Do you ever feel like you're being watched, or followed??

Recently, I have started to teach piano to one of my staff. Russ & I live next to a church that owns a small keyboard (not full-size) which they use for church on Sundays (they either hook it up to a battery or a generator). A few weeks ago my finance assistant here told me that he would like to learn how to play piano so that he can play for church. Since I had already been thinking of a way to be able to play on the keyboard in the church and because it could be pretty fun to teach piano, I offered to be his teacher. He's VERY excited about it. We're starting right from scratch, as he has no piano knowledge or history.

The lessons take place in the church (please don't imagine your own church when I say this - it's a concrete, rectangular building with rough wooden benches, grey concrete floor and a few fake flower bunches hanging on the wall by the altar) and on our first lesson, we had an audience of about 30 - 40 people. Young kids, teenagers, young parents, grandparents, you name it. they were all interested. At the start, I told my staff to tell them that they could watch, but only if they sat in the benches and didn't talk at all. They were pretty quiet. I think it was rather boring for them to watch, and by the end, there were only a handful of people left.

For our second lesson, there were maybe a max of about 12 people. Better.

Last weekend Russ & I decided to plant a garden in the front of our house. The hour or so that we were out there, there was no less than 15 people watching the whole time. Mostly kids, but also some moms and grandmas. Some people who were riding by on their motorbikes even had the audacity to stop their bikes to stare. I'm not quite sure why seeing us pull weeds and throw down some dirt is so intersting, but probably because they've never seen "buleh's" do that before.

It really doesn't matter what we do, we're always being watched. My friend Julene who also lives in Indonesia once made a post about how being watched by the local people is a real opportunity to be a witness of Jesus Christ to all the people around her. I admire her attitude and often try very hard to adopt it. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. As much as I have often enjoyed being the center of attention in the past, out here it feels completely different. No one has been taught that it is rude to stare.

Also, sometimes when we walk, people follow us - mostly kids. If we turn around to say hi to them, they often run away, because actually they're a little afraid of us (so one of my staff members tells me). Sometimes I try to urge the kids to walk with us, instead of behind us. Sometimes I feel like scaring them away. Sometimes I just ignore them as they make snikkering noises, trying to get our attention.

At the end of the day, no one is really meaning any harm by staring at us or following us. They're not trying to be rude. They're not trying to annoy us. They're simply interested in these new sights. I just hope that soon we will stop being a "new sight" and they will become used to our presence....we'll see about that. :)