Lodtunduh School Grade 3 to 5 (we think)

Faces and numbers change each day, 

with ages ranging from 6 to 11.

Maree and Stephanie.

Jatiluwih Rice Fields

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Blue Lagoon Beach Pandang Bai

Julia, Germany; Chloe, Wales; Ali, Russia; Charmaine, China; Maree, you know where; Duey, China. 

25/1/2014 Saturday

Day off free time off to the Beach with the girls from the house seven of us. About an hour and a half by taxi. Geoffrey (probably not his Indonesian name) took us in his pimped people mover complete with boom box. Some of the music not bad but the rap wasn’t the best. I told him I like the Eagles so the selection was a bit more-easy listening on the way home. Nice little beach known as the Blue Lagoon managed to evade the local con men telling us the road was closed and trying to sell us boat rides to the same place. Great swimming we had our small swimming goggles and saw lots of fish. Home about 4.30pm.

26/1/14 – Sunday

Today we decided to have a rest day but we were invited by two other volunteers to join then on a trip to a UNESCO World Heritage site of terraced rice fields located closer to the middle of Bali. They were stunning to say the least.  We walked around them for about 1 -1/2 hours and saw them being ploughed in the traditional way with oxen and also being manually planted.  They have three harvests per year.

Monday & Tuesday

Our first days of teaching and what a shock, the children are very loud and over excitable.  They attend school in the afternoon free; to learn English at the same school and classes that their parents pay for them to attend in the morning to do curricular (I think) lessons. They are not allowed on the grass area as this is cordoned off, there is a lot of litter in the playground.  The classrooms are bare except for an old blackboard and a whiteboard.  Not a book or piece of equipment in sight or on site!  We take our own resources which we either buy or get from the Green Lion office.  Everything is very basic. No such suggestion of national standards, work plans, assessment or the likes, very minimal. We get driven to and from teaching each day by taxi by our translator/co-ordinator.  I am working with a secondary trained American lady called Stephanie and Jim works with a Slovakian lady called Lydia We are both lucky to work with such wonderful people. It is extremely hot each day as we work from 2pm to 5pm with NO air con!

Wednesday 29th January
A successful day at school. The children have settled down and they are some of the cutest children.  Their English is quite poor as they have learnt a lot of words by rote learning, but have difficulty constructing a sentence.  They are very good at maths and love addition & subtraction games as well as any other game or song we can think of without any equipment.  Never again will I complain about my consumables budget at school! At break time they all seem to have enough rupiah to buy iced tea in plastic bags & a straw to drink, it's loaded with sugar and a disaster for their teeth. As for the disposal of the plastic etc, it's just dropped  any where they please, there is so much rubbish around and they just don't understand the concept of recycling and not polluting.  It is a beautiful country, but many areas are spoiled by rubbish.

Holy Water Temple Visit.

Don't worry Noel big bottles $3.50 just over the road!

Our group making offerings for the Temple visit.

Local boy painting the wooden eggs. Very talented!

Maree at work. Batik art.

Great result!

Jim taking the laid back approach.

Acceptable result.

Rice paddy field walk.

Thumbs up!

Taking a break 3hr walk.

Maree and her wee friend.

Comments from Jim and Maree

Instructions from Jemma proof read before publish doing our best.

Instructions from Maree change font make it easier to read. Still learning this blog stuff hopefully this is better.

22/1/14 Wednesday

Another language class today. Both of us not to good with another language. Some of the girls who speak another language seem to be able to pick it up and remember it a lot better than us. After lunch we did some batik art, which Maree loved. Jim has also shown a hidden talent and produced a great piece of batik art.  We get them delivered to us on Friday after they have been boiled and washed.  The process of drawing, waxing, and painting took about three hours, well worth every minute for me. Quiet evening in tonight for us we are pretty tired.  Went to the Copi Desa for a few beers home early.

23/1/14 Thursday

We have had a quiet day today with a cooking class, making our own lunch  of a bean & peanut salad, rice of course, and a soya bean – tempei, lots of chop , chop, chop. Very tasty. (Naomi you would like the food lots of vegetarian)  After lunch we made a bamboo basket and flower offerings to take to the temple which we visit tomorrow.

We have found out who we will be working with next week when we start our teaching, Maree is working with an American secondary teacher, Stephanie. Jim is working with a Slovakian lady called Lydia.  We are really happy to be working with such lovely people. Everyone here is so friendly and caring of each other particularly as a lot of them have travelled here by themselves. Jim went to the gym after tea. Very hot!

24/1/14 Friday

Jim walking every morning went up the rice paddy walk this morning. Today’s schedule went to the Spring Temple and bathed after making a wish had to dunk our head 10 times under the spring outlets (see photos). Torrential rain just before leaving the Temple. Back to Abud for lunch and after our lunch school visit to have a look at some volunteers teaching. That made us all focus for next week with the reality that we had to teach next week and hold a classroom together in a new country with English as a second language. Walked to the market after tea to look for bits and pieces for the Children next week nothing much there.

Jim and Maree's notes

20/1/2014 Monday

Orientation day started lots of new people. The house is full all the new volunteers all are young ladies from all over some from Holland, Britain, Russia, Germany, Slovakia and China. We have been divided into groups of 20 for the orientation. Some blokes in the other group but not in our group of 20 only Jim. Day started with some custom awareness.  The Balinese in the village of Ubud live in family compound with many buildings. The building include a small family Temple and a central area with separate family rooms and cooking area. The people are very devout in their Hindu religion offering gifts to the gods each day and these range from small offerings of rice on a leaf to larger more elaborate offering of flowers and decorated woven baskets filled with leaves, flowers rice etc. Something we did not realise is that there is a caste system here with 4 levels and people are requires to marry into their own caste. When people marry outside their cast it causes difficulties.

We walked to the main street market today and explored for a while, loads of things for sale and bargains to haggle for.  We have bought sarongs each as we need these to go to temples. However we have no room for extra.  From there we went to the monkey forest which was beautiful, but we were careful around the monkeys as they can jump on you and snatch your belongings.

From the monkey forest we walked back to our home and found another wee café and used free wifi there.  I had a very nice ginger tea, of freshly grated ginger which you add an unprocessed sugar to sweeten. Admin in the afternoon with Volunteer agency.

In the evening we went to a cultural show with the volunteer group.  It was an experience, the woman’s costumes were beautiful and very elaborate. We found the story difficult to interpret, there was also a fire dance at the end and I got covered in soot.  By the time we left the show there was torrential rain and the most thunderous thunder storm with lightning that I have ever experienced.

 

21/1/14 Tuesday

Second day of orientation week. Language class today, which was challenging.  We are only too aware of the linguistic ability of the other volunteers.  Many of the girls speak at least two or three languages, which helps them pick up the language much easier than Jim & I.

After that we went on a long walk 3hrs to see the rice fields, many of which were terraced. Very beautiful as was the surrounding forest. We stopped and looked at a local artist who decorated wooden eggs by finely painting scenes on them, the young son also worked as an artist after school and was also very talented with his sketching.

After dinner the lady from the homestay has just delivered us a lovely basket of fruit, including a snake fruit we think it is called a salak, ok, but we all decided one taste was enough.   The skin is very much like a snake skin, brown in colour.

Wildlife around town.

Ubud Village pictures

Temple by the sea

Daya Tarik Wisata Tanah Lot Tabanan Temple

Jim's notes

16/1/14 Thursday

Spent the last two nights at Paul and Linda’s in South Shore, Christchurch after travelling down Tuesday afternoon in Brian and Gretchen camper van. Had spent the week prior cleaning the house for our new tenants. Everything fell into place quite well. Went and saw Nic at his house Tuesday morning in Para Rd and he is living the dream with lots of hunting and fishing mates. Matt staying at Paul and Linda’s so able to see him and Jemma skyped Wednesday night. Flight to Sydney 0630 check in so up at 0500 all organised Paul dropped us off. Uneventful Flight to Sydney then transfer to Denpasar Bali flight. Tip when flying Virgin Airlines down load the apps for wi fi movies entertainment before you leave on your lap top phone or I pad.  

The plan for the next 8 weeks

Bali

Week 1. Orientation in Bali. This involves an introduction to Indonesian customs, rules, expectations, language lessons, cooking class, and a temple visit.

Week 2, 3 and 4. Volunteering; Maree teaching English, Jim involved in an Environmental education programme.

Week 5, 6, 7 and 8 volunteering on a Turtle conservation programme and also helping in the local school on the Island of Nusa Penida which is a 45 minute boat ride from the main island of Bali. 

17/1/2014 Friday

Arrive OK yesterday afternoon. Airport visa and taxi pick up went all to plan. Denpasar looks a bit like a cross between Singapore and Saigon with lots of motor bikes and scooters not many helmets when you get out of the city. Ubud was about an hour’s drive lots of tooting. We are in a home stay a larger group of buildings owned by an extended family. Probably 4 or 5 generations. The family really friendly and eager to look after us. Talking to one of the family a man about 30 or 40 he explained that they lived as an extended family to look after the older members of the family as there is no pension. He also explained that there was a grandchild and this weekend there will be a celebration as the baby is three months old. The family live in a series of small building with communal kitchen and living areas mostly open to the air. Maree and I have a room to ourselves really tidy. Went out to a local café bar for a quick look last night the Copi Desi. We have meet several of the other people an older American lady named Ellen, a Dutch lady named Wendy and several Chinese young ladies. Most of these people are involved in the English teaching classes. Went for a walk this morning no one else walking all the locals on scooters.   

18/1/2014 Saturday

Went for a swim yesterday afternoon at one of the local hotels reasonably laid back sort of a day. Had dinner and got extras as there is also of food preparation for the celebration tomorrow. Extras quite spicy. The wi fi at accommodation is not so good drops out all the time so went back to local Bar Café and got the Ipad gps and street map organise so we can fine our way around. Home about 9pm.

The preparations for the child celebrations started at about 4am with people working outside lots of chopping on boards woke us up. No problem we were warned and still sort of on NZ time. Maree keen to see what’s going on so went out about 6am and teamed up with Wendy the Dutch lady. Maree did not have sarong so using her silk sleeping bag liner (very flash). A celebratory breakfast was held complete with 3 suckling pigs. We went to the celebration the Hindu Priest arrived and sat front and centre. Did not say anything to the group he and prayed, used incense holy water and a bell. The actual event lasted two or three hours. All of the neighbours and relatives brought gifts mostly food as far as I could tell a lady I talk to said the closer the relationship the bigger the gifts. All the gifts were brought in on the heads of the woman. I lasted about an hour and a half and then sneaked back to our room. It was mostly over by early afternoon.

In the afternoon we went into Ubud about half an hours walk went to the museum and had a quick look at the Temple.

19/1/2014 Sunday

Went for a quick walk 6.30 to 7.30 had brekky and then pack up to go to the beach. Bloody long drive with the traffic and narrow roads. First went to the Daya Tarik Wisata Tanah Lot Tabanan Temple some of which can only be reached when its low tide. Lots of visitors. Were there a few hours and then to the beach. Not sure our drive knew what he was up to as not quite what we expected long walk down steps very rocky. One of our group not that mobile. Not to worry all worked out OK. Saw a few monkeys on the rocks around the beach. Home about 5.30pm. The accommodation filling up with new arrivals. Meet our induction coordinator and there are about 50 or 60 new volunteers to do orientation next week. Bit of excitement after tea the family pig was carried away tonight with quite a kafuffle. Took 4 men to carry him out from behind the Kitchen he was a beauty. For the chop tomorrow. 

Child ceremony at 3 months old.

Ubud

We have arrived safely and pleasantly surprised with the accommodation. Have meet some of the other people we are living with in the home stay. Very nice. The family is very welcoming however a language barrier. They have a 3 month old baby who they are having a naming ceremony tomorrow night, which we can attend. It is a very big deal for them, first grandchild. Lucky our accommodation is separate. The temp is 28 - 30 degrees, muggy, no air con in our room but we have a fan. Thank goodness for silk sleeping bag liners.  Food so far , interesting.  Apparently the teaching here is chaotic to say the least, but I' ll make my own judgement and let you know! Internet is also dodgy. Copi Desi is the local hangout with the best wifi, just up the road. They sell cold soft drinks and beer, mostly tourists there,  it is a home stay too I think.