Motorbike Rides and Living Life In Translation

Living off campus this year means I need to find a way to complete 20 minute walk from my apartment to the school each morning. The cheapest and fastest way is by motorbike so each morning I order one with my Grab app (Indonesia’s version of Uber). They come in less than five minutes and I wrap my hair in a scarf to protect it from the wind and hop on the back for the two minute ride down the boulevard. Which costs me all of eighty cents.

I enjoy these little rides immensely. 5:50 a.m. is the coolest part of the day, normally around 74 degrees. This is also around sunrise and so I look up through the trees and see the rosy colored sky.
It is moments like this, hanging on to the back bar of a motorbike as we whizz through the morning air, that I am struck by how different life is now. How I never would have guessed that I would find myself in my second year teaching halfway around the world in a country that many people don’t remember where it is. Sometimes I just laugh at the absurdity of it all when I go to buy a towel and the clerk weighs it on a scale before placing on the price sticker. Because apparently some towels are sold by weight here.

I am also easing into living life in translation. When I go to a 

Professional Development seminar, led by a man from Scotland, we have a translator for my Indonesian coworkers. When I go to the store, I speak a broken mix of English and Indonesian with the cashier (mostly I try to see how far I can get without them knowing how little Indonesian I know). When I got to Bible study, we are split into groups according to language preference. 

I get the privilege of teaching an ELA class this year ( for English Language Learners). And while English is the second language for most of my students (for some it is their third) some students need just a little extra help. So they end up in ELA. I attended a conference (pictured above) with all the ELA teachers from our five campuses. It was so good to learn and see what was being done across the schools and gave me a new appreciation for what some of my students are struggling with. 

Some of these kids are crazy smart but the are just struggling with language acquisition. As someone who is struggling to learn a new language myself I can tell you how hard it feels. The conference reminded me that sometimes they ask for directions to be repeated, not because they weren’t listening, but because they are sometimes still struggling to understand and process. That sometimes they turn in projects half finished because they didn’t understand the directions and were too shy to ask. 

I need to be more patient with these brave souls who take on an education in a secondary language. They are living in translation. 

Indonesian words:

Pergi ke: to go

Pasar: market

Bahasa: language 

-Rachael