Cheers up The Children Along Surabaya River Bank Community

Surabaya- On Sunday morning (18/7), Tunas Hijau visited a small community to play with the children at the community kindergarten. The side of the river that we were on was obviously very different from the opposite side. The houses were not built right up onto the river, and although there was still rubbish around it appeared to be cleaner than the other side. There were many compost bins up and down the street, and a few in front of some of the houses. The kids were really sweet and very enthusiastic.

We introduced ourselves and then we started to play some games. The kids took part in a competition to see who could eat a rice cake tied onto the end of a string the fastest. Then they played a game where a nail was tied onto a piece of string and then attached to their belt. The aim of the game was to get the nail into a bottle underneath them. All the Tunas Hijau interns, including me, tried the game and it turned out to be harder than it looked.

While the games continued outside more activities went on inside. One of the children who had been shy earlier on was busy threading small pieces of straws onto some old string. Some other children were folding paper to make different origami shapes. I was very impressed when one of the kids managed to turn his piece of paper into a transformer! I also sat and listened while one of the smaller kids read a book to me. For his age he was very good at reading.

All the children then gathered inside to learn some German, English and Japanese. They already knew all the words I was supposed to teach them in English, but the Germany and Japanese words were new to them and they really enjoyed learning the new sounds, even though the German was very difficult. We then taught them some songs in our native languages. The success of the day was Chiyako’s song which was simple enough for them to follow but also really fun because of the actions that accompanied it.

We then had a small amount of time to prepare for our trip to Situbondo. We left on the trip that evening.