In her last full month in Gresik, ETA Elizabeth “Liz” Wallace has had a series of bittersweet goodbyes. April brought the end of her weekly Kids’ English club where students enjoyed their going away party full of Oreos, charades, singing, and American stickers. It was exciting to see how much the students had grown in skills and confidence over the year of attending Kids’ Club.

In Liz’s High School English Club, the students have been wrapping up a semester-long project of writing letters to Italian pen pals. The club teamed up with another Fulbright ETA’s classroom in Sardinia, Italy and the students have exchanged a series of correspondences with their new pals. It turns out that high schoolers around the world love K-Pop, horror movies, and getting holidays from school. In their latest letters, student pen pals are writing to each other about their recent and upcoming religious holidays: Easter and Ramadan. As misinformation has spread around the world about different religions, one of the main goals of this project was to show students the many similarities that exist across religious cultures.

Finally, Liz has enjoyed throwing a few goodbye parties for herself. The High School English Club voted on a pizza party for their last meeting. She is also looking forward to taking her co-teachers out for a traditional British afternoon tea party in Surabaya before fasting for Ramadan begins.

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