First Violin Lesson!

       Last week, Ruth came to us and brought up the subject of individuality. She encouraged each of us to think of a way we could do something without the others, to simply be independent individual SM's. Away from the PAK. It was a light bulb moment for me. It never crossed my mind to try to do something away from the other girls.  I had just come to terms with doing everything with this little family for the next 9 months. Cooking, cleaning, sharing 1 bathroom, school, pasar, Mister, language learning, nursing, sharing a bedroom… everything!  So each of us has been praying that God would open the doors to our individuality.  And He has in many ways.

One door opened yesterday. I was surprised with the opportunity to teach a spontaneous violin lesson! I had been asked if I would be willing to teach a guy who lives at Adventist Aviation. But yesterday he showed up (very Indonesian style) when I was at the Boyd’s house. Surprise!  But of course, I was happy to try and teach (more like tutor) him and walk through my individuality door. 

I knew language would be an issue but I was not prepared for how big that barrier would be.  For example, the names of the open strings on the violin are “G, D, A, and E”. Ok, makes since in English.  But in Indonesian they have slightly different sounds for their letters.  It goes G = Gay, and  D = Deh. No big deal so far, right? A = Aw, E = Eh (like hay without the “h”).  Basically, their “E” sounds like how we would say “A” in English. See the confusion?  I would say play on the A-string and he would start playing on the E-string (highest string), AND the very little Indonesian that I speak has nothing to do with music!     

Praise the Lord though, I had Ryan to help translate.  Ryan is a new friend we’ve met while being here.  He’s a high schooler at the local Adventist school in Sentani who’s family just moved here from the Philippines.  But he’s completely fluent in both English and Indonesian.  Plus, he plays clarinet and trumpet so he knows the musical terms. I was so grateful to have him there!

Jonathon (my student) doesn’t read music but plays by ear.  So any suggestions of a way to teach site reading with little talking (since I may not always have a translator) would be greatly appreciated! I have a feeling these lessons will be a lot of pointing and possibly a little charades.