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My name is Elfie Goliat.
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I am from Dobo.
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Dobo is in the Aru islands in Maluku.
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Dobo is the capital of Aru regency,
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Ambon is the capital of the province.
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When I was young I lived in Ambon -
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I lived in Dobo.
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Then I moved to Surabaya
to go to high school.
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There I would speak
Dobo dialect every day,
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But even though I lived in Surabaya,
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I never learnt Javanese.
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I could still use Dobo dialect.
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Sometimes I call Dobo dialect Ambonese,
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because Dobo is not very well known.
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If I say I'm from Dobo,
people don't understand,
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they say "where's that?",
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so I just say I'm from Ambon.
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But the language I speak is a
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little different
from the language in Ambon
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It's the language of Dobo,
Southeast Maluku.
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I came to America to go to university.
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Then I got married, and had a child here.
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I got engaged while I was living here.
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So that's why I'm staying here,
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because now I'm married.
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I got married.
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To a Javanese man.
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In Aru, there are lots of small islands.
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The islands are small and primitive.
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There are no lights, no phones.
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So people use candles.
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They use candles or oil lamps.
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And they speak different languages
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in the different islands.
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So even within Aru itself,
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the different small islands
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have different dialects,
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but they can more or less
understand one another.
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So, when I was little,
I used to live in Dobo.
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My childhood was very happy,
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because there was no...
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I would play with friends every day,
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run around in the street,
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play with the animals.
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There was no television, no lights.
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So life was good in Dobo
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because we spent
every day by the sea.
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I played on the beach every day.
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Every day I would swim, paddle in canoes,
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in and around the different islands.
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And like I say, in Aru,
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There are lots of small islands.
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The smaller islands
each have dialects,
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like Dobo or Tual or Ambon,
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these each have different dialects.
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For example, if I was in Dobo
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I would say "terimakasih" ("thank you")
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Someone from Ambon would say "dangke".
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"Dangke" is Dutch for "thank you".
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And an Ambonese person might say
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"se, sepi mana?"
("hey, where are you going?")
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But I would say "kopi mana?"
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And if I was talking
to someone older than me
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I would say "kakak",
differences like that.