The meeting was held at our hotel, the Surabaya Plaza Hotel. There was a certain amount of nervousness on the part of everyone involved, both the Indonesians and the Australians.
The previous day, after our market challenge, we had met as a group to go over our presentations and also the agenda for the day. This was a really valuable thing to do, as it helped with some of the nerves that people had and it also bought back to the fore why we were undertaking this program.
The morning began at 10:00am, although some of the Indonesians had trouble with the Surabaya traffic. Straight off partner schools sought each other out and greeted each other. Certainly for both Miss Cooper and myself we were very please to meet our hosts Ms Sumiati and Ms Fitri. They both greeted us with a smile. Amazingly Ms Fitri had already found me on Facebook and sent me a contact request. Indonesia is the third largest Facebook nation in the world.
There were welcomes from the Indonesian Education officials and also and overview of Victorian education given by Judy Rose. All the way through this, there was much translation being done by both Deryn and Bu Icha (who was the MC) from English to Indonesian and from Indonesian to English.
Each cluster school gave a brief outline of it's demographics and facilities which were translated by Deryn into Indonesian. The partner schools really appreciated the information that was given to them. The Indonesian schools then gave an outline of their own school. It was then time for some lunch together.
After we had had some lunch we all headed back into the meeting room to get to know each other a bit better. Both the Indonesian and Australian participants took part in activities designed to get to know each other. It was loud and busy, but it was also good fun. At the end of the day we had a light dinner before our Indonesian friends headed off.
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