Prince and Princess Weekend
by Pasquelle van der Jagt
Before we got off to the last training day of the Prince and Princess election, we went to a school in the morning. They organized a day full of activities and one part was tree planting with Tunas Hijau. Before we did the tree planting we were invited to the opening ceremony of the day. A girl in traditional clothing did a beautiful traditional dance of which I can’t remember the name anymore. But it was greet to look at J! The trees we had to plant were small ones, which can grow without much sunlight and water, so they’re ideal to plant under other bigger trees. So this is what we did.
After this we went to another school to pick up some mural paintings. The kids made these, all about environmental subjects as global warming, clean water, clean environment etc. We needed the murals for decoration on Sunday during the prince and princess election. Then we went off to the park again, where the finalists were preparing for the grand finale on Sunday. They were practicing a dance and how they had to walk on stage and everything. Really cool. At the end of the day their parents came to pick them up after two days of sleeping in the park, so they could have a good night of sleep before the Grand Finales.
On Sunday we went to the Grand Finale of course. The day started with an exhibition of recycled products. Every school that joined the prince and princess program exhibited all kinds of products they had made from recycled products. Some schools made really cool stuff; flowers, tissue boxes, clothes, bags, jewelry and more. Curtis, Mandy and I were the judges! We judged them on their creativity, the content, the design and quality, the material usage and the clarity. With to three of us together we found SDN Kaliasin I Surabaya as the winner!!
After this there was an opening ceremony with traditional dances performed by different schools. Then the finalists were introduced to all the schools and the parents and they did their dance. They also all had to answer a question. The questions were already taped before and were asked by different people from Tunas Hijau, important people from Surabaya or other people involved in the Prince and Princess contest. In between the question and answer part, the different schools gave short performances; traditional dances, songs, etcetera.
In the afternoon we were invited to join a special food festival in the city of Surabaya; Food festival Rujak Uleg. This is a special Indonesian sauce. And there is a competition between different people who can make the best rujak uleg, served with the best dishes. So of course we had to try to make the rujak uleg ourselves and then eat it with different fruits and vegetables. It was quite spicy, but not too much, so I liked it just in little parts (and not the whole plate with lots of rujak uleg haha). It was a very busy festival with many local people, cramped together around the different eating stalls that showed their food with the rujak uleg. So of course we had to make another 100 pictures with all the people, but it was pretty cool to join the festival.