"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails". (this is one of my personal favorites)
-William Arthur Ward

It isn't often I open my mouth to sing unaccompanied in front of 40 people, forget the words and still get a rapturous applause! But then I never visited a Muslim Secondary School on Bawean before.
Stephen and I accepted an invitation to visit the school at Tambak, a small, quite affluent fishing village on an island midway between Bali and Kalimantan, Indonesia.

A typical young Indonesian on a motor scooter approached us the previous day on our initial visit to the village. He asked us very politely if we would visit his school the following day. We were noncommittal but said we would think about it. He gave us quick instructions and said for us to ask for Mr Ardie when we got there.

After a relaxed meal in the cool of the evening we decided we would. We both agreed that meeting the locals and having contact with the community is what we're travelling for. Every time we have made the effort and we have got rewards, but in the heat of the morning we almost flagged it. The thought of the 4 kilometer walk into town to see someone we didn't know, when we were totally unsure of the motivation behind the invitation, as well as our ability to deliver anything of value to a school, almost stopped us.

But luckily neither of us wanted to be the piker and renege on our big talk the night before, so off we went.

Instead of the major walk we were easy on ourselves and took our dinghy around the point to the village. Here the houses back onto the harbour with fishing vessels moored side by side the whole length of the village. It all looked like private property and we couldn't see where we could leave the inflatable and the outboard safely. A woman on-shore must have noticed us and seen that we were unsure of where to go and beckoned us in the Indonesian way (by scooping her hand as if digging in midair). We followed her instructions and were greeted by a group of people young and old. Once again our inability to speak the lingo made life difficult for all of about two seconds. Instantly, after shaking hands with everyone, they pointed to and touched our noses and managed to have a good laugh at the length of them comparing the size of ours to their miniscule, squishy ones. They let us know the dinghy would be safe, and showed us through the small gap in the houses to the main street.
Walking though these small passages, you pass very close to windows and doors of homes and each time it never fails to amaze us the spontaneity of greetings, the smiles and waves and of course the ever present laughter. I know that if the shoe were on the other foot I'd be a wee bit suspicious and a lot less welcoming to strangers traipsing though my private space. Even as we walked down the main street, people came out of their cool tiled immaculately clean, intricately decorated homes to call out a greeting in English or Indonesian or to mimic a colloquiums like 'Gidday Mate' or 'Howya goin Boss'. This interaction and acceptance certainly helps make the visit less voyeuristic and helps create a memorable and highly enjoyable experience.

Despite the cleanliness of the homes and the people themselves, they seem completely indifferent to the amount of rubbish clogging their drains, creeks and waterfronts. Even though they are dependent on fishing for their own food and for trade, plastics, paper, old tyres, car bodies, fridges.. you name it, are simply dumped in massive quantities into any vacant space. It would appear they simply do not see the pollution.

Although we didn't know exactly where the school was we declined the rides offered on the local transport. We couldn't bring ourselves to accept a ride on a 'front bucket seat' of a pushbike with a small Indonesian man peddling able-bodied well-fed kiwi's in the heat of the day. (Imagine an old-fashioned delivery cycle but with a seat over the front wheel made for two.) Their usual clientele were tiny old Indonesian woman and their purchases from the market, whose total weight would have been half of my weight alone.

We eventually found the correct school and were met by a group of uniformed officials. We had that awful feeling of, what were we doing here? But then Mr Adie appeared. Our young mate from the day before was the very formally attired and well-respected teacher of 13-14 year olds. Within five minutes Stephen and I were separated and in front of a classroom of kids each. Unlike New Zealand kids who, if you're very lucky might show some vague interest in a guest so long as they stay cool, these students clapped and cheered very loudly when we entered the room - it was quite deafening.

The reason Mr Adie was so interested in us visiting the school is simply to give the students a chance to practice their English and to hear the correct pronunciation. You could hardly call our English text book stuff. It isn't exactly oxford English...kiwi pronunciation had to do!
We were asked where we came from, and how, about our family, their ages, our ages, what kind of schooling we had, what our favourite colour is, what time we get out of bed, what we ate and generally all the essential elements to life!
Then the big question came. Will you sing your national anthem.. I quickly deflected the question by saying that I would love to hear theirs and with no hesitation at all they gave me an ear splitting enthusiastic rendering of their most patriotic song. After that I had no choice...but 'God of Nations' and only me singing it!? I opted to sing 'Po Karekare ana'. I figured that is was at least a song that suits a lone female voice. The fact that I chose to sing in a completely different language to the one I was invited there to advocate, did not enter into my consciousness. They were probably completely confused!
Half way though I forgot the words, but managed to keep going mouthing something similar (sorry all the purists out there!). I vaguely even remember doing some actions along with it...I was in my stride. Then when I finished the applause was rapturous... Kiri move over. I was a star and ready to sing some more, but they didn't ask me again!
They continued to ask more questions, but when I mentioned something about keeping the litter down, using the rubbish bins, educating their families and joining the international 'Clean up the World' Campaign the interpretation stopped, I was reunited with Stephen and very nicely shown the door.
We were given some water and asked to write something motivational in a visitors book that was so brand new they were still ruling up the columns.
We invited 10 of them back to visit us on our boat, 30 came and crammed onto the yacht. It was after school was out, so the kids were in mufti, were uncontrolled and were eating food wrapped in plastic wrappers that despite my protests went promptly overboard when finished.
We made some new friends, didn't influence a soul but we had a wonderful time.
Making the effort is definitely worthwhile.