The One Where I Lived In A Haunted House

《This is kind of an interesting post.  I actually wrote it for another blog, one which is currently on hold, putting it as mildly as possible.  I actually have a few posts from there that might be good here, both for language learning and for expat classification, but with some editing.  See, I wrote this other blog in Spanish as an exercise for my Spanish class, so here, for the first time that I can remember, I’m translating myself INTO English.  On the advice of one of my students, I here present The One Where I Lived In A Haunted House.》

     I don’t believe in the paranormal. What we call paranormal is really just normal, but with no current explanation. That said,  I once lived in a house with a ghost.

    When I first got to Indonesia, it was several firsts for me.  It was my first time in Asia (though that is sometimes disputed, I and many people still consider Indonesia as Asia.  While it’s arguably Australasia, culturally it qualifies as Asia, and if Europe and Asia are going to be distinct, which in English they are, then Indonesia is definitely Asia). Though it wasn’t my first time away from the Americas, it was my first time in a totally foreign language (lots of parentheses in this one; though I had already lived in Mexico for several years, I had also grown up in Southern California, and had been exposed to a lot of Spanish my whole life and even studied it in school), and it was my first exposure to a non-Christian-based culture. 

      I should mention here that Indonesia is a very superstitious place.  

     As one of the perks of my job in Jakarta, my boss gave me a house to live in.  Most of the teachers had to share a house, but I got one to myself.  I didn’t ask why; I was just happy to not have to share it.  I was older than my colleagues and only in my late 30s, but already set in my ways, you might say.  I didn’t want to jinx it by asking.  I just guessed that they had rented it out for a long time for the teachers to use, but no one wanted to share such a small house, even though it did have two bedrooms.

     One afternoon, however,  I saw the ghost in my kitchen.  I then looked directly at her, but suddenly she was gone. When I looked away, she suddenly reappeared. You see, I could only see this ghost peripherally.  It was pretty clearly there, though, as clear as anything in one’s peripheral vision could be.  She was standing in front of a water pump which was painted a very bright green color, which should have been easily visible even in my peripheral vision.  I was surprised when it wasn’t.

      It appeared to be a tallish woman with long black hair wearing a long brown poor maid’s dress. Very old-fashioned. I was startled because no one was supposed to be there.  Of course, I thought it was some weird trick of the light and went on with my day. But when I got to work that night, I joked with my boss, “Why didn’t you tell me about the ghost?”

     To my surprise, my boss said, sounding disappointed, “Oh, you’ve seen it, huh? I guess you want a different house then.”

     I said, “WHAT? Did you know there was a ghost?”

     He said yes, he knew, but he hoped an American wouldn’t believe in ghosts. I told him of course not, but I’d fucking SEEN it.

     So he said he was going to take me to another house that night after work, but I told him no, it would be ridiculous. It’s certainly not a real ghost, and anyway, she did nothing but stay there. So I lived in that house for three years.

     That ghost was always there around 3 PM, every day that I was in the house, regardless of the type of lighting, outside weather, or time of year.  She was always gone by 4:30. I called her Widya, hahaha. True story.

Glossary of new words:

paranormal (adj) referring to things that can’t be proven such as ghosts, witches, the boogyman, etc.

Australasia (n) geographic region including Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, various related islands, and sometimes, Indonesia

parentheses (plural n) marks – ( ) – put around words in a sentence that are not strictly necessary to carry meaning

superstitious (adj) describes belief in unprovable things, such as the paranormal, religions, etc.

perks (n) extra benefits offered in a job, in addition to the salary

jinx (v) the superstitious belief that words can make a thing no longer true or real (here used ironically)

peripheral vision (n) the area the eye can see but isn’t focused on

tallish (adj) somewhat tall; the suffix -ish can and often is used with adjectives and numbers to indicate that it is not an exact description, so that e.g. a dark pink color can be described as “reddish”

Thanks for reading.