come together

My house is a bit far from everything. I have to walk about 25 minutes to get to the bus stop that has more frequent buses and is a 'tad' cheaper, that's how far away I live from any stores or restaurants (except for the fancy restaurant that is on the property right next to Seri Mengasih). With the holiday approaching a lot of staff asked me where I was going for Christmas or what I was going to do. I kept telling them I was just going to stay at home and rest. Alone. They did not like that. They would try to see if so-and-so had an extra bedroom so then I just told them I was going to meet my 'American friends' and celebrate Christmas in Kota Kinabalu or Tuaran or somewhere yet to be determined. I promised them I wouldn't be alone for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I was probably asked at least 5 different times if I had a 'program' to go to for Christmas. I was given brochures and phone numbers for people in case I didn't have a church set up for Christmas worship services. I was invited to so many different places that I would have had to choose based on the person I liked the most, and that's hardly fair... Instead I walked to the bus stop with my bag filled with overnight Christmas necessities and took the bus to town and met my 'familiar family/friends.' It was wonderful. Just to be surrounded by people you know and are comfortable with. We can talk about baby Jesus or secular or inter-religious symbols that surround us without worrying we might offend someone. We can talk about family traditions and giggle about them but be there for each other so tears don't come quite so quickly when we realize where we are and who's not with us.

We went to Christmas Eve worship service together, after we ate a lot of food, in congruence with most Christmas Eve traditions. I stayed the night with Liz so that I wouldn't be so alone at home and in the morning we had breakfast together. Liz has sunrises with Mount Kinabalu and the rest of the mountain range while I have sunsets at the sea. We compliment each other. I watched her open her presents and then I skyped HTLC Christmas Eve worship and pretended it was Christmas morning worship. We went to the movies and saw Arthur Christmas which was simply adorable. I'm not usually one for those type of Santa-centered kiddy movies but the timing was perfect and the theatre was empty.

The thing that made me smile the most about that day is the few "Merry Christmas" greetings I received and how many of them were from friends who are Muslim. That was beautiful. When I got back to school Christmas day (afternoon) I saw that my auntie was here and hadn't gone home yet (she was gone before Christmas Eve when I left for Liz's but she wasn't at home) so she wished me a Merry Christmas and asked me to get in the car. She didn't want me to stay here alone. It was random but I didn't want to be alone either. I had to quickly find some clean clothes and pack a bag because she was already in the started car with her husband ready to go home. I am so thankful for that invitation. We went to her house and I received more Christmas love from her family. Her niece (23 years old?) wrote me a Christmas card and made me a bracelet. She kept saying how it must be hard to be away from family and home on a big holiday like this. As usual, they made food and made me eat it. We laughed and played and talked. We didn't do anything particularly 'christmasy' but I accepted that it was, indeed, Christmas and I had survived it.

The most beautiful part about this hospitality, love, and understanding is that this family is Muslim. I'm blessed to share my life with these people and glad that they share their life with me. This relationship has become very important to me but it's difficult to explain why or how. If you want to explore it further or have any questions, I'd be happy to answer an email from you. But basically, I love it and them and Malaysia. Thanks to God for all of it! :)

This was at a Christmas party a couple weeks ago. Napkin folding fascinates me :)

hey, man!

Everyone knows my brother listens to weird music. I remember once he introduced me to some electrophunk band that he liked because of their band name. !!! was the name of the band. Three exclamation points. You could call them anything you want but I don't think "three exclamation points" was the right name. You were supposed to make an exclamation point a word. So you could call them "gush gush gush" or "pow pow pow" or any other combination of whatever you thought ! was supposed to sound like. Well, in Malaysia they use little words (suffixes) at the end of their phrases or sentences that have different functions. A couple are like exclamation points in bold font, a couple are like question marks, and one is even like a frowny face :( but with letters. Nobody told me about this before I got here but the suffixes are used a lot. It's not uncommon for the bahasa melayu (Malay) suffixes to be used when the speaker is speaking in English, so I can easily give you examples for bahasa melayu suffixes. Get ready class.

student: "Teacher, I want to go to the bathroom."
teacher: "Then go la!"

Allisun: "I think I'll just walk to the bus stop."
friend: "Don't do that ba. That'll make you tired."

"La" and "ba" are used interchangeably. I haven't discovered a place to use one over the other. The funny thing about me is that I think I like punctuation, or else I wouldn't be telling you all about this stuff. I am likely to use ?!?!! at the end of a question or ?! or !!! depending on the situation, whereas, in Malaysia, they have words that can pretty much do that for you. It is also important to note that "ba" is only used in local Sabah the state that I live in. Using "ba" identifies where an individual learned to speak bahasa Melayu.

auntie: "Are you hungry ka?"

"Ka" makes it obvious that it's a question, which is funny because bahasa melayu also has the tone change for a question mark ("I'm Ron Burgundy?") and question marks do exist. This one isn't used with english.

Allisun: "Not really, I can help you cook though, kan gu?
This one is 100% translatable, therefore, I use it the most often. kan? is like saying "right?" and gu just refers to any teacher at this entire school. If I'm talking to a taxi driver or a student then tacking 'gu' to the end would be completely inappropriate and I would probably look silly. Although they're together in this example they don't have to be in order to be used.

friend: "Sejuknya."

Allisun: "oh? where's your jacket?"
The suffix here is "nya" and the word I used for an example "sejuk" means cold. I'm guessing this one is just emphasis and is never used with english words. You wouldn't say "coldnya" but it basically means "It's really cold." I know what you're thinking, who the heck said this to me? Is there such thing as feeling "really cold" in Malaysia? And the answer is, no, not really. So maybe "nya" actually implies sarcasm. Ha! I doubt it.

Allisun: "I got caught in the rain!"
friend: "Oh lo lo lo."
Lo... the rarest of them all. Pretty much always negative. It's akin to saying "oh bummer" or "that's too bad." I'd also like to point out that it is used here three times. Lo and la are used like that. I've actually counted once when a woman said, "Ah la la la la la la" and then I exclaimed "SIX!" A little grammar lesson on this language about plurals: one word twice makes it plural. So at school we have cikgu cikgu (teachers) and I am a cikgu (teacher). Obviously, this makes typing/text messaging rather annoying so Malaysians have developed a shortcut "cikgu2" would be teachers. In a text message, if someone were to use this response to my being stuck in the rain, they would say "Oh lo3," and I'm not even joking. It's fantastic.

I must admit that I feel a little silly using a blog to talk about suffixes in bahasa melayu but I want you to share in my joy. I have so thoroughly enjoyed learning, practicing, and being bewildered by a new language. Plus, I have decided that "la" and "ba" can maybe be swapped with "dude" and still make sense. Therefore, I have A LOT of fun listening to people talk and attempting to translate their words and imagining them saying "dude." There's a lot more about bahasa melayu I could try to explain here but I have yet to figure out the prefixes... yeah they have those too. Just know that I am happy and smiling here. I am thankful for you all. I am so glad to finally be reconnected to the cyber world and I even got to pray with Holy Trinity via Skype! Life is definitely good.

It's a double rainbow. In the middle of my town.