Saya Mau Makan Anda!

Don't you just hate it when someone looks right at you and says, "I want to eat you!" and you know that they are dead serious!  

Here is one statement for you to catch the background: I was practicing my language with a neighbor, he gave me delicious fruit, I wanted more! 

There were a few minor details I left out, but that should give you the gist.

OK, so I went back over to this guys house and asked him if there was any more langsep (the delicious fruit), and if so could I buy some from him.  He got very excited and said yes there was a lot more and told me to follow him inside.  He took me past the ruang tamu (guest room) and into the kitchen where he proceeded to fill a little basket to the brim with langsep.  When I asked him if I could pay he would not hear of it.  This made the second basket of fruit he had given me gratis (free) and I really wanted to do something to show my appreciation.  As we left his house and sat in the street and talked I came up with an idea, I would ask him about the board that was sitting in his guest room, because I was sure it was a game board of some kind.

When I asked him about it he got all excited again and said it was for catur (chess).  Now I am by no means a chess master, I don't really even consider myself a chess novice... but... we played!

He ran back over to his house grabbed the board and all the pieces and brought it over to the tiny store he owns and we sat on the floor and played.  It took a few minutes to get the board set up and I had to have a quick tutorial in the names of all the pieces.  Then the game was on!

We each took our turns and every now and then I would let out a nice long, "uummmmm" as I was trying to get myself out of a pickle.  Likewise if I made a good move or two he would let out a quick, "Waduh!".   Eventually he muttered the phrase, "Saya mau makan Anda!"  Wide eyed I asked him to repeat what he said because I thought I had either misunderstood him or mistranslated it. Sure enough he said "Saya mau makan Anda!"

Allow me to break this down for you if you don't happen to speak Indonesian:

Saya = I
mau = want
makan = to eat
Anda = you
! = !

He laughed out loud as I asked him in a questioning tone, " Anda mau makan saya?"  Then he explained that that is the phrase used when you are going to take one of your opponent's pieces.  So with great relief I let him "makan" my pawn since I was in perfect position to "makan" his pawn on the next turn.

I ended up losing the game but I didn't really care because it was such a great experience.  At one point I looked up from the game and their were five more dark pairs of eyes looking down at us as we sat and played on the floor of that little store.  I still say the reason I lost is because my opponent kept talking in Javanese to the other men watching us play.  I think he was asking them for help!

As I began to walk home with my langsep my opponent gave me one word of advice... "Perlu balajar lagi!"

In other words, "You need to study more!"