Rumah Sakola

A few days ago, I visited Makassar, South Sulaweesi, Indonesia. I stayed there for only 2 days. At first, I hoped that I could go to Tanah Toraja, to see the caves of the dead people (the people of Tanah Toraja, don’t burry dead people, but they put them in caves, see http://www.merriewood.com/exindo/toraja.html ). Unfortunately, going to tanah Toraja takes 6 hour from Makassar by car and because I was going with my father, and he still had things to do at Makassar, I didn’t have enough time to go to Tanah Toraja. Anyhow, I was still happy. I had a chance to go to Rumah Sakola.

I heard about Rumah Sakola since about a year ago from my friend, Sali. Rumah means house and sakola means school. Actually, Rumah Sekola is a house that is used as a small school for the children of fishermen who live around there. Sali knew about Rumah Sakola from an email she got. The email, said that Rumah Sakola needed volunteers to help teach the children there to read, write, and count. Interested with the offer, Sali sent a proposal to become a volunteer there through email. So did some of her friends. After waiting for quite a long time, Sali didn’t get any response back. So did, the others. There were issues that said the email was fake.

One time, Sali had a chance to go to Sulawesi on a holiday. Still curious, while she was in Makassar, she tried to find Rumah Sakola. She had the address of Rumah Sakola, from the email. Unlike the issues, the reality was that Rumah Sakola was real. And at that time, they really needed volunteers. The problem was that the volunteers at Rumah Sekola weren’t quite accessible to the internet. When they want to check emails, they send an sms to their friends in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, and ask them to open the emails for them. This is why it took so long for them, to even know that there was an email for them.

I heard that Rumah Sakola is a rumah panggung ( a kind of traditional house http://infokom-sulteng.go.id/wisata.php?id=289 ) located above the sea. But when, I came there Rumah Sakola was not above the sea. Yes, it was a rumah panggung but it was located above the ground. What happened was that Rumah Sakola, was used to be above the sea , near the beach. But, not long ago, there were some businessmen, who wanted to make the beach wider. To do this, they added ground on the beach. By making the beach wider, they have more places to build properties, such as houses, apartments, recreation parks, and shopping centers.

At Rumah Sekola, I met Dian. Dian (21) is a volunteer there. She told me when Rumah Sekola was still located above the sea, the children usually swam there before studying. They usually jumped from the rumah panggung right into the sea.

Dian told me a lot of other stories. She told me that some of the children who live there are quite smart, some learn to read in a very short time. In the other hand, some do have difficulties in learning to read. There was a child that needed 6 months to learn A, B, C’s. Dian also told me that since this year, they volunteers of Rumah Sakola, started a play group program each morning from 9 till 10. The mothers of the children from play group drops their children to rumah sakola and wait for them too. While waiting, they are very help the volunteers in coordinating the play group children.

The school is held everyday from 10.00 until 12.10 am. They group the students into three classes.

I. Kelas Eja Awal ( Reading Beginners Class)
II. Kelas Eja Lanjut ( Reading Senior Class)
III. Kelas Membaca Wacana ( Reading from Books Class)

Dian told me, that since the last year there have been some people that sent books to Rumah Sakola. (Before, there were no books at all, so the children didn’t know what reading was used for). When I looked at the classroom, I saw four racks filled with magazines and book. Dian also told me that the children sometimes have problems with math, but when it comes to selling and buying goods in the (traditional) market, the children didn’t have any problem at all (in counting money).

I had a look around the classroom of Rumah Sakola. There is only one classroom at Rumah Sakola. On the walls there are some drawings, and writing of the children of rumah Sakola. There are also pictures of the children with their activities. I also found some paintings made by pieces of ceramics. From, Dian, I found out that there are more activities there. At noon, some children learn ngaji (learning the holly Qur’an) while at night, some teenagers learn to make crafts there, such as paintings from pieces of ceramics (keramik sisa). Additionally, there are 2 new volunteers named Imron (29) and Muchlis (25) that help the children learn computers (there are 2 new computers there).

At Rumah Sakola there are two more volunteers that are Rida (28) and Susi (25). They all dedicate themselves to help the children of Rumah Sekola ( that has 20 children from Reading class and 50 children from playgroup) to learn reading, writing, and much more. Inspirational?

To contact Rumah Sakola, the address and number is :

Jl. Nusa Indah I no 37 RT/RW 003/004
Kelurahan Kampung Buyang
Kec. Mariso
Makassar 90121
Dian: (+62)-852-5536-7568