final week

This week was all about finalizing and revising for the students. Yesterday was the last day in work. Therefore, the kids just garbed us from our hands and insisted to take us to their houses. we have been all around Depok, to visit the kids houses. I know that I'm teaching poor kids, but I have never imagined how bad is the conditions they are living in. I mean they are talented, smart, creative, and dress well as they are always clean and have their shoes or flip-flops on ! according to my experience in Indonesia, lots of kids especially kids in need are used to works as beggars or sell some goods on the train or near the station. But those kids chose to be different. Although they live in the worst conditions I've ever seen in my life, I can still see that each on of them as a successful person with a good career. Today, was the final goodbye ! the big surprise was when we got into the class a thank you letter was written on the board by the kids, they also wrote one on a big paper, moreover, they sang songs. Kak, is what they call us which means big brother or sister. they made this song for us:
We love Kak Sawsan
We love you Mariam
We love you Hassan

as the we like the flowers song ! that is how creative they are ! Then it was time for the emotional breakdown ! I was holding my tears trying not to cry, but when they started to hug me and refuse to let me go then started the " never forget me when you go back to Bahrain" talk ! I could not help but crying ! I do want to continue volunteer work. It is very soul healing to give without expecting any return except for maybe making a change in other people's life. I wish I had more time to give more. However, I think it is just a start of discovering this new layer of myself. I love to be a volunteer, and I will not stop here.   

before the final exam

When I first came to the ETC, I had a little difficulty with communicating with the children.

Because I do not speak their language and they do not speak mine. it was a little bit hard to estimate the children level in English on the first few days for several reasons beside the language difference, the children are very shy and some of them have already been on such a program before.

The classes were in mixed levels as older children were attending on the younger children classes. this causes some confusion and misunderstanding to the teacher when they see some and sometimes most of the students can answer their questions and already know the material. In my opinion this confusion has limited the chance for the younger children to learn English from the scratch like the alphabets. Although most children know how to read and write the English letters for the fact that their native language have similar letters.

the children still have mistakes with pronouncing the English letters correctly. which is something I would like the people who would be on my place after I leave to focus on. As for the students, I think that they have a big potential to be fluent English speakers, because of their passion and determination in learning English. I think that they do realize that this language would open doors of opportunists for them and it would introduce a whole new world for them other than the world they are living in now.

I think one of the reasons that made the kids think like that is that their volunteer teachers "us" are not native English speakers. that helped the kids to understand that they do not have to be born as English speakers to be able to communicate, speak, read, or even teach English. the children have been very attached to us and started to have us as role-models. as they started to do almost everything we do, say, love,and hate. I came to Indonesia and joined this program to make an impact on other people's life. I hope that I have been a good role-model as a person and a good representative for my country. I wish that I could stay longer to see the progress of my students which I started to already see the enhancement on their English.