I have been in Indonesia for the last week studying as part of my ANU degree. We arrived in a very busy Denpasar airport before finally catching a flight to Yogyakarta and a shuttle bus to Salatiga.
The week has been spent getting to know the university, our home stay family and getting a real emersion in to the Indonesian language.
It was a real eye opener of how much I need to learn when in the placement test I got 10% (of which probably half were lucky guesses!)
As it is the wet season here, it has been raining every day however this has not deterred the locals from their usual program. This is a football game I saw yesterday… one of them was even playing under an umbrella!
Today there was a traditional competition to climb an oiled pole with the people who get to the top getting the prize. I was there for 45mins and they didn’t come close to getting to the top!
In the Indonesian language a lot of the writing is done in the passive voice and so as homework, we have to write 150 words about the pole climbing, all in passive. After being marked down for even thinking in the passive voice at ANU, it is a big change!
Last night we had our first of eight Indonesian martial arts lessons. We went straight into the moves and by the end, I had absolutely no idea what was going on! I think I am supposed to punch and kick but beyond that, I am not sure!
I am going to be here for another 5 weeks here and so by the end, hopefully I will have a better idea of both language and martial arts!