South African saying Hi..

Saffer

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Joined
Jul 17, 2019
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18
Hi All
I'm from South Africa and living in Johannesburg with my Indonesian girlfriend. We are planning to move to Kupang Timor next year. I will post the numerous questions I have in the appropriate forum and hopefully get some good advice.

Cheers
Saffer.
 
Hi All
I'm from South Africa and living in Johannesburg with my Indonesian girlfriend. We are planning to move to Kupang Timor next year. I will post the numerous questions I have in the appropriate forum and hopefully get some good advice.

Cheers
Saffer.

A frequent feature of TV news here is raids on rooming houses for "immoral " behaviour where people are found together who are not married. Extremely humiliating and degrading for those rounded up and treated like criminals which they may be according to some Indonesian laws. The raids tend to be on lower cost accommodation. I haven't seen any stories of raids on international resorts where there must be considerable numbers of unmarried couples together. Most if not all these stories seems to come out of Java. I am not sure how the land lies in Kupang with regard to unmarried cohabitation but as a predominately Christian area I guess the heavy of hand of ultra conservative Islam may not be part of life there
 
Hi and hello from North Africa :D
 
A frequent feature of TV news here is raids on rooming houses for "immoral " behaviour where people are found together who are not married. Extremely humiliating and degrading for those rounded up and treated like criminals which they may be according to some Indonesian laws. The raids tend to be on lower cost accommodation. I haven't seen any stories of raids on international resorts where there must be considerable numbers of unmarried couples together. Most if not all these stories seems to come out of Java. I am not sure how the land lies in Kupang with regard to unmarried cohabitation but as a predominately Christian area I guess the heavy of hand of ultra conservative Islam may not be part of life there

A wedding ring, and pre-wed photo hung prominently in the house will suffice to stave off any curious/nosey locals.
 
90% of the people in NTT are Catholic or Protestant. You won’t have many issues with people openly disapproving of your way of life.
 
Welcome to the forum. Is your GF from the area? Will her family be around?

Most of the social groups in NTT require a bride price to get married. The price is seen as the social value of the woman. Because of the higher social value put on the monetary value along with the extreme poverty of the region, most of NTT actually has a higher median age of marriage than the rest of Indonesia. Some areas are upward of 30 years old as the median age of first marriage. Depending upon the social group, it is not uncommon for women to have children before being married and live in an unformalized domestic partner situation before a formal marriage occurs. If anyone gives you a hard time about being unmarried, just tell them you are saving up for the bride price. Kupang is the central hub of the region with dozens of different ethnic and tribal groups from NTT represented. I agree with jstar and doubt you will have much of a problem.

Regardless of whether the bride price is paid in currency or gifts (such as livestock), it is usually borrowed, often directly from the bride's parents. This allows a higher bride price announcement and and increase in social status of the bride and her parents. The groom would pay the parents over the life of the marriage. The tradition was a plot device in an award winning Indonesian film "Marlina the murderer in four acts", in case you want to watch it on Amazon.
 
Hi All
I'm from South Africa and living in Johannesburg with my Indonesian girlfriend. We are planning to move to Kupang Timor next year. I will post the numerous questions I have in the appropriate forum and hopefully get some good advice.

Cheers
Saffer.

I will be going to Johannesburg again in Oct, it’s certainly a cool place to visit. A lot of the area I visited were gated and I didn’t realize it was due to the amount of kidnapping. But still, super cool place to visit.
 
It would be a pleasure for us to meet you and take you around or help during your visit. You are welcome to send me a p.m.
 
It would be a pleasure for us to meet you and take you around or help during your visit. You are welcome to send me a p.m.

Wow sorry I just got back and just now read this. Unlike a vacation, the trip was work related so everything was scheduled ahead of time. I did get to see the wildlife from the national park...it was great.....
 

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