Report of EDSA’s Social Outreach Activity

Day One:

07.00 A.M

We gathered in front of Dekanat building for opening ceremony.  Mr.  Syafnil as the Dean of Education and Pedagogy Faculty, Mr. Arasuli as the Secretary of English Study Program, And Mr. Syafrizal came to the ceremony to give their speech and suggestion for our program. One of the buses came late so we needed to wait it until hours.

10.00 A.M

We went from UNIB by bus. There were three buses at the moment. The buses were overloaded by both our stuffs and passengers. In each of the buses, there might be two or three students who were standing at the bus during the trip. (Cahyono, Fajrin, Eko R, and Rahmad were the ones who were standing).

14.00 P.M

We arrived in the site. The place was a football field so we made an agreement with the village chief to borrow the field for our tents. There were three tents that we made; one for men, one for ladies, and one for the kitchen.

20.00 P.M

We made an official meeting with the village chief to talk about some stuff that we could or couldn’t do. Fortunately he was an open hearted man. He accepted our arriving in his village open handedly. In the end of the discussion, out of the blue he got angry with one of our 1^st semester friends (sorry I forgot his name). She cried and looked scared. But then we realized that it was just a birthday joke. Nanang poured flour on her head promptly as the village chief said ‘happy birthday’ to her.

Day Two:

10.00 A.M

We help the villagers to clean the environment. We could only clean certain spots; such as in the irrigation and some bushes around us. (Sorry I missed this event since I had another occasion to do). Mr. Arasuli, Rahmad, Eko Rahmadi, Harum, Yurike, and three of our Thailand friends went to SMPN 2 (it was near by our camp) to meet with the headmaster and informed that we would like to help some students to learn English. The headmaster was, in fact, graduated from UNIB; he did support our program to help the students so the meeting run smoothly.

14.00 P.M

As we promised the headmaster, we would teach English to the students. We had no any teaching plans; such as what kind of activities we would like to make or how was the proper way to teach them. As you probably know, we had no any ‘real’ teaching experiences especially in teaching SMP students. The first thirty minutes was good, but then it turned to be a little bit boring because we had run out ideas to teach. Fortunately, in the mean time, we got a pretty good idea; we made an English quiz. We divided them into five groups. Each group was guided and helped by our fresh-year friends (thanks a lot for all of them who kindly helped us to create such great circumstance, especially for Anna who made a child song).  The game was divided into two sessions; first session was ‘vocabulary quiz’ where we wrote an English word in the board and asked the students in each group to translate it into their own language (Bahasa) and the second session we called it as ‘TPR (Total Physical response) quiz’ where we said an instruction such as ‘open the door’ and asked the students to respond it physically. They seemed so happy and very eager to follow the game; it made the game got ‘hotter’ as it went by (also thanks for the students for their great performance during the game). There were four of our senior who then came to our camp after we finished teaching; they were Ari Ardiansyah, Taufik, Hadi Fitriawan, and Andri Wilson.

20.00 P.M

We made ‘makrab’ or ‘a night for making friends’ and burned the fire camp (and again I missed this event as well since I got ‘stuck’ in the kitchen). It was a wonderful night because I heard people sang many songs, laughing loudly, and so many noise of talking. (of course I had no idea what they were exactly doing since I was not there at that time). We also made ‘jagung bakar’ with the charcoal from the remaining of the fire camp. I believed that the sauce was too spicy. My tongue as if burned when I tested it even just in one bite.

Day Three:

09.00 A.M

We made some games for the fresh-year students. We made eight game spots and divided them into eight groups. Each group had to enter all of the game spots within the time decided by the committee. There was the funniest game in the end (it was played after the ‘eight game spots’); if I was not mistaken they called it ‘game puncak’. The game was quite simple but I found a lot of fun there. There were total seven items (helmet, stir, sunglasses, etc.), each member of the group must run and take an item given. When they reached the place where the other members belong, he should pass the item he took to the next person, and this process was done repeatedly until the group had successfully taken all of the items. To make it even ‘hotter’, they had to compete with another group, so the group which was faster in taking the item would be the winner.

14.00 P.M

We made a closing ceremony. Unfortunately the village chief could come but his secretary did as the representative. There was something strange on the ceremony. When it came to ‘giving the gift for secretary’. It was Mr. Rudy Afriazi who gave it instead of Mrs. Kasmaini as the chief of English Study program. (well anywho was fine for me).

14.30 P.M

We were leaving for Bengkulu. (again the bus was overloaded but it was me and Rahmad who were standing during the trip but it’s ok though).

18.45 P.M

We arrived in Bengkulu safe and sound.