Back to Malang


These photos go way back to October last year when Equeen (left), Maryam and I went to a 3-week narrative discourse workshop in Malang, where Phil and I lived for over a year doing language school. We learnt a method for analysing stories in Papuan Malay and then experimented with applying the discourse features that we discovered in these stories to our draft translations of stories from Luke and Acts. The challenge now is to get more stories that are useful for analysis and to make the time to do the analysis, as we only looked at two stories at the workshop. It was a long time to be away from the family, but well worth it. A bonus for me was being in Malang again and being able to catch up with some old friends. And get a decent haircut.



Last photos from Malang

Beautiful Reuben.

Some of our lovely neighbours dropping in to congratulate us on Autumn.

Autumn's little room within our room.

Five

July Randoms

Soren greeted me with a giant cockroach the other morning.

Reub sporting his new necklace.

Soren has a new hobby--taking photos.

Sleep, sleep, glorious sleep. Reuben still has an afternoon nap, at the same time Soren plays quietly in his room. Now I just need to get Autumn's naps in sync, and I'll have a daily block of child-free time again..

Autumn at 6 weeks

Pretty in pink.


The fuzziness of this photo reflects the current state of my head. Even though at this age Autumn is the easiest baby of our three by a zillion years--a champion sleeper!--I've still got a serious case of post-natal drift. I am trying to soak up all I can of this lovely, blurry, milky, soft and sweet stage of her life.

Yeni

Yeni is a university student in Malang. She works for friends of ours playing with their kids in Indonesian. Since they've been on furlough, we've had her come on Thursday afternoons to do the same thing. After a few weeks, the boys are already using more Indonesian with her.

Last day at Kidsland

There was an end-of-year concert and graduation at Kidsland, Soren's kinder. All the children played a part in an animal-themed medley--Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?

Soren was a black dog.

Here are the blue horses and the green frogs. The medley was designed to reinforce and showcase learning about colours and animals they'd been doing in English. Was really great!

Indonesians love ceremony!

The students graduating from TK-B (the second year of the kindergarten program), who will head to school next year.

Last day at Oasis

Reuben with Ibu Lilik, the principal of Oasis--the small, friendly kindergarten/playgroup that Reuben has attended for our year in Malang, and Soren for the first 6 months. It was founded and is overseen by Koreans, but the staff are Indonesian.

Reuben with his teacher Ibu Vero.

Reuben's classmates came from Korea, Australia, America and Indonesia.



Though not expensive, many Indonesians can't afford to send their kids to Oasis, or any other kindergarten, and keep them at home until they are old enough to attend school.

Phil loved getting to know this core group of Oasis mums. They were patient and forthcoming with his endless questioning, laughed with him (and at him), and became good friends over the daily drop-off and chat. Needless to say, they were invaluable for gaining a deeper understanding of the culture, and helped him perfect his lovely Javanese accent, which he'll now have to train himself out of for our return to Papua.

Some of the teachers, children and parents got together for an end-of-year meal.

This bumbu rujak chicken was so good I got the recipe.

Autumn gets a good dose of Indonesian-style love and affection.

Autumn with Oma--one of the most wonderful, big-hearted pray-ers I have met.

Washing up is done outside.



Heading home.

4 Weeks


This is Shelley from across the road, who is 4 months pregnant! 

I cannot for the life of me get a good close-up of this baby! These will have to do.

Birthdays in Malang

Soren recently went to a kinder friend's birthday party. It was at KFC.

Yes, it is typical for parents to hire an MC, a giant bird and a clown for their five year old's party..

..and yes, each child received one of those giant lolly bags.

Visitors

A few of the mums from Reuben's kinder dropped by for a hold of Autumn and to give me a gift.

Later, some of the teachers from language school rocked up on their bikes.

Ibu Itin gives me a lesson in how Indonesians carry their babies.

Time to head back to school.