I've made a huge mistake.

Oh yeah. I forgot I'm terrible with languages.

Yesterday we met our peer tutors. For the next two months, our two peer tutors are our official in-country friends, and we'll shop and talk together. There's only one problem: they aren't allowed to speak to me in English.

At all.

Yesterday we talked for two hours, and by the end, I was nearly ready to throw in the towel. Most of the time, I couldn't understand the questions they asked me, least of all respond with any semblance of correct grammar, so for two hours they spoke to me and I tried to break apart what they said word by word, asking "Apa rambut?" Rambut means hair, it turns out. That keeps coming up. They tried to stay patient and positive, and so did I, but by the end we were all exhausted, and I had four pages of vocab words scrawled in my notebook, which I frantically tried to copy onto flashcards.

I realized as I dozed, surrounded by flashcards, that though this experience terrifies me, I've already learned an impressive amount. I must remember it can only get better from here.

Hopefully.

Mistakes I made yesterday:

Trying to hand someone money with my left hand
Forgetting respectful titles: Ibu, Bapak, Mbak, Mas