The Bromo Marathon: Lessons from the Volcano

There are days here with Peace Corps in Indonesia when I think, if it hasn’t happened already, I’m going to lose my mind.

Things that I took for granted as being easy back home are not always so easy here. Every day I am trying to communicate in a new language, puzzle together a foreign culture, and navigate an unfamiliar landscape. I am occasionally lost and frequently confused. One day can go from maddeningly frustrating to “THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!” in a matter of seconds. And that is exhausting.

When I left for a weekend of volunteering at the Bromo Marathon this past Friday, I was already feeling a bit worn thin. If you had told me on Friday as I rambled through the rice paddies and out of my community the amount of effort, confusion, and discomfort that would be involved in achieving my long-anticipated weekend away, I probably would have disembarked and turned back. But I am so very glad I didn’t.

Orek-Orek

How many people have you ever seen dancing at one time?

Maybe one hundred at a wedding? Two hundred at a club? A thousand or more at a “dance marathon” charity event?

This past weekend, I saw 15,000 students dancing together. I asked a few times to make sure I was hearing that statistic correctly. “Are you sure you didn’t mean 15 hundred?” “No, 15 thousand.”

Students dancing Orek-Orek in the town square.