VP Bali's classes are anything but boring. We never really teach without the new lesson being presented in the form of a game, but aside this creative learning process, kids enjoy a lot of special events almost on a weekly basis. This includes picnics with free food for everyone (a huge success, obviously); a Finnish day organized by two Finnish volunteers when we played only fun games from their homeland; a Halloween party; or a treasure hunt. And this way, we sort of established a Thursday Funday concept, when almost every Thursday, the whole school would not have a class but play games together.

This, of course, required a lot of planning from the side of volunteers, and would often be organized or thought of last minute. However, things don't run as smoothly in Bali as they do in Europe, and if you need some props or help from the staff, you need to arrange it in advance. Many times it would also lead to small hilarious misunderstandings and, consequently, to a serious need of improvisation.

We were also once invited to a wedding of a nephew of Komang, one of our staff members. (Since the wedding was partially paid for from our program fees, we didn't feel so awkward about crashing a party like that.) The bride and groom were beautiful; they were both dressed in colorful Balinese clothing and wore heavy flower crowns. Komang told us that they had to start assembling the crowns at 3 am and they could not be taken off until very late in the evening, making for a very heavy and painful thing to wear. (Since weddings are big in Bali, we also had to wear sarongs and lace tops, which, in the end, created a beautiful rainbow.)

Amazing farewells

Being sprinkled with confetti with Jess

Today it's an extremely warm day. The temperature has risen well above 30 degrees and the humidity is steadily around 95%, making even the slightest movement unbearable for me. It hasn't been even 5 minutes since I have taken a shower and I can already feel the sweat on my whole body. I lay on my bed under the fan, hoping to cool down a little bit. I am soon about to go to school. For the first time.

*

As a recent graduate at an important crossroads in life, I decided to postpone my further studies and take a semester off to just travel—before committing to the work-life soon. And the chicken that I am (mostly scared of being alone), I have agreed to a milder version of the backpacker life that I had previously imagined for myself—volunteering for two months and traveling with my boyfriend for another.

Bali has had an appeal to me for a long time; and I am not going to deny that Eat, Pray, Love had no influence whatsoever. While I did not intend to trace Julia's footsteps, I have discovered Ubud as a place of tranquility, spirituality, and yoga through the movie. And therefore, even though I did not at first want to volunteer as a teacher when I saw the program of VP Bali in Ubud, everything was becoming clearer.

*

After the hour-long Monday morning orientation and being filled with fresh enthusiasm, I feel more than ready for my first day at school. I have been assigned a school, classes, co-teacher; they have explained some basic cultural rules, provided teaching tips. Kimberley's (our boss's) passion for the job encouraged me even more. And thinking of it helped me stand up from the comfort of my own bed and the coolness of the fan above, and I walk out of my room to the common area outside to meet other volunteers. Close to 13:15 we all march outside the homestay to wait for our driver to be transported to school.

Like seven other volunteers (two of those new just as me), I will be teaching in a small village close to Ubud. We are picked up by a new 8-seat minivan and are soon leaving the center of Ubud. On that first drive to school, anything from traffic to the scenery seemed like from a different world. There were tons of cars and even more scooters, none of which seemed to be governed by any noticeable traffic rules. The road was lined with small shops offering clothes, souvenirs, food, hammocks, statues, glass and wooden vases, and a lot more.

After about half an hour ride, we arrive at a big football field, close to the entrance to a small but pretty building with a fountain and religious statues on school premises. And as soon as I step out of the car, I am not only overwhelmed by the pressing heat, but by the dozens of little happy angels running towards us, shouting, laughing, and giving us all hugs. They notice that I am a new teacher and want to know my name—and hilariously, each and every one of them manages to blurt the infamous phrase: "My name is?", waiting for me to answer.

As we get rid of the clingy little kids and make our way to the staff room, we meet Tutik, a local staff member who, together with our driver Wayan, helps us with anything school-related, such as translating the instructions of a new game or dealing with a crying kid. And as it turns out later, she is the real life-saver on many occasions (be it crying, hitting, behaving inappropriately, etc.). She immediately takes us on a tour around the campus, a small L-shaped building with 5 classrooms and an outside area.

Just like every volunteer, I have got two classes four times per week, from Monday to Thursday. And even though Bobbie, my co-teacher at that time who's been there for 6 weeks already and thus knows the kids quite well, has told me much about our students this morning, I could not have ever imagined this. As our first class starts, the 5-6 year-olds are running around, shouting, playing, not exactly ready to sit down and listen to a teacher. 

The kids are so adorable that I already feel my cheeks hurting from all the smiling, but as I try to ask the simplest questions in English and met only with confused faces, desperation overtakes me. Bobbie is rather calm. "It's okay. These kids don't even speak Bahasa [Bahasa Indonesia is the official language of instruction in Balinese schools, while Balinese is the commonly spoken language of the island]. We're more babysitters than English teachers." And so for the rest of the class, we only played an alphabet game and hide-and-seek.

I was sincerely hoping that the second class would be different. Our students there were around 10-12 years old and even though I did not expect their English level to be great, it should be a least, well, not non-existent. And so we fished our cups of ginger tea (that was waiting for us every day at the staff room during the 30-minute break between classes) and Bobbie took some books from the shelf to read with the kids. This is a good sign, I said to myself.

But as we entered the classroom, the kids were again running and screaming; full of life. We tried to calm them down and distributed the books, but the reading was more like mumbling some English-resembling words. We came a little closer to "teaching" this time, though it was still a big chaos. And while the little kids are very sensitive to losing, I could already see on my first day that the kids from my second class are best motivated through games where they can win—either beat their classmates or better, gain an actual reward.

And as this is a village school, most of the kids come from not so well-off families. Consequently, they have to help their parents after school—either with taking care of their siblings, helping with household duties, or some of them even helping make income for the family. The only time for some of these kids to actually be kids is during these English classes when they can be with their friends and learn through creative education, read play games.

For them, these English classes are also completely voluntary, and they attend them after already having spent their whole day (often starting at 6:30 am) at a regular school. It is therefore oftentimes stressed by VP Bali's management that volunteers make the classes as fun as possible to make sure the kids do not lose enthusiasm and continue coming.

A side-effect, of course, is the extremely slow pace at which the kids progress. My first class, for instance, had spent almost 3 months (each class lasts 75 minutes) only on the alphabet, and when I finally decided to move on to a new topic, much of the class was still clueless when it came to even the easiest spelling.

Playing outside with the kids

The one thing that helped me stay motivated even though I didn't see much progress in my kids, was that being surrounded by English-speaking people and getting used to that language is still a great help. For the students, our program is the only way to gain access to English education. And since stricter and faster learning would discourage students who wouldn't come anymore, perhaps there really isn't a better way to teach English than what we were doing.

Fun facts about the teaching experience:

During my first seven weeks of teaching, I had four co-teachers. (On my last week, I taught alone.) None of my co-teachers stayed longer for two weeks, and since the first week is always still a little bit shaky, most of the time I had to take care of the curriculum planning, take lead in the classroom, and do the diaries*.

*Diaries were non-arguably the most annoying part of the whole experience. Each teacher had to write a detailed summary of what they had done that particular day with the kids, preferably including some pictures and/or videos, and upload it to cloud. Even though it was supposed to be there to help future teachers to see what their students have already gone through, I know for a fact that most of the teachers never even looked at the past diaries. 

Our class size was constantly changing. Usually, our classes were already quite small (around 15 kids for usually two teachers), but in practice, a lot fewer kids would come. The kids would not really be missing classes because they were sick, but it depended on all sorts of factors: weather (rain, heat), ceremonies, helping their family at home, etc. Some cheeky kids would, of course, skip classes because they didn't feel like coming that day.

I almost gave up already on my first day, when I thought the heat would be too much for me. I was constantly sweating, and as I usually wear tank tops (yes, even in winter), I thought I would not survive the clothing covering my knees and shoulders. But later I got used to the constant flare up my nostrils from the hot air, and I realized that the stickiness and dark spots under armpits are signatures not only for me but also for other volunteers—and so I tried to ignore it. And later were not bothered by it anymore.

Photo courtesy of VP Bali