Sepupu Kecil

This past weekend, while I was hiking waterfalls and doing karaoke (did I post about that? There's definitely pictures up on Picasa), my host dad and host sister were in Jogya for the weekend. Monday night they came back, arriving around 9:30 (late night here) with a passel of kids - four little cousins on summer break, ages 3 to 10, approximately. This being Java, everyone is referred to by titles: Bu and Pak for older married types, Mas and Mbak for younger people (I'm Mbak Emily in class), Gus for a brother, etc ad eternam. Well I was introduced as Tante bule (roughly 'Aunt Whitey'; bule is what non-Indonesian whites are called, not rude but with undertones of 'not from around here'), so now I've got four adorable kids calling me 'tante' ('auntie', more or less). They're thrilled to get to talk to an American, especially one who speaks Bahasa. (You should see the amazed looks I get on the bus when I'm chatting with my tutor.) Like I said, adorable.