Somehow there never seems to be time to just sit down and write!
I’ve been here just over 6 weeks and yet already the idea of a Western showers and toilets seem alien to me!
Last weekend, I was scrolling through Instagram when I once more came across the problem of tourists touching Orangutans. On this social media platform there were so so many posed photos of people touching, feeding and even holding Orangutans. I was shocked by these pictures- touching Orangutans can be incredibly harmful to them, but I chose to hope that those tourists who had taken such pictures simply didn’t realise the danger they were posing. As a result of this discovery on Instagram, we launched our #lookbutdonttouch campaign on Monday – after many video bloopers. If you want more details on this, please feel free to check out my blog on our website – https://www.bukitlawangtrust.org/post/lookbutdonttouch
What I will say here however, is that I was very very disappointed that many people simply chose to delete our educational comments on their photos rather than choosing to remove their photos from public view. It is one thing to unknowingly take an unethical photo, but it is another to leave it online, knowing it encourages unethical malpractice, even after you have had this explained to you.
On a happier note, we spent last week taking all our students to the edge of the Jungle. This was SO MUCH FUN. It was also very hot, tiring and a little bit stressful when there were snakes / wild pigs / bees. But on the whole it was one of the many activities here that make me simply stand back and go ‘as if this is my job!!!!’.
On Thursday this week, we held a Halloween party here at the school – turns out that watermelons are a lot easier to carve than pumpkins. They also smell better as they burn! We managed to paint our faces using Kindergarten paints and had some classic European games – which the Indonesian girls pretty much all beat us at! I think most people thought we were pretty crazy, especially as everyone here believes in ghosts!
Saturday was spent in town, watching the Rugby and shopping! I met one of the local guys called Tony who showed me how he hand carves the wooden Orangutan faces which he sells – he said the machine does it better, but he has more fun doing them by hand! He also told me he currently has two daughters at University in Medan – people here never cease to amaze me! One of them is studying English so I hope that I can meet her soon!
Yesterday we had some jobs in the next town over and so got a Bershak there. Then we bought bicycles to ride home! Turns out I am very unfit.
Today, we were invited to the birthday party of one of our students. We decided to go, then were informed we need a present. So having found some pens as a present and wrapped them very poorly in paper, we set off on the bicycles. About half way there we stopped and thought – As teachers, is it a mistake to go to the party of one of our student’s birthday– will we then have to buy them all presents? We then foolishly decided it would be fine and carried on to the party.
When we arrived, we discovered all of our students and their mothers were there! We also had to feed the birthday girl her cake in front of everyone! We eventually made our excuses and escaped just on time for our afternoon classes – although birthday girls mum would not let us go without taking food with us! I think we may have to attend a lot of parties from now on!
Rosie Roams 