International School of Rumbai

Sara and I continue our swing through Indonesia. This stop we find ourselves in Rumbai, Indonesia on the island of Sumatra. Like Pasir Ridge – this is a boutique school with very small classes which allows for some pretty personal attention while teaching.

We were so happy to find the teachers and students so receptive to us. Here we worked from kindergarten through 8th grade. There is no high school at the three Chevron schools that we are visiting on this excursion.

Being a compact campus we were lucky enough to be invited into the homes of teachers for lunches who live just a few steps from the school. We also went out to dinner with a teaching couple to a sushi restaurant (which was out of sushi).

We just laughed off the sushi-less sushi joint along with our dinner companions. Sumatra is not the most developed place on the planet and it takes a special dedication along with a little bit of humor to succeed here. All the teachers we met in Rumbai were certainly up to this challenge.

The students' enthusiasm is an artifact of the instructor's indefatigable spirit. I don’t want to sound like I am saying that there is nothing positive about living in a place like Rumbai. It is a tropical paradise in numerable respects – but everyday conveniences that many of us are used to like berries, good coffee (all the good coffee in Sumatra is exported) or a yard free of poisonous snakes and scorpions may be a bit hard to come by.

What wasn’t hard to come by at the International School of Rumbai were super teachers and students.