Today was the last day to gather data, perform a quick analysis of our gathered data, and to prepare the stakeholder meeting for Friday. Therefore, we sat together to discuss what to put in our final presentation and especially how to formulate the opportunities for future developments in island-based wildlife, adventure, and nature tours on Flores. Of course we did this at two of our favorite spots where you can find us every day: Bajo Bakery and Cafe.in.HIT. After lively discussions and the formulation of the opportunities, we could go to the Tourism School in Labuan Bajo (SMK/SMIP) for a round of practice presentations. This turned out to be very helpful. Not only because we got feedback on the content of our presentation, but also presenting turned out to be a bit more difficult than expected.
I had to deliver the presentation of my group and we did a lot of nice activities the last two weeks. Looking back, I am very happy with our subject which let us to do amazing things which were also relevant for our research. We went to caves, on adventurous hiking trips, to a beautiful waterfall and to a stunning crater lake. Pronouncing some of the names was quite tricky for me, but with some practice and help from the employees in one of our favorite places, as well as many supportive laughs from my lovely research group, I could finally manage to speak some Bahasa. I learned how to pronounce the following words:
- Batu Cermin (I always said it as ‘Baatu Kermin, but it is with a short “a” and the ‘c’ as ‘tsj’, which I thought sounds a bit like Russian)
- Cunca Rami Waterfall (Pronounced as Tjoentja Rami)
- Wae Rebo was luckily easy to say
- Sano Nggoang was the hardest one. Saying it was like speaking Chinese and forgetting about the space between the words. To be honest, I still don’t know exactly how to pronounce it, but nobody said I did it wrong so I take that as a ‘you are pronouncing it right’.
But what I did not know was that the hardest one had yet to come: the word ‘thank you’ in Bahasa. This is Terima Kasih (say as: Terima Kassie, I thought: Terima Kashi), one of the few words we can all speak in Indonesian. Even though it looks like an easy word, for some reason I had big problems with it. Luckily for me, I had to say this at the end of the presentation in front of the Indonesian audience. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous for all those difficult words, but I was sure that it would be fine during the presentation.
Our lecturers, Harald Buijtendijk and Michael Marchman, had arranged a translator for those in the audience who are not that fluent in English. 
The advantage of this is that after each sentence I could think about what to say next. But it is also hard because the story was interrupted every one or two sentences. During the practice rounds, I was the only one to practice with the translator. Immediately it turned out that I had difficulties with one more word; the destination where we have been the past two weeks…Labuan Bajo. In Bahasa it is like saying ‘Badjo’, but it had stuck in my head as ‘Baayo’. Thus the translator laughed at me and I think she expected it to go right the next time. But it did not.. After the 2nd time she gave up with the excuse that I had only been here for two weeks. As I hadn’t learned how to pronounce the destination we were at for two weeks, we’ll guess she was right. Then the closing of the presentation came, the Terima Kasih part. With a lot of hope and courage I tried to pronounce it as well as possible. I said it completely wrong and was now afraid to say it again the next day. The positive side however would be that everyone would laugh at the end of the presentation!
Based on the feedback we adjusted the presentation and now it is time to sleep. My group and I did a last practice round on the difficult words, which gave me enough courage for tomorrow to pronounce them all correctly. Not sure if it will turn out that way, but you know what they say: a bad rehearsal the day before, means a good performance the next day!
Written by: Anieke van der Velde
