What the hail?!
Just when I was starting to get homesick for good ol' crazy midwestern weather (blizzards one day, tornadoes the next) Indonesia gets interesting.
We're allegedly nearing the end of the rainy season, which means it only rains probably every single day but not definitely every single day. It usually doesn't rain until 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon during the rainy season, but when it rains it definitely pours. Some days it starts late morning or early afternoon, like today. It started raining around 1:45 or so, a typical gentle rain. By the time that class dismissed at 2:20 and my seventh graders wandered in, it was absolutely pouring. I herded them up to the library quickly, hoping they could get started in the computer lab before the power went out for too long. (Power outages are a regular part of life here in Indonesia. We just deal.) After settling them in, I ran back to my room to get some handouts I forgot and nearly got blown over the baclony near one of the open areas. We have a big, open-air courtyard and the hallways in our school are all outside facing the courtyard. It makes the rainy season extra interesting!
I'd been back in the library for about five minutes when the power cut out. Our school usually has a generator that kicks in within minutes, but today it stayed dark for long enough to worry some of the seventh graders. I was walking from the computer lab area of the library to some tables where a few students were working when a massive gust of wind hit the school. It didn't faze me much-at home I'd have been waiting for the tornado sirens to sound. It began to hail and the wind continued to roar and the next thing I knew, I was wearing six of my seventh graders.
After I managed to peel them off and calm them down somewhat, the power kicked back in and an announcement came over the intercom saying that we needed to stay in our classrooms for the time being because of roof damage. This message basically was a warning to be careful of flying ceramic tiles from the roof falling into the courtyard during high winds and hail, but to most of the seventh graders, it meant the high, vaulted ceiling of the library was going to fall on them.
"Mrs. Erin!!!!!! What will we do if the roof explodes?!"
"Um...it...won't?"
Momentary panic was quickly replaced by typical seventh grade excitement.
"Maybe we can't leave and we can stay here ALL NIGHT and HAVE A PARTY!"
"Maybe we won't have to go to homeroom!"
As it turns out, we did go to homeroom and everything was fine. A few rather large trees were smashed to bits and one of them landed on a few cars outside...not our car, thankfully. It was still weird to see hail, though. Most of the kids had never seen it before and had no clue what to do. Our intended work period on history projects turned into a random weather lesson a la Mrs. Erin, which was OK. The kids were mystified by the very idea of tornadoes and blizzards. It was pretty interesting explaining tornado watches and warnings to people who had never heard of such things. Tornado sirens and snow days were completely foreign yet exciting ideas to them. One little guy suggested maybe we'd have a snow day because of the hail, but alas it had already melted. (Ice tends to do that when it's 85 degrees outside!)
This particular seventh grade class is always fun to be around, and they were the ideal group to be stuck with this afternoon during the big weather debacle. Not a whole lot of history research was done, but it ended up being educational anyhow, I think. Now if it can just start hailing enough so there IS a snow day tomorrow, we'd be set.
We're allegedly nearing the end of the rainy season, which means it only rains probably every single day but not definitely every single day. It usually doesn't rain until 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon during the rainy season, but when it rains it definitely pours. Some days it starts late morning or early afternoon, like today. It started raining around 1:45 or so, a typical gentle rain. By the time that class dismissed at 2:20 and my seventh graders wandered in, it was absolutely pouring. I herded them up to the library quickly, hoping they could get started in the computer lab before the power went out for too long. (Power outages are a regular part of life here in Indonesia. We just deal.) After settling them in, I ran back to my room to get some handouts I forgot and nearly got blown over the baclony near one of the open areas. We have a big, open-air courtyard and the hallways in our school are all outside facing the courtyard. It makes the rainy season extra interesting!
I'd been back in the library for about five minutes when the power cut out. Our school usually has a generator that kicks in within minutes, but today it stayed dark for long enough to worry some of the seventh graders. I was walking from the computer lab area of the library to some tables where a few students were working when a massive gust of wind hit the school. It didn't faze me much-at home I'd have been waiting for the tornado sirens to sound. It began to hail and the wind continued to roar and the next thing I knew, I was wearing six of my seventh graders.
After I managed to peel them off and calm them down somewhat, the power kicked back in and an announcement came over the intercom saying that we needed to stay in our classrooms for the time being because of roof damage. This message basically was a warning to be careful of flying ceramic tiles from the roof falling into the courtyard during high winds and hail, but to most of the seventh graders, it meant the high, vaulted ceiling of the library was going to fall on them.
"Mrs. Erin!!!!!! What will we do if the roof explodes?!"
"Um...it...won't?"
Momentary panic was quickly replaced by typical seventh grade excitement.
"Maybe we can't leave and we can stay here ALL NIGHT and HAVE A PARTY!"
"Maybe we won't have to go to homeroom!"
As it turns out, we did go to homeroom and everything was fine. A few rather large trees were smashed to bits and one of them landed on a few cars outside...not our car, thankfully. It was still weird to see hail, though. Most of the kids had never seen it before and had no clue what to do. Our intended work period on history projects turned into a random weather lesson a la Mrs. Erin, which was OK. The kids were mystified by the very idea of tornadoes and blizzards. It was pretty interesting explaining tornado watches and warnings to people who had never heard of such things. Tornado sirens and snow days were completely foreign yet exciting ideas to them. One little guy suggested maybe we'd have a snow day because of the hail, but alas it had already melted. (Ice tends to do that when it's 85 degrees outside!)
This particular seventh grade class is always fun to be around, and they were the ideal group to be stuck with this afternoon during the big weather debacle. Not a whole lot of history research was done, but it ended up being educational anyhow, I think. Now if it can just start hailing enough so there IS a snow day tomorrow, we'd be set.
posted by Erin @ 5:57 AM
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