Today turned from being a day of errands into a day of meeting people. I first met up with a husband and wife at the country club. The chap is a Fulbright scholar getting immigration paperwork finished up here and then they’re both heading up to Tana Toraja for his research related to ethnomusicology. They turned out to be an amiable couple, and we’ll probably meet again next week before they head up north. The sidenote to this is that I already met the researcher at the end of my first year in Manado. He was in the COTIM program there (a short-course in Indonesian language given to Americans every summer).
The other invitation I received and took was from a high school teacher that had been to the US on a program sponsored by the US Dept of State. As she and the former Fellow had rapport, I usually invite her to functions at UIN. Anyhow, she invited me to buka puasa–break the fast–at her school. They picked me up around 5p. It was Ibu, her husband, their little girl who eventually called me bodoh (stupid) before the evening was finished, and her husband’s co-worker. I did the meet and greet with many of the teachers and even a few of Ibu’s students. The young women could only giggle as they were prodded to speak English with me. I was seated in the front of the room with the headmaster and a few other honored guests. A single ceiling fan and sixty watt bulb were running while the food was being prepared. Plates of dates were set in front of me along with es cendol, a sweet drink mixed with fruits and jellied items. Around 5.30p the religion teacher sang in Arabic before commencing some sort of sermon in Indonesia. The fellow next to me found out that I spoke a little Indonesian and proceeded to ask me if I was married (no–he encouraged me to take an Indonesian wife), if my parents were still alive (yes), how many siblings I had (four brothers), where I lived. After that he made sure that I had a taste of everything on my plate when we were let to the dinner table. People ate a normal dinner meal and then left, probably to go home to the rest of their family. I went home and scared my houseboy; he was washing my dishes and didn’t hear me come in.
Tomorrow, another English camp in the afternoon…