Youth Peace Camp | YMCA Yogyakarta, Indonesia ♥ YMCA Setouchi, Japan (Part 2)

Hello everyone!

Such a lazy blogger, I rarely post because I’m too lazy to type. Hiks hiks sorry!

But! Last two days I saw my friend’s tumblr and she reblogged very inspiring pictures that helped me to break my laziness. Here are the pictures…

So, I want to continue my story about Youth Peace Camp YMCA Yogyakarta and YMCA Setouchi! :D I believe I promised to post this second part the next weekend after my latest post but I do really sorry because I could not do that :((

Day 4: Saturday, September 14

Today, we start our day with breakfast. I made a scrambled egg for Lala and after ate it we helped our host to clean the house. Finished with cleaning the house, our village coordinator picked us up to gather in the boys’ house to have a meeting about our program in the afternoon. We planned to play with the children at 3 p.m.

While meeting we discussed about games that we would play with the children. We introduced traditional games to each other—Japanese introduced them to the Indonesian, and vice versa. We were given approximately 105 minutes to play with the children so we decided to play six games only; Darumasan ga koronda, Piyo-piyo Chan, Nabe-nabe Sokonuke and which are Japanese games, meanwhile Indonesian games that we chose are Domikado and Dragon Snake (Ular Naga) and we mix between Japan and Indonesia in the game Abraham.

The result of our meeting

After meeting, we went to the location where we would play with the children which was the church yard. We practice several games there as trials then we went back to the boys’ house to decide which games we would play with the children. We have decided the games, time estimations and members who will lead the games, time to go to our houses and to take a rest before we had a good time with children. Actually Lala and I did not take a rest at that time because Lala wanted to learn Abraham song in Bahasa Indonesia, hihihi! :p

Finally the time was come, our friends picked us up from our house and we went together to the church yard. Many children had been gathered when we arrived there. Some were look excited but shy, and some were look afraid even a boy was crying when I asked him to play with me. Seriously, am I look that scary? :/

Based on the list we had made, the first game to play is Darumasan Ga Koronda, followed by Domikado, Piyo-piyo Chan, Nabe-nabe Sokonuke, Dragon Snake and the last one is Abraham. Actually I wanted to explain the games in this post but it will be too long to be read so I will explain it in the different post ;)

Happy faces! :)

Tired after running, chasing and laughing, we finally went back to our houses so we could do our personal activities like shower or nap. I cooked instant noodles for Lala that evening for our dinner because unfortunately our host did not prepared dinner for us :'( hiks soooo sad! We were very excited because that night we would be doing Javanese traditional dance! YAAYYY!!

Had a dinner together

At 6:30 PM, our village coordinator picked us up to gather at boys’ house then walked together to the chief village’s house where Mentari, Karin and Ratih stayed. The girls were make-uped by…I don’t know her name but she owned a beauty salon besides chief village’s house. 

The make-up was…heavy but she said the heavy make-up would help our face looks outstanding. 

We are ready!!!

After make-up, we wore the costume then went to the chief village’s house again where the performance would be held.

Guess what traditional dance we performed? TADAA!! JATILAN :D

Jatilan is one of Javanese traditional dance or you might say performance because here the dancers not only dance but do some “crazy” or dangerous attractions such as eat flowers, thorns or coals. They do that because spirits entrance their souls so the spirits control them to do those things. Some people will think this is crazy and inappropriate but this is just one of thousands culture of Indonesia :)

When we danced Jatilan, the villagers who came to see our performances were laughing when they saw our silly movements. Of course if I were them I would laughing, rolling my butt in the floor looking at foreigner dancing traditional dance of my country :D

Actually I had seen Jatilan performance before but you know, it’s been years because I saw it when I was in elementary school. So, I was shocked and I was screaming a lot when we finished dancing and moved aside then the other dancers (the local youth, approximately there were 10 main dancers act as soldiers who riding bamboo horses and 6 dancers act as ghosts) started the main attractions. When the ghosts who wore monster masks and trousers with bells on it entered the stage, the soldiers started to make weird gestures. They were like screaming and their bodies were like…I don’t know like they were suffering from the pain. And there, they started to hit and attack each others with bamboo sticks, they became crazy and out of control, looked like they already lost their minds. The strange thing was, the dancers who act as ghosts was not act strange like the others and sometime they even danced together in the same motion to keep the rhythm of music balanced.

There was at least 3 persons who were “joined” the performance accidentally, they were the villagers who were audiences at first but when the dancers came to them, pull their hands to join, they became like the dancers; acted strange, ate petals and thorns.

We were called by our village coordinator at 11 PM to do daily evaluation if I am not mistaken but the performance was not finished yet. I felt a little disappointed back then because I wanted to watch the performance until everything finished.

So, that day was a long day, we got home at 1 PM and after cleaned our body we slept immediately because we were very tired. Unfortunately Lala, my housemate was having stomachache so I felt sad because she looked tortured :’(

Day 5: Sunday, September 15

We woke up early that morning because we had to go to the church to attend Sunday Mass at 7 AM. Luckily the Chief village was willing to take us to the church with his car so we did not have to walk. Arrived at the church, the mass was already started and we, of course, late. 

Funny thing happened, our friend, Ruki was fall asleep in the mass!! Poor Ruki, maybe he felt too tired and did not have enough sleep :B

Took photo together

After finished the mass, we walked back home to gather in me and Lala house and to have small discussion with local youth. You know what, I saw one man who played Jatilan last night!! I was too excited when I looked at him and spontaneously asked, “Hey! You are the man who played Jatilan last night, right??” and the other local youth were laughing.

In the discussion, local youth were asking a lot of questions to our Japanese fellows; about culture, anime or even gangster! :D The Japanese also asked a lot of questions to the local youth, so the discussion was more like cross-cultural discussion, very interesting!

After the discussion, we took photos and say goodbye to the local youth then our village coordinator asked us to pack because we had to go back to the dormitory soon. Lala was crying when she had a farewell with our host who was crying too when we thanked them for everything.

With the Tanen youth

She is our host!

We gathered at chief village house again to say “sayonara” with the hosts who had taken care of us. Then we ride a bus, which had been provided by the committee, to the Selorejo to pick our friends there. When we arrived in Selorejo, we had to wait for about 30 minutes because our friends still had a farewell with the villagers. In the bus we did silly thing like dared our friends, Ghost and Ruki to confess love to the girls. As a Japanese, ghost had to pick one Indonesian girl and he had to confess his love in Bahasa Indonesia while Ruki had to pick one Japanese girl and confessed his love in Japanese language.

Mentari was the one who was chosen by Ghost, he confess his love, “Mentari, aku cinta kamu.”

Guess what was Mentari’s answer? Only, “Eng…So?” then the situation became awkward. Finally Mentari answered, “No.” Sooooo saaaaddd!!!

Then Ruki’s turn, Karin was the one so Ruki came to Karin then said, “Karin san, aishiteru.” We were all laughed and screamed because the way Ruki said that sentence was very soft and romantic! Lukcy for Ruki because Karin said, “Yes!” :p

On our way back to the dormitory, we shared our experiences in both villages. So sad that one of our friends, Misaki got injured and six stitches on her legs because she fell down when running. So grateful when we knew that she was alright already n__n Arrived at dormitory, we take a rest and having small talk. Our room was no longer quiet because we already close to each other and already used to use English in conversation.

At 6 PM, we had J-Evening, an event which held by our Japanese fellows. There we were trying to wear Yukata, Japanese traditional clothes which are simpler than Kimono. We also tried Japanese toys, tried to make and we ate Onigiri, Miso Soup and Ramen and we learned to make Japanese calligraphy.

Even though she was in pain, but Misaki was still able to participate in this J-Evening. She helped me and other Indonesian girls there to use Yukata with Lala, Karin and Yucho, who helped the Indonesian boys to use Yukata and ninja mask, at Yukata Corner. Misaki always smiled like nothing’s happen.

Yukata Corner

(right to left: Darumaotoshi, Hagoita, Yo-yo, Kendama)

In Toys Corner there was Osamu who helped us to play with Japanese traditional toys. There were 4 toys displayed in this booth; Darumaotoshi, Hagoita, Yo-yo and Kendama.

Kendama

If you watch Doraemon, maybe you will notice this toy because Nobita often play this. The name of this toy is Kendama. When Osamu demonstrated playing with this toy, it seemed very easy but when I tried it was so bloody hard! After over 20 times trying, I only succeed once! How embarrassing >__<

There are two toys which related to the universal games, Yo-yo and Hagoita. I think everyone already knows about Yo-yo. Hagoita is similar with Badminton, you need racket made from wood and tiny button with feather as shuttlecock and just play it like badminton. P.S: It is way more difficult to play because the shuttlecock is very tiny so you will not notice if you miss it.

Darumaotoshi is very challenging to play because you have to knock the very bottom part of the tower with small wooden hammer without ruined the tower. Once the tower is fall then you have to repeat from the start again.

Puma and me

Meanwhile, in the Food Corner there was Puma who teached us how to make Onigiri. He also made Miso Soup and Ramen for us! 

Onigiri is really easy to make, you only need nori, rice, dried salmon and mushroom. First fill rice with dried salmon and mushroom then roll it, shape it to triangle then cover the center part with nori. Voila!

In Calligraphy Corner we had Ghost to teach us how to make calligraphy with Japanese alphabet. I wrote 3 calligraphies, the first one I made “Arigatou” for Ghost, the second one I made “Aishiteru” for mas Dody (my boyfriend) and the last one is my own name in Japanese :D

Finished visiting all booths then our Japanese fellows surprised us with their performance. They danced and sang “Heavy Rotation” a song by AKB 48—a very famous idol group from Japan. Then they sang “Kokoronotomo” which was very sweettt!

Heavy Rotation

Kokoronotomo

After J-night over, we were gathered again to review our activities that day, to do mood-meter and to have a briefing for tomorrow’s activity. The committee asked us to sleep immediately because the next day would be a very tiring day so after we helped our Japanese friends to fold the Yukata, we went back to our bedrooms and had a good sleep.

Wow, this is a very long post, eh? I hope you don’t feel bored when you read this. Will post the activities of Day 6 and 7 in the next post because it supposed to be a long post again due to our hectic activities at those days. Stay tuned and thank you for visiting and reading my blog, sorry for the messy grammar! ^__^

Photos were taken by Dimas Haryo Saputro, Andreas Yordan and Rei Shimizu (Ghost).

Read the related post: 

Youth Peace Camp | YMCA Yogyakarta, Indonesia ♥ YMCA Setouchi, Japan (Part 1)

Take care and God bless you!

~eschilla