Day 157. Kyle & Leanne joint blog. Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

With our first day of teaching down, and more information on the students’ level of English, we prep on Tuesday morning something fierce each putting in five to eight hours to ready ourselves for Day two.  With our lesson plans in the form of mountains of paper stacked high, we set out in the van again for the school. 

It turns out that we are in for a decidedly more challenging day.  John had five 3rd grade students yesterday but upon showing up today, the 5 students had miraculously multiplied into 10 students.  John has only brought 5 copies of the lesson and managing 10 of the youngest grade by himself proves challenging but he comes through. 

In Leanne and Ashley’s class, one fifth grader brought firecrackers and lit one off inside the classroom when her back was turned.  Leanne thought it was a popped balloon at first but the explosion was pretty ear shattering.  The unknown perpetrator managed to sneak another one off in class.  Then at break-time, unbeknownst to Kyle, the perpetrator lit two firecrackers in the gutter running the length of the school yard.  Kyle was playing soccer with the kids when the ball went into the gutter.  Unfortunately for Kyle, when he bent over to pick up the ball, the firecrackers exploded in his face. Kyle stood up dazed and confused with no hearing in his left ear. Fortunately, our kids had identified the perpetrator and went to report him to the coordinator, Gita.  We end up finding the kid back in the classroom trying to light the window still on fire. Gita kicks the firecracker, pyromaniac kid out for the rest of the session. 

During breaktime, while Kyle was getting blown up, the three troublemaker kids his and Corey’s class yesterday were at it again. They have found box cutter knives in Gita’s supply box and started chasing and terrorizing the younger kids with them. Corey charges to the rescue and manages to disarm the assailants and return the box cutters to Gita.

We have resumed teaching after the break but the 6th grade troublemakers fail to return to class.  Kyle has to go out to find them and eventually tracks them down hiding in the bathroom and brings them back to the class.  Gita comes in to “discuss” the box cutter knives with the three kids but one of the troublemakers gives him the middle finger.  Kyle and Corey don’t need Google Indonesian translator to know what the kid said to Gita. Gita leaves threatening that he will talk to their teacher tomorrow but they continue to act up.  Kyle tries to get them to quiet down and one of them stands up and grabs his crouch and gives Kyle the middle finger.  Now it is clear that these three boys have earned the full blown “troublemaker” designation. At the end of the day, Gita promises Kyle and Corey that he will talk to the primary teacher tomorrow about their behavior.  

Dejected after spending eight hours of hard work, we head back in the van for the center not talking again. Pure silence.  We needed to regroup and regain our strength and confidence.  This is clearly a case of a few rotten apples spoiling the overall experience.

For dinner, we head out for the third time out to Oops! Restaurant in Ubud (we obviously like it so much we don’t want to risk another restaurant that won’t be as good).  We catch a local temple’s annual ceremony to celebrate Prosperity.  Dozens of Balinese women prepared flowers, cakes and fruit baskets, as offerings for God.  Women carry their offerings balanced on their heads while wearing beautiful laced blouses (mostly yellow, the color symbolizing power) and pe ncil-straight colorful sarongs.   

When we get back home, the electricity in Leanne and Kyle’s room goes out.  At first, we mistakenly assume it’s an area power outage so we suffer in the sweltering heat with no lights or air conditioning for several hours, tossing and turning. Around midnight, Leanne suggests that maybe it’s a circuit breaker instead.  Kyle opens the door and confirms that there are lights on over the boys’ rooms across the courtyard so it must be a circuit breaker.  Kyle braves the compound’s back field, armed with his iPhones’ flashlight, at midnight to find the electricity source / fuse box. 

Kyle has to climb through bushes and tall grass to get to the back of the house. Now, avid readers are probably wondering “does Bali also have those venomous man-killing snakes like Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia all had?”  At this point, that key tidbit of information wasn’t covered in the Monday training session. While Kyle hadn’t checked whether the area contained any poisonous snakes, the prospect of a full night without air conditioning outweighed any and all risk of a lethal snake bite.  Kyle finally finds the right circuit and turns it back on. Success!

With the air conditioning restored, Kyle gets 3 more hours of sleep before the first of 300 rounds  “cocka-doodle-doing” commence at 3:30am.  We may not be able to sleep but at least we have a now working air conditioner while we lay in bed listening to the roosters for the next three hours.