On the 4th March, 27 students from the upper classes of the RARCC education center in Yerweser went on a study trip to see how a school is, since they still have classes in an old church or outside. For many of them, it was their first time in the city as well.
The trip was planned for the 3rd March, and the students were ready to leave the village at 4 am, but unfortunately, the weather didn’t help and the conditions were unsafe for a 3-hour journey by longboat.
In the afternoon, they went to Sorong and stayed at some of their relatives’ houses under the supervision of the two teachers who joined the group.
In the next morning at 3:30 am, the children and teenagers were already ready to go, even though the bus was supposed to pick them up only at 7 am.
Travelling by bus was very exciting. In Yerweser, their only means of transportation is the boat.
The purpose of this trip was to teach the students how a real school looks like, and what it is supposed to happen in a day of exam. Since most of the students have never been in a school before, the RARCC teachers struggled to teach them that an assignment should be done in silence. “Miss, what do you mean by study for the exam?,” they asked. However, the second time, they started to feel anxious and one student even read his book while walking to the school before the exam.
At the primary school SD Advent Sorong, the morning started with the national exam, and the Yerweser students also joined it and tried to answer the questions, even though the exam was for the fourth grade. Only a few of our students are already in the third grade. In the end, they were curious to know the answers, and to our surprise, they did well.
They visited a school canteen and a library for the first time and enjoyed having many books. At our education center, we don’t have many copies of the same book except students’ books used in the classes.
Thanks to this trip, the students are excited to study more and to apply for junior high school.
Even some of our shyest students made new friends quickly and play together with them at the school SD Advent Sorong.
At the restaurant, for most of them, it was their first time eating with fork and spoon, but they were willing to try.
After lunch, they visited a supermarket where they tasted some fruits for the first time. They all rushed to see how they could check the price of a product in the machine. It was also a funny and exciting experience for them to try the escalators for the first time. The staff of the supermarket Saga kindly helped the teachers to assist the kids to enter and to leave the escalators.
We are really thankful to the staff of primary school SD Advent Sorong and Papua Diving for making this trip possible.
