerings. So it's fine to eat it.



Part of the offering, pork. I thought it was disgusting but everybody else was excited about this.

Tanjung Ringgit

Hello again,

The red dot marks Tanjung Ringgit

This weekend we made a study tour to a pearl farm in Tanjung Ringgit. Tanjung Ringgit is in the south east of Lombok. It feels like the loneliest place on the planet because except from the pearl farm there is NOTHING. Not even a proper street, getting there by bus was a real adventure. The kids are not used to driving in a car so like half of them had to vomit on the way.

But the pearl farm was definitely worth the stress of getting there! It was beautiful! And we did lots of things with the kids as you can see in the following pictures. I don’t want to bore you with unnecessary explanations.

Love,

Lara

 

The camp





We even found a water snake!



 



At night we made a campfire at the beach.



Playing games at the beach



The kids actually got to work, too.



She beat me twice. Now it's personal.





 

Learning from the master himself

Tough bed---> challenge accepted 

 

 



Monkeys, there were so many!



 



So many corals, it was amazing!



 

As a thanks for inviting us, two of our girls did a traditional dance for the workers.

SMA

Selamat malam!
Yesterday the English teacher from the Oasis, Ida Ketut, took me to a real Indonesian school. He teaches at an SMA (grades 10 through 12). So I was the special event for two of his courses. I showed them a lot of pictures of Germany and answered all kinds of questiones for one and a half hour. It was really nice, they were all very shy at the beginning, which is weird becuse it was 40 students against just me, but after a couple of minutes it was really a lot of fun. It was also very interesting to see how school in Indonesia works.  The English courses I visited were from the 12th grade, the last one in Indonesia. I could really tell a huge difference between the English skills of graduates in Germany and in Indonesia.

Sampei jumpa!

Putu

Dear reader,


Putu with her extra large Kamus (dictionary).
She got a very good one from the Oasis as a
thanks for spending the money on dictionarys for
all other SMP students in the Oasis.

 I would like to introduce you to a very special girl from the Oasis. Her name is Putu. She is 14 years old and therefore one of the oldest kids in the Oasis. She is not only the best student in her class but also the best student in here entire school. Indonesian schools are not very good (in the PISA ranking Indonesia was on the very last place) and Putu is convinced that she learned more in the Oasis then she did there.
Putu has a German sponsor who wanted to support her by giving her 50€ to invest in books. Since the Oasis has 100 kids the sponsors are usually not allowed to make they child a gift. The others would just get jealous. So there was an agreement, that Putu could buy which ever books she wanted up to a value of 50€ for the Oasis instead. This way everyone would have access to the books but they would still be Putu's favorites!
At that time, the school she is attending suddenly demanded that, from now on, every student had to have a dictionary for English. They didn't care how they got them. A dictionary is very expensive and the people can hardly afford their living. So Putu decided to invest all the 50€ in dictionaries for all SMP students from the Oasis.(SMP is her schoolform, SMP covers only grades 7 through 9)

I found it very admiring that Putu, who really is very poor, decided all by herself to invest all that money, which is really a lot here, into helping out all the others.

This is definitely worth a comment on my Blog!



Ani, Moni and Ayu with their new Kamus.





Most of my students, happy to have a Kamus. I only teach the SMP kids. (SMP- 7th through 9th grade)