”Narai Kabar? Ikau Uluh Hetu?” (How are you? Are you from here?) Those native Dayak Ngaju words always sound familiar in my ears every time I pass by the crowd of people in the village where I now live. I am a participant of the Indonesia - Canada Youth Exchange Program, or also known as the Canada World Youth.

It’s a program sponsored by the Canada World Youth under the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in cooperation with the Indonesian government under the supervision of the Youth and Sports Ministry. The exchange program aims to bridge cultural differences between Canadian and Indonesian youths that participate.

There are nine Canadians and nine Indonesians paired up as counterparts together as teams that will be participating in the program’s projects in the host communities. The CIDA-sponsored program has been ongoing for 35 years, enjoying strong partnership with Indonesia as one of the exchange partner countries. Envisioned to also empower the role of the youth as the leading agent in bringing social change in the world, the program has included a six month homestay with the local host families consisting of three months in Canada, in a different community every year, and also three months living in a typical Indonesian rural village.

It has been more than a month that I, together with my team, have lived in this small village in Borneo called Sei Gohong. It’s a very beautiful small village located 30 minutes away from Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan. Sei Gohong in the native language of the indigenous ethnic Dayak means river Gohong. This looked obvious to me as I entered the village for the first time and saw this big river on the cutting edge of the village as the main attraction it has to offer.

Despite its beauty, the weather has been quite hot, ranging from 28 to 32 degrees Celcius, sometimes making us dizzy or too tired to walk outside in the afternoon. The typical daily lifestyle here seems pretty laid back as most of the people in the village don’t have stable jobs or income. Some of them work on orangutan conservation, but there are also those who rely mostly on carrying rubber cubes when the rubber trucks come.

Since we first arrived in the village, we have been doing a couple of different activities to help the people in the community and also within the group itself. Each of the participants is given a different type of volunteer placement ranging from elementary school, middle school and high school. There are some other volunteer placements at the local clinic near the village and a local NGO that has been operating and helping people in the community.

By volunteering at each volunteer placement, the Canadian and Indonesian youths are provided a way to use their skills and knowledge in helping the community in their own way with their own expertise. The participants volunteer three days a week and have other group activities on the other days of the week.

One of the group activities that we usually do every Monday is what we call Educational Activity Day (EAD). Similar to mini workshops, these types of group activities allow the participants to explore more about global issues especially related to the Eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The participants also planned certain types of non-formal educational activities to introduce and deliver important information and knowledge related to the specfic topic. In addition, participants also have the chance to experience the native culture by practicing the Mandau dance, the local dance of the Dayak people, once a week.

Adapting to the local surroundings and cultural differences is one amongst other prominent experiences that the participants have discovered thoroughout the program.

The village consists of three major religions: Christian, Muslim and Hindu Kaharingan (the indigenous belief of Dayak people), but the three live in a very peaceful relationship and have built a balanced harmony among each other. They usually hold different social activities based on religious rituals. Sometimes they hold parties and invite us to come and feast with them. One of the traditional beliefs that I’m still amazed with is when people offer us food, we should not refuse because it could cause something bad happened to us later. The native words for that expression called Sempulun, meaning that we have to respect the offering by eating it or just touching the food. These typical cultural features taught us a lot about faith, generosity and openness, which is so important to building such harmony among different beliefs.

Being a part of this experience also made me feel very grateful because I have come across different cultures and gained better cross-cultural understanding.

The author, 23, is the Indonesian participant from East Java province and currently living his Canada World Youth experience in Sei Gohong village, Central Kalimantan

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