Language Training, the Hidden Perils of

Before coming to Jakarta, we lived in Yogyakarta for a few months so my husband could complete language training. Of course, I had high aspirations for myself, feeling I could build on the semester of Indonesian I had taken at university solely because my boyfriend was like, super dreamy. He remained hot but my foreign language retention skills did not. So when we arrived in Yogya six or so year later, I was all about the SHOUTmumble, which is when you make an unintentionally loud but respectable beginning noise to the word but then trail off into guttural nonsense, while nodding and bobbing one's head in a maniacal fashion, so much so that the other person has no choice but to bob their head in response - so two people just bob and grin at each other, each wishing they could die on the spot, wondering when the hell will end. 



And everywhere I went people clamoured lustily, 'HAMIL!!!' (pregnant), and then I would go red in the face, bobbing wildly while SHOUTmumbling 'SELAMafoishhssszzzzzz' so I was starting to feel that  it was just best to stay inside, where I was safe from linguistic shame.

But I could only watch so many episodes of Man vs Food -- mainly because I was a vegetarian and it made me imagine actually just diving into a vat of sweet, sweet mince -- and so the time came when I decided I had to enter the mean streets and live my life. I remember feeling a quite smug as I got into a cab and enunciated quite clearly 'SAYA PERGI KE WISMA BAHASA' and the cab moved forward -- obviously I was basically fluent already, who even needed language training?  

Flushed with success, I arrived at the language school and being pregnant, went immediately to the toilet. I then sashayed across the courtyard which was packed with the lunch time crowd, nodding, bobbing and SHOUTmumbling at the various people staring at me, the hamil ibu, o yes hello, I am at one with local culture, I am KING OF THE EXPATS. A small Indonesian women in a jilbab ran up to me and gesticulated wildly, and I was like APA KAZarghjhjjhiissss! I then turned around to look and. My skirt. It was tucked up. Into my sweaty underpants. I came to learn a language and I flashed everyone my arse. 


As I fled the scene, a mango the size of a large coconut fell from the heavens, missing me by centimetres and smashed open onto the cement. The security guards then cackled, swept it up, and ate it with chilli. 

Needless to say, I did not complete my language training. SAMPAI JUooosssaahhhhhuuyss!!!