This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian. 


squeezed through the doorway
into Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
like toothpaste from a tube
I didn’t know what shape
I would take

now five months later
the paste has shaped itself
and the Kalimantan side of the doorway
to life in America
is wide and vivid with the colorful
essences of Kalimantan

we leave treasures
and we take treasures
from these people
this place

life is simpler, harsher,
more contained
smiles are bigger
life is well-surrendered to the moment
the majestic and glorious rains
clear the air
the clouds and sunsets are
the motion pictures to attend
the heat presses in on everything

most wondrously
we found love, deep and strong
unmediated, uncomplicated, uncluttered
by words
pure and in the moment
revealed in a smile, a gesture, a look

so often their English and my Indonesian
failed to convey a concept
but messages of heart beamed through
“Your heart is soooo nice,” says Endah
Ah yes, and so is yours.
Surya, our housekeeper’s morning smile
woke the day with a sparkle
she and I would delight in new words
she with her English dictionary
I with my Indonesian one
“Ibu Cedar, the name for this is ‘nanas’!”
(pineapple…this word is now associated
with her happy face)
She and Ren then have long conversations in Bahasa
we pay for English lessons with Olivia
after we leave

my beloved teacher of high ceremony,
Elizabeth Cogburn
gave me a meditation practice
hands on heart– saying “take heart”
hands outstretched– saying “give heart”

take heart, give heart
moments that will nourish my soul:
• walking into the school
hearing the children singing a song,
“music alone shall live”
that I gave to Reni, the music teacher
from my Girl Scout song collection
from 1959

take heart, give heart
• “Shila wanted me to give you this card she made.”
Shila’s father hands the card through the window
he has found us literally as we are driving away!
the card from the 6th grader says, “Thank you for teach us English
and make English more fun. You’re never angry
with us and just want to make us happy.”

give heart, take heart
• “Surprise! Surprise!”
the Indonesian women teachers have
rented a karaoke room for a good-bye party
(Ren gets a privileged experience of the women’s world)
they are remarkably lively and loud
dancing and singing exuberantly in their own space
we sing “we all live in a yellow submarine”
they give me some beautiful, silk material as a gift

take heart, give heart
• “I’m curious, what will you remember
about our class?” I ask the 6th graders
“The Ingots Game”
(of course…we made up a whole board game
based on a book we read)
“What else?”
“The good luck charms, Bu. They really helped!”
I had totally forgotten this
before their big national exam
I had given them some clay to make things
it only took five minutes
but it is at the top of the list!
what else?

Give Heart, Take Heart
• Endah gives me an exhilarating ride
on some back roads on her motor bike:
grand view of the flatlands from the top of the bukit (hill),
riding up close on dirt roads past shacks and fields
life eked out of the jungle
raw and real
my heart was full

Take Heart, Give Heart
Karim, the Principal of our school
gives us a card, a gift, and a special thank you
the children and teachers clap
I cry looking out at them–
the hundred of them
whose hearts
are in our hands

The card says things like:
“Gunarjo: I have wonderful time with you both. Your advice like spark of light and it will be brighter and brighter to
develop the school. Acha: Thanks for being such a great friend, teacher, and my inspiration. Endah: Thank you for
everything you have gave to us. Elis: Thank you so much for all the precious knowledge and experiences. Herni: I love
you Ibu Cedar and Pak Ruslan. It’s such a bless to know both of you.”

We are grateful that as elders (ancient ones)
our gifts of experience were received and valued:
parenting and emotional coaching and support
Social Studies and English invented games
Right Use of Power program for community, teachers, and students
foundation for Adult Education Program for the Kalteng
organized and inspired by Ren
Indonesian translation of Ren’s Wising Up book for Youth
done by Ren’s high school students as a fundraiser
big-picture suggestions for the school from our teacher’s-eye view

we have a “give-away” party
and enjoy the enormous pleasure
that our things give
Ren’s hat to Beate who always wanted a hat like this
A colorful belt to Lance who is hard to give to
the Settlers of Catan game that went “viral”
in the last weeks of school
to the girls’ dorm
clothes, books, games
even with oleh, oleh we have bought (souvenirs)
we are one suitcase lighter
Surya takes it as her travel suitcase
I look around at our dear friends
there in our living room
Muslims, Christians, Subuds
twenty-somethings, “ancient ones” like us
Indonesians, Europeans
our special little community
a this-time-only charisma of energy

Take heart, give heart
Take treasures, give treasures
Take wisdom, give wisdom
Plant seeds, water seeds

Bjorn drops by early in the morning
bringing a sacred hornbill feather
Waiting for the BCU car to pick us up for the airport
I hug Surya and walk around the block
memorizing everything

Like the Dayak Jinn that have parallel lives
we had a full parallel life for 5 1/2 months
we had a house that we furbished
we had jobs as primary and high school teachers
we had a social circle
we had projects we were passionate about
we had a daily routine
we embedded ourselves
into another culture and another language
this became our real life
we became this shape
we experienced the essence of love

now we return to our parallel shape
we give heart and we take heart
in leaving our dear ones
heart-wrenched, heart-warmed
we leave stretched, nourished, satisfied
and grateful

(Image: stock.xchng/otjep)

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.


“We’re in the process of finding a new
social studies curriculum that will be
more international in its focus,” writes
the principal of our school. “So, I’d like
to invite you to try some things out.”

Sixteen lively 7th graders, English-speaking volunteer teacher,
bi-lingual school, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia:
make your own curriculum
So, how about this?
“You are explorers from another planet.
You are being dropped off by the Mother Ship
in teams of two on eight different land masses
of this magnificent, colorful planet.
We will be back to pick you up
and hear your reports on your discoveries
in 5 months. Be ready.”

From here we spent 20 weeks, 2 hours per week
and 1 hour per week of homework
exploring and learning

We spent the first hour
learning about a theme
and then the second hour of each week
playing an evolving board game.
It began with learning about exports and imports
and trading in a global market.
After a few minutes of trading,
I would introduce a new situation:
like “Australia has had a terrible wild fire
and has lost half it’s exports.
What do you want to do about that?”
Or “There’s a shortage of textiles,
what will we do about the price?”
For this game we also studied
geography, weather, housing,
global trade routes, and
major civilizations.
That was game number 1.
“Ibu Cedar, are we playing the game today?”
The second game was an around-the-world
board game similar to monopoly connecting
all the countries via a world map
When you landed on a space,
you picked a card with instructions.
The students created the cards that went
with the new topic of the week.
“Ibu Cedar, Segah spoke Bahasa.”
(Segah had to move back five spaces, and this rule
helped the students speak English
more fluently and spontaneously.)
The POWER CARDS said things like:
“Your country has broken an agreement.
Move backwards 15 steps.”
We studied about the current global groups
like the UN, NATO, ASEAN… and their purposes.
The GOOD NEIGHBOR cards were used
to save any other player from a “bad” card.
Another week we studied myths
from each country.
The LESSON cards were positive if you threw an even die
and negative if you threw an uneven die.
“You learned not to be greedy.
Take an extra turn.”
Other themes were:
CHANGE–the students interviewed their grandparents
about their lives. They found that many of them
didn’t go to school, cooked on a wood fire, and
traveled only by a small boat on the river.
We studied the CHARACTERISTICS OF HAPPY, THRIVING COUNTRIES
and made posters about these
for the presentations for the Mother Ship.

The Mother Ship did land right on schedule
and the students gave their reports
to the five esteemed commanders
just in time to be beamed up to the 8th grade.