JIS graduates 82 students in Singapore

JIS graduates 82 students in Singapore

SINGAPORE (AP): Amid rowdy applause and some somber reflection, one-third of the graduating class of Jakarta International School (JIS) counted their blessings Tuesday as they took part in a graduation ceremony most thought would never happen.

Students from the school are among thousands of expatriates who have been evacuated from Jakarta since last week.

"I'm happy that we've been evacuated because it has brought us together. I'm sad because the country which we have lived in and loved, Indonesia, is falling apart," Andrew Bennett, 18, of Vancouver, Canada, said while delivering the commencement address in a cramped Singapore hotel ballroom.

He had lived in Jakarta for 14 years.

The ceremony and informal prom drew a huge crowd of 500 students, parents and friends who all fled Jakarta. Organizers hoped to offer some closure for the 82 graduating students after their years of study in Jakarta.

They wore shorts and sneakers -- whatever they managed to take with them when they fled -- under caps and gowns borrowed from the Singapore American School.

T-shirts commemorating the unusual event read "It was a riot!"

Some seniors arrived in the middle of the ceremony, straight from the airport after flying out of Jakarta.

"Graduates, at school you studied history," chairman of the school council Guy Robinson told the students. "Today you are living through history."

Becca Weimar, 18, an American who has lived most of her life in Jakarta, is bound for Louisiana State University. In Singapore, she is "trying to party with all my friends as much as possible because we only have a few days left together".

Aside from the impromptu ceremony, she and her classmates have been enjoying the luxuries of affluent Singapore. They have been getting their hair done, shopping, going to movies, hanging out at trendy restaurants and partying late into the night at clubs and bars.

But their parents are faced with more sobering responsibilities, ranging from business concerns to worries over friends and employees left behind.

Bill Botwick, 51, of Rochester, Michigan, is president of General Motors Indonesia and has been going to work at the Singapore office since he flew out of Jakarta on Saturday aboard a company-chartered plane.

"We're still in operation in Indonesia. We've set up a command center here," he said. "We're spending most of our time addressing issues of our customers in Indonesia and our employees. We're concerned about the welfare of both."

Although they do not know yet when or if they will return to Jakarta, the evacuated kids can bet on one thing: writing interesting essays next term on "How I spent my summer vacation".

Botwick said: "(My sons Benjamin, 14, and Aaron, 8) had a sense that they lived through some history, a very important event. And it's something they will remember for a long time."