KangGURU Travels to Palu and Makassar in February 2004

Kevin travelled to Palu and to Makassar in late February to visit  the Nurul Ihsan Connection Club in Palu. While there he visited RRI Palu and Australian alumni of both the AIYEP and ADS programs. Kevin also met with English language teachers. In Makassar he visited the Makassar Tourism and Training Project (MTTP) activities at SMK 4 and SMK 6.

Palu and Makassar Travels
February 2004

Supardi, one of IALF Bali’s most experienced drivers picked me up at my home just before 8am on Friday the 19^th of February. Once again I was heading off on a KGRE trip. It seems that I only just got back from Lombok.  In fact I had – just less than a week before.

I took Garuda to Makassar then after a one hour wait there I flew on to Palu in Central Sulawesi. It wasn’t the first time I had been there but as the last time was 8 years ago I had forgotten what Palu was like. Pak, Sali Saleh, Head of RRI Palu met me at the Mutiara Airport in Malu together with Pak. Jojo. Jojo is DJ and radio program presenter at RRI Palu. He is a keen KGRE supporter but he also presents a regular country music program each Sunday. He presents the program mainly in English but plays country music from various countries including Indonesia and Australia. Jojo is also an AIYEP alumni. He went to Australia in 1999 and was in fact a member of the first AIYEP group that I ever met. That meeting was in the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in very early 2000.

Pak. Sali Saleh and Jojo took me to a restaurant in Palu called the Awandi in Jl. Gatot Subtoto for lunch. The ikan baker was served with otak otak, a famous and very delicious rice and fish delicacy from Palu. After that delicious lunch I booked into my hotel. Jojo, along with fellow AIYEP alumni, Yusri, and an alumni of an AIYEP-like exchange to Canada, Mukrim, joined me for a chat in my room. The told me a little about their backgrounds. Mukrim went to a beautiful town in British Columbia called Kimberely for three months as a part of his youth exchange Yusri went to Australia. It was great to speak with these three young men as they have all been fortunate enough to travel overseas under exchange program organized through the DINAS Kepemudaan and Olah Raga. You can hear interviews with these guys later this year on KGRE.

At four o’clock Pak. Irfan from the Nurul Ihsan Connection Club picked me up at the hotel and took me to a special meeting of the club. There were about 30 members there – all residents of the yayasan. Their ages ranged from 12 up until 20 years of age or so. They were shy and reserved to begin with BUT many of them livened up as the two hour chit-chat drew to a close. We talked about being members of the club, the activities of the club and how they can become more active members of their own club and the KGRE Connection network. As usual we had some games and a quiz to finish off with. This is always a successful part of any KGRE visit.

On Saturday morning I went to the Universitas Tadulako to meet with a group of ex-Australian Development Scholarship (ADS) holders. These former ADS students (alumni) have all studied in Australia under the ADS program and are now working at the university. It was a surprise for me to meet them again as I had even taught several of them at IALF Bali while they undertook their Pre-Departure Language Training before going to Australia. That was back in the late 1990s but I still remembered their faces. It was great to find out a little about their Aussie experiences. During our meeting and subsequent interviews (6 in total) they told me lots of stories and related many experiences that they had had during their years in Australia. Several of them studied in country Armidale in NSW while others studied in Adelaide and Townsville. Check out the April and August magazines in 2004 for more information on these young Indonesians.

On Saturday afternoon I visited RRI Palu and I met with 100 English language students, teachers and RRI staff. The first part of the meeting was talking about KGRE and making sure that those people there knew about to get the KGRE magazine and why listening to programs such as KGRE is important. There was quite a deal of discussion and some excellent questions from both students and others. It was also nice to meet a recent winner of a QUICKIES competition from the KGRE website. Afrizal Malale had recently won a t-shirt plus cassettes and souvenirs from a single entry on the website’s quiz page. 

In the evening I went to dinner with Jojo, RRI’s English language presenter. The Head of the Station has decided to give Jojo a new program of his own on RRI Palu. It begins on March 7^th and is a proper English language interactive program. It is scheduled to be broadcast at 16.00 and will run for one hour. KGRE will assist Jojo is some ways and I am sure that with his talent and experience, the show will be a great success. As an ex-AIYEP student (Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program) , Jojo (1997 Adelaide/Mt Gambier) certainly has what it takes to make the program a success. Also at dinner was Yusri, another AIYEP student (2001 – Melbourne/Mildura) ad Mila (2002 – Sydney/Orange). All of these ex-AIYEP students have fond memories of their two months in Australia and are great ambassadors for both Indonesia and Australia. Mila’s husband, Rusdi also accompanied us to dinner. He is not an ex-AIYEP person but has worked overseas in Japan. He was there for 3 years working and studying Bahasa Jepang. Thanks to Rusdi for driving us to that fantastic chicken restaurant and then for our ‘night tour’ of Palu. 

That trip included a stop at a new ice-cream parlor where we all had huge amounts of ice-cream and where both Mila and Jojo sang for us. As I said, there are many very talented AIYEP students around. For more about AIYEP and other youth exchanges for Indonesian students, check out the December 2003 KGRE magazine and the KGRE website. AIYEP Is supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute. Many thanks to that organization for their continuing support of this and other programs between Indonesia and Australia.

Along the waterfront in front of my hotel in Palu there was much activity early Sunday morning. Hundreds of people gathered to enjoy the sunrise and the loud music. I am not sure where the music came from but it was loud. As the time got onto 8am the crowds disappeared. I was wide awake. 

The teacher meeting organized by Mukrim and Din started at 9.15. Seventeen teachers attended and I presented a very mini-style KGRE Teacher Workshop. I told them about KGRE, the teacher materials available, Jojo’s new radio program, the possibility of future KGRE workshops and of course we finished off the two and a half-hour gathering with some games. The location of the teacher meeting was at a place called Balai Pelatihan Guru in Jl. Dr. Sutomo. It is a place where teachers have access to rooms and facilities for meetings, seminars and training events. Each room had an overhead projector, a tape player and a whiteboard. Rooms were air-conditioned and seating was very comfortable. I thought that this type of facility was just for the teachers of Palu to use. Other groups of people were meeting at the same time that morning and shows that this centrally located facility is occupied even on a Sunday morning. The facility was beautifully maintained including the surrounding gardens.

On Monday morning I returned to Palu for a meeting with the ‘Palu Malu Mafia’. We all arrived at this name because these guys and others are fighting against the shyness they find in English language students in Palu. Jojo, Din and Mukrim were there at the Golden Bakery in Palu to do interviews for KGRE, and also for lunch. The guys talked about their involvement in the selection process for youth exchange for Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP) and other exchanges to places such as Japan and Canada. Together with DIPDIKNAS Palu, this active and enthusiastic alumni group called PCMI (Purna Caraka Muda Indonesia), select the candidates for the exchanges with final selection being confirmed by authorities in Jakarta. What a great way to do it! To involve local youth exchange alumni in the selection process is a great innovation. The ‘Palu Malu Mafia’ will talk more about this in the April 2004 magazine and on radio during May and June 2004.

After lunch of nasi rawon I went to Palu airport for the flight to Makassar. The flight was a little rough due to poor weather. I arrived safely however and immediately went to my hotel on the foreshore in downtown Makassar. I spoke with Warren Whittaker from the Makassar Tourism and Training Project and made arrangement for the following day. Coffee at Excelsio in the Ratu Indah Mall was next on the agenda. In the early evening I enjoyed one of my favorite Makassar activities – riding a becak around and enjoying the sights and sounds of this very, very busy city

Tuesday found me at SMK 4 along with 35 Principals from school in SULSEL. Warren, and Mustafa from SMK 4, were presenting a mini-workshop on CBT – competency based training. This concept has been in use at SMK 4 for quite a while. As a part of their role as education al information disseminators in SULSEL, the staff at SMK 4 were passing on the latest news on CBT. They included their considerable experience with the methodology as well. Approximately 180 Principals attended SMK 4 that week – 30 participants a day for six days. Warren Whittaker along with SMK 4 worked hard to assist local teachers with the new curriculum methodology due for introduction in the near future. I stayed at SMK 4 for several hours and I found it very interesting to see the students working in the comprehensively set up tourism office at SMK 4. This tourism and training school is about to be awarded their ISO 9001 rating which will make them an international standard school specializing in tourism. The students were hard at work and they were obviously enjoying their study and their prospects for the future.

After the tour Ibu Susi, Hubert and I sat down in the very smart and well laid out restaurant. The restaurant is where members of the public can come and have lunch. The food served is prepared, cooked and served by students. They are very professional and I can tell you that the food was very good. By giving real experiences in serving for example they soon become confident and comfortable serving strangers/customers. People who go there for lunch have to pay therefore the food needs to be good and so does the service. Often tour groups from Europe drop in for lunch too and that is a real test for the students. On the day I was there the students performed wonderfully well. The credit for this must go people like Hubert from MTTP, the school’s teachers and the students themselves. Well Done!

After lunch I returned to the hotel as I felt sick. It was NOT because of the food I had just eaten though. I had the flu and it really started to get the better of me. I stayed in the hotel until the next morning. Poor Me!

Wednesday was a hectic day. The President of Indonesia was also in Makassar so traffic was interrupted and generally this made travel around the city quite difficult for the morning. I did manage to go to RRI for an interactive radio program with Pak Syahrir. We talked about youth exchange programs and I told him and the listeners about the 'Palu Malu Mafia' - that wonderful group of ex-youth exchange students I met several days earlier in Palu. Callers also asked about Australian Development Scholarships and one caller was not too happy because people applying have to be below 40 years of age. We had to finish our interactive chat early as the President was due to make a speech and the station was broadcasting it. That was fine by me.

I went back into the traffic and decided to go to the airport earlier than usual just in case there were more traffic delays. As I was not feeling 100% I really wanted to make sure that I got home to Bali that day.

Return to Past Travels of KGRE in Indonesia

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