Ups and Downs

Today was full of ups and downs. One up was waking up on my own and just laying in bed for a while. That was very nice. Another up was the fact I feel like I am hearing Indonesian better after three days here. Understanding… now that is a different story… but I am definitely hearing better. I am understanding more than three days ago. I just wish I was understanding more and able to express more. I feel like such a fish out of water. A down was basically blowing the writing test we took today. It was terrible. I couldn’t remember a lot of vocabulary and my writing is rudimentary at best. It did make me feel better that at least two of the other COTI peeps didn’t know the word for “strangling” either. We were translating news stories by the way. So that was interesting. And by interesting I mean bad of course.
A major up was lunch break. I love lunch break. Not only do I hear English but the PIBBI (the other program working with us) and the COTI people are really nice. They make me feel good about things I’ve accomplished and OK with the things I struggle with. Although at this lunch an interesting thing happened. We were served this delicious dish that was filled with yummy squid. Except that squid was actually chicken intestines. My new buddy Morgs ate this dish thinking it was seafood and OK for her to eat. She was, as she puts it, “food raped.” I thought it was yummy even if it was intestines but I so get where she is coming from. We also had a lecture about how to write, and I’m talking indent your paragraphs type of info. Yes it was very 101 information but because it was in Indonesian it was hard for me. I wrote down about 20 words I didn’t understand in the presentation. Those were just the ones I could catch. Then another up, because of this Emma and I went to buy dictionaries! Hooray! I finally have both an English-Indonesian and an Indonesian-English dictionary. They are awesome. Emma and I went back to the building we have all our classes in, LTC, and looked up the words we didn’t know from the presentation. She had far less than I did. We then wrote down the definitions to study later. At 4pm we had our cultural class or kelas budaya. This was both an up and a down. Up because I am in the Silat class and it is awesome. Down because, oh. my. jebus. it was SO HOT. We have our class in an open air room with slippery floors. We were sweating up a storm and then slipping on the floors. Sweaty and awkward. We were all big sweat monsters. I did, however, feel like a bad ass with all the kicks, spins, and punches we were doing. So that’s fun.
Then came the major down. I got home and Bu Lele needed to tell me something. I couldn’t understand it. I even had to look up a word she kept saying over and over to me. I just had no clue what she was trying to tell me. Something about tomorrow, something about when I had to be at school, and something about Ibu Rini’s daughter, who is here now. I couldn’t put the pieces together and I could feel her frustration with me. I have been feeling it all day. It mad me sad, and I was tired, and sweaty, and I started to tear up. She told me not to cry and that it was ok but I was just so frustrated because I want to understand her and I don’t want her to be frustrated with me. I just want her to be happy and like me. Also, I’m dead tired and I just broke. I think we figured it out in the end with the help of my schedule. However it really made me feel stupid and I hate that feeling. I also just felt bad for putting ANY stress on Bu Lele. She is so kind and has been so patient with me. I don’t want her to be upset. Ever. So Bu made me a mandi and I calmed down. Then I hung out with Bu Rini’s daughter, whose name I need to learn to spell. Eek. She is so sweet and really wanted to hang out with me. She looked through all my photos, played angry birds on my phone, asked me a bunch of questions (which I understood!), and she just wanted to be near me. That made me feel very special and it was so needed after feeling so down on myself. One more in the up column. Then we ate. Nasi goreng was delivered to the house and it was awesome. Nasi goreng is basically the fried rice of Indonesia. It is so very yummy. That was definitely and up. Then we started talking and I could understand most of what she was saying, even if I stumbled on a lot of my words. Then another down, Bu talked about how awesome Emma is. I could tell she really wished Emma was staying with her and not me. That kind of hurt. A lot. I know my language skills must be frustrating but I am trying. I’m trying really hard. But there were more ups today than downs. Even if the downs weigh heavier on my shoulders I have to remember the ups. Also, tomorrow is another day.