Kang GURU Travels Saumlaki in the Tanimbar Islands

Ayu and Ogi from Kang Guru Indonesia spent a full week (September 14th - 19th) traveling to far eastern Indonesia through Ambon and onto Saumlaki. They visited a very active English language club - the Sta'r English Club - a part of the KGCC network plus schools, a teacher workshop and all centered around the village of Arui Das.

Here's Ogi (Day 1 - 4) and Ayu's (Day 5 - 6) travel reports for you to enjoy.

Day 2 The Merpati flight to Saumlaki was scheduled at 7am so we had to leave hotel at 5am. What an early start! We felt sleepy and nervous knowing that we would fly on a very small plane (only 20 seats) with propellers. The interior of the plane is far cry from an ordinary plane, it’s almost like a small bus except this one is flying. The two-hour flight seemed too long and the landing was rather scary. Luckily by 9.30 we arrived safely in Saumlaki. Pak Benny, adviser of Star English Club and also KGI contact person in Saumlaki, met us at the airport. Pak Benny’s sister was the Head of Saumlaki sub-district. Ibu Camat lent her car to pick us up and for a tour around town. We dropped in to her office to say ‘hello and thanks’ for her generosity.

We then checked into the hotel and suprisingly the ‘Harapan Indah’ Hotel has some very nice rooms facing the sea. The view was lovely. Satisfied with the accommodation, we then disccussed about activities for the next few days. The plan was we would visit 4 SMPs, 2 SMAs and 2 SMKs before going to Arui Das village to visit the Club. But there was other urgent thing to do – getting tickets back to Ambon. We were scheduled to return to Ambon/Denpasar on Saturday (20th Sept) and Merpati only fly on Tuesday and Friday so we had to take Trigana Air which has Saturday flight. We went to Trigana office but it was closed for lunch time. When we returned at about 3pm we found out we were on the waiting list but no. 70 and 71! The plane has only 28 seats. There is no way we would get the tickets. We were worried but hoping we would get it by 12pm next day. This is silly thought of course because things are never certain in remote areas especially with flights where cancellation and delays are common and when everything is done manually and very much depend on people’s connections.

We ignored the problem for a while and headed to Weluan Beach which was really beautiful. Ayu was very temped and took a swim while I just enjoyed walking along the beach and chatting with Pak Benny and Lili, the driver. It’s good to know that Indonesia has so many beautiful beaches and we were able to see some of them. Ibu Camat Saumlaki invited us to dinner at her place and so went there to have a very nice ikan bakar with tomato sambal and keladi. People in Maluku don't grow rice so their staple food is ‘keladi, ubi jalar, and singkong’. They can get rice but the price was triple from the normal price. Thanks Ibu Camat for the wonderful dinner!

Day 3 There were 4 SMPs to visit so we did it separately. I went to SMP St. Paulus first. As I entered a year 8 classroom, a loud greeting welcomed me ‘Good Morning Sir!’ … oops… but they were active students and happy to participate in the ‘eleven’ game. I told them about Kang Guru and how to write letter to get free Kang Guru magazine. I then went to SMP Negeri 1 and did ‘parts of body’ game. The teachers and students were very keen with the activities. Both schools welcomed Kang Guru nicely. The Principals and English teachers are very interested to use the June LRCS that I gave them. Later that day I received some SMSs already from those students. Isn’t that great!

But it’s not end of the day for us, we went to Trigana office to check the flight and tickets and was told that Trigana would cancel Saturday flight. So in frantic I talk to Pak Dani (the owner of the hotel and also Merpati agent in Saumlaki). I also contacted Pak Tri at Merpati office in Ambon to get tickets from Merpati. But what’s worrying is that we had to adjust/altered our program for the next 2 days which will affect the activities in Arui Das village. After discussion with Pak Benny we decided to cut short the school visits in Saumlaki and had to leave for Arui Das mid morning the next day.

Day 4 We continued school visits. I went to SMA 1 Negeri and Ayu went to SMA Unggulan. Again I was happy to see active students there and they were thrilled with the ‘parts of body’ game. And when I asked them about their favourite artists, their answer was the same from the other two schools; Ungu was their favourite group band followed by Afgan, Gita Gutawa, and Peterpan. That’s interesting! Let’s hope I can secure interviews with those artists for Kang Guru in the near future. Then we headed to Arui Das village and Ayu had this wonderful report about the Star English Club …..

Day 5

We had to start early on Thursday because we had to go to Arui at 11 am. We still had to do school visits that day. Ogi and I decided to split up. Ogi visited SMUN 1, Pak Benny and I went to SMA Unggulan and SMPN 9. We left the Hotel in Saumlaiki at around 10 am. On the way to Arui we dropped by at the DIKTI office to say hello as well as thank you for the positive welcome in the area.

The trip to Arui village was quite long ( about 2.5 hours). We passed along good and also bumpy roads, up hill and down hill . We both enjoyed the journey though because we could see beautiful view on the way - beautiful beaches, houses, villages, farmers, etc.
We finally arrived at the Arui Bab village. Now for a little bit of information about this Arui village. Arui is devided into two parts. The Arui Bab (bawah =down hill)) is located down hill and Arui Das (atas =up hill) is on the other side of the hill. Each village has it’s own Kepala Desa (head of the village). Pak Benny took us to Arui Bab where his family lives and where Ogi and I were going to stay for the night. Arui Bab is a small village with 150 families. There is a huge newly built church in the area, the houses stay close to one another. I could see some pigs running around the village. We went straight to Pak Benny’s older sister’s house. The house is only 20 m from the beach! We met the whole family, the husband, Pak Pius, and the children : Jannis , Yan and Ivon. Jannis and Yan are members of Sta’r English Club. As part of the tradition we were given a piece of woven material around our neck.

It was 12.30 and the weather was boiling hot. We were informed that the Sta’r English Club members will come at 3 pm. Pius’ family has already prepared a very nice lunch for us. After we had lunch, we looked around the neighborhood, went to the beach with the children and prepared some activities for the club members. At 3.00 pm some of the club members arrived. They came in groups, they were sweating and looked exhausted. Later I found out that they all live in Arui Das which is around 6 km away and they had to walked down to Arui Bab to see us. There were around 40 members who came to the meeting. Ogi and I did a few fun games with them and gave out some Kang Guru prizes. We were all having fun.

We finished our activities at 4.30 pm and we had very nice mung bean drink. Pak Benny asked us to join the evening prayer with the club at 5.00 pm, so after a quick break we all gathered inside the house again and began the service led by club members. We were amazed by the club members’ skill in leading and organizing the whole service. The hymns, the prayer and the bible reading were delivered in English. Each club member had their own responsibility in the service. We were impressed by their voices when they sang the hymns and of course their English proficiency. It was amazing.

We were so happy to have met all the members of Sta’r English Club. Although they live in a remote area they have shown great motivation in learning English, Well done guys!

Day 6

On this day everyone started early. We were told to get ready before 7. Pak Benny’s nephews Jannis, Yans and Yasa who were also club members of Sta’r English Club, had left earlier by ojek. Ogi and I were wondering what would happen that day. Everyone seemed so busy.The lady of the house didn’t even go to work that day and some kids didn’t even go to school! Pak Benny picked us up at 7.30, half an hour late! And we were all went to Arui Das in a car. I guess we were just too spoilt. Arui Das village is behind a hill, it’s about 6 km from Arui Bab. The road was rough-very bumpy. Along the way we saw some teachers who were going to meet us too. I felt bad because we were on a nice car and others had to walk miles away. I would’ve offered them a lift if the car wasn’t that full.

After fifteen minutes we arrived at Arui Das. The car stopped at the main entrance of the village. We should wait for few minutes before we could get out of the car and walk ( this is part of the village’s ritual to welcome new people). We walked along the pathway of the village. Arui Das is beautiful. The village is very clean- well Pak Benny told us that the people did a big village clean up before we came.

Half way through the community hall, six boys from Sta’r English club sang a welcome song and danced. One of the boys called himself ‘Kevin’, because he likes Captain Kang Guru! ‘Kevin’ and friends sang very well ! They then walked down with us to the ceremony. From where we walked we could see a big gathering, villagers, some in casual and some in traditional clothes and some in their civil uniforms. We were welcomed by a beautiful traditional dance by Sta’r English Club members. I burst into tears when they started to dance. The welcome was over the top! It was wonderful.

After they finished with the welcome dance, Pak Benny led us to walk slowly towards the gathering where the head of the village was waiting for us. Because of our short visit the ceremony was made short and simple. The head of the village welcomed us by saying a few words and the lady of the village put a piece of beautiful woven material around our back as a sign of ‘welcome’. Ogi and I were sobbing because of the overwhelming welcome from the people.

But that was only the beginning. We were taken to the village hall to attend the inauguration of the new committee of Sta’r English Club. After the inauguration, students performed some English songs which were written by one of the teachers. One of our favourite songs is the Club’s song. The words were written by Pak Benny and the melody was created by one of the SD teachers. I was asked to dance in front of the audience while the club’s members were singing.. ha ha …that was embarrassing but fun! Fortunately Ogi managed to escape from that one! After the singing and dancing we were heading to the SMPN Arui ,which was located up the hill, for the teacher’s workshop. We walked up and passed people’s beautiful houses together with the villagers.

We were once again welcomed by another group of people. They were students doing step by step weaving demonstration, starting from preparation, making patterns and the weaving process, that was amazing. They also demonstrated the making of special basket that people carry on their back to collect some food like coconuts, bananas, sweet potatoes, etc.

After that they took us to another part of the school ground where they were doing their typical way of cooking : ‘the hot stone cooking method’. Ogi and I have heard about this method before but we’ve never actually seen it before. It was impressive. The villagers spent the whole night heat the stone ( about 7 hours) then they wrapped the food (sweet potatoes, cassava, and pork) in banana leaves, put them inside the hole and buried with the hot stones.

After 5 hours buried inside the ground the food was ready to eat. We had a quick try because the teachers were waiting for the workshop inside. Everything was delicious, people were so enthusiastic to see our reaction after tasting the food. I went rush inside the building. Time was running, we only had another hour before we went to the Airport. There were about 20 teachers (with only 4 English teachers) attending the workshop and lots of other audience. Those teachers had walked miles and miles away just to see us.

We had a few easy English games, explain about the teaching materials and explain little bit more about Kang Guru. It was 5 minutes before eleven and we had a plane to catch at 2 pm ! We quickly thanked everyone for everything and we went rush to the car. We dropped Pak Pius and family home and rush to the airport with Pak Benny and the driver. All the way we couldn’t stopped talking about everything, the ceremony, the performances, the cooking, the people, etc. We thanked Pak Benny for his hospitality, his great assistance and all the arrangements he made for us.

Once again on the way to the airport we saw something unusual. We saw some villagers carrying bores on their back. They just returned from hunting. We didn’t know that people still go hunting for food..wow! As usual, I asked the driver to stop the car and took some snap shots of the lifeless bore.

How can we ever forget this amazing trip to Saumlaki – Arui village. The long winding journey to get there was worth it. I guess the word thank you wouldn’t be enough, I hope we can see you all again in the future..Well.. I should beg captain to send me there again.