It's an adventure - challenges of the day

It’s an adventure.. That’s what I try to say to myself when challenges come my way. It’s a choice inside to be frustrated or to see the challenge. To see a possibility to grow, to learn, to love and to shine.

This morning someone knocked my door. ‘ a moment please” I said, but the person behind the door kept on knocked again. And I already felt irritated. And I wondered why it irritated me. I realized that in Holland you just ring the bell once and you give the person time to walk to the door. You just don’t keep on ringing the bell. That would be so unpolite. Haha all those culture differences.

Oke, so I open the door and there is this lady standing in a white uniform. When she sees me  she starts talking in a mix of Indonesian and English, I don’t understand a word. I learned it is very unpolite to interrupt, so I wait patiently until she’s finished and I tell her in Indonesian I did not understand a word she said. As usual (when I open my mouth and speak in Indonesian) she’s very surprised that I speak her language. And she explains in Indonesian again what she’s selling. And I still have no clue, then she said: ‘ look what do you not understand. Everybody in the kampung is buying it, so just buy it to participate. It is to clean your floor. I look to my floor and say: “ I clean my floor every day, I don’t need this stuff.” “ Yes you do”, she says and she shows me a horrible picture of people with swollen ugly legs, and she shows me a picture of a worm. “This worm you cannot see, but it is on your floor and it will make your leg like this.”  I try to tell her that I don’t need this medicine or whatever it is. But she continues : “ The other Dutch lady from the kampong just said show me what your selling, I showed her and she bought the big package and gave me 70.000Rupiahs”. And she pushes the medicine in my hand. As I’m standing there in confusion about the amount of money because she just told me that the price was a 15.000Rp. Inside I’m confused and irritated. If this is something that the whole kampong does because of the hygiene, why don’t I know about it? Do I need it? I don’t know. And why doesn’t she understand my questions. Well all my ways to try to tell her it don’t want it failed. So I give her my best smile, cause that’s what you do here. I grab some money out of my wallet and give it to her. She takes a step back, smiles, puts her hands together in front of her face and says: “I say thank you so much”, she turns around and leaves. Me, standing in the frond door, still in confusion, with some stuff I’m not even sure about if I need it.  Telling myself it’s an adventure.

 Later that day…

Three minutes left on the clock and I’m waiting for the bell to ring to start my 2^nd day at school, as I hear my name Nona Dian, nona Dian, (nona means Miss, and Dian is my Indonesian name). It is one of my teachers calling my name. She sits next to me and says can you please, please, please give your testimony. (we start every Monday with a little service where we have a change to put our language in practice, we do preaching, singing, testimony and reading a bible verse) I look at her and the only thing I can say is “ Aduh” which means something like Oh no. She says “ please” while she looks at me and holds my arm. “ Aduh, aduh, aduh” I say. “It’s my second day at school, I’ve been away for 2,5 months and lost so much language, I don’t know.” But she still looks at me and finally I say  “ Ok, I will do it”. Asuming that she really need someone to do the testimony, because there is no one else.

But the tears are almost running down my face, but there is no time to think, I feel overwhelmed and the bell already rung. I go inside and a copple of minutes later I’m standing before a group of people stumbling in my Indonesian, trying to tell what a great time I had in Holland. Not that I have the vocabulary, but hee, I did the best I could! It's an adventure, right? And adventure means to me that we not always know what's next. I did very well today, by not having time to prepare a testimony in my 3th language and just standing there and doing it at my 2nd day of language learning, after being away for 2,5 months! I'm proud of myself!

And while I’m sitting at a friends house writing this update, after I cried all my tears out, I’m eating some nice chocolate and when I opened up the wrapping around the little chocolate, I found some true words saying: Do all things with love…

Seasons change

As the day passed by, I’m sitting outside in candle light watching the cloud filled sky. The crickets are filling the sky with their sound. People are chattering, someone is playing the guitar, hundreds of  houses are shining their little lights in the valley, dogs are barking, cats fighting their territory. I’m home…

It was interesting to discover today that live went on while I was in Holland, but some things are still the same. Like the little lizard that lives in my garbage bin, and the ants still walking the same route through my house every day. Things like finding out there was  no water in the entire kampong today.

And the neighbor with her little warung in the street still sells her Bakso (famous meetbal with mie soup) everyday, the ojeg (motortaxi)drivers are still sitting at the entrance of the kampung, waiting and joking around. And everybody is smiling and asking: how are you doing, where do you wanna go, what did you do? Their way of saying hello while their squatting on their knees in the front of the houses or sweeping the floor at the front door in the hot and burning sun. Even it looks the same, the season is changed, as in nature, as in my live. Raining season is over.

And even though the program of the day looks the same, going back to school and learning about language and culture. I’m changed, a new season is waiting, and I’m looking forward to see what it will bring.