Sometimes We Just Have to Punt…

Day one of teacher training got off to a SLOOOWWWWWWW start. Merda sent me a message telling me to take my time, and we ended up starting – with speeches – at almost 11:00 instead of 8. While I was expecting a delay, it still made for a tense morning fretting about the speech I was going to give in Indonesian to kick off my part of the training.

My speech was a basic introduction – niceties about how beautiful Tanah Toraja is, followed by outlining goals for the training and thanking the participants for their time and commitment to the week’s work. Only about 1/2 of the participants could make it today because it’s the first day of the new school term; many either needed to get their children settled in or had business to attend to at their own schools. Nevertheless, I delivered this speech to the 60+ people who were there, sweating bullets the whole time. Kris, my host’s husband, sat next to me at the “bigwig” table (with the local head of education and some other very important people). When I got stuck on a word he said it very quietly under his breath – that was helpful. The audience clapped for me and even laughed at a joke I told. Merda said it all sounded very good, but I think it’s her job to tell me that. Otherwise I might have died right there on the spot.

After the introduction in poor Bahasa Indonesia, I told the participants (in English) about the outcomes and goals for the week, and then we went to work. It was rough at first; Indonesian people tend to be shy in front of large groups (unless it’s their job to do speeches), and this group was no different than the others I’ve worked with. The “warm up” was enough to make me, once again, sweat bullets waiting to see if anyone would actually participate in this week’s training. Thankfully they did warm up pretty quickly, and we were off to a slow jog.

I don’t know how the rest of the week will go, but I do know from experience that the first day is the most difficult, and that this training is likely to turn out just fine. And that we will have more speeches at the end of the week. Mine will NOT be in Indonesian!

And now I’m ready for a nap.