Marybetts Sinclair with an update.

Back in Jakarta…Teaching

Just taught a class on “Helping your special needs child through massage” for 30 parents and some physical therapists. I was able to have parents meet each other…hoping to initiate support relationships…and present most of my material, show slides of different children, and do a demonstration. Many of the parents had specific questions which were of course difficult
to answer without meeting the child, but was able to discuss some ideas.

Mainly the children have Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism, all these conditions can be so difficult! Fifi,  my hostess, and I had also displayed some books for them to look at, including my childrens book, a book on yoga for children with disabilites, and a wonderful book we got an Indonesian translation of, Disabled Village Children.

We had a copy machine available so parents could copy whatever specific information from the books they were interested in that was related to their child’s condition. For example, one mother was interested in correcting a contracture her son with cerebral palsy had developed, so I dhowed her a little bit, then suggested she copy the section in my book that is on treating contractures. I wanted the parents to have hard information, not just generalities, as a result of attending. Had an adorable 2 year old child with Downs syndrome; he was so cute he totally stole the show. The parents then had lunch together and even had a drawing for some kind of door prize (not sure what this had to do with, but they enjoyed it).

Some parents who attended the seminar made appointments to take their children to Fifi’s spa for spa treatments!! Fifi’s spas will be adding 10 new treatments that I taught them, from a massage and hydrotherapy combination for a headache, to a massage, stretching and hydrotherapy combination for growing pains. Her spas are well set up for this, one of the rooms has a baby bathtub, a changing table, a small (kid)sized bathtub and tons of toys.

Touring Jakarta

The rest of the day we went to see national independence monumnet, “Monas,” which takes an elevator way above the city so you can see all of Jakarta. This is rather anti-climactic and depressing since the smog obscures most everything, but great people watching. Thousands of folks out on a Saturday walking in the large plaza around the monument, just enjoying each others company, vendors selling replicas of monument, food, etc. Then for short tour of Jakarta’s largest mosque (and the third largest mosque in the world after the ones in Mecca and Medina) It can hold up to 200,000 people at one time. So interesting!! Anothe dandy Indonesian meal with fried fish, fried stuffed tofu, green beans and leafy greens in a sweet sauce,and of course buckets of rice!

Marybetts

 

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