Today I had my first language lesson! I will be going to lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am - 12pm. I can't even begin to tell you how exciting it is to be studying a language again!
FYI, "bahasa" means language. So when I say bahasa Indonesia - it means Indonesian language. Bahasa Inggris- English language. It seems like most people just say bahasa, so that's probably what I'll do.
Since it was my first time and traffic is unpredictable, I left an hour early - 9am. Turns out Sarmili (our driver) is so good at what he does, I arrived at 9:30. It's a little embarrassing, because in Indo - people are usually late.
My teacher, Febry, runs the school from her home. It is mostly for Indo kids who come to learn their lessons in English - Math, Social Studies, Science, etc. There were three kids there when I came, working away at little carrels around the room. I later found out that one of the teachers didn't show up this morning, so they all thought I must be a new teacher! Their English is very good. I even heard them using idioms, albeit incorrectly (piece of pie instead of cake).
Since I was early, I had to wait on the couch for 30 minutes while Febry prepared lessons for the children. During this time, I had my first Indo bathroom mishap. Don't worry, it wasn't bad. I was led to the bathroom in the center of the house - but the door did not close all the way. I figured they probably all knew the whereabouts of the bule (pronounced boo-lay = white person) in the house, so didn't worry much about that. The toilet was up on a raised area so that my knees barely fit between the stool and the sink. Upon finishing, I realized there was no TP. No worries! I pulled out my handy dandy pack of pocket tissues I was told to bring for just such occasions! Then discovered that the toilet didn't flush. Oh, well. No biggie. After pumping soap onto my hand, discovered that there is no water in the bathroom whatsoever. Alright - pulled out my second pocket tissue to wipe off the soap and used hand sanitizer. Note to self: use toilet before going to bahasa class!
We finally got started. It was a tad awkward at first as it is in any class for the first time - students getting to know teacher's style and vice versa. It didn't take long, though, before my language brain kicked it into full gear and I was off! Febry's Enlgish is fairly good, but her grammar is even better. She can explain things to me from the grammatical perspective - which is the way I like it.
We started right off with pronouns. Bahasa is pretty easy to learn because:
1) There is no distinction between I/me/mine/my
2) No distinction between he/she
3) No conjugation
4) No tenses
Nice, right? It does make it a little more different to understand - you really have to get specific about who you are talking about and when it is happening. But I won't worry about that until I get to it.
After pronouns, we learned some easy verbs, then basic nouns, and finally time words. Febry is a tough teacher - she wanted me to start writing some sentences right away! I had no examples, which made it a challenge for my perfectionistic brain to write something when I KNOW there were mistakes in it. All in all, I think it was a pretty good method.
Here are my first 5 sentences:
1) Nanti saya kerja. (Later, I work.)
2) Saya bangun jam 7 pagi. (I wake at 7 in the morning.)
3) Saya mau makan sarapan. (I want eat breakfast.)
4) Nanti saya makan siang. (Later I eat lunch.)
5) Saya datang sebelum kelas bahasa Indonesia. (I come before (early) Indonesian class.)
It kind of sounds like baby talk. Next, we added more vocabulary, and I wrote 5 more sentences:
1) Kakak saya punya tiga anak. (My older sibling has 3 children.)
2) Kami minum dan makan di dapur. (We drink and eat in kitchen.)
3) Kakak saya pergi ke Bali. (My brother go to Bali.)
4) Saya kerja jam 2 siang. (I work at 2 p.m.)
5) Kami nyanyi di gereja. (We sing at church.)
Pretty good, huh?
At 12, all of us students and the teacher stood in a circle while one student prayed in English for lunch. Then I had to introduce myself in bahasa... Nama saya Sally... and say where I was from... Saya datang dari Amerika. Then the boy who prayed got to dismiss people by how properly and quietly they were standing. At this point I called my driver to pick me up, but I'm hoping some day I'll be invited to stay for lunch so I can get to know the kids.
I decided to try out my new skills on Sarmili, the driver. He knows some English, so we could always work things out if I was wrong. My problem is, I need to see something - I'm very visual. Hopefully I can pick some things up from him still. So I said to Sarmili, "Sarmili, Saya mau makan siang (I want to eat lunch)" and asked him where the closest mall was. He took me to Blok M, where I had been before, and dropped me off. I took the escalators up to the 5th floor, didn't find any restaurants, so went back down and finally found them in the basement. At this point I was pretty tired of being adventurous, so I went with KFC. It was a bit too spicy, but I ate it and survived.
Side note: my lips are super chapped from the dry air on the long plane ride. Spicy foods do NOT feel good on chapped lips.
After my meal, I called Sarmili to come pick me up and take me back to the church office. From there, I walked down the street to the Grand Lucky mini-mart (still by myself) and did a little shopping for toothpaste, more hand sanitizer in case I need to use the restroom at Febry's again, and other odds and ends like a binder to hold my language notes (too bad they don't sell paper to put IN the binder).
So that was my day of adventure and independence and grownupness and LANGUAGE!
