Maori Lady

Today was interesting...

I was walking to uni and this old lady came out of the car and yelled out 'boi..!', with her hands waving me to her... (I was quite a distance away from her)

So I went, thinking there was something she wanted to ask or needed help with something. When I got close enough, she started talking in maori (or at least that's what I think she was talking, because I only understand 1 word from the whole 5 min conversation). She just kept talking and pointing, I start to get a bit worried, thinking she needs help with something, because the word I heard was 'fanu', which means family.

As I was standing there, listening, I start to look around and, thank God, 1 lady with 2 kids came towards the car. The lady asked if the old lady was asking for directions, I just said I couldn't understand. She laughed and hopped on the car.

As I walked to uni, I was thinking of how much the maori language sound like dusun. I felt this sense of, lost-ness in my own culture, because the old lady really looked like a dusun 'inan' (=old lady) and it could have been in Sabah and I'll be just as lost.

This thought, this sense of urgency, to learn dusun keeps coming over me time and time again. I know I'm only 1/8 dusun, but still, the only person in the family that knows how to speak it is still my grandpa, and I'm really scared that one day, that part of our family, that history, the culture, will be gone forever.

I had a thought, of maybe, I could learn dusun from my grandpa through the internet. My Grandpa is getting good at it and is able to call people on skype these days. Should I spend like, an hour a week, to learn from my grandpa?... I'll look into it... see how it goes...