New Year's

Travis writing -

The past week or so has been pretty busy, but we've done some really fun things.  As Daniel mentioned, we had a chance to go snorkeling in Amed which was beautiful.  We were told by a local there that Amed is one of the places that is "true Bali".  It really had that paradise look, with very small roads and not too much development.  On Sunday we took our time making it back to Keramas and rested off our weekend.  We should have practiced for our performance on the Angklung, a traditional Balinese instrument, but Tomi (a Slukat graduate who hangs out with us and helps us with pretty much anything) was sick.  We did get a few minutes to practice before the Slukat New Years party started the next day, but it turns out a few minutes was probably not enough.  The performance was awful by our judgement, but the kids were all very nice and told us they enjoyed it.  The various dances, songs, poems, and plays by the students were excellent though.  It was sort of similar to the Christmas party, but with more people and more preparation.  For both events, I was amazed by the students' initiative in organizing the whole thing: they cooked the food, prepared performances, decorated, and cleaned up!  After the party wrapped up, we headed to the beach club for fireworks and swimming.  Altogether, it was a very memorable New Year's.  Today, the students finished their celebrations with yoga on the beach and actually did a beach clean-up as well!  Us volunteers took a trip to Ubud for food and laundry, then returned to Keramas to rest up and prepare to get back into teaching tomorrow.  We'll post some pictures when we get a chance to return to the beach club for the fast internet there.