Nothing a Good Sense of Humor Can't Handle!

If one would assume that after living in a foreign country for two months I would be able to struggle through a conversation in Indonesian, one would assume wrong. My Indonesian can do little more than ask “How are you?” but if someone asks me how I am in return, the only answer I can reply with is “Fine” or “Not fine.” Indonesian is surprisingly simple however; there is no grammar and everything is spelled like it sounds and sounds like it’s spelled (just remember “c” is pronounced “ch”). I feel lucky that Indonesian is so easy; all I really need to do is memorize vocabulary words. However, this memorization can get extremely confusing when the girls give me a Balinese word instead of the Indonesian word without telling me.

In the cities, most people speak Indonesian, while in the traditional villages people speak Balinese. (Indonesian is spoken throughout Indonesian, while Balinese is spoken only on Bali.) Balinese is ridiculously complicated because not only is it a whole different language, but there are three levels used according to class, each with its own vocabulary. In the villages, the uneducated and older people cannot speak Indonesian and speak only Balinese. There is also an animosity in the villages towards the less traditional city dwellers who can’t speak Balinese, and those city-folk are not considered true Balinese.

I have two primary reasons for not learning much Indonesian. First of all, I am here to speak English, and so I have not been forced to learn the local language, instead forcing other people to practice my foreign language. Being able to speak English in a tourist driven economy is one of the most important skills a worker can have because it helps get better jobs in the tourist industry instead of as a day laborer, and these girls need all the practice I can give them. The second reason I have not learned Indonesian is because it is a one purpose type language. It’s purpose is to be spoken in Indonesia, and I do not expect to need to speak it ever again in my life, unless I return here.

However, I do enjoy using the Indonesian I know and learning more. The vocabulary sounds so different that it is fun to say, and a lot of relationships between words make sense. For example, the word “kapala” means “head” while the word “kalapa” means “coconut.” Although I admit that I don’t use the words “head” and “coconut” very often. Instead my conversations go something like this:

“Julia, suda mandi?”

“Tidak.”

“O! Bao!”

“Ok, ok, saya mandi!”

This roughly means:

“Julia, you already bathe?”

“No.”

“Oh! Smelly!”

“Ok, ok, I will go take a shower!”

(One of the Balinese habits is to take a shower in the morning and in the evening before dinner. I have had a hard time adapting.)

Besides knowing daily needs and greeting type conversations, I can also order food. The Balinese do not use the word “please” at all; I think I learned the word (“tolong“) after being here two weeks and only after looking it up in the dictionary. To order food, you simply say, “Mother (or Father), I want fried rice!” I learned how to order fried rice while cutting vegetables one morning. While practicing with a fellow vegetable cutter, I repeated, “Ibu, saya mau nasi goreng!” over and over again. After practicing that same sentence for about ten minutes, the cook, Kumang, brought out a plate of fried rice. Apparently, my Indonesian was so convincing she thought I actually wanted some even though saya suda makan pagi (I already ate breakfast).

The few Balinese words I know a just entertaining to say and completely unrelated to anything I would ever want to say. For example, “lab blab” (pronounced, lob blob) means boil. I just walk around the orphanage saying “lab blab” over and over again because I like the way it sounds. I also know the word arm: “limeh” (leem-uuh) not to be confused with the Indonesian word “lima,” (leem-ah) which means “four.”

While I may not be learning quickly, I have enjoyed picking up Indonesian slowly (“plan plan” pronounced “pulahn pulahn”). If I need to learn a new word or two, I learn; if I am bored during the day, I learn. I can say what I want and ask for what I need, and when it comes down to it, all a person really needs to communicate is a smile and good sense of humor anyways.

　

Important words to know in Indonesia:

Hot: panas (pahn-ahs)

Spicy: padas (pah-dahs)

Beach: pantai (pahn-tie)

Crazy: gila (ghee-la)

Water: air (eye-air)