The Nickel Tour – Will’s School

By Will

Throughout the last two years, you’ve seen glimpses of ours schools as it plays the setting for a number of our stories and photos. For this post, though, SMA Ngoro will take center stage as I give you a quick tour of my home away from home (away from home).

This is the front of my school :

Once you enter the school through the front doors, or around the side, you will encounter the school field that is in the center of the school, surrounded by classrooms. The field is used for many different extracurricular activities, sport class, and the weekly flag ceremony (more on that later). It has also been known to host some of my impromptu yoga classes when my English conversation club hasn’t felt like conversing in English.

Another view of the field, with our school’s still-unfinished mosque peeking over the school’s roof.

Corridors like this one surround the field and provide cover from rainy season (and the general heat from the sun) for the students moving around the school. Between classes and after school, these corridors are filled with students working on projects, playing guitars or just hanging out.

Students or teachers in need of school supplies, or a snack, can stop by the korporasi seen here. I’m a frequent customer, as my red and blue grading pens are always disappearing. I’m sure there’s a reason that doesn’t involve students not wanting me to grade their papers, right?

If a snack from the korporasi isn’t cutting it, students and teachers can head to the kantin. We have four at our school. Two are seen here, although the one on the right was closed the day I took this picture. My claim to fame here is that I introduced the concept of iced coffee to our school. Now the women working here don’t give me quite the look of disgust anymore when I order it. It also helps that a few other teachers have joined the iced coffee bandwagon.

The kantin is next to the parking area for our students’ motorcycles. Students arrive at school a number of ways: bicycle, bus, public transportation van, and on motorcycles (or their parents’/friends’ motorcycles). From the view here, you can see which is most popular.

This is a look inside one of my classrooms, which all look pretty much the same.

Behind the main ring of classrooms is the basketball court, three new classrooms (you can see them in the picture) and a new science lab which is under construction. I’ve enjoyed playing basketball with my students here and some of my favorite memories come from this area.

We return back to the front of the school where we find the mosque. Our school is a public, government supported school, so it is not Islam-only like Amy’s, but the majority of the students are Muslim. Last year 10% of our students were Christian and we had 1 Hindu student. The mosque was originally started with the donation of an alum a few years ago, before I arrived. Now the construction continues as donations are received. It is a slow process, but the building is beautiful and it has been interesting to watch it being built.

Bonus – the day I took these pictures, our school also had a flag ceremony where the students all lineup in a military fashion, raise the flag, sing the national anthem, pray together and hear a speech from the principal. On this day, members of the military post in our town joined, so they led the ceremony rather than the school administration. These are some of my favorite pictures from that morning: