So...here's the second day of thanksgiving break? Me? Doing my assignments? Nooooooo....not me :P
As usual, every break that I have so far in the US, be it Thanksgiving or Spring break, I am always involved in International Friendship Fair by YWCA. In this program, we visit elementary schools around Ames, to talk about our country. I, being a very gooooooooddddd ambassador of my country Indonesia and as a very highly motivated Fulbrighter, will not miss any chances to present my country!
Today, I woke up at 6 AM *which is verrrrryyyyyy earlyyyyyyy in this cold morning of Iowan Fall*, called Yudi *kind of giving a report of where I'm going to do today*, and got ready. I have prepared a poster with various postcards depicting Indonesian sceneries, two CDs of Indonesian traditional music, a batik material, a Sumba scarf, four shadow puppets characters *Bima, Arjuna, Semar and Anoman*, and a big map of Indonesia. And off I went!
We went to Franklin elementary school in Boone, Iowa. Boone is 30 miles West of Ames and it took about 30 minutes to the school. We rode a yellow school bus. Yes! A school bus! First time for me and for most of us! There were eleven countries present: Canada, Costarica, Nepal, Indonesia, Peru, Uruguay, India, Jordan, Latvia, Spain and Ecuador. The school itself is a 400-students school consisting of 3, 4 and 5 grades. I was scheduled to give a 30 minutes presentation to five 5 graders.
Of course, I talked about the 13,000 islands that we have, 300 something languages that we speak, the puppet shadow, the school system, the weather and my favorite one: playing elephant, human and ant finger game! *it's like paper, rock and scissor here*.
Fun, fun, fun...I always love doing IFF and I definitely will do it again in Spring!
