KKN!!! (Chapter 2)

The third week was on. Our agenda of the time was to contribute in Darangdan's Elementary School competition which was held at SDN 1 Linggasari. Once again we were trusted to be a part of the event. For this time, the school asked us to be the mentors for the students who have been chosen to deputize their school. The school needed some of us to be the mentors in various categories like sport, art, public speaking, etc.  I got the opportunity to coach a speech contestant from the school. The kid's name was Alfi. This little girl could really blow us away. I can tell you that she's truly a talented kid for her age to be able to speech in front of people. I thought I didn't need to guide her no more for the competition! She nailed the crowd really well like that I felt like I was watching Pildacil contest. Useless me for only suggesting "Fi, don't forget to put a smile" (pretty standard, huh?) HAHAHAAHA!

Alfi

Warming up!

Creating a handicraft

Waiting for the performance

In the same week, after the Darangdan's Elementary School competition event, we went to SDN 2 Linggasari. The school was the farthest, with approximately 3 or 4 km from Pondok Pak Haji. We were going to be the one-day teachers for the students there. We taught each class based on the school's daily schedule. Well, actually I enjoy being around children. But when it comes to teach, I need to think and prepare for(ever). So, for this section I taught IPS for the 4th grade students. The subject was about world map! You know all the stuffs, numbers, scale, distance comparison, and many more which I suck on. Lucky me, there was Indri who was willing to help. She was an International Relations student with a brain full of those map stuffs (how come? ask her.)

KKN's almost done in one week. It's the forth! In the last week, we still got some projects to be done. First, we had to make two zebra cross in Linggasari. We made the first zebra cross in front of SDN 1 Linggasari, while the other one in front of SMPN 3 Darangdan. The project was quite interesting because I had never done anything like that before. So it's about gaining a new experience!

Through the night...

Another project we got for the last week was the farewell ceremony to close our KKN. Such an honor for me that I got the opportunity to be the project officer of the event (first time ever!). I thought the last week would be a little slower, but with this project going on, we still needed to fasten the seat belt!

The event was divided in two days agendas. First, we made a farewell party for the kids around Pondok Pak Haji!

The following day was a bigger ceremony of our farewell to Linggasari people. It was our official event to mark the end of our KKN. The event was held at Linggasari's hall. We were (me especially) very nervous at first because it was raining only a few hours before the event. It kinda made me frusrtated that I was afraid no one would come due to the bad weather. Plus, there was blackout for half of Linggasari included Pondok Pak Haji! (I wonder what God was trying to tell by letting it happened -_-) But, through all the obstacles, I can say "we made it!" YES, WE MADE IT!

Sambutan! f-kin nervous...

An "epic" medley performance for Linggasari folks :)

So, KKN was finally finished. It really was a wonderful experience to know a village called Linggasari and the people inside. I kinda regretted it that I cursed too much at the beginning. Yeah, as I said at the first part, the expectation was completely wrong. The friends, the experiences were totally worth it. I think I'm going to miss those memories. For me, KKN really taught about the "don't judge a book by its cover" philosophy. Or maybe I can add some additional words behind it to "don't judge a book by its cover. You better discover it first" :)

There is a new family
There are stories
There are memories

Thank you Linggasari!
Thank you KKN!

KKN!!! (Chapter 1)

Hello fellas! I'm back! Wooh, I found it difficult to share some new posts since it's been a busy semester. So on this post I'd like to share the story about my KKN. Yes yes yes, my latest post before this, is about the doubt I had before KKN. But, as the time went by, my expectation was completely wrong. It really WAS. Wanna know how it was? So, here goes the story...

Basically, KKN is a program from Unpad for students who have taken 80 or more SKS in their study. The program sets students from different faculties in a village for a month to interact with the people there and to learn what and how the system inside. Hopefully with this program students can apply the lessons they have gotten in college to "real life".

I was separated with my buddies when we signed for the same village. Automatically, I had to pick another "unknown" village alone, with all new people, and all new expectations (big sigh). So I picked Linggasari, Purwakarta as my destination for KKN. For one straight reason, I taught it would be the most miserable journey ever, because I'm a type of person who is difficult to get a long especially with new people. So the mood about KKN was absolutely bleak.

The D-day came, I expected the worst as hell. But then I tried to blend in with the bunch of new friends (with all those expectations inside my mind of course). In Linggasari, we lived in a big pesantren we called "Pondok Pak Haji". As it was called, Pak Haji Abbad was the caretaker of the pesantren. He and his children managed the pesantren and allowed us to stay there for free! Wohoo what a good thing!

Pondok Pak Haji!

As the journey in Linggasari began, we tried to be a team and family (hahaha). We got some projects for the village to be done in one month. Honestly, the first day was so damn heavy. The clock seemed to move very slowly and the image of my house overshadowed me the whole day. Perhaps the first two or three days were the heaviest.

The first activity we did was mapping the Linggasari area. As it was a rainy week, we couldn't do more activities as it was supposed to be. We walked around the village to analyze the region and the people. We looked for the problems they got in the village like on the education or economic sector. It was quite fun yet tiring. But the tiring part was paid off because we knew many new things and people. The people were so welcoming and friendly. "The characteristic of villagers", some say. Knowing that there were good things in the first week, it relaxed me a little about my life in KKN.

Actually we didn't really know what to do in the village but...Smile first! :)

 
The second week was brighter (real bright, since the sun showed up than the first week). The agenda of the week was visiting all the schools in Linggasari from the playgroup to junior high school. As it was scheduled we wanted to contribute anything to those schools, either it's teaching or anything we could do based on our skills (skills? LOL!). After the visit, we got some new schedules for the education sector. One of the most interesting parts was when we were asked by SMP 3 Darangdan to be the judges on various competition of The Prophet Muhammad's birth commemoration. The competition included: fashion show, reading poems, speech, deba (musical exploration of Quran), and tumpeng competition. Another interesting thing was I took a part as the speech judge alongside Iqbal. It felt a little bit funny yet challenging because I didn't think I'm capable enough to judge them kids. Especially this was a speech competition that I thought I'm not good enough on it. But finally, we did. And it was fun!

The SMP 3 Darangdan crowd

The speech jud-geez.....

The fashion show contestants seemed really sleepy. Tough outfit though!

Future orator we can say?

In the same week, we decided to go for a so-called vacation. But it really was a vacation hahaaha. We went to a tea garden at Panglejar, Purwakarta. The plan was to go in the early morning to catch the fog there.Since we suck on getting up early, so there was no fog no more. Well, at least I had my camera to catch some pictures!

 

 

Linggasari Rangers

Shortly as the afternoon came, we had another agenda to visit madrasah and PAuD near our KKN house. The intention was to give the kids some new lessons like Japanese and making origami. For this section, I can say that the girls really nailed it out!

The second week was quite enjoyable and fun. The bad expectations of mine was decreasing bit by bit heheheehe. By the way this is the end of chapter 1 and I still owe you other chapters of my KKN stories right? So stay tuned!

11:18 pm

It's 11:18 pm and I'm still awake. The bag and other stuffs are half-packed. I'm going for KKN in about less than 48 hours. It feels so heavy since I keep imagining about how's life going to be for the next month, what I'm going to do and so on and so on. I really wish KKN never existed and I could lay my body on the bed for this holiday.