Busy weekend

  Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Monday, February 25, 2008

This weekend was the annual gathering of a group of Indonesian medical students - they call themselves the standing committee on human rights and peace.

Nick, Uki and student

For their community activity, they asked if I would help them co-ordinate a morning of activities for children in one of the schools for disabled children, in west Yogya.

As well as helping with the planning, they put me down for 30 minutes of motivational activity. 'Could you please do something fun - with a meaningful message - for children with various impairments, their teachers and parents, and 50 medical students,' they said.

Hmm! Hard to know what to do... But I had my deaf colleague Uki with me, so I wasn't alone, and by the time we left to go to the SLB, we had a plan, and several materials to help us. I made up a story about a disabled child, played by Uki, who wanted to go to the moon...

****************

There was once a young boy called Wahyu. He was 5 years old. He was disabled, and he went to an SLB, just like you.

One day, Wahyu said 'I want to go to the moon!'

Activities at the SLB

But Wahyu was disabled, and his parents laughed. 'You can't go to the moon!' they said. 'You're disabled!'

Wahyu didn't understand what they meant, but he was sad. He still wanted to go to the moon.

When he was 15 years old, Wahyu said 'I want to go to the moon!' But Wahyu's friends laughed at him.

Wahyu's parents tried to explain it to him. 'You can't go to the moon,' they said, 'You're disabled!'

Wahyu was sad. But he still wanted to go to the moon.

So, Wahyu started to study hard at school. He learnt about the stars, and the sun, he learnt about rockets, and astronauts.

When he was 25 years old, Wahyu was still studying. He left the village to study somewhere else, and his friends didn't see him again.

Some years later, Wahyu's friends were at home watching television.

The first disabled person lands on the moon...

The news was on, and suddenly they heard something that surprised them... The newsreader announced that a rocket had just landed on the moon. And one of the astronauts was the first disabled person.

Wahyu's friends were shocked! Do you know who the astronaut was? Why, it was Wahyu!

'Wow,' his friends said, 'Wahyu has gone to the moon! I never thought he could do that.'

Wahyu was so happy. And his parents were happy with their son. 'He has surprised us all,' they said. 'We always told him he couldn't do it. But he has!'

****************

We explained the story using various drawings and bits of dialogue from Uki. We used cards with faces on, and whenever I said 'sad,' 'laughed,' 'happy' or 'shocked' they all had to join in with a facial expression, or an action. I think most of the children understood it.

The story seemed to go down well - when I got to the point where the identity of the astronaut is given, all the adults and students started clapping! It was very spontaneous, and it was good to think that a story like this could touch them somehow.

Uki and I sat down once the session had finished. But I sat down too soon, it seems, for the head of the committee announced that I would now lead everybody in keep-fit exercises! I explained I didn't know I had to do this, and had done no preparation for it.

Posing students

But it was clear that no-one else was going to do it, so up I got...

Now, fortunately I consider myself blessed with two qualities that are very useful in a situation like this - an ability to make things up as I go along, and a certain lack of self-consciousness leading me to do things that some other people would be embarrassed to do!

It was 9.30am on a very hot Sunday morning, and I was already sweating from the exhilaration of story-telling, but somehow I did 10 minutes of bends, stretches, and jogging on the spot, with everybody copying, or just standing there laughing at me. Everybody was amazed to see how high my knees went... I do laugh sometimes when I think of the things that we volunteers end up doing.

A presentation about books

As well as that morning's activities, Uki and I had also prepared some information, with Matahariku, about access to health for deaf people. We explained this to the medical students when we met them the night before, and hopefully the information will be useful for some of them in future, when they meet deaf patients.

Then it was to Solo,

I speak...

where I had been asked to give a presentation at a conference on the subject of 'Making English language books interesting for children.'

It was a very bizarre request, nothing to do with my other work here, and frustrating for a number of reasons. The organising committee couldn't decide if I should speak in English or Indonesian. They eventually decided that English would be ok, but I suspect that most of the audience didn't understand much of what I said...

I find conferences here quite difficult - they are always very long, with many boxes of snacks made from rice.

...they (don't) listen!

Presentations usually overrun and are not very interesting, with lots of text-heavy powerpoint slides. Perhaps because of this, people sleep, use their mobile phones, talk, and laugh among themselves all the way through - which is very difficult if you're giving a presentation, especially if you are used to the Western way of doing things!

Towards the end of the presentation, it suddenly occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what people were thinking. In the UK, my presentation would have gone down fine. Here, I had absolutely no idea what was going on in people's minds as they looked at me.

But, that's the nature of life in a different culture! So, I thought about it a bit, and tried to learn from it - then I moved on.

Meeting deaf people from other areas of Indonesia

The last part of a very busy few days was an opportunity to meet with some deaf people from different parts of Indonesia - Papua, Maluku and West Java.

How to ride a storm

This was part of a workshop organized by Handicap International, in Yogyakarta, on the theme of 'advocacy.'

Uki and I left my house in the middle of a thunderstorm. When it rains here, people wear a 'mantol' - a bit like a poncho - and mine is bright red. This photo shows what you do with your trousers when it's raining...

It was a good chance

Deaf, Indonesian and proud!

to network with different Disabled People's Organisations, and nice to learn a bit more about the lives of disabled people in other places. Outside of Java, things are even harder for disabled people, with very few organisations of disabled people, and not much knowledge of rights, advocacy and campaigning.

VSO Indonesia focuses its disability program on Java simply because there organisations of disabled people exist there. It will be some years before the rest of Indonesia catches up...