The Lady With The Alligator Purse

We started Unit 3 on Thanksgiving Day. This unit will focus much more on grammer, so we'll see how I do. They don't have tenses at all - you can say "I drink tea" and it could mean that you did drink tea, that you will drink tea, that you always drink tea and so on. It all depends on the context. They have many prefixes, suffixes and affixes though, and sometimes with those, the meaning of the word completely changes. Also, (this is fun) for some things, if there are more than one, you say the word twice - like, "anak" is the word for child, so if you want to say "children" you say "anak-anak".

We tried out a new pool for the kids on Saturday - it's on the fourth floor of a newly remodeled hotel in town. Not sure we'll be back to swim, unless they put some heat in - it has a roof over it and the water was FREEZING! It was a nice place to go for coffee or something, though. It had a great view of the surrounding area and they offered binoculars to take a look. It would probably be cool to check out the surrounding area at night!

This evening we met with some of the other language students with our organization and sang choruses for a hour. At the conclusion of the hour, Julia threw up. What a mess! I had to take care of her, so 3 or 4 of the ladies there took care of the mess for us. How humbling to have others clean up a mess of that sort for you. Thankfully it was on the tile floor. One of the ladies took out a clean disposible diaper and absorbed the moisture! How enterprising! Julia mostly lay around for a few hours after we got home, but wanted to eat before we put her into bed. We'll keep an eye on her until we go to bed.

Now, on to The Lady with the Alligator Purse. This book has been the source of many giggles in our family. Now I'm taking it to the next level. Each morning in class we have to do an oral presentation. At first it had to be about our experiences. After two months of this, they're probably getting bored with "After class I went home. I ate lunch. I studied. I went to bed." Now we're allowed to expand it more and tell a story - true or false, from our childhood or past experiences or whatever we want. (One classmate told a story about a purse snatcher on the bus who tried to steal her purse. She said she punched him in the face. Then he started sobbing and asked her to pray with him. Then she admitted it wasn't true. BUT she did learn new vocabulary so it was OK!) Anyway, to mix it up a little, this evening I translated the book "The Lady With The Alligator Purse". I doubt our instructors have ever heard THIS story!! Can't wait for "pengalaman" time!

Have a great day and thanks for praying for us. Please pray the Julia feels better in the morning!

PS - One side effect from this immersion is that we are having a very difficult time writing in English anymore. Also, half the time, the local language comes out of our mouths instead of English, without prior thought. (Example, On Saturday Josh was in the other room and he called my name. My response? "Apa?" It means "What?") Guess that's good but it's been funny trying to type in English and having our fingers do strange stuff!