The air was warm and thick with moisture. The sky gloomy with rain-filled clouds. Drops of water continued to fall on the paths made with large stones interspersed with greenery which would have no hope of survival in an Australian summer. The paths were flanked by lush greenery and bright red and orange tropical blooms which gave rise to a sense of pageantry and celebration as I made my way to the lobby.
The novelty of rain and comfort of warm air roused my inner child and I found myself happy to wade ankle-deep in the luke-warm waters left behind by the overnight falls (yes, it was terrible for my footwear - but since when has one's inner child cared about ruining their clothes).
Frogs and an occasional monitor lizard saw fit to join me. The geckos on the walls of the villas content to merely watch.
It was December. Rainy season.
Having made my way to the lobby of the Mercure Resort in Sanur Bali, where I was staying with my husband and small children (maybe they were 4 & 7 at the time) I took a seat on one of the comfortable couches. As I was taking in the atmosphere, one of the hotel workers approached me for a friendly chat.
I remember thinking that Siti seemed quite young, I had assumed she was from Bali (I was too naive at the time to understand that many other Indonesians aside from the Balinese worked on the island).
As we chatted about my children, I started to ask about her life and whether she had family. She said that she had a son the same age as my daughter. He lived on another island called Java with his grandmother.
I asked how long the trip back to her home town in Java was - assuming maybe a 30 minute ferry ride each way. Once again, my assumptions got the better of me. No, about a day. She could not see her son everyday.
I asked how often she returned to Java (I couldn't imagine being away from my own children for very long), perhaps she went home at the weekends?
No. It had been three months.
As she said so, I noticed tears welling in her eyes, I felt the same in mine.
In order for her to support her son, she needed to work away from home and send money back to her mother. Her former husband had abandoned her.
As I sat there, I felt a deep sense of the inequality between us. It hardly seemed fair that I was holidaying on the island of Bali with my children care-free and yet, here was this mother in front of me, broken-hearted by the hard decision to leave her baby at home and live far away, working in roles that required her to care for other people's families, simply so that hers family could survive.
My brain struggled to comprehend the inequity between Siti's opportunities and mine. We lived a mere three and a half hour flight from each other, yet our circumstances were so different. I was mind blown. It didn't seem fair.
Both of us seemingly connected to the heart of who we are as mothers, that bond that sometimes hurts through pure love, the one that pulls strength from a place you never knew existed - we saw each other.
And that's where our words ended.
The weight of the words we could not say sat heavily in my heart - it still does. I could not speak her language. The only reason we could converse at all was her skill in hospitality level English - outside of those topics - we could not converse.
I was embarrassed that it was my naivety and ignorance that stopped us understanding and learning further from each other. Moreover, I felt helpless, unable to make a difference to someone who, in many ways, felt like a version of myself born in my neighbouring country.
This is where my Indonesian story began.
I decided then and there that I would learn the language of Indonesia. Why not Balinese? Well, yes. I definitely did consider this since, at the time, the island of Bali was the only place in Indonesia I was visiting and was likely to continue to visit (little did I know that in years to come I would significantly expand my travels across the archipelago).
However, people told me that it could be difficult and that it is only spoken on the island of Bali. Many Indonesians living and working in Bali (like Siti) also do not speak Balinese and finding a teacher also wasn't the easiest.
I decided on Indonesian. The national language of Indonesia. It is widely spoken across the archipelago (in some rural areas and older generations, still only local language is used), and it is also similar to Bahasa Melayu - spoken in Malaysia and parts of Singapore - similar to the way that Italian and Spanish have similarities.
When I travel to a country of people who speak a language other than English - out of politeness, a bit of fun, and potentially just in case I wander off from a typical tourist route (which I have a habit of doing without intention - curiosity gets me everytime), I like to learn a few of the basics before I land in country.
In the hotel directory beside the bed next to my go-to natural mosquito repellent 1 (the smell of which always reminds me of travel in Asia), were the basics, "Hello, good morning, how are you?" Just starting with these "Pagi Pak, Apa kabar?" led to the biggest, cheesiest grin from the gardeners as they swept away the leaves from the overnight rains, "Baik." and the occasional reply from taxi drivers "Oh! You speak Indonesian" followed by rapid-fire dialogue I had no hope of understanding.
Nowadays I can follow that rapid-fire dialogue and have a reasonable conversation in Indonesian. Conversations about family, love, betrayal, opportunities, possibilities and setbacks, or simply a funny television show we've all been watching (to my great amusement my non-Indonesian speaking husband is a fan of Arisan when we are in-country). You know, life stuff that we as all human beings talk about - those conversations are now available to me in Indonesian.
One of the greatest delights I have when meeting someone new, whether in a daily interaction or formal setting is watching my Indonesian counterpart relax the moment they realise they do not have to speak English with me (as recently happened when I went into a pharmacy to ask for medicine for the not-so-fun reaction I was having to the pollution in Bandung - I'm such a bule 2).
There's a moment when people realise we can speak freely and human to human without being limited by language or fear.
Learning Indonesian has allowed me to step past the limits that stopped Siti and I taking those nexts steps in the lobby of the Mercure in Sanur into a deeper understanding of one another. Now, when conversations like these arise, they don't end - they open up.
Everytime I have the privilege of someone sharing their life or culture with me, I am reminded that learning another language is not at all about the words but rather it's about opening doors to people, hearts, culture and ways of seeing the world that would otherwise remain out of reach.