DEFI, 27 YEARS

Dear host family,
Hello, nice to meet you. Before I further tell you let me introduce myself. My name is Defi, I am 24 years old and I am from Jember, a small town in East Java, Indonesia. I live with my parents, my father is Arifin (51) and my mother is Sri (47) and also my grandfather and my little sister, their names are Napun (72) and Linda (17). Besides that, there are my aunt, uncle and their kids who live near with us. My father works as a trader and a farmer, where all he does are to plant fruits and grow vegetables with his co workers and then selling them at the farmers market. My mother is a house wife and my sister is high school student who will be graduated soon. My grandparents form my mother’ side has four children, the first one is my aunt Buyati, she live with her own family in South Kalimantan, the second one is my mother, the third child is my aunt Tuyami and the youngest one is my uncle Catur. Aunt Tuyami and Uncle Catur sometimes leave their kids at my parent’s house when they are busy with their work.
So that our house would always be in the presence of kiddos, me and my mom would take turn looking after them every day. When my mom cooks in the kitchen, then it is my job to look after them and play with them. As I grow up in a large family where my grandparents, grandmothers, uncles, aunts and ousins as well as nieces and nephews lived together, so I am used to help with housework and babysitting. So from there till now I love children so much, to me they are a source of happiness and stress released. They were so innocent, so cute, so full of laugh, creative, curious about a lot of things and so adorable . They are a source of encouragement and solace when I am bored.
Oh yeah lemme tell you more about myself. I had just graduated from university majoring in sociology. A frequent activity on my campus is to do social researchs both as a group and as an individual. During my research I often meet new people and getting close to them. It was not uncommon for my group mates to stay in the area where we did a research. Well, the main activity while doing a research is to finish our task like interview and observe, we also helped the house owner to lighten their housework, talk with them, and play with their children. And suprisingly a lot of children’s neighboor come to our place asking us to teach and help them to do their homework. So every night as always our place became famous haha, they are coming to play and study.
In addition to the activities during college, the activities during my college vacations were spent by an internship. My first intern was social services. Where in social services I assist with administrative proceedings and taking care to the peoples with special need like mental illness . My second internship was in one of the local media as a journalist and content creator. Where my assignment during the day was to publish a news and do interviews with people or even public figures.
The next one is not internship, but my social activity with my leturer and classmate. The activity is joining a community of CARES for the garbage, where are the scanvenger given the training for processing and to manage the garbage into handicraft. The next activity will be the social activity of communities especially in rural areas/ country side, where focus is on children who their parents tend to put their children through informal schools such as boarding school (Pesantren/ Islamic boarding house). Therefor a lot of children tend to have basic formal education such as an elementary school and then they are sent to the Islamic Boarding House for a while until they are mature enough to be married, usually around 15-17 years old. The purpose of this program is to make parents aware of the importance of higher levels of formal education for the future of their children and preventing from marrying them sooner.
I am personally kind, caring, and communicative person, with whom I like to talk especially with my family and friends. I'm someone who really likes challenges and always wants to learn a lot of positive things to increase my skills, insights and abilities. And I am also a person who cherishes and highly esteems the sisterhood and the fellowship. To their own family are the fans number 1 to me in any case, and to motivate me to be even better off and proud of them.
Besides a friend's family to me is very important because other than their family is someone who's always in any situation, it is evident that my friendship with both elementary school and college friends is still in existence to this day. Not even just between me and my friends, even our parents are making friends too. Even when we or our parents face difficulties we always have each other. That is the importance of friendship and continuing in the sisterhood.
On my spare time I make time for both my family and my friends by spending simple time with them like wallowing and chatting. Furthermore, I love Korean dramas so that I spare my time to watch them when my nephews and Cousins leave me alone. This was because my own free time was used to care for my small Cousins or nieces. The activities I do with them are many things like singing, playing hide and seek, playing ball, playing dolls, teaching them to identify Numbers, letters, animals and so on. I had done this many times since I was a child, playing with both Cousins and neighbors, until I grew up taking care of small children.
And so from this au pair program I am eager to learn to broaden my insights and knowledge of culture, language and parenting style in the country to which I intend. Although this will be my first au pair, I am sure that with my childhood experiences up to now in caring for them, I can do my best and look forward very much to meet the host family that will later become part of my own family.
my personality
I'm an outgoing, friendly, open minded, disciplined, responsible, very fond of new challenges and experiences. I also really like outdoor activities like camping, sports, jogging, traveling, and a lot of other things. Besides my hobby is cooking, I love to cook. That's why I always cook with my friends in my boarding house and my family at home and feel so happy and satisfied when they are trying my cooking. My cooking is mostly Indonesian food, both food and cake, and of course some of the dishes are looking through the recipes. Because I am really cooking any kind of foods I think I can make it, like western foods or the others as long I am searching for the recipe maybe from the Internet . But trust me, I'm very confident about my cooking skills.
I love singing. I love making my family's laugh because of my singing ability lol, but yeah its okay as long they are happy hehehe. Its that why I invited my cousin to sing with me. Because my family is a big family, so I always help my aunt take care of them from play, drop them off at school and help them study. It's a routine I do almost every day, especially now that I've just finished my degree and graduated. So I have plenty of time for them. When we get bored at home, we also play in the playground, hang out with the other kids and spend time there.
More than anything I love my family, especially my parents who always take care for me since I was a child, because with love and sacrifice I can become the person I am today. Someone who had already finished college and college experiences thanks to the support of my parents. My family all that has been with me since childhood and grew up together.


My experince with kids
In 2009 my grandmother went to the hospital because of her breast cancer, so my mother and grandfather accompanied her for a month in the hospital from surgery and healing. They were there taking turns taking care of my grandmother. At home, there were only my father and my cousin. My aunt and uncle were working out of town so they left their kids with my parents. Because of that situation me and my older sister are looking after our brothers and sister. I was 12 years old and my older sister 15 years old. While the little brothers and sisters that need to look after are Rizal (9) Andre (6), Linda (6) and ruroh (4). We all live together with my dad even though he has to work. So my brother and I have been growing up independent. The everyday activity that was going on was to wake them up to take a shower, prepare breakfast, dress them in their uniforms and take them to school. When I came home from school, my sister and I would clean the house and look after them.
The subsequent experience of parenting has not only happened then, so far because my family is such a large family that I have many nieces living close to our house. Especially in this situation right now, where I have just finished college and most of my time is to spend playing with my niece. Such as helping lull them, comforting when crying, feeding, changes the diaper, playing both inside and outside the house, teaching them such as reading, counting, coloring, introducing animals and plants for their senses even singing, dancing and running.
The next time I was in college, I often had a social research assignment on the field that seldom required us to spend a few days in the area where we were doing research. I usually lived on rented places, but when there were no homes to rent from, the neighbors would let my friend and I stay overnight for a few days. In addition to our primary activities doing research, I also assist with homeowners' activities to relieve their work by helping clean the house and playing with them.
Often they even come up to my friend and me and ask us to teach them and help doing their homework. The activity was very enjoyable, since learning with children was far from the word seriousness. In a sense, they loved to joke, joke and play during the hehe teaching activities. And there is more excitement in the ranks of the neighborhood children joining us, so our routine of evening activities is to help teach them and play with them. That wall was a wonderful experience and will not be forgotten in my lifetime.

My motivation for become an aupair has been that I love children and that I love them all my life. I then became curious about parenting style in other countries and what the lives of the children are like in comparison to my country. The striking style between Europe and Asia especially Indonesia alone must have had a significant difference in many ways, one of which is educating children. So is is one of the reasons I want to became an au pair. In addition, the program offered cultural and language studies, which gives me greater confidence and enthusiasm. Since I was a child, foreign cultures and languages were one of the things I had always wanted to learn. I want to know how their culture in educating children, their daily activities, and celebrating events, and many more. In addition, I want to make new friends and family there, where I learned many things about adding insight and knowledge. It is a great challenge for me to live in another country, to adapt, to blend in with a new family, to learn so much from them, to meet my children, to have a new circle of friendship and so many other positive things to experience there. Just the thought of that makes me so happy and impatient about it.