Confident strides. A big friendly smile. Gleaming eyes. Undisputable eloquence. That was our first impression when we first crossed paths with Khairani Barokka, or Okka, as she prefers to be addressed, a writer, performer, artist, and arts and disability advocate and researcher. Clad in a lovely green dress, Okka was preparing herself for the presentation she was about to give on TEDx Jakarta, at Teater Salihara, Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta.

On the 31st of March, 35 Grade 11 students of STB-ACS (International) Jakarta, along with 4 accompanying teachers, gathered at the airport to head to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The school had chosen Cambodia as our destination for an international CAS camp. The leaders who organized this camp worked closely with the contact persons from the NGO we partnered with, YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) of Singapore. At 39°C, April was in fact Siem Reap’s hottest month. Thus, the heat was definitely our biggest challenge. We were used to the luxury of air-cons and cars, and here we are doing community service where we walk around 5km a day with paper fans.

Schools and Textbook commonly implore us to apologize, yet rarely mention the need for us to forgive as well. As the old saying “nobody is perfect” has always been so true, students often do not handle dissatisfaction towards their teachers this way. I could easily remember my teacher of Religious Studies, a man who smoked a lot and made jokes about smoking, opining that the smoke he produced would make Jesus second coming sooner, because the Bible said that Jesus would meet His people in clouds. My Civics teacher also frequently joked about state symbols, such as the Garuda, asking whether the bird is male or female. Another teacher of mine graded the students with the following system: 100 is for God, 90 is for him, and no student deserves more than 80, maximum.

Some years ago I had an amusing language challenge, while on my morning jog through Condet, where I've lived since 1988. I like to try new routes, particularly through the small lanes and paths of the kampung, and when I turned a corner I saw before me a big sign in front of a school building that proclaimed Sekolah Luar Biasa.