My Monkey

Lala is one of my cousins' children, so I guess she's my niece. One day, when I was in NL and hadnt seen her all her life, Lala's mom urged me to Skype. Apparently Lala and her sister asked her if I was for real, because they kept hearing my name but had never seen me. My cousin said to me, "I need to show my kids that you are not a myth!" So, we skyped :)

Ever since we met, she's pretty attached to me, literally. The whole time we were in Bogor last year, she followed me around, insisted on carrying my bag while I took pics, and sometimes just glued her whole body to mine, like koala's baby to its mom.

For European, I think, it is pretty common to use animal as term of endearment, not for Indonesian. However, we sort of called her my monkey. When her mom protested of her being glued to me, Lala would say, "I'm a monkey." Cute.