Well, last night I slept great, only waking up to the constant pitter-patter of rain on my tin roof. Every now and then, the rain gets so hard that it sounds more like the drumline from an 80s punk band, but for some reason all that noise puts me right to sleep. The only unfortunate thing is, at 6 AM, it’s really difficult to climb out of bed and face a whole day of teaching occasionally ill-behaved high school students. Ah well, it always works out after drinking 3 cups of coffee, eating oatmeal with copious amounts of palm sugar, and seeing the excited grins on my students’ faces as they anticipate Mr. Jon’s daily lesson. This morning, however, was a different story. Same routine with the coffee and oatmeal, but when I walked out to the classrooms, there was only a smattering of uniformed students taking shelter under the awning of the mosque. Hmmm…well, jam karet (Indonesian for ‘rubber time’) is a particularly prevalent phenomenon on those rainy days. Suddenly, a student ran up to me through the torrential rain, and it looked like he had just escaped from the trenches of some aquatic warzone. After a few more scattered reports, word got to me that class was cancelled because of a waist high flood throughout the dorms of the senior high school students (our equivalent of grades 10 through 12).
Okay great, no class. So, I decided to return to my room and gear up. This meant: REI rain jacket, umbrella, highwater pants (actually normal sized pants for an Indonesian, but on me they are slightly longer than capris), T-shirt, and waterproof diving camera. I was going to do some investigative reporting on the massive flood that had recently struck the campus of Pesantren IMMIM. Little did I know, I was in for a real treat.
As an avid kayaker, recreational diver, occasional surfer and consistent swimmer—I love water. If there must be a natural disaster, a flood is my preferred medium of destruction. As I approached the dorm, I saw many students running in all directions, as if a fire had broken out. It was total chaos, and everyone was soaked to the bone. At the teachers’ houses, I noticed the irony of a clothesline, usually about head high, ‘drying’ clothes that were now only about 3 inches off the water. Teachers were frantically moving their most valuable furniture upstairs to escape the wrath of the canal that had surged over its banks. One of my best students beckoned me to visit his friends over at the senior dorms. When I arrived, I saw what is typically a soccer field inundated with water up to my hips. Several boys were in the water, laughing and splashing and attempting to play a much-impeded game of futbol. The rest were tentatively sheltered at the entrance of their dorms, the water mere centimeters from breaching the entrance which is typically about 3 feet off the ground. The students were soaked to the bone, shivering, and to me they looked like an old woman standing on a chair in the middle of a room in a futile attempt to escape a mouse. Several other students had taken the mattresses off their beds, and were paddling them around as makeshift boats. When I arrived on the scene, all hell broke loose.
Taking refuge on the high ground.
More often than not, in a dry environment, if Mr. Jon is around and has his camera, there is a lot of pushing and shoving to be the first one in all of his pictures. It’s a struggle for fame and attention. Adding the element of water was like pumping these boys full of adrenaline, steroids, caffeine, alcohol and cocaine all at once. The situation quickly devolved and became uncontrollable. As I approached with my camera, about 150 students jumped in the water and began violently and playfully moshing each other. Any student reluctant or unwilling to get wet was immediately singled out and forced into the water: either via irresistible peer pressure or the use of physical force. The demands that I jump in and swim were unrelenting.
Ahh…what the hell.
This is how I justified my decision. As a self-proclaimed water lover, I would be violating my own carefully constructed self image if I refused to jump in the water, right? Swimming was certainly not my original intention, as the canal typically carries what I believe to be sewage down to the lake nearby the school. Well, the germ theory of disease was sooo last century, and, in general, witchdoctors hold more credence with the people of this country anyway. Despite the little voice in my head (Uncle Tom) warning me about the myriad cocktail of endemic third-world waterborne tropical diseases found in Indonesia, the hundreds of loud voices of my students overpowered my good conscience. I quickly disrobed and transformed into a beast of an adolescent boy. It was a transformation to rival that of Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. As soon as Mr. Jon entered the water, all inhibitions were lost, and if there was a student even considering the prospect of NOT swimming, that was no longer a viable option. What happened next was a truly unique sort of Pesantren-style baptism, fueled by unparalleled excitement and unbridled teenage masculinity in a single-sex environment. No fewer than 60 students quickly joined hands and formed a circle around me, and then began to jump and chant as they ran around me. The running became faster and faster, the chanting louder and louder, and I facilitated the mob mentality by splashing a few of the students as they ran around. Suddenly, they unleashed an unrelenting torrent of splashes. Let me tell you, there is nothing more intensely fun than being simultaneously splashed with pseudo-sewage by 60 adolescent Indonesian boys. I could no longer stand. I fell to my knees, head barely above water, outstretched my arms, and begged for mercy. All the barbarous students then converged on a single point which was Mr. Jon’s sopping wet body. For a brief moment, I feared for my life. Then I began to physically dominate their genetically-predisposed and malnourished small bodies. These boys sure know how to make their own fun!
An Islamic (boarding school) baptism.
I still exist somewhere in the midst of that nastiness.
The mosh pit of madness.
After a few more pictures, a grand raft was specially constructed for my use, made with student’s belts, 3 mattresses, and 4 pieces of wood. They floated me on the raft as if I was some sort of Persian or Egyptian water god—I sat with my legs crossed in a meditative state as 12 of my minions carted me around the soccer-field-turned-lake. Again with the chants. This time “ca-nal, ca-nal, ca-nal”, they wanted to take me to the portion of the campus that still had current, the only spot where even Mr. Jon could not stand up—the canal. The raft soon became overloaded with boy bodies, and sank into the canal before we could get too far…oh well no time to worry about that. Too bad for whoever doesn’t have a mattress tonight!
Nothing like sacrificing comfort in the name of fun. In this case someone is not getting a good night's sleep for the next few weeks.
Muddy happiness. I'm on the 'boat.' "Ca-nal, ca-nal ca-nal!"
The arrival of Ustaz Ewan was the next major event (‘ustaz’ is ‘teacher’ in Arabic; Mr. Ewan, at approximately 5 feet, chubby, and balding, is one of the funniest people I have ever met. He also happens to have an insatiable appetite for sport and is the best badminton player I have ever seen). When he arrived, we ran toward each other screaming and giving high fives to all the students. Of course this entire 40 minute episode was punctuated by copious amounts photos and nonstop giggling. The soccer goals were still set up, and a few balls were floating around, so we decided to practice our semi-submerged bicycle kicks. After doing that for a while, and just generally roughhousing, the energy level was still incomprehensibly high. So, we barely organized a game of wading water polo, with about 40 people on each team. The general strategy of this game for my team was to throw the ball as high as possible and make Mr. Jon perform a sport feat by grabbing it above the heads of everyone else. A goal was always followed an inexplicable amount of roughhousing and dog piling. Looking back on the savagery, it is remarkable that nobody drowned.
The arrival of Ustaz Ewan was a joyous occassion.
Playing goalie in the...rain.
More insanity.
Go team! "Futbol" with our hands!
We had just scored the game-tying goal to make it 2 to 2, when the headmaster appeared on the dry side of the sidelines with an unmistakably upset scowl on his face. The crowd dispersed even more quickly than it had formed. In typical truth-bending Indonesian style, all the students immediately decided that they wanted to “take rest” even though they evidently could have continued playing for several more hours. Ustaz Ewan sulked back to dry land and quickly beckoned me over. All the students, now at the windows of their dorms at the behest of the headmaster, were still watching my every move. One moment of slapstick comedy remained...as I was walking back to dry land I unexpectedly encountered the canal, obscured by the brown muddy water I was walking through. I immediately fell in over my head, and the sound of uproarious laughter emanated from the dorms. This last little unintentional stunt earned a further shake of the headmaster’s head, and a typical ‘tik tik tik’ noise of reproach directed at the students. Clearly, it was time for me to return to my house, take a 30 minute long shower and some preemptive antibiotic medication. I don’t know if I earned myself any punishment…it’s typical for teachers at the Pesantren to maintain distance from the students and demand their respect. As for myself, being only 4 or 5 years older than them, I pride myself as a ‘nontraditional’ teacher. I make an effort to become familiar with their interests, plan interactive English lessons based on said interests, and, from time to time, completely cut loose and have some good old-fashioned physical non-language based fun. I would consider it an essential element of my job description.
Very happy to have the day off!
