My experience in Teaching Diversity Summer Camp 2022 - DAY 1

I was at my leisure time, I scrolled down my IG page and then I found this post.

IG @ppsuny_official

And I was so interested but I thought I couldn't do it since I was hectic to write my own thesis. Spent almost two weeks was not easy. Days passed by and I did not think about it.

One day, I hung out with my friends and we talked about what was diversity, what experience or examples which we had this whole time. To be honest, university life wasn't so easy. We met all people from many places, with lot of differences background, language, culture, and many more. 

I thought about our conversation. It rang a bell! I said to myself, "why I didn't give a try? essay and video were easy peasy, right?"

And the fact was, I wrote the essay and recorded the video in few hours before the dateline. I was in hurry, but I believed I could do it. I sent my essay and also posted my video before midnight. Honestly, It wasn't a good essay, but I tried my best.

I waited for two days but the announcement hadn't come up. Till the evening on 26 September I got the news. I GOT IT!!!! I remembered, I was so excited and told my students that I was accepted to join a camp! I had no idea what would I do since it was long long time I did not do camp. Like yearsssss.

So, I contacted some camping-thing rental stores and asked how much the price to rent a tent, carrier bag, and so on. This was because the place we would visit was secret. We were informed about the place and the things we should bring right the day before we met each other for the first time.  

DAY 1 - Monday, 3 October 2022

We met in Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta. There were 28 people who joined this camp. Before we went to Desa Segajih, which located in Kulonprogo, we gathered in Gedung Pascasarjana UNY and did lunch together. We ate Gado-Gado. Some of foreign who joined this camp were vegetarian. So, Gado-gado was best dish.

lunch time

After lunch, we headed to Desa Segajih, Kulonprogo with mini bus. The track was SO challenging. The road was wide until we passed the Waduk Sermo area, the road became narrower, steep, and uphill.  Thankfully we had skill-full driver 😄

our bus

Almost one and half hours on bus, finally we arrived in Segajih and it was raining. We are welcomed with warm and nice people also appetising snacks and beverages. 

they played gamelan music 

snack time!

Before we played outbound game, we enjoyed snacks while we're hearing speech welcoming speech and also the small introduction from Professor Juliane and Frau Schulze from Münster University, continued by announcing where we stayed. Even though there were some tents but we lived in people's houses. Two till three participants got one family to spent the 3 nights and 4 days. 

People there prepared some games. After played lot of games, we knew each other more. First always introduction games, it was about to remember everyone's name. We also made our own jargon, my team name was Wonderland so the jargon was, "won, won, won, wonderfour!!!" That was nice, I know.

catching-ball games

balancing the ping pong ball

this game need work team and focus

one more to go!

all participants and villagers

The others activities waited. Then, we had a dinner and we gathered to discuss about the diversity. We paired into many groups and talked about some topics, such as age, economy, education, religion, language, sex and gender, and many more. It was very challenging. My discussion partner was Arief. We talked much and mostly we have same thoughts or opinion. From small discussion, we shared it others, what we had discussion, how we felt about the topics, and also the method that used that night. Before went to 'homestay' we sang a song, Imagine by John Lennon. 

small discussion

shared what was discussed to others

My Homestay was the highest and also the furthest place among all. The road was dark, uphill, and quiet. It was like horror movie. But the family is the warmest. Pak Mujiono and Bu Tukilah is the nicest guesthouse ever. I am very thankful for that. 

I called it a day. For sure I couldn't sleep well that night but it was good.

Continued ... Day 2