saya guru bahasa ingris : )
Every morning when I enter either of the Nursery schools, I am met by shouts and a chorus of Good Morning!´ by the kids, who rush up to take my right hand and touch it against their forehead, or kiss it, a sign of respect they give all their elders and teachers. I couldn’t stop smiling the other day when one of the girls shouted out ´guru bahasa ingris!´ (English teacher!) very loudly and excitedly in the most adorable way. It still amuses me that I am a ´guru´ in some way or another, and I still think I should wear colourful robes and/or chant serenely and spout sound-bite phrases of wisdom.
The children call me ´ibu Rebecca´ or a shortened form, ´bu Rebecca´ (not in any way to be confused with Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird). This confused me to start with as ibu in Indonesian means Mother, but a teacher explained to me later that it was also a respectful title that some children would call their teachers.
I join the children when they go swimming every second Saturday in one of the Nursery schools. I originally thought it was just to chat English to the children and splash around with them, until I was beckoned to ´teach, teach!´ them to swim. It is one thing teaching an excited classroom the names of the colours in English, and something else to teach splashing, screaming, and hyper 4 year olds to follow any sense of organisation where water is concerned. I think it would be easier to tame wild animals in the jungle!
If you can imagine me trying my best to swim (fully clothed because it is a Muslim school) around a small and shallow pool with kids trying to grab your hands and pull on your t-shirt. It is so much fun though, and even on mornings when I am feeling sleepy and subdued they literally do ´buoy´ up my spirits with their infectious energy, even if my swimming lesson efforts aren’t always very successful..
I mostly walk to and from school each day, which is only about 20-25 minutes, though the heat means that everything is slowed down to a very light ambling pace, which still does not stop me from sweating constantly during the day. I’m not sure if I have now adjusted to the temperature better, or if I have just resigned myself to open sweat pores. I suspect it’s a little of both. Despite the heat, and the visible surprise on the teachers faces that I would consider walking (everyone rides motorbikes to drive even the shortest distance) I love to walk, and always have.
As I amble along at Indonesian pace it allows me to stop and talk to people along the way, try my best to practice Indonesian pleasantries, and watch the daily sights and sounds of Klungkung.
People will ask you continuously the phrase ´ke mana?´ or ´where you go?´, which although I realised is the Indonesian equivalent of chit chat or small talk about the weather, I did not yet understand that they really didn’t want/need to know where you were going. For the first 3 weeks or more I would reply in basic Indonesian that I was going ´to school´, ´to the orphanage´ or to whatever nearby town we happened to be going to visit. Before long I eventually came to realise that people were just as happy to hear you were jalan jalan (going for a walk) than to know the coordinates on the map of where your destination was.
On the streets women walk with enormous loads lodged in completely carefree fashion on their heads, or sit in groups weaving baskets from bamboo strands to place their daily offerings in. A wooden cart on wheels is stopped at the side of the street, where a man grills sate ayam (chicken satay) sticks and wafts the billows of smoke away from his eyes and into the eyes and noses of passers by. Children clutch small clear plastic bags filled with a sweet lemonade mixture of all sorts of colours, and quietly suck from the straw reaching out of the top. A mother dressed in a Sarong lights incense and lays it beside the other offerings next to the deity figures on the roundabout in the centre of town.
And everywhere, there are people sitting. Those selling their wares sit behind makeshift kiosks laden with drinks and snacks or with their heads just visible above glass counters displaying mobile phones, electronics, or jewelery. Friends, relatives, acquaintances will sit on the street beside the stalls, on stools in the shops, or chat from their stationary motorbikes. It is easy to see Bali days as one long social ´hanging out´ session!
If I had thought that Western Australian was relaxed, and time slowed down, Indonesian time is on another level entirely. Sometimes called ´rubber time´, the concept of time here is flexible and ´stretchy´, which means that someone arriving 30 minutes later than arranged is not only unusual, but expected. None of the habits or social conditions we have in the west around arriving ´fashionably late´, ´embarassingly late´ or ´unexpectedly early´ apply here. People simply arrive exactly when they mean to. I think schools are a slight exception, and the Muslim schools I teach in both follow a routine and work on a fairly close time schedule.
If there are two Indonesian words that will stick out as the most commonly used, they would be nanti (later) and bulum (not yet). These terms will frustrate an anxious westerner to no end, when they are used to ´now´ and ´in an hour´, because nanti can refer to a future time span of anywhere between 15 minutes, 24 hours, or …never.
