This month was full of celebration in the town of Gresik, but one of the most exciting experiences this month for ETA Elizabeth “Liz” Wallace was celebrating Independence Day with her community. The celebrations went on for an entire week and Liz was warmly invited to get-togethers all over the city.

For two evenings in a row Liz’s neighborhood had nightly prayers together and served up a delicious feast of Gresik specialties. On the day of August 17, the official Indonesian Independence Day, Liz’s school hosted a flag raising ceremony and a series of student competitions. Or at least, Liz thought they were student competitions. Suddenly Liz was asked to join the student versus teacher tug-of-war game. Fortunately, the teachers pulled through!

To end the celebrations, Liz was asked to participate in the final event: a game where she was blindfolded and led to a clay pot she had to smash with a stick. The instructions the students shouted were in Indonesian, so it was a wonderful chance for Liz to get to try out her new language skills. Unfortunately she is still working on the difference between “left” and “right.” Overall, celebrating Independence Day was a wonderful way of getting integrated back into the Gresik community after being gone for orientation. Liz is excited for the upcoming month and getting back into a normal school routine, as much fun as it was to have so many celebrations in the past few weeks.

Elizabeth “Liz” Wallace is currently teaching at SMA Nahdlatul Ulama 1 Gresik, East Java

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All articles from August 2018 edition
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