Nita created her own sense of community in Australia with Gamelan

When Nita first moved to Australia from Indonesia with her husband Aaron, she found it hard to connect to a community. She was used to a culture where you had people surrounding you all the time. It took time and a move to the regional city of Bendigo to work out how to find a community here in Australia.

Nita playing traditional Indonesian instruments Source: Alison Hanly

Now living near Bendigo in Victoria, Nita Rahayu celebrates her Indonesian heritage by running a gamelan orchestra from her home with her husband Aaron. Gamelan is a traditional Javanese percussive orchestra featuring drums, gongs and xylophone-type instruments.

Nita and Aaron's living room is full of gently gleaming gamelan instruments, along with photos of family, intricate traditional shadow puppets and masks hanging from the walls and ceiling.

She and her husband are kept busy with gamelan rehearsals and performances with their group Mugi Rahayu. It's her community, along with people she's met through bush dancing and a field naturalists club.

But creating a sense of community and belonging in Australia wasn't easy.

If you move [to Australia] from a country like Indonesia, you'll just have this culture shock and suddenly, whoa, I'm here by myself... you don't know your neighbours... you do have to go out and you have to join things.

Nita performing in traditional dress Source: Ginny Tan

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Nita created her own sense of community in Australia with Gamelan

SBS Audio

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On the SBS podcast New Home, hear from migrant and refugee women who are quietly building new lives in regional Australia, making friends, and finding community.

Follow New Home in the SBS Radio app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

New Home is presented by Alison Hanly, and produced by Alison Hanly and Ginny Tan.