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    The Adventures Of Na Willa: Stories
    The Adventures Of Na Willa: Stories
    The Adventures Of Na Willa: Stories
    Ebook149 pages1 hour

    The Adventures Of Na Willa: Stories

    By Reda Gaudiamo, Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul, Kate Wakeling and Cecillia Hidayat

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    About this ebook

    Na Willa is a bright, adventurous girl living in Surabaya's suburbs, her home in the middle of an alley surrounded by cypress trees. She spends her days running after trains, going down to the market, and thinking about how people can sing through radios. Indonesian author Reda Gaudiamo has created a collection of stories of curious adventures and musings of a multicultural girl growing up in Indonesia with an East Indonesian mother and a Chinese-Indonesian father. Set in a time when children spent the day outside, listening to Lilis Suryani's songs on the radio, and when race and gender would still go undiscussed, this is Na Willa's story as she grows up unafraid to ask the big questions.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Emma Press
    Release dateFeb 26, 2019
    ISBN9781912915224
    The Adventures Of Na Willa: Stories
    Author

    Reda Gaudiamo

    Reda Gaudiamo is a writer from Jakarta, Indonesia, known for her 'Na Willa' stories. She is also known across Southeast Asia and Europe as a singer and musician through the AriReda duo.

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      Book preview

      The Adventures Of Na Willa - Reda Gaudiamo

      AUTHOR’S NOTE

      When Na Willa was published for the first time, in 2012, I was happy just knowing that some friends had read it.

      Thanks to Maesy Ang and Teddy W. Kusuma from POST Press, who re-published it in 2017, Na Willa made many more new friends. And one of these is the Emma Press.

      I never imagined that children on the other side of the world would read about Na Willa! Thank you to Emma Wright for picking up Na Willa at London Book Fair 2018 and deciding to publish the English version. I think it was brave of you to do it.

      Thank you to Ikhda and Kate, for the translation that I know for sure was not an easy undertaking; to Maesy and Teddy, for believing in this book; and to all of the others, here and there, who made this project possible.

      And thank you to you, the reader – the newest friend of Na Willa!

      For Mak and Pak

      Quand je me tourne vers mes souvenirs,

      je revois la maison où j’ai grandi.

      Il me revient des tas des choses.

      Françoise Hardy,

      ‘La Maison Où J’ai Grandi’

      THE EMMA PRESS

      First published in the UK in 2019 by the Emma Press Ltd

      Originally published in 2012 as Na Willa by Aikon in Indonesia.

      This translation is based on the second edition, published by POST Press in 2017.

      All rights reserved.

      Text © Reda Gaudiamo 2012

      Illustrations © Cecillia Hidayat 2012

      English-language translation © Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul and Kate Wakeling 2019

      All rights reserved.

      ISBN 978-1-910139-59-2

      A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

      Printed and bound in the UK by TJ International, Padstow.

      theemmapress.com

      [email protected]

      Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, UK

      Publication of this book was made possible, in part, with assistance from the LitRI Translation Funding Program of the National Book Committee and Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia.

      img1.jpgimg2.jpg

      Contents

      Just like Mak

      Home

      Farida

      Gus Salim

      Dul

      Bud

      Warno

      Fish

      Pak

      Presents

      A E I O U

      Chinese

      Going to the market

      Passing trains

      Dul’s leg

      Waiting

      A new friend

      Visiting Dul

      Radio #1

      Radio #2

      Sunday

      This evening

      Party

      The bride

      The night of the party

      Going to school

      School

      Ibu Tini

      In the classroom

      Quitting school

      The search

      Juwita

      The first morning (1)

      The first morning (2)

      About the author

      About the illustrator

      About the translators

      Write your own stories

      img3.jpg

      Just like Mak

      When I grow up, I want to be as tall as Pak.¹ So I don’t have to get on a chair if I want to reach a toy on the highest shelf. So I don’t need a stepladder if I want to hang a picture. I want to be as tall as Pak but I want my hair to grow like Mak’s.² Wavy and twisty. Not like Pak’s straight, stiff hair. When I try to say this to Mbok,³ she laughs out loud. She tells me that when I grow up I’ll have light skin and narrow eyes, and my hair will grow straight and stiff.

      I don’t like that.

      I say, ‘I’m Mak’s daughter and I’m going to look just like Mak when I grow up. I’ll have brown skin and wavy, twisty hair.’

      Then Mbok tells me that since the days of ‘Pebruari’ (she always says ‘the days of Pebruari’ for anything related to the OLDEN DAYS) all girls have grown up like their fathers and all boys have grown up like their mothers.

      ‘If I were a boy, could I be like Mak?’

      ‘Yes, you could,’ says Mbok.

      ‘Then I want to be a boy,’ I say.

      ‘How? You’re a girl. You’ll always be a girl!’

      ‘I’ll keep my trousers on.’

      ‘That’s impossible, Noni.⁴ You’re a girl. A girl!’

      ‘But I want to be like Mak!’ I say. And I start getting annoyed.

      ‘Ora iso! Ora iso! Wedhok, yo wedhok!’ says Mbok (which means No! You can’t! You are a girl and will forever be a girl!).

      Then she goes off to the kitchen. And I start shouting and crying. Mbok comes back right away and tells me to SHUSH. But I don’t want to be quiet. Not a little bit. I am annoyed. Actually, I am properly furious.

      I cry for a long time. When Mak comes home from the market, I’m still crying. Very hard. Legs, hands, clothes, face: all dirty. I’m crying and I’m rolling around.

      Mak immediately puts her groceries down. She comes and kneels in front of me: ‘What is it, Willa?’

      ‘Mboooooooooook!’ I scream.

      Mak gets up and calls Mbok, who’s been standing nearby.

      ‘What’s going on?’ Mak asks Mbok, pointing at me.

      Mbok sits down and tells her what has happened.

      Mak asks some questions.

      Mbok gives some answers.

      Then Mak stops asking questions. And Mbok stops giving answers.

      (And I carry on crying.)

      Mak approaches me. She touches my shoulder.

      ‘Willa, please stop crying. Now listen: you are the daughter of Mak and Pak. You’ll be as tall as Pak and your hair will grow as wavy as mine.’

      ‘But Mbok said…’

      ‘Forget all that. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Calm down and be quiet now,’ Mak says.

      Mbok is there standing at the door, waiting for Mak and me.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Non,’ she says.

      I nod.

      And I stop crying.

      And I start singing.

      Mak sighs. A long, deep breath. I go with Mak to the kitchen. Inside a plastic shopping bag, some sawo⁵ fruits are poking out. And I know they are just for me.

      Notes

      ¹ Pak – dad

      ² Mak – mum

      ³ Mbok – a household assistant

      ⁴ Noni/Non – an affectionate way of addressing a young girl

      ⁵ sawo – a kind of yellow-brown berry fruit, about the size and shape of a kiwi fruit, that has the texture of a pear and is deliciously sweet

      Home

      I like my house.

      My house is the one that’s bang in the middle of the alley. So if you come from one end of the alley or the other, you’ll pass eight houses. My house is the one with white walls and a dark green door. Out front there’s a cypress tree, and when Christmas comes Mak snips off the littlest stem from the top of the tree.

      Yes, so this is my house.

      Ages ago, when I was a baby (I don’t remember when it was exactly), Mak said our house was super-tiny. There was just one big room for Mak and Pak, and then a super-tiny room for me. But then Pak saved up and bought us the house next door (the one that was Pak Manan’s house).

      Since then, our house has grown a whole lot bigger. My room is properly spacious now and also I have a playroom next to the living room. The windows to the playroom don’t have shutters, just these pieces of loosely crisscrossed wood. On the inside, these pieces of wood are covered in wire full of big holes – Mak says it’s called chicken wire. These big holes are then covered with some cloth that Mak dyed bright red. When the wind blows, this red cloth waves about.

      My doll lives in the playroom. She’s made out of plastic and her hands won’t move. Once I spun her round-and-around and her arms came off. If I try and move her feet, they feel like they’re about to come off too. Only Mak can fix her. But even though my doll’s hands and feet won’t move, I dress her in

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