English Mass

Today I attended English mass in the evening. In Palembang all the Catholic masses are in Indonesian except for this once a month session in English at the St Joseph Church (largest Catholic church in Palembang).

Not many people attend English mass in Palembang. Normally there are 10-15 persons attending but today there's only me, another lady and 3 sisters. So the males vocalists for the hymns are only the priest and me...LOL!

In today's sermon, the priest touched about Jesus being the shepherd having to separate goats from sheeps before nightfall. Sheeps represented "the good" while goats represented "evil"...therefore, bad and unlucky ones are called scape-goats. Goat-like beings are often depicted in mythical evil characters. I never really realized this until today's sermon. Maybe I have not been reading the bible enough!

After mass I had a quick chat with the priest, Fr. Edi, who happened to be one of the first persons that I met when I first came to Palembang 2 years ago. He went to Malaysia last month for some lung infection treatment but the doctor did not give him enough medication. It is difficult to get certain prescriptions in Palembang so I volunteered to help him get some when I go back end of the month.

When I was walking back towards my car to go home, I saw the 3 sisters that were in church just now. One of them was Sister Marta from Brazil. They normally come by bus. But out of courtesy I gave them a ride back to a house bought by the arch-bishop of Palembang.

Maths & English

I seldom read the notices that are stuck on the back of the Novotel gym's locker doors. Yesterday I took a good look and found these writings below:

WE NEED YOUR CORPORATE ASSISTANCE FOR ENSURING SAFETINESS IN OUR LOCKER ROOM BY NOT LEAVING ANY VALUABLES ITEM IN THE LOCKER.

SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX IS PROVIDED IN THE SPA RECEPTIONIST AS YOUR SAFETY PLACE TO KEEP YOUR VALUABLES ITEM.





















I could not believe Novotel (the best hotel in Palembang, supposedly 5 Stars) would have posted English notices with grammatical errors like these!

I am not trying to make fun of the Indonesians but the level of English of people here still needs some brushing up.

Maths is another subject that is considered "difficult" for Indonesians. We have been trying to teach maths and English to our maid and driver. We have been allowing them to take time off to go to school so that both of them can finish high school and get their certificates (easier to get jobs).

I have been trying to teach them for months but they still could not do this despite being in the final semester of high school :