Ramadan and School Aniversary

Ramadan just started. Most of the teachers and students are fasting, and the whole town is quieter in general. Many of the small food stalls and restaurants are closed during the day. Usually, there are dozens of glasses of lukewarm overly-sweet jasmine tea in the teacher’s lounge, sitting ready for parched teachers. The tea has been moved to an unassuming thermos. The school canteen is completely closed. My apartment is right next to an elementary school and, although young children are not required to fast, the number of food vendors has dwindled to 2-3. I like the quiet feel of the streets and that I can actually walk down the sidewalk without having to switch to the street every few yards because of restaurants. I like seeing women go to pray in extra-long knee-length white gilbabs. I am enjoying Ramadan. And there are definitely places to eat still.

We are on a very modified schedule at school. Instead of 45 minute periods we now have 30 minute periods, that’s not counting the time it takes the students to migrate to class. By the time they all show up, the class is half-way over and nothing has been accomplished. In my opinion it seems like they should have less subjects in a day instead of trying to have the students go to every class.

Speaking of the students, I am very impressed by them. My school is one of the most expensive to attend, although it is a public school. The students pay directly instead of taxes going toward education. Some of the students commute an hour to get to school, or some have moved to Yogya simply to study and their parents live in other parts of Java. This is serious stuff! Oh, and they absolutely LOVE their school. Even the 10th graders I have chatted with are thoroughly entrenched in extracurriculars and friendships with their classmates.

Padmanaba had their school anniversary 2 weeks ago. I was invited to a dinner for the alumni and current teachers. Everyone sat on bamboo mats in a circle; the centerpiece was made up of about 10 plates of decorative nasi kuning (yellow rice) in points thanking god for the school. The students created beautiful and different types of nasi kuning and had a competition to see whose was the most unique. I had to walk home with one of the teachers to get my camera because I was so impressed by their designs!

The alumni were wearing beautiful batiks and scarves. My counterpart said the alumni are still very involved in the school and actually vetoed a plan the school had to get new tile.

The next day involved me coming to school at 7:15 am and therefore I didn’t have time to eat breakfast and was pretty groggy. They had a show of many of the students who do some kind of military practice every night and every student had special uniforms for this day. They did marches and a flag-raising and some readings. This was interesting but all the teachers were crowded together and I was HOT! All the lady teachers were wearing long sleeve shirts with thick polyester, ill-fitting suit jackets. They seemed to be fine but I know I would have passed out in one of those! I am really glad they didn’t think to have one tailored for me.
After this, the students changed into outfits according to class. I was sitting in the meeting hall and kept seeing students walk by in kimonos, bath towels, etc. and started to wonder. I knew there was a parade but I thought they’d be wearing their school uniforms! I walked over to the window and saw kids in the most imaginative outfits! One group was the funeral attendees...they wore black on top and batik on the bottom with dark glasses and carried urns. Another group was the babies…they had pacifiers, their hair in pigtails, another group was the barely out of the shower group. Some of the boys wore a towel on bottom with a mandi bucket tucked into their waist and shampoo still in their hair. I walked with the “back to the 80s group” who sang popular 80s songs. One of their leaders was wearing aviator sunglasses a woman’s spandex swimsuit in horrendous poop browns and track shorts worn way too high. It was really fun! We wound around different parts of the town and people got their cameras out to record the strange site. The students handed out paper cranes and candy to people on the street and becak drivers, curled up in their becaks. We paraded for two hours…all 800 students and many of the teachers.