It Starts here

How could I start all of this

To be honest, im not really expected to do this teacher – student exchange program.

I am a last year student of Special Education Department of Faculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Padang. It was more like I was struggling to finish my study so i can graduate as soon as possible. I was busy to prepare my research proposal, my pre – teaching term and another responsibilities. But it was actually one of my reasons why I applied to this program. I realized that I haven’t gotten some “golden experience” in my college life and i think it's such a loss. I almost graduate and what? I only know Padang, Jakarta, and other cities of Indonesia. Oh no, I feel like the world is calling me. So at that moment, I thought about some possibilities about this and that and decided to apply the program.

Thank God I was accepted for this program, called SEA-Teacher, a teacher student exchange program. I signed in St. Paul University Surigao Philippines for a month and gonna be teaching in a grade school. There are two students from my department to go to the same university. I was excited.

The moment came,

I departed from Jakarta to Manila on January 15, 2018 arrived at 7 in the morning and had to transfer to Butuan at 10.55 a.m. and it was one and a half hours long flight. I was with Nurhalisa and didn’t realize that we were also on othe same flight with another participants from Jakarta. They are Novita Nadhira from UHAMKA, Neti Fihani and Sandy Kurniawan from Universitas Majalengka, Grif and Ploy from VRU, Thailand.

Nurhalisa and I were in the Ninoy Airport

We were picked up by our coordinator teacher, Suster Nicole and she is very lovely and two of our buddies in here, Surigao. We had hour lunch at Jollibee, its like a local fast food in Philippines and it’s a famous one and it was really nice meal. Everyone talked tabout their experiences when they were in the airports. So we just clicked at that moment.

we are with the coordinator teacher, SR. Nicole

We had to travel by car for three hours to reach Surigao from Butuan. Seriously, it was really beautiful when we were on the road. It felt like we went to look for our own souls. I was enjoying that three hours trip. Thanks Butuan – Surigao for serving me beautiful view.

We arrived in St. Paul University Surigao and we met the Presidents, the Principals, the Susters and the staff. They welcomed us and told us about the hospitality here.

We were having a dinner in the canteen

After that, they gave us some times to take a rest and we had our upper meal. Suster Nicole gave us the calenders of activity that we gonna do here for a month and told us about tomorrow’s activity, which is an opening ceremony. Me and some friends and buddies from the uni went to the mall for buying some daily needs and after that we took a rest and get ready for tomorrow’s activity.

Finally I reached another country.

Good night