School Picnic at ISCI

Today was the school picnic. It was great to interact with the kids in a third space, but in a way that was more structured and more meaningful than "field day." First of all, the kids from both schools were split into four different teams (red, blue, yellow, and green) a week ahead of time and yesterday we had an assembly for 15 minutes prior to lunch for the teams to get to know one another and sign up for the different events throughout the day. It was really fun to watch students in charge of organizing themselves and observing leadership among peers.

Today, the morning started with traditional Indonesian games (like sack races, longest line, eating a cracker tied to a stick, etc) and then afterwards,we split the field in half and Yusaf refereed one soccer game while I refereed the other while the rest were able to sit on the bleachers and support their teams. The quality of soccer was pretty good, but the limiting factor was definitely the climate. After soccer, the kids split up to go play badminton, participate in a swimming competition, or stay on the field to play ultimate frisbee. Ultimate is definitely foreign to them, and so I transitioned from soccer referee to ultimate referee to ultimate coach to both teams :) At the end of the game, both teams were starting to understand the strategy a little better, but throwing and catching wasn't always consistent... :)

After a morning full of sports, the gentlemen left for Friday prayer and then we all had lunch. Since I wanted to avoid getting sunburned or have too much exposure, I stayed down around the pool area in the shade and played cards with the 9th, 10th and 11th graders. It's great how self-sufficient high schoolers can be :)

Tonight I was supposed to have my end of year conversation with TFA, but that fell through, so after clearing Friday explicitly for this, I have more time for reading and planning for the coming week. Honestly between the TFA stuff from this summer and some of the details about being over in Indo, I've come to expect failure by those around me...kind of frustrating, but I know that my argument loses all power as soon as I drop my end, so I'll just keep on trucking :)

Closing thoughts, as much as I wanted to dislike "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz, it really is catchy...