Why Dutch-British Australian Georgia Leyendekkers chose Bahasa Indonesia

Even though she is not Indonesian descent, Georgia Leyendekkers loves the tropical country very much. She said repeatedly to SBS Indonesian that she misses Indonesia and wants to go back there.

Winner of the NLC 2018 Georgia Leyendekkers with Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan. Source: SBS

The native Perth woman had lived in Bandung for almost a year as part of her education at Notre Dame University. That was when she began to learn Indonesian, encouraged by the desire to be able to make friends.

Georgia then even continued her education by undergoing a 'graduate diploma in asian language (Indonesia)' from Murdoch University, which brought her to live in Yogyakarta for nine months and three months in Jakarta. While in Indonesia Georgia has also visited many areas such as Labuan Bajo, Bau-bau, Toraja, and even the Baduy tribe in Banten.

Why did this Dutch-British Australian, who can now also speak a little Javanese, choose to learn Bahasa Indonesia?

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