Oh wait here is a picture of them.
That's Becca and Sean in the back, Sean is the tall guy, and Becca is to the right of him. They are standing with a couple other students and all of our teachers or "pilatihs" at language school. We love our pilatihs. They are such a fun, positive bunch. And they are so patient. Could you imagine teaching people your language all day every day?! They do a great job. It was a very funny moment on Friday when Heather and I were in language class, and Sean and Becca rode off on their scooter after their last day. Sean let out a "waaaa-hooo!" that could be heard throughout the whole school. The look on the teacher's faces were priceless. In Javanese culture (the people native to this island of Java) it is polite to be calm, quiet, and anything but boistrous. And Sean seems like he is a guy who doesn't mind breaking the rules from time to time in good fun!
Speaking of language school, Heather and I just completed our first "unit" of language school (8 more to go!) That is, if we pass our unit 1 evaluation tomorrow (knock on wood!). It is such a relief to be done with unit 1....it is such a challenging time. We were just adjusting to living here....while beginning to grapple with a language we knew nothing about. It feels so good now to have four weeks under our belt, and to be able to actually walk up to and begin a conversation with people in our neighborhood.
Our school takes a few days break between units. It is a welcome change of pace and it gives students an opportunity to head out and check out nerby cities in the island of Java and to get more experience talking with the locals. So we're going to do just that! After our evaluation Monday we are going to strike out for a two night excursion to a nearby city. We're pretty excited. And it is our first trip like this as a family of four!
For lack of time I am going to skip putting the token photo slide-show up right now, but hope to do that soon. Instead here's a short vid I took of Ian today!
