Language is a “window” to understand human nature, so say linguists, and a woman in East Jakarta has provided the window for those who want or need to understand Indonesian people.

Kampung Bahasa Bloombank (Bloombank language kampung) in Ciracas is the place where foreigners could learn not only Bahasa Indonesia but other aspects of Indonesians.

The owner, former lecturer Niknik Kurtanto, decorates the establishment on a 7,500-square-meter plot of land with ornaments belonging to various local cultures. There are angklung (bamboo music instruments), traditional clothes like kebaya, koteka and Balinese statues.

Not only are there plenty of trees to make the area tranquil and pleasing to the eyes, there is also a fish pond in the middle that is rented out to the public for angling.

That morning, a 21-year-old South Korean, Nam Kee Hyeon, was attentively listening to his Bahasa Indonesia teacher’s explanation inside a small classroom. Being the only student there, Nam had more than enough confidence to talk and even joke with his teacher in the Indonesian language.

“I like learning the language, although I will not live here for too long. Once I’m back to Korea, I’ll use this skill to help people,” he said in Bahasa Indonesia quite fluently. Nam is to return to his country this month to start his mandatory military service.

In another classroom next to Nam’s was a female foreigner, also from South Korea, named Kong Yeon Jeong. Kong was in a conversation program and that morning she was learning Indonesian grammar.

Her husband works in Jakarta, so she felt the need to learn to speak like locals as long as she lives here.

Kong’s teacher, Nino Herryken Sutaji, said that grammar is one of the hardest parts of Bahasa Indonesia for foreigners.

“Many foreigners find that Indonesian prefixes and suffixes are confusing,” he said.

Kampung Bloombank came into being in 2017. With the support of her husband, Niknik built two buildings complete with classrooms, a teachers’ room, kitchen, break room and toilets.

“The most challenging part of teaching Bahasa Indonesia to foreigners is that it keeps reminding us, teachers, how well we understand our mother language, our own culture,” Niknik said.

Wishing to pave a better way for foreigners to access good material to learn the language, Niknik and her colleagues developed BIPA Dahsyat, which consists of a curriculum that is publicly accessible along with a series of textbooks, ranging from the beginner to the advanced level, and learning tools.

BIPA stands for Bahasa Indonesia untuk Penutur Asing (the Indonesian language for foreign speakers).

“At first, I was annoyed by the fact that the Bahasa Indonesia curriculum for foreigners from most educational institutions are exclusively provided for people that enroll in their classes,” she told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

“While, from my perspective, we should proudly spread our knowledge about our mother language,” the Sundanese added.

Last month, Kampung Bloombank held a summer camp that took place for four days and three nights. It was attended by about 40 students from two senior high schools from Australia. From June 22 to 25, the students were kept busy with Indonesian culture-and-language-themed activities.

During the summer camp, Niknik and her staff transformed the classrooms into bedrooms to accommodate the students. They provided only traditional Indonesian cuisine like sate ayam (chicken satay with peanut sauce), bakso (meatball soup) and even sambal terasi (chili with shrimp paste).

“They didn’t study all day. There were also fun activities like playing traditional games, fishing, painting wayang and wooden masks, singing and dancing to traditional Indonesian songs. We made a ‘night market’ where they learned transactions using Bahasa Indonesia,” Niknik said.

Bahasa Indonesia courses offered by Kampung Bloombank cost from Rp 4 million (US$280) to Rp 13 million, depending on the type of class — regular class, business class, or conversation class.

The regular class consists of 24 meetings, each of which is conducted within three and a half hours. To ensure that the learning process runs smooth, every teacher handles only one or two students.

Besides teaching at their headquarters, teachers of the Kampung Bloombank also comply with requests to teach privately at a student’s house, office, or even campus. They now have 20 teachers in total.

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