The big announcement and a whole new Sidrap

Written: March 14
Here at PPUW, this past Saturday was the big announcement ceremony for the national English competition that the ETAs organized. I wanted to make all of the contestants here feel good about their accomplishments particularly because I’m not sure how they’ll stack up relative to the other ETA’s finalists. To do that, I, with a BIG hand from Daya, organized a ceremony to announce the winner and to give out some prizes to our 3 finalists as well as some certificates of commendation to a total of 9 students. While I wasn’t sure it was all going to come together, everything went particularly well with the families of the students recognized all showing up.
For the past 2 weeks Daya and I have been successfully deflecting the nonstop questions of the other teachers who wanted to know the winner; even more, for the past month and a half I have been deflecting the, ahem, ‘suggestions’ on how to run the competition and who to take.
My winner ended up being a 10th grade girl, that clearly had the best submission. Though I have to say some of the submissions were better than I expected. Lately the students seem to be making significant improvements; it may have taken nearly 6months, but hey, better late than never!
As for my winner, Febby, she apparently edited her story somewhere around 10 times. Clearly she put in the work, and the results showed. She was able to use a fair amount of figurative language and her response fit with the prompt quite well. So for all her hard work she will be getting a free trip to Jakarta, compliments of AMINEF. What makes it even more special to me is that Febby’s family is not very well off, so much so that her mother, and perhaps her father as well, is forced to work as housekeepers in Malaysia, where there is a better per capita; they send money back home to the family. To see an individual truly earn an experience she would never otherwise be able to attain is very special, and I’m glad I could be part of it.
In addition to sending Febby to Jakarta, AMINEF will also be sending Daya (and of course me); the reason being the winner was a girl. I was very excited to be able to help Daya get an opportunity like this as well. She has never even left the province so to get to go to her Nation’s capital, and for free (!), is pretty special. On the topic of Daya, just in the past week she has really loosened up and is becoming, dare I say, almost western in her joking and sayings. This coming from a woman, that I had difficulty speaking to when I first arrived (though to be fair I’m pretty sure most of that was nerves). To think compare my first arrival and how she was acting to this weekend when she was playing tour guide it’s really stunning.
The reason that Daya was playing tour guide was that as part of the announcement ceremony Ab, the ETA in Tanah Toraja (about 4 hours north of me), came down to take part and also serve as the final judge. He got in Friday afternoon and took off around lunch time today (Sunday). The biggest activities while Ab was here included: the most-well attended English Club ever (over half the pesantren was there to ask Ab questions), the obligatory pesantren tour (5000 chickens included), a walk around the area to get a feel (when I realized that the locals have become comfortable enough with me to not gasp and run away now; a big step!), Ab’s first time trying durian, a drive to the regency capital (Pankerjene) which included lots of stops for pictures and some food including dessert at Daya’s home, and a trip to the new Rappang Market which is much bigger, cleaner and nicer than the old traditional market.
To have someone come visit me here was really refreshing too; the only other person who has even seen the pesantren was Jimmy who stayed one night, but little more than 12hrs. Not only was it great to have some real discussions and conversations with someone, it was also a ton of fun to get to show off my area (and yes, it is MY area now!). And by showing it off, I was kind of seeing the place with new eyes again and realizing that it is a pretty good, if far from perfect, situation.
All in all a great weekend, and one of the few remaining that I will spend here. The next 2, and perhaps 3, will be spent traveling since there is the big national exam (which determines if and where the 12th graders can go for university). Should be fun, and only 11 more weeks until I start my big travels!