The Museum is NOT Closed...Or is it?

Today we took my sister and her family for a "cultural day" downtown. First we road a boat on the Musi River. Then, hot and tired, we went to the museum. It is a lovely building and we were looking forward to some air conditioning! We walked across the parking lot and up these winding stairs to the doors at the top. When we got there, we were met at the door by a lady who seemed to not want to let us in. She was very sweet though! She leaned her scarved head out the door and smiled at us.

"Is the museum 'tutup' (closed)?" I asked, picking up on her non-verbal cues.

"Oh no, it's not TUTUP," she said, "But the electricity is off so it is very hot and dark."

"Oh, I see," I replied, and turned to translate this for everyone else. Standing on the balcony of the second floor, it was shady and breezy and felt quite nice. We stood there to try to decide what to do next. The lady at the door seemed nervous by our not leaving.

"It is not tutup, but there is no electricity," she repeated, "so you can't see anything inside."

Standing in front of the not closed, closed museum.

"Yes, ok," I smiled at her. We continued to try to make a "plan B."  Should we go to the market? Should we go home?  So far the museum lady had been speaking Indonesian. But this time she broke out in very carefully spoken English, "It is C-L-O-S-E-D!"

I smiled again. "OK, thank you!" We finally decided to walk to the market. Before leaving, we stayed just a bit longer to enjoy the breeze. But as we did, the flustered lady finally shut the big gates on the entrance doors to the museum.

I guess the museum was finally closed in all spoken and non-verbal languages!