Salam Belajar

Having completed two full weeks of school, I think it is high time for a blog entry. I can't say it enough- I love it at SMKI. It seems like everyone at school knows my name; I don't think I've ever walked to a class without someone yelling "Halo Andrea!" across the yard. I've started to introduce myself with Indonesian pronunciation- Ah-ndreya- since no one can say the American version. In bahasa Indonesia, though, you are supposed to roll your "r's", which I haven't mastered yet, and so it's sort of odd when people I meet can pronounce my name better than I can. However everyone has been very welcoming and kind, so it is a rare occasion for me to feel embarrassed.

I was worried about finding people to sit with at lunch on the first day of school, but it turns out there isn't a formal eating area at school. If you want to buy your lunch there is a food stand called kantin ("canteen") on the edge of campus where you can buy hot meals (nasi (rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), soto (soup with rice), among other things). I order an es teh (iced tea) most days, which is sweet and refreshing, and costs about 12 cents US. There are many people who just pack their own lunches every day, and eat outside during istirahat (recess).

As for my schedule, I am learning three different types of dance- tari alus, tari gege, and tari putri. It's difficult to say which one I like the best; they are all very different. Tari alus is very slow and methodic, and the whole dance is done in a squat position, with your feet pointed straight out to the side. I enjoy my tari alus lesson because I can copy everyone better when they're moving slowly, but I am also dripping sweat by the time the lesson is over. At first, I thought tari gege would be the easiest (I'm still not sure if I'm spelling that right, by the way. I'm guessing based on its pronunciation "guh-guh"), because the movements looked simple. You take a lot of big steps, for lack of a better way to describe it (always with your toes flexed and knees pointing out to your side, like tari alus), but it is fast. Or it seems fast to me because I cannot keep up no matter how hard I try. There are simultaneous arm and leg movements and changes of finger positions... Too much for me to remember. Tari gege has more abrupt moves than the other dances; I think it is a traditional male dance, but classes are always co-ed. Lastly, tari putri is my favorite to watch (but challenging for me to execute). Putri means "princess" or "girl", and the movements look delicate, feminine, and beautiful. Out of all three types, I want to learn a tari putri routine the most. Performances, from what I've seen, are done alone, and the dancer wears a long traditional wrap with a fancy long-sleeved lace shirt.

In general, dances are performed using either one or two long, batik cloths. One might be hung around the neck (tari gege), like a scarf, and the other (if you are advanced enough to use two) is looped in a special belt around the waist (tari gege/tari alus), or else just knotted around the waist (tari putri) with the ends hanging down in front. Dancers use the batiks throughout the routine- flicking the ends behind them, wrapping it around their hand(s), holding it out in front or to the side, etc. There are so many variations, but I am still working on actually finding the cloth piece when I have to flick it. The dancers here make everything look very fluid and easy, but I can't seem to ever have the right sense of what position my body is in. I have yet to tackle any head movements- they are a very important part of the dances, but I simply cannot make the rest of my limbs function right when I'm trying to swivel my head a certain way, too. I obviously have a lot of room to grow.

So I am learning three different types of dance, but I attend lessons with different classes. (Here, the same group of students typically attend all the same lessons together.) I, however, get to switch around which is nice because I get to see more advanced dancing (exactly that- I mostly watch because I can't dance with them) but I also get the chance to participate at a more basic level of each type of dance. I have at least one dance class each day, Wednesday being the most tiring because I have three basic-level lessons in a row. Thursday all four of my lessons are dances, but two of them are advanced so I just watch. More like gape in amazement, I suppose. :)

I also have two Javanese singing lessons each week, which I actually really enjoy. My very first lesson was a bit stressful, because I was asked to sing alone in front of the class and there are very high notes. As it turns out, I have yet to attend a vocal lesson where I am not asked to sing solo, so I have gotten used to it. A small part of me hopes that this is because the teacher likes my voice, but it's more probable that she just wants me to work on my Javanese pronunciation. I don't yet know the meaning of the words I sing, but I have learned to count to six in Javanese (warm-ups are done in numbers)- ji, ro, lu, ma, nem. Almost to six, I don't know what four is yet; for some reason, we never sing that note. And I think that is abbreviated Javanese (like how Indonesian is shortened to tu, a, ga, pat for satu, dua, tiga, empat).

Javanese has become an intimidating obstacle for me because Javanese words are used very often here (mingled in with bahasa Indonesia) but the spelling and pronunciation are different. For example, in Javanese an "a" is pronounced "oh" (so the above "ma" is sung like "moh"). I have a bahasa Jawa class, but between the teacher speaking in Indonesian and Javanese I have no idea what is going on. I just write down what they tell me to. This past Tuesday I was introduced to aksara jawa- Javanese letters. When I first saw the teacher writing them on the board I was in disbelief. It is like nothing I have ever seen before; the symbols all look like a variation of a cursive "m". I thought Javanese was tough already, and now I am learning a completely new alphabet. I took a picture of my notes so that you can see what I mean. Each symbol is sort of like a consonant, but pronounced with an "a" at the end. HA (ho), NA (no), CA (cho), RA (ro), etc. If you want to change the "a" part (like end with an "ooh" sound instead of the original "oh") then you add extra stuff to the letter (a long vertical hook to the end of the symbol, for the "ooh" sound, for example). In spelling my last name, to change the WA symbol to be pronounced "wi" for Willgohs, you draw a little circle on top of it. For WA to "wuh" you draw a big circle on top... And that's all I've learned so far. I have bahasa Jawa only once a week, but I hope the next lessons stay this interesting.

Aksara Jawa, then my name written twice

I have a bahasa Indonesia lesson once a week as well, where I can follow along a little better. So far I've only been to one lesson (I missed my first scheduled lesson when we left town for Semarang), but it seems like a good fit for my level of understanding. I don't know a majority of the words that are said, but I can grasp what the main ideas are.

My karawitan lessons are twice a week. I just recently got to try all the different instruments, but I have the most experience on what looks like a short xylophone and carries the main melody of the song. The other instruments are sets of gongs, bells/metal pots (hard to describe- they remind me of acorns), something similar to a glockenspiel, and drums. I will have to include a picture in a future post; the whole set up is pretty impressive. These are the instruments for karawitan, but there are additional instruments for other types of gamelan. Karawitan is fun to play because there's an obvious pattern to the melody (so it's easy) and the teacher will speed up or slow down the tempo at different points in the song (universal throughout gamelan, I believe). It is great to feel like I'm catching on fast, compared to how I do in dance. I still have difficultly following other gamelan songs because the timing of the instruments and tempo seems so erratic (this is especially a hindrance in dance classes because I can't figure out when the eight-count starts), but I'm slowly getting more accustomed to the sounds. During my first karawitan class, I learned an important lesson. After we finish the song, everyone in the class rotates around to play a different instrument. I was in the process of stepping to the next set of xylaphone-things when I heard some students behind me go "No, no, no!" Too late. The teacher then explained to me that stepping over gamelan instruments is disrespectful, but that this time was okay because I was foreign and I didn't know. Whew. I still apologized several times. I knew there would be moments like these during my exchange, but I still felt ignorant and rude. I am now extremely careful when changing stations.

Lastly, I also have lessons in traditional dress and OTB, both once a week. In the traditional dress class, you use two pieces of fabric- a large, rectangular batik cloth and a long, skinny, stretchy wrap. The batik is first accordion-folded several times along one edge (the folds about two inches wide), these are pinned in place, and then the whole thing is wrapped tightly around your legs, with the accordion folds ending in a vertical line in front. The batik is wrapped from a different direction for males and females, too. The stretchy cloth is then wrapped multiple times around the stomach and the end tucked in in back. There are other important details to doing this right, but they are hard to explain and I'm sure I don't know all of them. I don't remember what OTB stands for, but it is like a short martial arts dance routine. My favorite part of this lesson is the stretching at the beginning, because everything afterwards is fast, difficult, and tiring. I much prefer my other dance classes.
To end with a few general details about my school day- everyone takes off their shoes and socks outside of the dance studios and karawitan rooms. For dancing, everyone wears black leggings and T-shirt, and additional traditional clothing items/accessories if needed. If you are walking between two dance lessons, you can stay in your dance outfit but you wrap your batik around your waist (for girls, anyways). For all other classes besides dancing you have to change back into your uniform. There are two istirahat periods every day, one for twenty minutes and one for thirty minutes, where students usually eat or do homework around campus. Most interesting, I think, is at both the beginning and end of a lesson everyone in the class goes up, takes the teacher's hand, and either touches it to their forehead or right cheek. (I always go for the right cheek, in case my forehead is sweaty). I've been told that this is a gesture of respect. I'm glad we do this at school, too, because I saw this type of greeting in the Jakarta airport and thought wow, that's cool. And now I do it every day :)

First day of school picture. This is my uniform hari senin ke hari kamis (Mon-Thurs). Hari jum'at dan hari sabtu (Fri and Sat) I wear a blue and black batik shirt with a black skirt. I prefer the batik uniform, because it looks sweet first of all, and you don't have to tuck your shirt in.

This is the field where upacara ("ceremony") is held every other Monday at 7 am. I have only been to one so far. Everyone lines up in rows, looking towards the flagpole, and wears a school hat, which I don't have yet. There is singing of the national song, raising of the flag, a prayer, speeches and announcements. Each class at SMKI take turns running upacara, and the students in charge have to walk in military fashion, wear military hats and white gloves, and occasionally yell commands (for everyone to salute the flag, or stand with their feet together). I wasn't aware of the hat requirement before I came to school on Monday, so I had a half hour of wanting to shrink and hide when I had to stand a head taller than everyone (with my blonde hair), and not have a hat. Another moment where I felt unintentionally rude.

This is one of the court yards at school, to the right is the office, but there are classrooms all around the other sides. Straight ahead, through the opening in the cement wall, is a concrete amphitheater. I've seen some of the theatre students practicing in there before, but mostly students just relax there during istirahat. There is a big mango tree in the corner (not visible from this picture), that the boys sometimes climb to get an afternoon snack. I have yet to eat a mango fresh from the tree, but I'm hoping someday I can ask someone to pick one for me.

Clearly, my school here is completely different from high school in America, but that's probably why I love it so much. I am truly lucky, and so grateful, that I get to study at SMKI. The students are incredibly talented and always friendly, and I get the chance to learn a unique part of Indonesian culture. No doubt every day will be a challenge, but it's an experience I will never forget. I've decided that all the work is worth it for just those few minutes where I get to change classes in my leggings and batik wrap. Because man, does it feel cool to be a dancer.