Since the beginning of this year I've begun the herculean task of going back and reading all 53 of my journals, which I've been keeping since the summer after my fifth grade year, in 1985. (If you've got the time for another long read, check out this post from 2010 where I go over my history of journaling. It includes lots of photos and descriptions of the different eras in my journaling life. Interestingly, I got more comments--from strangers-on that post than probably any other blog post I've done).
I've gone back and read portions here and there over the years, but I've never gone back and read them chronologically until now. It's been quite a journey, essentially reliving my life thus far all over again. There were a lot of things I'd forgotten, and even some things I'd misremembered. Along the way I've uncovered some gems that I just have to share and today's blog post is one of them.
I was 25 years old and it was my first year as a professional educator (I'd already knocked out a year in Chuuk as a student missionary, but now I had a degree and ostensibly knew what I was doing). It was also my first year leading an 8th grade class trip, and seeing as how on Saipan there wasn't a nearby amusement park for us to visit for the day, we decided to take our 8th graders off the island--way off the island. We decided to go to Bali, one of the islands of Indonesia.
I had no prior experience with leading middle school students on any kind of trip. I'm trying to remember if we'd even taken so much as a field trip on-island before I took my students to a foreign country. I don't think we did. Thankfully, the trip went well, despite a few minor mishaps along the way and that Bali trip set the stage for trips around the globe for the next 22 years. This is the account of that trip, from my journal, occasionally interspersed with my commentary:
"Guam Layover"
Thursday, March 25, 1999, En Route to Bali
"Well, the big trip is here at last. Babs, Melissa [a student missionary working as the school's office manager and a fellow 8th grade sponsor], and I are on our way with almost all of the 8th grade class in tow. I am a mix of exhausted, excited, and scared. Exhausted because I've only gotten 4.5 hours of sleep. Excited because it's so cool to be going on a big adventure with my students. Scared because I don't know what to expect in Bali and I'm not sure what to do. What should we do tomorrow? Will I get a good exchange rate? Will I be able to find a good driver? These things worry me--and of course I shudder to think of something to happening to one of these kids in my care. Oh Lord, have mercy and grant me grace I need for this trip."
I'm shocked by my lack of preparation. Did I not plan and share an itinerary with the parents in advance of the trip? How did I not know what we were doing when we arrived or how we would get around? For those parents who have sent their students with me on more recent trips, you know how detailed my itineraries are now. Even when we change plans once the trip begins--which we do more often than not--I cannot imagine going on a trip and not really knowing what's going to happen. I no longer have those worries when I go on a trip, but that last worry--that something will happen to one of the kids in my care--is one that I still carry with me on every trip, right up to the epic road trip we took just a month and a half ago. No matter how many of these trips I lead, getting the kids there and back in one piece will always be my number one priority and the single big anxiety on my mind.
"Today has been good. We were at the airport on time and we started off very organized. We arrived in Guam at around 10:30 AM. The Clauses [the Guam-Micronesia Mission education superintendent and his wife] met us and lent us vehicles for the day. George Palican [father of Jamal, one of my students] also met us and led us to the Micronesia Mall where we had lunch and let the kids roam for awhile. In the afternoon we went to Guam Adventist Academy and they gave us a tour. The kids were particularly enthralled with the drinking fountains and air con [air con is the term we use in the islands for air conditioning. Why the kids were enthralled, I don't know, since we had air conditioning at our school in Saipan too].
We also went to K-Mart and let the kids and ourselves do some shopping there. [K-Mart was a big deal. There was no Wal-Mart, Target or other big box store on Guam and certainly none on Saipan, so K-Mart was the reasonably priced shopping destination in Micronesia. I don't know if it's still that way]. By that time, it was time for us to head back to the airport to catch our flight out.
No real problems today. Myung Hun, Nick, and Daniel got in trouble w/ one of the security guards at the mall for spitting over the railing. Josh forgot his suitcase at the airport and George Palican had to go back and find it. For a while I was afraid I'd lost Jane's passport and ticket but it turns out I didn't. But that was all. I am grateful.
I am enjoying this immensely so far. Traveling with Jane, Jamal, Myung Hun, Nick, Levayna, Jennifer, Josh, Clarence, & Daniel is a lot of fun. They're great kids and I love them. . . Well, that's all for now. We'll be in Bali soon. 10:10 PM Bali time, 12:10 A.M. Saipan time. . .Here goes!"
As I recall only two students did not attend the trip with us, Franklin Iglecias (who, incidentally, passed away a number of years ago; the first of my former students I've lost) and Nam Hee Kim did not go.
"Disoriented"
Friday, March 26, 1999, Bali, Indonesia
"Still tired. Delays at the airport kept us back and we ended up crashing at 1:30 AM. . .We are in a new and strange culture. You can't really rely on what you think. Consult guidebooks, experts, the people."
Sabbath, March 27, 1999, Bali, Indonesia
"11:30 AM It's Sabbath morning. I'm sitting out on the balcony of our hotel room and this is perfect. I can look out and see the hazy blue skies, thatched roofs, and the green of all kinds of tropical trees. Looking inside, Babs sits on the bed reading a magazine. I can see her through the huge, open French windows. I never thought I'd experience such rest and relaxation here with the kids--but it turns out they're more open to hanging out at the hotel than I thought. In fact, right now they don't want to go anywhere else."
In 22 years of travels, I have found that the vast majority of my 8th graders are quite happy to hang out at the hotel, swim at the hotel pool and not go anywhere else other than maybe some shopping, the movies, and an amusement park if available. These trips have never been just about giving the kids a trip they'll find "fun." It's been about exposing them to new experiences and giving them memories they'll treasure for a lifetime. Bali certainly set a high bar for that type of trip. As you'll see the kids were way outside their comfort zone.
Anyways, here we are and the only thing to mar the peace and quiet is...the phone in the next room. It's been on the fritz for the past 45 minutes and has been ringing continuously.
Things have been cool and crazy and fun and tiring and surprising so far.
We arrived in Bali around 10:30 PM Thursday night (12:30 AM Saipan time) and were immediately thrown into delays. Levayna had to buy her visa, but thank goodness--she was able to get in okay. Nick's luggage never showed up and we had to wait for him to work that out. He still hasn't gotten any word, so he's had to buy a new toothbrush etc and clothes as well. We couldn't find our driver at first--he was holding up a sign with Myung Hun's name on it. I saw it but didn't think anything of it--figuring it must be some other Korean group. But sure enough, it was our transfer and Myung Hun was immortalized as our group representative. It just so happened that his name was first on the list and thus the sign read 'Myung Hun Kim & Party'.
We got to our hotel around 12:30 AM or 1 AM Bali time, worked out the confusion with our room arrangements, waded through the flooded pathways of the hotel grounds (there was about four to six inches of water on the ground and we had to walk on stones to get to our rooms), and went to bed.
Five and a half hours later we woke up again. We had a short worship, breakfast at the hotel restaurant and then headed out on our tour. As if an omen for things to come, I lost one of my contacts yesterday morning, so now I'm stuck w/ glasses for the rest of the week.
The tour was cool. Bali is such a beautiful country and so exotic. The humblest shack and most basic gas station is ornately decorated. Everywhere you look you see shrines, offerings, carvings, statues, and other signs of this country's strong Hindu religion. You can look out and see people working in their rice fields. It's really something to see. We stopped at a silversmith where Myung Hun got ripped off--two silver rings for $14. We stopped at a woodshop and at the market in Ubud. Then we went to lunch at a great place overlooking a deep, jungly gorge. The food was great and it was wonderful that it was all free--part of our package deal. After lunch we went to the monkey forest and that was interesting. Jamal had a monkey snatch a banana right out of his hand when he wasn't looking, and Daniel freaked out and threw his whole bunch of bananas at one monkey.
After the forest, we headed back to Kuta and our hotel, which is where our real adventures and mishaps began. We rested for an hour--the kids swam and I got sucked into some bargaining over a white-water rafting tour. Around 5:30 we took the kids into Kuta to explore, change money, and get Nick some clothes. It ended up that Nick and I changed money and that turned out to be a disaster. While the changers I used in Ubud early that day had 50,000 notes (the exchange rate is around 8800 to 8900 [rupia] to one [US] dollar), these guys had nothing but 10,000 notes [think of it has having nothing but one dollar bills] and it got wild. I had this whole stack of bills that I had to count ten times to be sure it was right. Furthermore, Nick started changing his money at the same time and he was dealing w/over a million rupia. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I think Nick got shorted out of about $73 US dollars. He was exchanging money for other kids so we reimbursed them and cost the class the $73 we lost. I really hated to lose that money.
To get a sense of how much money we lost, that $73 was the equivalent of 6 meals for a group of twelve at Indonesian prices, as indicated below. That was a lot of money!
That done, Nick and I pushed our way back through the barrage of tourists and hawkers and met up w/ the others for supper. 4 large pizzas, 4 pitchers of soda and personal pan pizza for Josh cost only $12. Incredible.
By the time we left the restaurant it was dark and the kids were getting freaked out. the hawkers and merchants were driving them crazy. They were scared being out at night and not to mention exhausted from lack of proper sleep. Some are declaring that they want to go home. Now.
We came back, had worship, agonized over the money situation and thus came the end to our day."
I seem to recall that Sabbath, March 27 was a religious holiday and everything was closed anyway. It was the perfect day for our kids to relax at the hotel and recover from the culture shock of the day before. Since we couldn't go anywhere, I didn't feel like we missed anything.
"Humbled"
Sunday, March 28, 1999, Bali, Indonesia
"Morning is peaceful and quiet. I'm sitting at the pool watching Shelly and the girls swim. [Shelly was one of the other teachers. She had tagged along on the trip, but was not a chaperone and thus not responsible for any students. Shelly hung out with us sometimes, but much of the time just did her own thing]. Sun is coming out and it's getting warm fast. . ."
What follows is a journal entry in the form of a prayer:
"'O God you are my God, I shall seek you early.' Psalm 63;1. If I had sought You earlier I could have spared myself a lot of embarrassment and the class about $100. The loss stings, my pride still hurts. Yesterday afternoon, I went to change money and got ripped off of...(let me figure it out on the calculator)...$22.35 making a grand total of $95.35 we've been suckered out of the in the past two days. I was a fool. I went alone when everyone else suggested otherwise. I ignored my instincts when they guy kept picking up the money while I was counting it. I was proud, over-confident that I could do it on my own. And I was brought low. That I could handle, but losing the money...that really stings.
Lord, I really need Your help. I can't do this without You. I really can't. . .
Be with the kids also. Grant them peace, confidence and the knowledge that You are with them always. . .
Last night, Babs and Melissa led the kids in singing for sundown worship and it was so beautiful to hear their voices raised in praise to God. . .
So today is a new day. Money needs to be exchanged. Shopping needs to be done. Bargaining. And though we are $95 poorer, I pray that I am richer in wisdom and in the presence of my God."
"Finding our Footing"
Monday, March 29, 1999, Bali Indonesia
"Another day and I'm tired. The kids were up late, wired on McDonalds, their new CDs that they bought, and the adventures of the evening. The Lord really answered all our prayers. I felt like yesterday went so much better. Most of the day--the morning anyway, we spent relaxing and hanging out at the hotel. We went to Hard Rock Cafe which was horribly overpriced and then Babs, Nick, Daniel, Clarence, Josh, & Myung Hun and myself hit the streets to change money and shop. The whole thing was an adventure. We started by going down a side alley lined with shops and flooded in muddy water. We passed the hotel where Babs stayed last time she was here [six and half years earlier when she was a student missionary in Palau and visiting on her Christmas vacation] and the vendor where she got chased. All along the way we tried to change money in about half a dozen places and that in and of itself was a 2 hour adventure. We found a couple of places with high rates but without fail they were rip off joints. But by the grace of God and bit more street smarts earned the hard way from my mistakes on Sabbath, we were never taken for a ride, though they sure tried hard.
We would hit a place en masse. Usually, Josh, Nick or Daniel would stand behind us and watch, like secret service agents. Clarence would hold the calculator and Babs and I would go to the counter and lay down the first hundred. Man, they tried everything they could. One place, they tried to make all the boys wait outside, sitting down with their backs to us. Another place wanted us to come up one at a time or maybe that was the same place. At one place they started dancing around while we were counting to distract us, asking Daniel where he was from and pretending to box with him. Another place they tried to change the rate after we were finished. One wanted to change all the money at once ($370) presumably because counting over two million rupia could get very confusing. Several places kept insisting on. . .holding the money after us to 'recount' or whatever, and there was no way we were gonna let them do that. At one point both of us [me and the moneychanger] were holding on to the stack of money and neither of us would let go. We also had a guy who wanted to put the money away before we started counting. Ridiculous.
It was kind of stressful, but oh, it felt so good to walk out of those places knowing that we'd caught them in the act and they had to let go.
Finally, we found a place w/ considerably lower rate 8850 compared to 9099 and 9090 places we were going to and the difference was so refreshing. The lady gave us the money in big bills which are much easier to count (Some of the places were giving us 5000 denominations which were 20 to a stack to make 100,000). She gave us the money, let us count, and didn't ask to touch it or try to touch it again. And there was only one of her unlike the three guys usually 'needed' at the seedier places to make a transaction.
It was already six and getting dark when we got the kids some fast food at McDonalds and later Wendys and started shopping. The kids bought CDs. Nick got some shorts and a couple of them bargained with the street peddlers for fake Rolexes, some Tommy cologne (which seemed pretty authentic), and so on. They got some okay bargains, and lost a lot of their fear of the peddlers. They enjoyed the process and it was fun to see them get into it. Nick and Daniel and Myung Hun were a sight to watch haggling with these guys. It was cool. We got back around 9:15 and spent the evening retelling all our stories over McDonald's that Babs and I got for the kids."
It would have been better if we'd simply gone to the banks or to moneychangers with reasonable exchange rates. But we were tempted by those exchange rates in the 9000s, which would put more money in our pockets. It took us awhile to realize that those places offered those rates because they counted on stealing some of the money in the exchange. They would have lost money if they honored their advertised exchange rate, which was higher than official rate of exchange. I have a new appreciation for why Jesus drove the moneychangers from the temple!
"Scared Students to Seasoned Travelers"
As often happens on class trips, our schedule got so busy that I had no more time to write the rest of the trip. But once we were back in Saipan, I recapped the rest of the trip in an entry on Tuesday, April 6, 1999:
"In the time that remained we went jet skiing and parasailing, visited Uluwatu, a cliffside monkey temple overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There clad in purple sarongs and yellow sashes we watched Josh get outsmarted by the monkeys. Parasailing was fun though I felt like I was going to fall out of my harness the whole time. I rode the jet skies once as Myung Hun's passenger and was thrown once by his wild driving [I would not allow my students to pilot the jet skis now. In the U.S. they would have been considered too young to drive the machines and I would have stuck to that standard regardless of looser local restrictions]. This was the story for both days, Monday and Tuesday except Tuesday Babs didn't come--she stayed back at the hotel with Nick because he was sick, and that was the day we went to Uluwatu.
Wednesday and Thursday were the "big trips" to see the barong dance, which featured a fascinating gamelan orchestra, typically beautiful Indonesian women, some vulgarity, and a lot of local audience enthusiasm. We also passed some gorgeous rice terraces and went to Kintimani, a volcano. However it foggy and we couldn't see anything but mist, so we just ate lunch and then went back down to Ubud, where we shopped a short while. I got a striped bag for some bongos for $5 and black bag for two sarongs for Clarence's little sister [the bags had significance. I can't remember which, but either the black or striped back was supposedly a signal that you had gotten a good deal and a signal to other vendors that you were a bargainer to be reckoned with].
Thursday we went rafting and that was great! I really enjoyed that. It was exciting, pretty much the whole time and the scenery--breathtaking cliffs, verdant rice terraces, idyllic thatched huts, and waving naked children--was amazing.
Mixed in with all this was our nightly forays to the wild west of Kuta street vending. It was always hectic. One vender could easily multiply to 20 all trying to sell you cigarettes, lighters, lasers, watches, silver rings, cologne and hats [I was occasionally approached by vendors offering more "adult" products as well]. The kids turned into hard bargainers in the process--savvy professionals. Nick, gruff and businesslike, Clarence sly, humorous and sarcastic. Myung Hun stone-faced as solemn as Big Will [Big Will served as a student missionary with me in Chuuk. If you know, you know]. It was a thing to see I tell you. And I was so proud of them. Thursday was a rush and before we knew it the adventure was over. . .Friday in Guam was sleep-deprived daze of shopping at the mall, a ridiculous movie, and some time at Gameworks, a giant arcade. All in all, it was a good, good trip."
There were other rookie mistakes that mistakes that I made on trip. Mistakes I did not record in my journal and won't share here, not to protect myself, but for the sake of some of my former students who got up to shenanigans on the trip (you know who you are. .. and yes I know all about it, lol!). But over all, we made it through okay. And while there is much I might do differently in Bali now that I have 23 years of travel with students under my belt, there's also a lot I kept from the trip. I still have the goal of giving my students an eye-opening, challenging, and memorable experience, one they will never forget. I still hope that they find they've grown and gained new confidence in themselves by the end of our journey together.
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