Third travel report Bali 2016

On Wednesday and Thursday I visited several schools in Banyuseri and Munduk Bestale, two small villages in the mountains near Banjar. At one of the schools I was disappointed in the teacher who is assisting us there, who obviously had not kept any check on how the children came to school, e.g. they way they were dressed. Their school uniforms should be o.k., this is what we sponsor them for. We talked with him and this will be improved. Unfortunately one girl here, only 12 years old, was taken from school, because she needed to help at home and earn a little money as well. Luckily we still sponsor her little brother and sister.  At the other school everything was fine, and together with Ari we checked all and made photos of the children. After I have visisted the schools, an important task awaits me: I have to document and update the data of the children, e.g. when they have gone to another school. It is also of course crucial that I put the right form and photo in the right envelop for the sponsor, and not to mix this up. So that every sponsor receives the right form and photo!

On Saturday all the junior and senior high school students came to Komang’s place to meet me and receive their money. They go to many different schools in this region, which makes it impossible to visit them at their school. If any of them would drop out of school, Komang will be informed and will let me know. This year one of the girls became pregnant and had to stop. What struck me during this visit, was that many of these students speak very bad or very little English, even though they have 3 to 4 hours per week English class. For a large part this is due to the low level of the teachers, but partly also to their passive attitude, since we experience that some children do (dare to) speak more with me.This is because they actively try to practice individually or with tourists. So to stimulate this, we deicded to reward the students who speak reasonable English at the time they go the the senior high school (having had more than 3 years of English classes), by providing them with extra money for the first year of SMA (which is more expensive anyway).  This does not have any consequences for the sponsor, since we set aside a little money for each student, to pay for the extra costs at the end of the study. 

After this visit, I forwarded all data to my nephew Randy, who is keeping the database. Monday  I left for Sanur, and Tuesday evening I picked up Hetty at the airport in Denpasar; at the last moment she decided to join me for two weeks, and visit the last 17 children in Ubud and Padangbai. 

Warm regards (really warm!!) from Ubud. 

Tjeerd.