WHAT? You don't speak English? What kind of place am I living in?
When we moved here it never crossed my mind that people wouldn't speak english. Yep, so so ignorant.
Well, it was a rude awakening when I realised that I couldn't go to the supermarket and ask for toilet rolls aisle, as I would be taken to the washing machines. Or a simple question of 'do you sell baby monitors?' greeted with a big beaming smile of 'yes yes' (happy to have understood english) and led to the pyjamas, the list goes on. I quickly realised either I was going to have to at least improve my acting skills or bite the bullet and learn to speak Bahassa. Of course the best of intentions mean that I have now been here 6 month and I still can't offer much more than good morning and thank you.
However, yesterday I walked to the little supermarket at the end of my road, as I was paying and exchanging the usual blank looks and shrugs, while the shop keeper spoke to me in Bahassa waving the POS terminal around, I noticed the lady behind me smiling. I looked at her for help and she told me he was asking if I wanted to use some of my points to pay for my shopping. I didn't even know I had any points let alone could use them to pay for shopping, I felt so ashamed. I have been living in this country and I still cannot communicate with anyone. I watched the lady ask questions and pay for her shopping, all spoken in Bahassa and felt such a fraud. I decided I need to make the effort to learn. So here I am today, I am not going as far as to pay for a tutor, but I have logged online and I am planning to listen to my lessons in the car on the way to school or at home during my spare time, which to be fair at the moment I have a lot of.
When we moved here it never crossed my mind that people wouldn't speak english. Yep, so so ignorant.
Well, it was a rude awakening when I realised that I couldn't go to the supermarket and ask for toilet rolls aisle, as I would be taken to the washing machines. Or a simple question of 'do you sell baby monitors?' greeted with a big beaming smile of 'yes yes' (happy to have understood english) and led to the pyjamas, the list goes on. I quickly realised either I was going to have to at least improve my acting skills or bite the bullet and learn to speak Bahassa. Of course the best of intentions mean that I have now been here 6 month and I still can't offer much more than good morning and thank you.
However, yesterday I walked to the little supermarket at the end of my road, as I was paying and exchanging the usual blank looks and shrugs, while the shop keeper spoke to me in Bahassa waving the POS terminal around, I noticed the lady behind me smiling. I looked at her for help and she told me he was asking if I wanted to use some of my points to pay for my shopping. I didn't even know I had any points let alone could use them to pay for shopping, I felt so ashamed. I have been living in this country and I still cannot communicate with anyone. I watched the lady ask questions and pay for her shopping, all spoken in Bahassa and felt such a fraud. I decided I need to make the effort to learn. So here I am today, I am not going as far as to pay for a tutor, but I have logged online and I am planning to listen to my lessons in the car on the way to school or at home during my spare time, which to be fair at the moment I have a lot of.
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