Rus' School

My friend Rus (short for Rustiadi) is a teacher, administrator, and guidance counsellor at an Islamic boarding school. He fasts every other day and is a very devout Muslim. In the US "devout" does not always carry with it the image of funny, energetic, open, and generous -- one thinks of a serious mind focused on the after life -- but Rus is all of these things. If he can't make you feel good about the world no one can. We got a lot of questions about the Swiss vote on Minaret constructions (for which we were unqualified to answer); sex education; relations between the sexes (i.e. do people sleep together before marriage) and divorce.

The students, in single gender classes, were incredibly lively. Rus had them play a game where he would pose a question (it was a religion class and it was about the ritual washing before prayer (Wudu). Teams of students raced to answer the question and hand it in and he awarded points for the answers.

I was asked to collect on the second question and did so (I can stand and receive paper with the best of them) but I failed keep them in order of receipt -- I missed that part -- thereby screwing up the game. A deep cultural misunderstanding!

During question period -- there is always a question period -- students kept asking if I wanted to sit down. I am old in Indonesia and people just assume I'm frail -- it gets annoying (how are you? are you hot? Please sit down? Oh, that is so far.) and makes me want just pick up heavy loads and carry them around for no good reason.

At the end everyone did a kind of "clap clap clap YEAH" and, of course, I put this into my "indonesian culture is community oriented" box. Thought about writing about "indonesian group cheers" in my blog -- and the Rus told me he learned it at a Cincinnati Reds game last summer.