Sorry, what did you say?

You know what?! My maid and I .. we have language issues ..

For all those of you who think Bahasa Indonesia is the SAME as Malay ... come, let me whack you on the head with my Tommy Hilfiger clogs. It isn't. Some words are similar. Most aren't .. and the language is just different. And before you say .. well, that should be enough to issue instructions - it isn't. Really.

I swear my maid probably only understands A LITTLE of what I'm telling her .. and the same goes for me. When she starts chattering to me about something, I have close to no clue at all about what she's telling me. SIGH. As long as I don't hear relevant words like "blood", "fall", "knife" etc .. I don't ask her to repeat her story.

SIGH. My previous maid, Khalimah ... did a 2 year stint in Brunei before coming to Singapore so she understands Malay very well and she can even speak it the way Singaporean/Malaysian/Bruneian Malays do .. so it was a piece of cake working with her.

Newbie speaks with a strong Indonesian accent. And she understands ZERO Malay. I think most of the time when I ask her to do something, she understand just 40% of my instructions and justs wings it. Damn.

Thankfully, Khalimah did manage to impart quite a bit of info to her those few days before she left and so, the situation isn't THAT desperate. I overheard Stanley trying to tell her something the other day .. and of course, she got it wrong much to his annoyance. hahahah!! I HAD already told him NOT to try to instruct her to do anything. Just tell me and I'll let her know but uncle decided to be clever ... anyway, his instructions were given in really really bad Malay ... cos of course, he can't actually speak proper Malay just the usual 20 words or so .. lol .. and even then it's the type of Malay u hear being spoken by the old Chinese aunties and uncles ... cos he learned it from his mother.

Anyway, I've decided that it's easier for me to use her Indonesian words so she can understand me quicker, so I've started saying "mobil" rather than "kereta" ... which is "car" in English (for eg) and I'm picking up words here and there from her and using them. Hopefully, I'll get to speak Bahasa Indonesia soon so SHE can understand me PROPERLY finally.

One can hope.