It’s been about a month from the time I started working (which means it’s paycheck time soon J). It’s been fun and exciting because it’s all new experience and I’m meeting many great people. The kids that I’m teaching, they all have their own matters to solve. After all, they are a bunch of adolescence trying to figure out their places in this world. The first time I came to the office was for an informal interview. The building has a shape of a cylinder; there are rooms on all the periphery of all the 4 floors. In the middle is a hollow space. You can either take the stairs up, or walk the winding ramp that wraps that hollow space around up until the highest story.
The building is a school, it’s also a university, and at the same time a research center. It’s not supposed to be a school, nor a university because it’s not well designed for little kids running around trying to give out their energy to a universe that is clearly lacking some. Right beside the building, there’s a huge empty lot with red soil; not ours but as long as there’s nothing there, we are tagging it. Every afternoon the kids play some sports there. Mostly they play soccer, but sometimes they will play baseball from a stick and tennis ball. The girls play jump rope that they made from rubber bands. It’s a whole village of kids turning an empty muddy space into a sport arena and a playground. They are happy with turning nothing into something.
But of course it comes with a price. Rainy days means super laundry days for the dorm people, and extra flex of muscles for the building cleaners. These kids, I tell you, can run miles barefoot. And they do prefer being barefoot. I have a couple of students who would sometimes take off their shoes in class and walk around like that. A reason they gave me was that his shoes were being washed. OK, sure. Another important consequences to remember is that they will stink, like stinky stink. But that empty lot, and huge amount of energy to release is what we have right now. We will have to make do.
They all come from remote places in the corners of Indonesia, mostly from West Papua. For those who don’t know, they look like Africans. The people from Eastern part of Indonesia tend to have darker skin colors and curly hair. But Papua, being the most Eastern part, is the extreme of that range. In a way, they do not look Indonesian, yet they are. It is believed to be most primitive parts of the country, with people still living in Honai, which is their traditional huts, If you look at the history of the region, it’s amazing the things that the Indonesian government has done to them; to the point that they are always asking for independence. A Papuan politician who used to work under Soeharto, Theys Eluay, once expressed his desperation for independence, “If I die, I will certainly go to heaven. But if I see an Indonesian there, even if it’s just one, I will run away from heaven. If the angels asked why, I will answer, ‘I am afraid that the Indonesians will occupy us even in heaven.’”
My experience this month working with Papuan students is interesting. I came in unsure of what I should do, not knowing their background and level of knowledge, not knowing their culture. But, it turns out that it’s the same as simply taking the time to know them. Just like what I would do to my colleagues here, and as a matter of fact to anybody I meet in a new place. Sure, they look a whole lot different, and the guys with their big built, unshaved chin, and the grown out afro can scare anybody who see them walking behind them at night time. But, that’s an assumption that we make based on preconception and the kinds of prejudices we’ve obtained throughout our lives. And I’m counting on time to heal my own prejudices. After all, a Muslim girl is more than a head scarf, David Beckham is more than a hot football player, a murderer is more than his single crime, even Mother Theresa is more than a saintly figure.
Maret, is one of my students. He, in my opinion, looks the oldest amongst all. Sometimes he signs off with March, the English name of Maret. One afternoon, near the dismissal time, I decided to cut my students some slack and allow them to go home earlier after they have finished doing three questions right. One by one they came up to me to check their answers and were so happy when they could go home. After they left, I was left alone with March; he had checked his answers with me and had then moved on to do number 4, 5, and so on. I told him he could go home. He said he wanted to stay a little while more and practice. He is clearly more than the sum of assumptions stack up against him.
In Facebook, you sometimes see pictures of Papuan men in their koteka (a clothing that only covers their genitals) holding a handphone, or a laptop, or getting some money in an ATM machine. And we laugh at them. We think that anything that is different from us is weird and wrong. And them struggling, trying to catch up in the ways that this world go is pretty funny. Yet, we don’t realize that they also know a lot in their own ways. Imagine living in a jungle for a week, will you survive? They have, for generations; they know the secrets to nature. They naturally know, you can’t build a rectangular honai, you build a half circle, the strongest formation there is, without having to know the scientific reason behind it. I’m sure if they see us trying to survive the wilderness, they too will laugh at us being chased around by a wild hog.
That does not mean though, that education is therefore not important. I’m just saying that we have to respect their ways. I love my class. They are good students. But, there’s one particular student that is particularly slow. And by slow, I mean slow. When I see him entering the class, I release a little sigh, because it means there has to be extra time and patience for a one on one mentoring. There has to be extra effort to maintain the class pace, while at the same time tutor him who is left far behind. I was complaining about him to a fellow teacher. Thank goodness that I did. She has an education background so she knows a whole lot more. She said that in a class, there’s always be at least 1 person who is the odd one out, who will drive your world crazy. He or she is either slow, or a troublemaker, or one who never comes, or throwing some attitude; the point is there is ALWAYS one. That’s just God’s way to be fair. And you just have to believe that he or she has more sides that what you see. They are more than just a slow student, more than just a troublemaker, more than just an absentee, more than just rude. That’s when you buy a hope for yourself and then sell it to them. In my mind, I can’t be thinking that… he will not for the sake of his life, do this math problem. No, I have to strive to believe that he can. My friend said that in desperation sometimes teachers do pray over that particular child; asking for a miracle to happen, believing that one of these days, there will be a Halleluyah.
Another teacher friend here has been handling a particularly difficult student. The student never listens to her. It’s not like he’s rude, but he just has a blank face all the time and acts as if she’s not there. She has to repeat and repeat many times before finally the student responds with something. This past week, somehow, seriously somehow, he shows an improvement. He started responding like a normal kid. My friend is super excited and for that I’m getting a Yoshinoya treat tonight J.
Yeah, in a nutshell, that’s what I’ve been up to this past month. Learning to mentor more than learning to teach. Learning to buy some purpose and sell some hope. Learning to have patience and love in doing a job. Learning to understand people who are misunderstood.
Alrighty, that’s all I’ve got to say for now, I’m off to class to tell one of my kids that he has passed the midterm test J.
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