KangGURU Travels to Medan and Sibolga - January 2005

January 13th to January 16th, 2005

The first part of the trip to Sibolga and an overnight stay in Medan. The flight to Medan from Denpasar via Jakarta landed in the capital city of North Sumatra at around 4.15pm. 

As expected Polonia Airport in the center of Medan was very busy not only commercial flights but also with planes and cargo heading towards Aceh. The Australian Air Force was there with several large Hercules cargo aircraft parked right in front of the domestic terminal. It was empty so I guess the goods were already on their way to the people in Aceh. The airport building was full of people and out front in the pickup area there was a mass of cars, trucks and buses. People had trolleys packed high with boxes and things and KGRE added to the amount of baggage because I was taking 72 kilos of baggage on this trip - the majority for Sibolga workshops and students.

After checking into the hotel I went to visit the Medan English Club at the premises of LP3I in JL. Gajah Mada. Members of the club along with representatives of other language clubs in Medan plus a few students had been waiting for me for some time and were quite relieved to see me finally arrive. Then it was down to games, quizzes, questions and generally, a bit of fun. Ogi had prepared 10 KGRE Prize Packages as give-away prizes. They were popular indeed and 'competition was hot' as they say. With a brief interruption for MAGRIB, the meeting continued on until 7.30pm. It was great to see Mr B. again - that is Pak Saptari Wibowo from the Medan English Club. He certainly is a 'mover and shaker'. 

Some of the participants who actively contributed to the afternoon's events included - Samsahril, who introduced a vocabulary game, and then Sri Wulan Widyastuti. Pak Didit introduced a spelling game to the group where students had to spell quite difficult words. I added the idea that words could be given in Bahasa Indonesia and then the spelling answer had to be for the equivalent word in English. For example the word tertarik - the winner spelt interest in English and won a special KGRE Surprise Package from KGRE. Pak Suparman from LP3 welcomed me and also the visitors to his centre. He and LP3 are great supporters of the Medan English Club and we thank him for that.

The plane for Sibolga was due to leave Polonia at 7.30am so I had to check out of the hotel by 6.00am. No problem really except I missed breakfast. The Polonia airport was busy once again with aid workers, government officials and various other people heading to Aceh. The President's visit to Nias that morning meant that Sibolga airport was closed to all traffic. Merpati Airlines knew nothing about that so there was no notification from them that my flight to Sibolga was going to be delayed. In fact even at 10.00am the Merpati staff at Polonia Airport still knew nothing. So I waited and waited until just after 10 before we were up and away and heading to Sibolga on the western Sumatran coastline.

I stepped off the plane in Sibolga and the saw a large number of officials standing at the entrance to the Arrivals Gate. Riza, KGRE's contact in Sibolga, took me directly to meet the Bupati who was standing among the group of officials. It seems that the President of Indonesia had just left for Nias. An assistant to the Bupati took my arm and told me that the President had to leave so that I could have my hotel room at the Wisata Indah Hotel. He was joking of course (I think) and before I knew it I was being driven the 40 minute drive to downtown Sibolga. Our fist stop was RRI Sibolga where 60 students were there waiting for me. The students, plus members of the Organizing Committee and myself, took part in an hour of interactive radio. There were several callers too. After the call-in program I took more questions from the students and gave each of them a magazine. 

There were probably 200 students at the SMU Matauli meeting on Friday the 14^th of January. They were keen and very excited at the prospect on meeting a native speaker. I hope they enjoyed the morning's activities. The meeting ran from 8.00am until 10.30am. The students asked many questions and I was very impressed by their levels of English. Participants included students from nearby schools as well as the students from SMU Matauli. This school is quite a large one and very active especially with English language activities. Ibu Reza is just one of the active teachers there and she is basically responsible for KGRE being invited to Sibolga. Reza read about KGRE Teacher Workshops in the KGRE magazine quite a while ago and decided to invite KGRE to visit her school. After several letters and email between herself and Ogi, the workshop and visit was finally put together.

I met many keen teachers but also many, many keen and very talented English language students. I was pleasantly surprised at the wonderful English language skills of students in the meeting and especially of the four students I interviewed for KGRE. Handoko. Risky, Daniel and Khaidir are all students of SMU Matauli. Their interviews can be heard  on KGRE in April, 2005. Khaidir also spoke of an English club at his school. I have asked him to send me more information and hopefully that club will be the first in West Sumatra.

In the afternoon we had a quick return visit to RRI to record an interview for the Matauli Club with one of their teachers, Ibu Ruwaida. We talked about KGRE and AusAID in Indonesia plus a little about teaching and learning English. The tape recording of the interview will be used at their future club meetings as a listening source for discussion, etc. What a great way for RRI Sibolga to support the local teachers - thank you to RRI Sibolga and to the Head of the Station, Dra. Darmawati. Special thanks to Pak Tulus Siahaan for helping with the recording process with the Matauli Club.

Saturday, January 15th was Workshop Day at SMU Matauli. The Workshop was opened by the Head of the local Education office, Drs. Muhamad Sugeng. He took time out of his busy schedule to lend support to the activity and KGRE| appreciates that. He commented that before, and especially since the visit of the President to Sibolga a few days earlier, he and his staff had been very busy in light of the problems of re-building educational institutions and facilities in nearby Aceh.

The first activity of the day after the official opening was a 'sound and slide show' from the Matauli Language Club in conjunction with RRI Sibolga. The 20 minute show 'sound and slide show' clearly showed how students from the Matauli club were active and keen with their English language activities. They were seen and heard interviewing an Australian named Mark Wolf who works in the Sibolga area for an environmental company called Greenspan Technology. The members of the club interviewed him and they really proved just how skilled they are. A great effort in which students were using their English for a purpose - proving just how competent they are. Congratulations to all club members who took part including Khaitir who was particularly interested in KGRE and language clubs.

Well over 100 teachers attended the workshop. Some of them traveled up to 4 hours to get to the workshop and several even arrived the day before so that they would be able to attend. Mislan, for example, from Panyabungan Mandailing Natal about 4 hours from Sibolga. Mislan wrote to KGRE (see December 2004 magazine) and asked why AusAID never works or supports activities in Sumatra. Of course AusAID works in Sumatra - ADS scholarships, WSLIC, KGRE and LAPIS. Are just a few examples of this. Ibu Reza read Mislan's letter and decided to contact her and invite her to the workshop. What a great idea Reza.  Thanks for that. Mislan enjoyed the workshop and was full of questions for me. I hope that the Teacher Package and the FREE Reading Class Sets will help her with her students. I am sure they will as Mislan is a keen and eager young teacher.

The KGRE part of the day began around 9.15 am. The 120 or so teachers were keen and enthusiastic and the workshop activities were well received. Forty eight (48) Teacher Packages were ordered by the participants and KGRE is sure that those teachers, along with their students, will really enjoy the work and fun included in them. That is almost 50% of the participants ordering packages. That is a lot of orders and a lot of students being exposed to KGRE materials - possibly thousands of students across the Sibolga region.

Saturday night dinner was held in a terrific Chinese restaurant in Sibolga with the Headmaster of SMU 1 Matauli, Drs. Sumarton, and several members of his staff including Ibu Reza and Ibu Ruwaida. Mislan also accompanied us to dinner. Sibolga is quite a lively place on Saturday nights with just about every young person in town wandering the streets chatting and laughing. It is obviously an important night for the social life of locals.

I flew back through Medan and onto Jakarta.

Return to Past Travels of KGRE in Indonesia

Latest KGRE News
Home | Radio | Travel | Joeys | Connection Clubs | Interviews
Magazine | Stories | Idioms Inggris | Oz Indo Connection | KGRE Shop
Forum | Quickies | In the Classroom | Aussie Alumni | KGRE in Indonesia
AusAID | Competitions | Language Tips | Different Pond Different Fish | Contact Us