The Arrival - Indonesia

From the airplane through the dim blue dusk light I could see the ships on the calm Jakarta bay. By the time I had disembarked the plane, night had already covered the city. It was a three hour air-conditioned taxi ride to Depok. We were insulated in the taxi from more than just heat. The sweet smell of cloves and leaded gas, the crowds of people in the noisy darkness, the fried rice and Gado Gado stands that line the street all the way to Depok were  just outside the taxi window. At that point I felt like going home already. I had visions of New England. The crisp autumn air, colored trees, and clear running streams. Then  I looked outside the car window to see that the traffic and the people in the roadside stands were unstirred despite my visions.

Ecocircles  

I was an outsider, a trained  biochemist trying to break into the conservation biology world. I relished listening in on the conversations between the scientists. Across the table sat the head of national parks in Indonesia and Conservation International Jatna Supriatna. “The interesting thing about this archipelago is that Indonesia used to be one landmass. Now all the species are on the islands and some have been isolated for years. The scientists around me talked about biology’s increasingly prominent role in conservation — its usefulness investigating the evolution of species, genetic diversity between species, and current trends in migration and mating behaviors. Then Jatna talked about his training. He had gone to University of New Mexico. Homework for his herpetology classes meant catching rattlesnakes. Next he talked about his primary research in Sulawesi. He had spent several years there trapping monkeys in the jungles. He once caught several monkeys at night but decided to wait till morning to take blood samples. When he returned, the monkeys had been killed. They had been slaughtered to death by local villagers who viewed the monkeys as agricultural nuisances. Jatna subsequently talked to the village’s chief to have the the town know that the macaque maura was an endangered species. That night 50 angry town farmers surrounded his house with knives and machetes intent to drive him out of town. 

Lenteng Agung  

We checked into a boarding house by the University of Indonesia. The Indonesians thought it was funny when we said we are living in LA- Lenteng Agung, that is.  There, the women live on the first floor while the men occupy the second and third floors. Across the backyard, the speakers of the mosque start blaring prayers at 4 o’clock in the morning. The prayers sound as if Martians have landed on earth. At first a staticky screechy prayer creaks out of the speakers. It is quickly followed by a deep monotone melody chanted by an imam. Soon the oscillating  buzz of hundreds of praying Muslims accompanies the imam’s chants. The voice for the speaker crescendos as the imam professes his worshippers’  love and respect for the supreme God Allah. I lay awake in my bed staring at the wall waiting for the strange alien sounds to stop. Eventually I manage to sleep somehow only to be a woken up by the 7 AM prayer shift.

Indonesia - Language and Customs

Bahasa Indonesia

Indonesian is an easy language to pick up as there are no tenses, conjugations, or tricky pronunciations. There are a few rules: the subject precedes modifiers, add a ‘lah’ at the end of a verb to indicate a command,  add ‘mem’ to the beginning of verbs if they are followed by verb and object.  Many words have been taken and modified from the English,  Dutch, and Chinese languages. Most of the Dutch words  in the Indonesian lexicon are remnants of the Dutch colonial era and concern tax and monetary issues. Indonesian words like ‘lelah’ and ‘semua’ sound like and have similar meanings to their Chinese counterparts leile  and shenme. Indonesian words like transmigrasi, expedisi, biologi... have easily detectable English origins.

A few common expressions in Indonesian are funny. Membuang air kecil,   or to throw small water means  to piss in English.   Membuang air besar, or to throw big water, means to shit. Male genitalia is called burning dan telur or  bird and eggs. 

A few English words which have interesting Indonesian roots are orangutan, rambutan, and boogeyman. Orang means man and hutan means forest in Indonesian. Literally, orangutan translates to man of the forest.  Rambut  means hair in Indonesian. Quite aptly, they named a red hairy  tropical fruit Rambutan.  the Bugis  are the tribe of people who live in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. They were the crazy people infamous for charging at the Dutch colonial ships and artillery. The term boogie man has been ever since for crazy fearless people.

In addition to the national language, each region and culture within Indonesia has its own language. “Pa, Loka mako tana kana parekai ceba que?” means ‘Mister, can you tell me if there are any monkeys here?’ in bugis  language. “Pa mau tanya ada yang pelihara monkey disini” is the same phrase’s Indonesian equivalent. For monkey alone, we used a plethora of different appellations: lancing, Monyet, kera, ongki, ceba, boti, yakis, seba....

Here’s an example of a translated Indonesian joke.  “What’s the difference between a monkey and a professor? A professor has no hair on his head and a monkey has no hair on its butt.  A dirty limerick; “anu saya besar, besar any saya, kalau tidak besar, bukan anu saya” means “I am big, big am I, if it’s not big it’s not me. Obviously  the limerick concerns the birds. A lewd pun I would recite to break the ice in conversations was “apa bedanya dengan jalan di desa dan jalan di Jakarta? Jalan di desa banyak jalan berlubang-lubang, jalan do Jakarta banyak lubang ber-jalan-jalan.” What is the difference between the streets of villages and the streets of Jakarta? The streets of the villages have a lot of holes, the streets of Jakarta has a lot of holes (slang for whores) walking.

Indonesian Social Customs

I had my first lesson in Indonesian customs at a restaurant. Nature was calling. I looked around urgently but couldn’t find a washroom. I flagged down a waiter and uttered my first words in Indonesian, “Dimana kamar mandi?” or as they say in Chinese “ce suo zai nar?” or as they say in french “ou se trouvent les toilettes?” or as they say in english,  “where are the toilets?” The waiter directed me to a dirty room with a hole in the floor and then proceeded to fill a bucket of water in the sink. I thought my query in Indonesian was somehow misunderstood and walked away puzzled . Then fellow researcher Myron (who’d been living in Indonesia for a year studying tarsiers) sensed my confusion. He came and put his arm around my shoulder while redirecting my gaze back to the hole in the floor.  “Indonesians shit and piss in that hole, use their left hand and water to wipe their ass, and then flush their crap down with that bucket of water sitting in the sink.” I responded with ‘oh’ and mysteriously didn’t feel the urge to use the bathroom anymore. 

Now what do bathroom logistics have to do with customs? A lot.  Never use your left hand in greeting somebody... you just used it to wipe your ass. Also, never eat with your left hand— the right hand, right and left feet being cleaner alternatives. People don’t use knives or forks there to eat, they use their hands. The obvious difference between a first and third world country is how far removed food preparation is from the ass wiping process. In America we use toilet paper as our first barrier between ass and mouth, the we wash our hands with soap to kill any stray pathogenic microbes, then we eat with forks and knives that have been cleaned in drinkable tap water and soap. In Indonesia, they don’t use toilet paper, seldom use soap to clean their hands, prepare food with their marginally  ‘rinsed’ hands, then eat with their hands and bowls ‘cleaned’ in magic hepatitis Giardia water and soap. Within a month, I was running into bushes, shitting green uncontrollable turds for a week as my body ‘acclimated’ to Indonesian hygienic standards. The grad student I was assisting, Ben, lost 20 pounds to giardia. His doctor told him he looked quite skullular when he returned to the States. 

We had the delight of waiting in the immigration office in Ujung Pandang for a week in August. There, I learned a lot of conventions concerning official state business. First, wearing a hat in government offices is strictly forbidden. Also forbidden are flip-flops, shorts, and white T-shirts. I made four separate trips between the immigration office and our car in the parking lot to change my attire. In a country of 95°F and unbearable humidity, shorts are never worn.  It is dishonorable to wear shorts because the rebel student government protesters of  the 1960s wore shorts. Like now, back then protesters of the government were subsequently labeled communist and executed. Hence people who wore shorts became extinct and never passed on their jeans (genes). Never put your hands on your hips, or show the bottom of your feet, as these are indications that you want to start a fight. And finally, Indonesians become very nervous if you stand. They will always say ‘silakhan duduk’ — which means “please have a seat.”

In a 90% Muslim country, dating is not taken very lightly. I met many students at University of Indonesia who were pushing 25 and had never kissed before. Moreover, many women wear Jibabs — sheets which cover everything except  for the eyes and the palms. I tried in futility  for three hours to  convince a woman with stunning palms and eyes to take off her jibab , but she said she will only be seen without it by her family and her husband. In her refusal, she turned down my marriage proposal and $40,000 in unmarked bills. It’s startling that the population in this country is 180 million and rapidly growing. When two people do date, they subsequently waste no time proliferating — sometimes siring 10 children.  Life  for Muslims is sacred, hence the lack of contraception  or population control

There is less personal privacy there. Everywhere you will meet people will ask the following set of  questions. “where are you from? (This question always comes first no matter what) where are you staying?  where are you going? how much does it cost to stay where you are staying? do you have a lot of money?” and for me, the questions extended to “you’re  not from Japan? are you sure? where is your country? when are you going back? What’s your name? What kind of name is that? how come you don’t look like an American? what’s your religion? how can you not have a religion? what’s going to happen when you die?” And so on. 

Possessions are also public here.  If you leave a guitar sitting in the car, someone is liable to reach in, take it out, and start playing it.  The same rule applies to books,  drawings, hats, sandals, etc... Although there is less privacy here,  it also means there’s more of a sense of community,  trust,  and family. A handful of my conversations with locals ended up in their offering of rooms for me to stay in. Not only did they offer a room for a night but sometimes stays for three months for me, my friends and family if they ever came to Bali as well!

Project Gibbon

For the first two weeks, Ben a PhD grad student from Columbia, Akbar a masters candidate at University of Indonesia, and Taufan, a conservation worker from Bandung University and I took a road trip around western and central Java sampling Hylobates Molloch or ‘oa’ as the Indonesians call the gibbons. Ben, checking in at 6 foot and 3 inches and I, sat cramped sideways in the back of a stinky old, “back-door-has-to-be-opened-from-the-outside” beat up Suzuki jeep. Gibbons are extremely hard to track in the forest, so with our limited time and ample laziness we took blood samples from pets and zoo animals for DNA analysis. Upholding rigorous scientific methodologies, we interviewed their owners of their pet gibbons' provenance of capture to locate them geographically.  There are only 2000 gibbons left in the world today. Gibbons are a species of ape. Their current route to extinction  is aided by their loyal mating behavior. They mate for life, and if one made dies or is captured the remaining mate remains single for the rest of its life. They have leathery small black faces, is gray fine haired coats, and  long arms and legs specially adapted for swinging through trees. We inspected pet gibbons in the back of gas stations, in backyards, in cages over lakes, in cages outside houses, over a fishpond at a Muslim religious school, etc... Gibbons in captivity have significantly shorter lifespans compared to those left in the wild. Like humans, gibbons in solitary confinement are prone to disease, unsanitary conditions, and depression.

Along the route we would occasionally stop off at natural wonders. We swam in the warm Indian ocean at night, hiked up yellow is hot sulfur waterfalls, drove through rustling tea plantations terraced on mountainsides....

The process of taking blood is rather straightforward. For those interested in attempting this task: (1) first catch the gibbon with a net, slipknot , or by hand. (2) inject it’s muscle tissues with ketamine tranquilizer. (3) Wait  for it to become drowsy and sleepy. (4)  Feel for its vein in its inner thigh. (5) While feeling the pulse of the gibbon’s vein with your left middle finger insert the needle at a 30 to 45° angle right on your finger and then draw the blood into the syringe. (6) Lyse the cells immediately in SDS buffer to prevent clotting (7) Freeze the sample as soon as possible. Although drawing blood is relatively easy, tranquilizing them is not. Like most humans, gibbons don’t enjoy long needles stuck in them. Unlike most humans,  gibbons will bite, jump, swing and screech to avoid being pricked.  Our most difficult encounter with gibbons was at the Bandung Zoo. There, four gibbons live in spacious high ceiling yet affordable black cage.  They would swing 30 feet above us on the top of the cage. We spent hours walking and climbing around the cage attempting to bait them with delicious bananas. The gibbons were smarter than we looked and were content to ignore us  and swing freely high above. Finally, the zookeepers went inside the cage with nets and brought the gibbons down.  We suddenly became the main spectacle for throngs of curious Indonesian spectators who observed us in the cage as strange foreigners catching, tranquilizing and drawing blood from their zoo’s gibbons.

Akbar

A 32-year-old master's student from the province of Aceh, northern Sumatra. He would always sport a red Blackhawks hockey team cap, shades, and a locked fanny pack. He drove us around Western Java on our gibbon road trip. Fearlessly, he passed cars from the left, from the right, around blind turns, in traffic. He had once raced cars and felt the need to continue the recreation on the windy trafficked roads of Java. He later revealed his cousin drove even faster and could even drive on two wheels.

Akbar’s outdoor experience included spending a year near Palu studying and ebony forest, laborious forestation and tree growth studies on the Togian islands, and sampling oa and macaques all over Indonesia. He would tell us of his encounters with black poisonous snakes by the caves in the Togians, the sea snakes, and how he would just sleep outside in a hammock when he was doing data collections.

He was a player and wasn’t bashful about making that fact known. Several times he would tell me of his exploits... Dutch, Chinese, Indonesian — he had experienced it all. One night he was intent on bringing me out whoring with him. While I declined to participate myself, I accompanied him in the back alleys of one town we were staying at. There, as the women watched TV, had conversations, or played cards, men could pass by their homes and view and pick them out through their living room windows. Akbar brought one girl back to the hotel that night. I continued to roam around, and was actually offered interesting conversation and food by a pimp and two whores, ( a man, his wife and his wife’s friend). Needless to say, I expanded my vocabulary that night. Afterwards, Akbar noted his whore’s enthusiasm, skill, and cleanliness. Beyond women, he also liked fish. Fish heads for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

In the Parks

Halimun National Park

We took buses in bemos until the dirt rocky road, and then had to take motorcycles up into the mountains. With our heavy packs, the bumpy motorcycle ride was rather uncomfortable and resulted in several unusual bruises. We hiked our own trail through the ferns, pitcher plants, streams, and red ground flowers. The greenery was so dense that we had to use machetes to cut a path open. Yasmine and Hendra, 2 university of Indonesia students led us through the jungle. Sometimes we walked through and rested on beds of dead and live ferns over 5 feet deep. Red- winged dragonflies, black and white caterpillars, butterflies black and iridescent blue graciously accompanied us all long the way. At one point we could see clear across the valley. Gibbons were swinging and sweeping through the canopy right before eyes. Unfortunately on our way back to the research station we passed makeshift illegal deforestation logging units.

Conservation through conversation 

Orangutans are solitary animals which wander and scavenge for food alone. After they mate, they separate. The female takes care of her offspring for only two years. In the morning, they make their calls to stake out their territorial bounds.

Rhinoceroses take four years to find a mate, and requires fastidious peaceful conditions to get ‘in the mood’.

Macaques live in gangs of 30 in hierarchical arrangement. The king male can mate with any of the females in their troop while the rest of the males remain hard up. The lesser the rank of the macaque, the more time it spends grooming other monkeys. Female macaque butts blow up bright red during esteris. At this time, their butt is like a seating pad. Every species of macaque female has a different shape butt during esteris. Esteris is the primate equivalent of human menstruation cycle. It is hypothesized that the shape of macaque butt during esteris aids species specific mating; the lock and key hypothesis. 

Eagles mate in the air

The best way to see snakes is to cover a lot of ground and to scan their homes under rocks and leaves. The best way to avoid encountering a snake is to clap your feet as you walk.

Hippos are mean animals. In Africa they are the third most dangerous animal next to lions and elephants. Although they are herbivores , they’ll also munch on humans with their two large sharp teeth. They’re known to sink boats, open water channels in muddy planes, drag men underwater, and trample men at night. Because they have closable nostrils, and can hold their breath for 28 minutes. 

Pythons like water... it helps them shed and warms their body to help them digest their food. A snake’s bones are extremely fragile. Therefore, always support it while holding it.

Komodo dragons are fierce. In seconds they can leap 30 feet and bite into you. Their teeth are double edged and laden with lethal bacteria. They are smart and efficient predators. They bite their prey, wait two or three days for their prey to die from a bacterial infection, then eat it 

Crocodile posoraus has two times the compression capacity of a great white shark they’re too dangerous for a US zoo and known to devour water buffalo

Bantimurung

It was my last day in Sulawesi, and we stopped off at Bantimurung national park before resuming work. We walked through Goa Mimpi, or Dream Cave. It ran 2 kilometers right though a mountain cliff. It's called Dream Cave because the stalactites and stalagmites resemble real forms-- elephants, people. When we knocked on the rocks they sounded like hollow wooden xylophones. At some points in the cave, the ceiling would vault meters above us. As we left the parkk, we caught an unexpected glimpse of Maura Macaques (golden haired). They were traveling in a troop in the canopy. I looked at one and whistled to get its attention. With its arms it moved a couple branches to secure a clearer view of me. It was very unamused and continued to rip off more leaves to munch on.

On the road in Sulawesi: excerpts from out of the daily sketchbook

July 1 - We ate dinner on the waterfront. It started to pour rain outside and we watched the rain hit the ocean and make a noisy pitter patter sound.... inside I had a conversation with the waitress I asked what she was doing that night and she remarked 'looking at the tankers.'  
July 4 - Tonight we walked back to the shore before dinner. Cows with wooden bells pressed upon the dark blue black of Indian Ocean night like black forms. ding dong ding. 
July 5 - I won’t shower till the water is cleaner than I am so I didn’t shower for days 
July 6 - We saw the fiercest monkey tonight it was chained to a log in the backyard and would taunt us with his 3 inch fangs and launch coconut shells in our direction. The monkey had already killed chickens that had crossed its path. To deter further needless deaths or  injuries the owners wanted to tranquilize it to grind his teeth down. They ended up using pliers to rip its fangs out. 
July 7 - Akbar left today. We went to a remote river and burned the syringes and medical waste and washed the car. 
July 18 - The local homosexuals spoke English very well. However their propositions were a bit disturbing. "Can we smoke your penis?"
July 19 - Met a lunatic with two monkeys. He showed us the bottle of charred bones of a monkey he had kept over a decade ago. "That monkey was smart; it would guide the cattle round my house." The man, who looked like Robin Williams carried the monkeys on his back, talked to them, and bathed them in the stream that ran by his house. He then invited us into the house and told us our fortunes. From his cabinet he took out a very worn old parchment with odd symbols and numbers neatly charted. Then he looked at our names very carefully and said Ben, Adnan, and I we were all angry men... and added that I always think about nonas (girls). He predicted Suroso to be mild tempered 
July 22 -  We played soccer with a group of five-year-old kids. I inevitably  stepped and ran on mounds of fresh manure generously placed on the field 
July 23 - We stopped the car during an exhausting ride and threw rocks at a tree to relax 
July 24 - The neck of my guitar broke. Bad karma day as tempers flare. Nobody spoke in the car. 
July 25 - Stopped in a smoky signmaking store. One 9-year-old boy was smoking cigarettes talking about chicks and drinking tauk (an alcoholic beverage made from from palm trees). We exchanged jokes, songs, and stories. 
July 26 - Adnan was very keen on the lady in red that worked in the hotel. I sketched her. She had run away from her parents in Kalimantan because they forbade her to marry her boyfriend 
July 27 - Hiked up a mountain in Tana Toraja  Highlands before dawn. I passed a freshly made foul smelling gravesite up the slopes. (The hang dead bodies in caves there). I saw the clouds pass through the valley below and colorful red breasted bird dipping and playing in the air 
July 28 - Met up with a couple girls that escorted me to barbecued fish restaurant. I had five tuna steaks at a quarter apiece. Afterwards they brought me to the house to meet the very large extended family and offered warm Coca-Cola 
July 29 Learned Boogey songs as 30 Boogeymen encircled me as I was playing near a truckstop. They showed me their characteristic strumming pattern. I later slept in the restaurant. Earlier that afternoon, I had taken a walk in the rice paddies. The blue purple sea of dusk atmosphere covered the glowing green lucent rice patties. An unprecedented  yellow moon slowly emerged above it all 
July 30 - Stalled in the hot immigration office trying to renew our work visas. We are shuffling papers, passports, and various documentations from place to annoying place. 
August 3 - Stopped at a enormous serene amphitheater of layered rice paddies. Rows and rows of rice grew quietly before us.
August 4 -  I lay on the beach and watched two stars so intently they started to wiggle. I then I wondered how many other people had looked at those same two stars and saw them wiggle like that 
August 5 - Stopped at a waterfall. By chance I hiked up a little bit away from the waterfall. When I looked back I could see a rainbow ring around me 
August 7 - The day before my flight to Bali, I gave my guitar away to a family who operated a hat making sweatshop. We talked of cultural differences and religion. Earlier that night I went to Ujung Pandung's equivalent of Coney Island. It was closed but along the way I saw the most incredible sunset. Two mysteriously dark rays were cast from the horizon  

The Ferry Incident

The ferry rides to the islands off Sulawesi were grueling. The islands weren't very far, but the boats ran extremely slow. We left Luwuk at 9 PM and arrived in Peleng Island just before dawn. I can’t sleep on anything that tips back-and-forth so I resigned myself to sitting at the front of the boat looking at the moon before me... extending from the moon, a shimmering carpet of light bounced delicately on the waves. And I listened to Chopin all the way there. I felt like I was in capsulated in the sphere of western civilization. The elegant sentimental notes from the mind of a frail young 19th-century Polish composer in Paris writing music for his beloved George Sand juxtaposed to the raw and inexpressible beauty of Sulawesi. Through the El Greco-like darkness we sailed on  through the night. Once we arrived we found no monkeys lived on the island. We then waited for the return ferry. Another night at the front of the boat... this time staring into darkness. As soon as we got back to land we drove five hours to Ampana, the Togian Island terminal. On a whim we left for the Togians... as we were told someone had introduced macaques to the island years ago. Another six hour ferry ride! I was exhausted that night. I hadn’t slept in three days! I went straight to bed. During my sleep that night, I got up to go to the bathroom.... actually, I got out of my bed and walked two steps over to Adnan's (our driver's) bed and started pissing on his leg. He thought there was a hole in the roof and rain was sprinkling on him... and then he saw me  and yelled in Indonesian "apu sih yang kamu lakukan?!" or  "what the hell are you doing?!"  I woke up to find myself pissing on his leg. I was so shocked and embarrassed I stopped pissing midstream, stumbled to the porch outside and calmly continued pissing on a chili pepper plant . Adnan must’ve thought those Americans are truly crazy. It was the first night we had roomed together. Adnan hurried to the bathroom to scrub off his leg. I was fast on my knees with soap and water scrubbing the floors and sheets clean. That morning a couple tourists came by the chili pepper bush and were admiring and talking about its beauty.

Togian Islands

The most beautiful nights transpired on the Togian Islands. To avoid hiking through the dense muddy jungle, one could paddle wooden pontooned canoes around the coastline. One night, we visited the sea nomads, the Baju people on the island across from the research station. Paddling in the briny bay of Melenge Island, the plankton in the water were sensitive to any disturbance in the water and emitted light when displaced. The pontoons and the bottom of the boat cut calm wiggly sparkled trails of light and the water around the paddles glowed like 2 swirling miniature galaxies as we rowed forth. I let my hand down into the water and looked at the glowing plankton in disbelief. The stars were so bright in the sky and the water below us was twinkling with its own plankton stars.

The nomads built their houses on stilts by the water. Like them, we parked out boats by the stilts of their houses. The planks in their houses had many rather wide slits to sweep trash through. As the father pumped the kerosene lamp, the women would spit through the cracks in the floor and the children slept on despite the adult conversation.

The next morning we had a Baju man drive us out to sea for snorkeling. There was a motor attached to the boat which was carved out of a single log. Somehow we managed to fit 3 people in and survive the oncoming massive waves. Suroso sat in the front, and was petrified because he didn't know how to swim. Huge waves would crash down over his head as he anxiously dished water out of the boat with a tiny metal saucer. We parked at a coral island and swam around. Somehow enough dead coral had accumulated to form a small island in the sea. We weren't alone as local fishermen were drying their fish on the the hot white coral.

The hiking during the daytime was pristine. One afternoon, I walked solitary by the shore. Along the way, I chanced upon a rusty machete and a great walking stick. The coastal rocks were sharp petrified coral, many trees had fallen into the sea, flying fish skipped from rock to rock, kingfishers swooped by. I held the machete and wondered about its story. Who had abandoned it and why? Now I was using it to cut the vines before me.

Hiking into the forest, we caught a glimpse of rarely visited animals. At 7:30, the horn bills would make their morning calls. They were easy to spot because of their enormous yellow beaks and white tails. The bats' stench met us before we even saw the cave. Guano's pungent odor lured our curiosity to a small passageway into the earth. As we walked in there, it sounds like rolling thunder. The thunder was the sound of thousands of batwings flapping. The bats were stirred alive by these strange terrestrial intruders. The flew right by our ears in hysteria. At the end of the cave was a high ceilinged cavern where the bats spiraled freely. But the smell was unbearable and eventually drove us out of the cave.

While I was doing a quick watercolor of the coastal trees there, I met Rashid. On my last night in Melenge, he picked me up in a canoe and brought me to his house. Earlier that day, we had snorkeled by the research station. He saved my life by grabbing a chance floating coconut for me--- my mask had started to leak and I suffered a disoriented funk int he water. We had snorkeled out to other surrounding islands. At some points the ocean floor would just drop into a quiet bottomless blue abyss. Snorkeling over the blue and realizing a little plastic tube and leaky snorkeling mask was all that was keeping me alive was both terrifying and awesome.

We walked along the coast in the dark. The trails were so familiar to him having walked them for the past 20 years. He brought me to visit several people. He taught me a little Togian language "aku mau pigi pigi, or ea moconi bau" or "I want a massage or I eat fish" respectively. I didn't get to use my newfound language skills... but going into the Baju houses was beautiful in itself. Since there is no electricity there, only the firelight from the open stoves would flicker orange and gently filter through the dusty front rooms.

Two right slippers

I walked into the store looking to buy some Allman Brother's tapes. No such luck in Palu, Sulawesi. Then the department store attendants smiled and asked why I was wearing two right slippers. I replied in Indonesian, "Last night, my car flipped over, and I lost my left slipper." The responded with an 'oh' and tried to sell me another pair of sandals. 

We were coming down the rainy road just east of Palu. Adnan was anxious. He hadn't seen his recently impregnated girlfriend/future wife in a couple weeks. Moments before the accident, Ben asked prophetically "Why are we going so fast?" We were passing a huge truck on our left. It sped up as we started to pass it. Then a motorcyclist appeared before us, and unwaveringly headed directly at us. Adnan could have slowed down and slid behind the truck. But he opted to speed up for the pass. We passed, and then started swerving out of control. Once to the right, then to the left... In my mind, I was thinking 'what the heck is this guy doing?' I didn't realize we were veering out of control! Then we flipped and the car started to slide on its side. We took out someone's front fence in the process. Luckily, nobody was injured. I found myself sitting on Suroso. In talking to his relatives, Adnan later mused how he was surprised the seatbelt held him suspended after the crash. Ben immediately asked if we were alright. He couldn't believe nothing had happened and we were unscathed. 

Our immediate worry was tugging the car out of the gutter, and flipping it over. I tried in vain to find my left slipper. The whole left side was banged up, and the tires were flat. We had a very quiet deflated ride through the rain back into town. On our way, we passed a nasty motorcycle accident: pool of blood and an anonymous body strewn across the asphalt. A gruesome reminder how lucky we were to be alive, and how death can strike in such meaningless and ridiculous ways.

Adnan had to pay $1000 to cover the costs of repair. A daunting figure considering he was paid 4 dollars a day to work. He now had to drive up 5 hours a day for 1 month for free to help pay off his accident. Regardless, Ben's first priority was eating. As as we devoured tasty barbecued fish (ikan bakar) that night.... Adnan just watched us - -he could barely swallow what had happened to his life that night.

With Adnan:

He was a muslim boogeyman. In traveling with Adnan, we got a personal perspective into the average Indonesian's financial situation. He made 10,000 rp or 4 dollars a day. The average wage in Indonesia is 3,000 rp or $1.25. There seemed to be no middle class in Indonesia. Either the people were poor or rich. Telephones, travel, schooling, flushable toilets, electricity, running water were all luxuries. While we were touring the far reaches of Sulawesi, Java, and Bali, most Indonesians couldn't even afford to travel within their own island. However, surviving on minimum wage was easy because the food and housing costs were miniscule.

Adnan was 26 years old, and his mother a young 40. His father had already passed away. The family lived in Malaysia for 8 years because Adnan's father was a contractor there. Adnan spent his early work years inspecting chocolate in chocolate farms, and harvesting limes from trees. He was the eldest of a surprisingly varied family. One brother was a rice farmer, another in the army, another a doctor.

He brought me to his mother's house in Soppeng-- the rice heartland of Sulawesi. There, by the river, his mother lived alone in a wood house. On their porch, she dried tamarind seeds from the tamarind trees outside their door. The boogeymen build their houses on stilts because they're afraid of wildlife (ie., snakes). In the morning, the chickens under the boogeymen houses would call out to each other. Their calls would relay back and forth like a  circuit through the entire village. A very stereophonic and memorable wakeup call. There was no electricity in the house, and Adnan kept promising his mother electricity once he became rich. 

At one point, I went with him alone around Southern Sulawesi getting macaque hair samples. Here I was, 22 years old, ordering poor 26 year old Adnan where to drive and how to drive. And he would drive up to 8 hours a day over exhausting windy mountain rods. At one point, he burst out and told me he wanted to quit driving and return home and work for himself. I told him compassionately he chose the wrong profession and that sedentary work is more suitable for him. 

Having talked to many people who said they were 'miskin' or impoverished.... their lives were not as bad as they claimed. Although the people were dirt poor, they had a wealth of personal relationships and experiences to fall back upon; the nuclear and extended family and friends could all be counted on. Their life was relaxed, unlike American's. Out of the fraction of the population that did work, most occupied their time playing cards, talking, and smoking. It was not uncommon to see many people just passing their days away sitting on the porch or under bamboo stands. Here I can call my friend at an investment banking firm at 10 PM Sunday night. He is busy working his 100 hour weeks. Can life be any more meaningful than slaving away at Microsoft excel spreadsheets all day? Although here there are conveniences and untold material opportunities, spiritual life can waste away in lost emptiness.

Funeral Tana Toraja Style

The funeral was held on the top of the hill in Rantepao. As we ascended, we could hear strange grunting sounds. They turned out to be the sounds of miserable squealing pigs lying on the ground bound to bamboo poles. Their  eyes were nearly shut and they struggled and kicked in their ligatures. When we reached the summit, we could see a central plaza surrounded by black and red ornamented bamboo grandstands. Hundreds of mourners dressed in black sat in the shade talking, eating, and passing time.  Drawing a rope that was strung through the animal’s nostrils, a man lead a water buffalo to the center. in his other hand he held a machete up to the sky. Then ‘whap’, he tapped the blade to the buffalo’s neck and stepped away. The  buffalo was shocked as light red gushed out of its neck. It kicked and then collapsed to the crimson ground. The blood continued to squirt out of its artery for moments. Then with its wide eyes, it gazed listlessly for the  last disjointed moments of its life. Mounds of wet undigested grass taken from the stomachs of all the other water buffalo previously sacrificed dotted the ground.  Various buffalo parts neatly placed on palm leaves ready to be parceled out to people according to the rank in the village.... men shuttling back-and-forth from the grandstands delivering the meat to certain families... the smoke of roasting pigs rising behind the stands. Men busily gutted lines of dead pigs. A trail of dried blood stretched from a pig’s armpit to the ground. A young man used a machete to delicately cut away the fat and pull out intestines like a magician pulling a never ending  handkerchief out of a hat. They pulled the slimy intestines out, then with their hands, they reached in and took out a bladder full of urine careful not to burst it within the pig.

Back at the plaza, women stood up to drumming. A young man and women wearing clogs meticulously lead a circular procession of women in hats,  men in  sarong,  and men bearing severely overweight pigs in cages. One pig escaped and spent the last few moments of his life eating and scavenging and sniffing the ground around all the carcasses strewn over the plaza. 

The Torajan Christians believe the souls of the animals they sacrifice will carry the soul of the deceased to heaven. Sometimes a family keeps a corpse for five years to save up enough money to finance a funeral.  Next year there will be a funeral sacrifice of 200 water buffalo for a man who died three years ago.

Tirta Empul

At the holy spring, Tirta Empul, I met Kadek, an electroporator. By that time in my trip, I had learned enough Indonesian to hold a decent conversation. He invited me to sit with the people of his village as they prayed in the sacred temple ground. A priest dressed in white rang a silver bell and chanted officiously in the front. Smoky incense spiraled before him as his eyes were shut in concentration. words were chanted without pause-- i was sitting towards the back and looked curiously at the women in their colorful loosely knitted shirts, the temple offerings, and baskets strewn on the floor. The balinese temple offerings which include flowers, pyramids of food, and incense are brought in hand woven baskets.

the sky went gray, and it started to rain. 

I got up quietly and stood by the back wall and put on my rain coat. on the other side of the wall you could see the pure spring water bubble through the fine black and gray sand of the pool. I watched the ceremony proceed despite the rain. the women propped baskets over their heads. the priest's chants blended into the softly falling rain.

At the end, Kadek approached me and asked whether I wanted to come to his village. "of course" i replied. Conveniently i had been walking around Bali aimlessly with everything i had in my broken backpack (map, toothpaste, toothbrush, bar of soap, rain coat, camera, t-shirt, sketchbook, a ball point pen, and a bed sheet).

after the long van ride to his village, he introduced me to his friend. I would be staying at her house that night. Since i was used to addressing adults with 'anda' or you (formal), i referred to her as anda in the initial conversation may times. Kadek pulled me over to his side when she went into the kitchen. with a very cross face he said, "in bali, we do not address elders with 'anda'. it is not proper. since you are new to this place i feel i should inform you. you must call her bu and her husband pa." In indonesian 'bu' means mother and 'pa' means father. I didn't realize i was supposed to address these strangers as mother and father. i apologized to Kadek and never made the mistake again.

The balinese house is quite different from the american house. the balinese family lives communally. two or three generations live together, next to each other within a walled area. the entrances to the houses never line up with the entrance of the walls: thus evil spirits can never have a direct path into the house from the street. there are ornate thatched topped shrines in the front area dedicated to the gods and familial ancestors. by the house is also an area where the instruments are kept. the animals: pigs and chickens are kept in the back. I talked a lot to the father of the house, a school teacher in the district. he said his 5 year old son wants to become a tour guide for american visitors...

when i awoke, the houses were empty except for the grandfather and the mother. the grandfather spoke balinese, which i would found very hard to pick up. i asked the mother whether i could hear some gamelan music. she told the old man to show me the music room. he brought me over to the dusty room, and sat behind a large xylophone and started playing. his hands crossed the air slowly above the xylophone: with his right hand he struck the metal keys with a wooden mallet, with his left thumb he muffled particular resonances.

there was no sheet music. in fact, people have no need to read or write music there. they hear it, remember it, and play it. balinese dance is taught much the same way. in bali, dancers learn by watching and doing. the dance teacher corrects the student's errant gestures. postures and movements by standing behind the dancer and guiding and sculpting the different parts of the body to correct positionings and rhythms. to contrast, in the west, ballet is taught with mirrors surrounding the dancer.

the old man groaned as his mallet struck the notes. i was especially surprised that his left hand appeared slow and sloppy while the sound remained pristine. his hands had probably played these songs for decades. dissatisfied, he got up, looked around, and then got an even bigger soft mallet out. it was big enough to play 2 notes at a time on the xylophone. he continued his song contently and then looked at me when it ended... i asked if i could try, but i couldn't remember his notes exactly, and gave up. i said the only phrase i knew in balinese "sing biseh ito." (i can't in balinese) he laughed.

balinese temple etching

balinese temple sketches

Baluran National Park

Summer is dry season in East Java and water was limited to a few locations in the park. I climbed into a tree by a pond early that afternoon and watched as all sorts of animals came by to quench their thirst at the end of the day. I sat in the tree till the sun set and sketched the wildlife. The first animals to appear were the wild boars. Tentatively they zigzagged their way down to the waterline. Once they heard the water buffalo arriving, they quickly bumbled back into the forest. The water buffalos savored their long sips and waded in the water to cool down. Kijiang, or barking deer, would come by and drink hesitantly from the source. Many times a kijiang would bark suddenly, and a group of fellow deer would scatter frantically. The would return shortly after the false alarm. The male kijiang would cover themselves in mud and sniff females' bums, let out a big yawn-like 'ahh' mating call. Indeed, it was high mating season for the kijiang. Wild peacocks with their shiny green tail feathers patrolled the side of the pond. Bantaeng, which look like chestnut brown buffalo with white rears and legs made a cameo appearance. One curious calm water buffalo came surprisingly close to me under the tree. Startled by my presence, he kicked and retreated to the other side of the pond. (see top photo... rare sighting of Bantaeng)

Earlier that day, I wandered into the office of a British field biologist.  He was studying the interactions of the animals in the reservation. Bantaeng skulls lined the shelves and the floor as he was busy measuring the teeth and marks on the jaws. He explained how, like trees, their teeth have rings inside, and the width of the rings indicate the animal's rate of growth and health. "There are only 5000 Bantaeng in the world. Part of the problem in protecting them now is that their chief predator is another endangered species, the Javan Wild Dog.  It's pretty gruesome how the dogs bring down a Bantaeng. In an unrelenting pack, they attack the Bantaeng's head and rear.. he then went on to explain Bantaeng behavior. "The females tend to stay together while the males are braver and more migratory. During the wet season, when there is sufficient water around the park, the animals head into the hills..."

Bromo

I couldn't sleep that night; a nasty chicken soup kept me up all night with foul gas and stomach pains. I decided to pass the night away by going to the top of Bromo. There was a minor pre-dawn pilgrimage to Bromo. I weaved through talkative packs of Indonesians. It was a flat walk through the sea of sand approach to Mt. Bromo. A wooden stairway ran from the base of the volcano. I had no idea what time it was and decided to wait at the top. I must've waited for hours up there... in the cold, dark, smelly rim of Bromo. As I shivered, I could overhear snippets of others' conversations, "that guy (me) is wearing shorts.... and it's really cold, etc..."

And when the sun finally rose, I saw hundreds of noisy Indonesians crowded by the top of the stairway, blasting their techno music, dancing to the blood-streaked sky. With a bit of a shove and tricky footwork, I walked past them and hiked alone for the next 6 hours. 10 feet from the stairway, no Indonesians dared venture! And the trails showed lack of use as my legs were scratched and cut up by overgrown pricklies and grasses. I would stop and admire the lava beds below, the clouds still held in the far valley, the imperial sun slowly rising above the, the sea of gray sand left from ancient eruptions, and the resonating green and red dry tall grass path before me. 

I walked quickly on delicate ash spines of the craters. Bromo turned out to be connected to a whole complex of extinct volcanoes. Over the mountain ridges i could see massive Mt. Semeru. Calmly and inaudibly, it erupted--- huffed and puffed out of the corner of my eye. I looked back at it to get a better look, and it had already stopped puffing. A fickle volcano. One part of the trail was mysteriously charred black. Had some fire raged here recently? A volcanic eruption? Whatever it was, I kept walking in disbelief. The colors were so vivid in the dry mountain craters. Some parts of the trail were so narrow and bordered by such deep drops I fearfully crawled on my hands and knees.

Gunung Batur and the Danish

It was so early in the morning, my gut felt raw. I slowly awoke on the endless fast motorcycle ride to the trail head. I told the driver to slow down, and he said I was like a little girl, then I told him I've already flipped over in a car and I thought Indonesians were crazy drivers, he repeated I was like a little girl again. As a group of four we headed up the grassy slopes of Batur. Towards the top, the sun soaked the far sky in a deep purple, then a dark red dye. The colors looked stark behind the primeval black mountain lines before me.

The guide boiled an egg for me on the hot volcanic steam fissures. And I chatted with a blind Japanese girl that I had met several days before at a dance performance. She was blind but had gone to Mongolia to do anthropology research on the people there... she was interested in people who had lost their heritages in the era of modern technology. She loved to travel, and wished to quit her job for its sake. I was amazed how she had picked up English by just talking to her friends. A month prior, I had met a girl in Central Sulawesi who stopped going to high school because she couldn't afford glasses. She was blinded financially and paralyzed intellectually. And now I was talking in English to a blind Japanese girl on Batur's summit about the sociology of Mongols!  She then told me of her short trip to China. Having lived in outer Mongolia for months, she was extremely dirty. All her laundry and bags were dusty.. and the Chinese felt sorry for this blind person was so dirty and destitute. When the Chinese asked where she was from, she would reply "Mongolia" jokingly. A dirty destitute blind woman had lost her way to China.

We decided to take the long way to the bottom. Circling bright and yellow and red rock active ash pits, hazy sulfuric smoke would occasionally smother us. Then we literally skied down a huge black ash slope to get to the bottom of Batur. I first started talking to the Danish hikers as we skied down. Ole, an investment banker from Copenhagen was hilarious. He broke the ice by joking "this is the first time i had to pay to climb a mountain." As we slid down, he yelled "hold on to your tits and glasses!" He would always reply in a deep voice, 'ok ok'. when we emptied out our shoes of ash, he joked he wore his flimsy slippers to hike Batur to release the ash with ease. We hitchhiked in a big transport truck used for moving stones back to the trail head and their car. The Danish offered me a ride to the northcoast of Bali. It was interesting learning about the navy seal-NYC marathon running harvard graduate Denmark prince, the standup comedian elected to parliament, the Dane's unusual economy which has no raw goods, and dirty Danish expressions like pic un fisa (dick and pussy) "When you're a 14 year old boy, you yell "pic un fisa" into the girls' locker room and run. Ole took pictures of me cause he couldn't believe I only traveled with a half-full backpack.

While looking for a hotel, they left their wallets and passports on top of the car. And when they peeled out of the parking lot, their wallets fell off the car-- never to be seen again. They scanned the road, parking lot, trash bins, sewers.... to no avail. Ole remarked he could write a book about the contents of Indonesian trash dumps and open sewers. They then had to go to the police station, immigration office, and Danish consulate in South Bali. With my Indonesian, I was able to explain to the police what had happened, "they left their passports on the car, and for some reason, when they drove off, they fell and were lost....