Surprised That The Kids Are Very Responsive by Mandy Lim Pei Mun

Today we visited SMPN 15 and SMPN 31 Surabaya which is situated nearby the beach. SMPN 31 is populated majority by the Madura who speaks Java language and the Madura people are quite aggressive in nature so we have to be very careful not to provoke them. Java language is very different from Indonesian language. I learnt a few such as ‘matur nuwun’ which means thank you and ‘nuwun sewu’ which means excuse me. If you would to translate directly ‘nuwun sewu’ to Indonesian language; it means one thousand. The kids in SMPN caught our attention most because we were told the kids have discipline problems compare to the other school. So we were expecting the worse from this school.

However we were very surprised that the kids are very responsive and some even questioned us in English. The students in both schools are very active in hammering us with anything they are curious about our country. Though Malaysia is not really far away from Indonesia but there are still huge differences in our waste management. I have learnt a lot from the students and the teachers. We gave presentation on our country with lots of pictures to give the kids a better view of the condition in our country. I guess it is a success day today. The kids enjoyed their time with us and we enjoyed our time with them too.

After our brief introduction with the kids in SMPN 31, we were served with ‘nasi bebek’. Pasquelle loved it. She finished her share of the fried duck. For me I don’t really like duck but I enjoyed the sambal. Honestly what is life without chilies?  Then Pasquelle, Dani, and I played some basketball while Bram was busy in the office eating more cakes I guess.

We headed to Surabaya River while I took a short nap before reaching our destination. Bram said the upstream river is called Kali Brantas and as the water flows down after the dam; it is called Kali Surabaya. Kali Surabaya branched into Kali Mas and Kali Jagir or Kali Wonokromo. We stopped by the roadside to take some pictures. To our surprise a man was ‘poop-ing’ and further downstream others were having their bath. Filthy!! They are actually bathing with shit!!  I’m sure they would want to shower with cleaner water if they have the chance. We noticed as the water flows downstream, it is polluted with more garbage.

Overall we are very happy with our trip. We have learnt a lot from everyone and we had some good sight-seeing of Surabaya.