Your going to feed your... ghosts!?!

One of the stories people get the biggest kick out of from my repertoire of funny language learning stories, is the mixup with the ghosts... In fact, on a recent trip back to Bunaken last month, I found out that the family that this occurred with still recounts the tale to all family and friends as well as any travelers passing through!

It was one of our first visits to Bunaken Island and the village of Alung Banua, where we would come to feel like family in short order...  And needless to say, we were still very much in the steep part of the learning curve of the Indonesian language.  Every day, early morning, Vera's father, a lovely man and respected leader in the community, would head off to the kebun (the farm/garden).  When we would all meet up in the afternoon after our days' activities, we would sit and relax in the cool shade of their luscious green garden and try to converse.  Vera's father, although not fluent, certainly had a decent English vocabulary, and was very patient and kind in aiding our attempts at learning Indonesian, so we stumbled along through stories and conversations, not getting much past the contents of our days...  When I was asking about what he did when he went to the farm, he would tell me about the crops, and the animals... And he said he would "kasih makan kambing"... 'kasih makan' I knew (he would 'feed')... but kambing was a completely new word for me... we played a little charades, and I still didn't get it... couldn't figure out which farm animal he might be referring to... then he said, in his timid English... 'ghosts'...   

Ummmm.... OK?

So, I tried not to blanche visibly... and carried on the conversation... asking him if he visited the ghosts every day... what did they 'eat' (since he had ostensibly been feeding them)... could anyone visit them, or was it only him that could see them... had they been there forever....  

I was getting more and more confused... and thinking that either this senior was not as on-the-ball as I had taken him to be originally or, he had some mystical connection to the next world... (you never know really - I wasn't willing to make any assumptions... what with the language and cultural barrier and all)...

When Vera came out with some fresh young coconut to quench our thirst, I couldn't stand it any more... I thought I must be going nuts, sitting having a conversation about this man and his ghosts that he visited daily, like there was nothing more normal in the world... I mean, if it were ghosts, you would think he would recognize the rarity in the situation, right!?!  So I asked her if she happened to know the English word for kambing... 

She said "Of course, you know, GOATS"!

I cracked up laughing and proceeded to try to explain to them the misunderstanding... and once we finally found the Indonesian word for ghost (hantu), we were all practically rolling around on the floor, tears streaming down our faces in laughter trying to imagine the two completely different conversations that were happening at the same time about the ghosts/goats!!!