Kang GURU Travels to Barabai and Jakarta — January, 2007

This was the first trip for KGRE in 2007. Kevin flew to Barabai in Central Kalimantan to AIYEP participants in their host village of Barikin, to present a KGRE Teacher Workshop in Barabai and to visit an SMP school being built by AIBEP, the Australia Indonesia Basic Education Program, in Ayuang Village. While in Jakarta on the way back from Kalimantan, Kevin met with former Indonesian Idol, Joy Tobing, for a Kang Guru Celebrity Interview.

It was a four hour taxi trip from Banjarmasin airport to get to Barabai. That was after two flights with Garuda — one from Denpasar to Jakarta with a short stopover in Jakarta and then a further 75 minutes in the air from Jakarta to Banjarmasin. The taxi from Banjarmasin airport to Barabai was okay except the weather was bad, the windscreen of the car was very dirty and the driver had poor eyesight. Well it seemed that way as the darkness of night set in half way to Barabai. But Kevin made it and booked into the Mutiara Hotel, a small hotel next door virtually to the town's largest mosque.

Pak Saiful from the local organizing Workshop Organizing Committee dropped by the hotel at 8.00pm as he promised he would. The heavy rain didn't stop him and he was traveling by motorbike and had come 16 km to see Kevin. They discussed the following day's events and Pak Sjaiful headed off at 8.30pm. Kevin also spoke by phone with Melissa Crouch from the AIYEP group located in nearby Barikin about the plans to visit that group of young people the following day. The rain continued to pour. The hotel had no food and so Kevin decided that television could be a good idea. Oops, television reception was very poor so for the first time ever with Kang Guru, Kevin watched some DVDs that he had taken on this trip just in case of a situation just like that!

It rained all night long but as per usual, breakfast time was sunny and clear at the Mutiara Hotel in Barabai. Breakfast consisted of nice and tasty yellow rice with a spicy piece of chicken plus the traditional hot, sweet tea.

Pak Saiful and Pak Harley picked Kevin up at 8.00am and they all went to Kantor DIKNAS to meet with officials there before heading off to SMPN 8 Ayuang, one of the 2000 schools being built with technical assistance from the Australian Government as a part of AIBEP, the Australia Indonesia Basic Schools Program, and in close cooperation with the national education department in Jakarta and local offices of education in the provincial areas such as Barabai. These wonderful building projects are currently being done all over Indonesia with a further 9 AIBEP-construced SMP schools being built in other parts of KALSEL at this same time.

Back in July 2006, after a series of community meetings with local education department officials, the decision was made to build an SMP school in Ayuang village. It is about 40 minutes by car from Barabai. The first 30% of the funds from the Australian Government were transferred to the construction committee in Ayuang village. Building commenced on Dec. 2 and amazingly, when Kang Guru visited on January 5th, the buildings were well underway. There are 6 classrooms under construction, all 9m X 7 m in size. Besides the classrooms there is a terrific library area, office space, staff room and staff toilets and even a ‘rumah jaga’ close by. In addition to the main school buildings there is a toilet block for students. This block looks really good with many separate cubicles and change areas for students. The view from the school yard is excellent with rice fields and giant trees surrounding the school. The planning committee certainly chose a great piece of land.

In the nearby village of Ayuang, materials are being collected, and in some cases assembled, for use in the construction of the school.	Over 70 local workers are busily working from 8.00am until 5pm on their new AIBEP-constructed SMP school. They are keen and enthusiastic as this school is for their children.
Future students of this new AIBEP-constructed SMP school in Ayuang Village 'keeping an eye' on their new school.

The day that Kang Guru visited was a Friday so work was not in full progress however there were around 30 workers, young and old, mixing cement, carrying wood, shifting materials and measuring walls and doors. It was an active building site for sure. On a normal day there are about 70 workers there. These workers are all from the local community and they are all quite passionate about the work. The school they are building is for their children and their grandchildren too. The workers are being paid for their work BUT they are also keen to do the very best job that they can. In just a month they are well on the way to having the school completed well before the start of the 2007 school year in July.

Kevin interviewed Pak Ardinasyah, Kepala Tukang of the project about the school plus Pak Norfiteri, Ketua Proyek. Listen to KGRE radio and check the March magazine for what they had to say about their new AIBEP-constructed SMP school. When Kevin returned to Barabai he met with the Team Leader for KALSEL's School Construction Project from AIBEP, Pak Baharuddin, and Pak Faisal, SMPN 8 Ayuang Barabai.

After Friday midday prayer time, Kevin met with Melissa Crouch and Kustiadi, two of the 36 participants of the 2006-7 Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP). These 36 young people were coming to the end of their month long stay in Barikin village about 30km from Barabai on the Banjarmasin/Barabai Road from Banjarmasin. Melissa is the leader of the Australian group of participants while Bintang, from Medan, is the leader of the Indonesian participants. They had been living and working with the community of Barikin on many small projects since early December 2006.

Kevin visited a few of the AIYEP sponsored activities in the village. They included –

• a newly paved section of the school grounds at SD 1 Barikin now made suitable for playing badminton when wet weather has made the rest of the playground a mud patch.
• a renovated classroom in a nearby orphanage which has been turned into a Reading Room for local students AND adults.
• roadside gutters that have been cleaned out and re-constructed (with the help of local army personnel)

Kevin interviewed several other AIYEP participants about work that they had been involved in.
That included –

• introducing Aussie sports such as cricket and football to students in the village.
• teaching popular Aussie schoolyard games to students such as Tunnel Ball and Poison Ball.
• creating healthy food in organized cooking classes for both village adults and their children.

Kevin interviewed many of the AIYEP participants while in Barikin village.

Here are some links from the KGRE Archives featuring AIYEP in Indonesia - Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

On Saturday, Jan 6th, Kevin presented the first KGRE Teacher Workshop for 2007 at SMK1 Barabai. The old jam karet problem was present once again but the workshop was well underway by 9.00am. There were 49 participants and once the workshop got started, they all joined in freely and with quite a deal of enthusiasm and quite a few questions. The workshop continued on until around 1.30pm when the venue was taken over by 40 high school students. It was so great to meet so many students who already knew about KGRE and were already receiving KGRE magazines. There was great interest in language clubs and we hope that KGRE receives a letter saying that the Barabai group of students is ready to form a club. Many thanks to Pak Saiful from DIKNAS and to the teachers at SMK 1 for their support and for providing the venue for the workshop. Thanks also to the four AIYEP participants who dropped in to say hello and who stayed for a few hours to work side by side with the teachers following the workshop. That was much appreciated especially as they got lost getting there but still made it eventually.

On Sunday morning, Kevin returned to Jakarta for an overnight stay in the city. On Monday Kevin visited Joy Tobing at her home for a 30 minute interview. Joy talked about her blossoming career, her new English-language CD called ‘Rise’ and her experiences with education, both formal, and in relation to show business. Kevin flew back to Bali in the late afternoon. There were clear skies most of the way and one interesting sight was the significantly increased activity of Mt Semeru. There was a lot of thick smoke belching from the crater (much more than Kevin has seen before) and in fact, the smoke/ash could be seen floating north-eastwards over Madura.