- Plentiful water, not like a miserable shower.
When I said that one group of siamangs lives above our camp (to testify the eco-friendliness of the establishment), I meant it: this picture was taken from my “porch”. It would be lovely to sit there, sipping your tea, your legs resting on the rail, and leisurely collecting data on the PDA on your lap..
Among the many strange sounds you hear when you are in town (because of course, you have now mastered all of the different calls of the forest..), there are those of the “traveling restaurants”. These are small carts, food stalls on wheels, that are carried around, equipped with everything to prepare all sort of food, from soup with meat balls to fried rice, to a dessert made of many different sweet and colorful things. What I didn’t know is that you can recognize what each one sells from the characteristic noise it makes to attract the attention: a clink-clink is soup, tlok-tlok is the rice, sdleng-sdleng is satay, and so on..
A problem of collective action: there is a trail in the forest, used by villagers who go out on market day to sell their products and buy supplies. This trail needs maintenance, plants grow quickly, and very often fallen trees block the way. So, when you are carrying a heavy load, got into your stride, it is great to find that somebody has cleared the way, while it is quite undesirable to have to do it yourself.
If you are fascinated by thunder this is definitely a good place to visit. Storms are mighty and loud, the amount of water and noise is overwhelming. Last week I was in camp, when I saw, for the first time, a lightning touching the ground. It ran through the tree that holds the antenna for the phone. The crackling noise was impressive. I was hoping to also smell something cool, but no. Also, the tree didn’t seem to be negatively affected by it (and it didn’t crash on our hut, which is good).
It is amazing how one (or I) adjusts to different living conditions. I sometimes realize that some aspects of life in the field station are very different from, say, life in NJ or Italy. So I feel I should describe some of them to prepare people planning on visiting. I really don’t want to discourage anybody, but if one is seriously arachnophobic, for example, it would be an unpleasant surprise to find that we sleep in bed made of spiders.. (kidding)
So, here is a list:
- Mice: there are many mice. Even some you could call rats. But they are forest mice, not the nasty, disease-ridden city ones. Still, there is no way to keep them out of your room (unless you wage a full-scale war). Sometimes they run around while you sleep, fight, eat things you wouldn’t expect (like half of my bar of soap). When we finish eating and leave the plates aside, animals are attracted to it. Mice, squirrels, and tree-shrews, which are a cool and taxonomically very interesting animal (they are related to primates, sort of. Squirrels with a fire red tail, for those who don’t care about phylogeny), fight for the leftovers.
- Fighting for food, too, but on the ground, are large monitor lizards. They are usually afraid of people, so no problem with them (they may startle you when they run away noisily).
- There are some big and fast spiders, not many, and they disappear when they see you.
- There are some snakes, sometimes. Mainly pythons. The others usually go away when you approach.
- Sometimes there are invasions of flying termites, which are attracted by the light.
- We usually wash in the river. When the water is too murky due to heavy rain and currents, there is a well, from which we take out water and we shower in the bathrooms. Of course, no hot water and no proper shower, little pans to grab water and throw it on yourself. The water is not always crystal clear. We agree that after going through that we will consider ourselves clean.
- There are two bathrooms for about 15 people. But we are all in the forest for most of the day, so I never had any problem with it. We had peaks of 34 people, but they usually camp in the forest and use the river.
- Mattresses and pillows have conducted a long and exciting life in the forest, which leaves traces on them (a little bit musty, not the best examples of fluffiness).
- Electricity only about 3 hrs per day.
- It may rain a little bit inside the room.
- To get to the station, after leaving the roads, there is a 1-hour (+- 1hr, depending on the trail condition and speed of the party) walk in the forest. If you thought of bringing a TV set (which wouldn’t have been a good idea), you would have to carry it by yourself (actually there are porters who will carry your luggage if you want). The bright side of this, is that once you are there, you are really into the forest. One siamang group sleeps right above my room. Which is very romantic, until you learn that the first thing siamangs do in the morning is poo, and they are large animals, and a heavy “object” falling from 40m high into a corrugated iron roof makes an awful lot of noise. Especially at 4.30am.
- WCS, the organization running the station charges 10US$/day to stay there. This includes accommodation and food. It is expensive, but they have to carry everything on foot, and have cooks to pay. And the place is “aaawesome”.
- After a long and delicate bargaining with the Park officers, here is the deal I managed to obtain. Visitors may stay a maximum of 7 days in the forest without going though the nightmarish procedure of obtaining a permit, and without being followed by a ranger (which is great, since they are expensive and annoying). The only thing you will be asked to pay is a tourist entrance fee, which amounts to $1.5, so that is feasible.
- Diet consists of a lot of rice. Really a lot. Then fish, many vegetables (not much fresh), chicken (if the monitors don’t kill them before the cooks do). The base is not very spicy, you then can increase it by adding sambal, a hot seasoning.
If more comes to mind, I will add them. Again, I don’t want to discourage but give a clear picture of what to expect (the negative parts).
I decided to get a health insurance. After all, that healthy feeling of invincibility with age wears down a bit..
I am waiting for the bis (bus), in Way Heni, a small village outside the forest. As I already said, cellphone signal is only available 15km away, across the mountains. I am talking about it, and the plans to build an antenna soon, to the owner of the bar/restaurant/ticket counter/bus stop (he is Budi’s brother). And he shows me two pieces of metal welded to a cable that disappears towards an iron pole, which goes through a hole in the roof and straight up to the sky, becoming a small antenna. With an omnipresent rubber band he secures the contraption to my phone, and there you have signal!
"Nancy just sent me the blog...and i got news for you. Here is something else that I have never taken in consideration. I was invited to fill a vacant place, and I played. I did my best, and of course my overthinking brain is still now discovering layers of complexity, while before I thought it was the stupidest game. I started changing my mind when I realized that after three turns they all new what bloody tiles I had left (and politely – or not much so – laughed when they would leave me stuck).
Budi is young. Small, but well proportioned, strong. Black, Muse-styled hair (dangerously close to an “emo”). Black shiny eyes that can show chasms of concentration or puzzlement. When following siamangs, he gives 100%, tries to stay with the focal. It is only normal sometimes to lose them. He walks twice as much as the rest of us. Cannot find peace (for intensity reminds me of my dog Ciro with the ball). Murmuring, or asking quietly aloud “Dimana?” (“where is him?”), with a typical, lovely cadence. When he has a doubt, about the identity of an animal or its activity, he asserts his guess, then, with exactly the same confident tone he asserts all of the other possibilities, with increasing speed. E.g.:
“What is the female doing?”
“She is… Feeding!… Resting!.. Suckling! Moving!Grooming! Grooming! The female is grooming!”
(reminds me the exam scene of Ecce Bombo, cult movie by Nanni Moretti)
He plays the guitar very well. I ordered him (jokingly) to learn this very popular Indonesian song, so that he can teach it to me. He smiled, then laughed, we will see how it goes.
He is quick, he learned to use the computer program much faster even than the “educated” assistants, those who went to secondary school. He is impatient when others have to fill in the data and are slow. He is the youngest and last arrived, lowest in the hierarchy, but in these cases he is completely oblivious to it, and also the others don’t react badly. He laughs at my jokes, he has learned to expect them also in the middle of serious work. And he is good at laughing, responding, without losing concentration (others completely forget about the data collection, stand there, adding up to the funny topic, the arm holding the PDA hanging, forgotten).
He tells me about his past. Of course touched by the relocation programs, he lived all around Java before coming to Sumatra. He traveled, saw some world. His sister traveled too, she has worked for years in Egypt (Mesir, usually countries have similar names in every language, not in this case..), Kuwait. She washed dishes, and she is tough, respected. She married Rahman, the stoic WCS assistant (who named his daughter Nectarinia, scientific name of a colibri’-like bird.. hmm, the forest can make you lose perspective..)
Before coming to Sumatra, Budi was a martabak-maker. Martabaks deserve their own post. During Lebaran, when everybody else stayed home with the family, he drove to cool Krui, with his friends, on their bikes. He wears cool t-shirts. He has a friend from France, Pierre, who gets angry when they call him mister, as he is not married yet, and studies the social organization of isolated kampungs. Yet, when you talk about music, he likes Avril Lavigne; about TV, he likes Tom and Jerry; about wild pigs, he tells you the story of the gold chain..
This mixture of coolness, street-wisdom, and utter naivety, is adorable. Now, I have already been made fun of for being the stereotype anthropologist in the field. Imagine after I write this, eheh..
The really big and old ones, with mighty fangs, heavy body and ancient wisdom, lead their broad groups through the forest, look out while they feed, protect them from predators. When they reach a good mud puddle, they delicately leave on a branch the thick golden chain that they carry on one of their fangs. If you manage to steal it, causing furious anger, you are guaranteed protection from any harm. Meaning that if someone shoots you at point blank, you don’t die. A bomb? Nothing. You can find these “rantai” in some Chinese markets, but they are understandably very expensive. A man recently made the news for having spent 6 billion rupiahs (about 600,000$) on a fake one. Not sure of how he figured out it was fake. Imagine me, watching the backs of this fleeing group of pigs, siamangs feeding above us, in the middle of the mud, in the middle of the forest, trying to reconstruct this explanation. Making large use of the dictionary, and increasingly extreme examples to make sure I understood it right, while looking at the dead serious face of my young and intense assistant.
Waktre came back shortly after. Said something I didn’t understand, and invited me to celebrate Idul Fitri with him next morning, we will leave at 8.So this morning I wake up, I cannot sleep over 6 a.m. (a bloody curse!), I read (junk! I need books, damn!). He wakes up, goes grab an iron board and iron, and carefully irons a shirt (which is very romantic, except that then he wears another one..), takes a shower. And off we go, on his yellow motorbike. But he is not Muslim… he is Hindu, he is from Bali..
In fact, we arrive at his girlfriend’s home, in a small kampung (neighborhood in this case) on top of one of the hills surrounding TK (a bit like Roma). I am wearing jeans, Nic’s “Gone Dutch” black t-shirt, and sandals, again feel very inappropriate, when the streets keep narrowing and more and more people are around I feel I shouldn’t be there..
We enter the crowded house and I am welcomed warmly, I shake hands, I am taken to her father, a dignified elegant man sitting and receiving the greetings of everybody. I am offered a seat, of course I am told to eat, special sweet foods prepared for the occasion. And more and more people keep coming and greeting. Handshakes are complicated, as I wrote before. Here, the hand can have many degrees of firmness, how much you clasp of it also varies. You can use both your hands, or use the left to support right. You can then bring one or both up to your heart, two sides of chest, forehead. You can bow a little. Kids take your hand and bring it slowly to their forehead, bowing. An important component of this celebration is asking forgiveness “from the bottom of your heart” to your family and friends, for sins and wrongs. So, you kneel to elders, bring their hand to your forehead, murmur your repentance, and receive their blessing, more or less articulated. It is a touching moment (for example, when Waktre received that of his girlfriend’s father).
So, after a little while that I was sitting (and standing up at each new arrival), Waktre’s girlfriend (I know, I am bad, I don’t know her name! I didn’t dare ask again.. so much I have to learn, still..) says something like “Shall we?”. Meaning that it’s our turn to go around! And we do it, and I am sooo happy because it is great! We visit all of the houses of the neighborhood, take shoes on and off about 40 times. We enter, we greet, we smile, my presence is explained, I am welcomed everywhere, often we cannot refuse to sit down and accept snacks and the special anti-puasa drink. I think the first five homes I was just hovering in a cloud of happiness, without thinking much, probably with a stupid smile constantly on my face. Then, while still enjoying the experience deeply, I started perceiving more subtle patterns, different behaviors: in some cases the greeting and relationships are formally perfect, but you see a lack of warmth, in other cases it is really from the heart, for some it is more like a party, for others the religious component is more prevalent. In some houses we stay longer. I smile when I think of Robin Fox, conversations on kinship, there seem to be so many layers of “brotherhood”, and of course I don’t dare to ask details, draw charts (would love to! When I have more confidence and mastery of the language..).. and to think that this system is probably fairly simple..
Small babies are afraid of me, fathers joke with them, bringing them close, they cry and hit them mildly. Older kids receive small amounts of money in some cases. Two great episodes:
After a couple of hours we head back home, where I am offered more snacks. And I greet new people. Then, we are called to lunch! Rice portions cooked in small wicker baskets, rendang (my favorite meat), a vegetable curry-like soup, Javanese traditional chicken. Then back to the living room. More people coming. Passion fruit juice. Fermented rice, delicious: white and red glutinous rice, left alone with yeast for two nights, throws out water, and becomes a sour/sweet (quite sweet) dessert. If you keep fermenting the water, it becomes arak, a liquor (at that, I didn’t know how to react.. Waktre can drink alcohol, so I could say “Hmm, interesting, would love to try”, but the others are not, so I wondered with a smile if I should say “Hmm, what a shame”. In doubt, I chose a completely neutral face and “Oh”..)
I am out of the forest again, in TK, and it is the last day of fasting, tomorrow is Idul Fitri, two days of celebration of the end of Ramadan. Most people have left the station, as there are about 10 days of holiday more or less everywhere, and also here at the WCS office I only find Waktre and Daus. Waktre runs out, and for the first time I get to talk a while with Daus, the tallest Indonesian I know, quiet and friendly. He went to the mosque 5 times in two hours. Then we went out for dinner, and he explained me things about religion and this celebration. It was a strange contrast, walking with him, so calm and self-possessed, while all around us people were going insane, trucks full of people screaming and banging on huge drums (but huge, some 3m in diameter), swimming among thousands of motorbikes, mosque loudspeakers projecting piercing yells of chanting children. And all this with no alcohol... Impressive. After dinner the conversation became more personal, if we had a family. He said he would have one next years, perhaps. With some hesitation I asked if he has a girlfriend, and with a half smile he admitted that that was part of the problem.. and from here the escalation, his difficult situation: He is tall and attractive, well dressed, speaks good English, has finished a Masters on the impact of fig trees on bird biodiversity in Way Canguk, works for WCS. But he is already 25, a time, as he delicately put it, when an Indonesian man is supposed to have a family already. HA, what will each of you think? (I just mumbled something, remembering Kenya and the “Don’t worry, God will help you” after the question “How many kids do you have?”…). And working in the forest is not very conducive to meeting girls. So I tease him, tonight is perfect, we should go to a club.. But then the next problem, he comes from a very observant Muslim family, who would only accept “a good Muslim” girl. Which of course you wouldn’t find in the middle of crazy celebrations. So I ask where would she be now? In a mosque, praying. But of course there is a panel separating men from women. Hmm, so where? University, yes, that sounds perfect! The Muslim Student Union.
We cannot find an anggkot (small taxi-like bus) back, we walk. So how does that work? You see a girl that seems interesting, and? You talk to her? No, you talk to your teacher (for what I understand, a mix of academic advisor and religious counselor). Who talks to her teacher. Who talks to her, and possibly arranges a meeting. Which lasts one hour, perhaps two, through the separating divider. And during which the two discuss, intensely and seriously, about the future, plan everything out, make decisions! And if it works out, then it is done. They commit (imagine my face while I hear, or write, this..). Well, of course the girl has to pass the exam of the man’s family. And the poor creatures are about 20 years old. This reminded me of a discussion on arranged marriages with my friend Amrisha. There are many good, valid, valuable things about such a system. But it is also precious to be able to know a person before deciding to share a whole life with her/him. And there are of course problems with our system. And with theirs. And I am too tired to do the next, synthesizing step, sketching the perfect way.. we know I could spend months on the subject..
We have left the loud main road, now all is quiet, more trees. Daus leaves me in the empty dark office, tomorrow he will drive 5 hours to celebrate with his family (I was already picturing Muslim Student Union parties at the beach for him, but no..). Hmm..
Which I think I have gathered from my conversations with people. Perhaps it is fascinating that they might be wrong, eheh. Most of the religious words come from Arabic, of course. And Ramadan is the name of a month. Months follow the lunar calendar. In Indonesia, bulan means both moon and month. During Ramadan people fast (it is called “Puasa”), from about 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. They abstain from eating, drinking, having sexual or angry feelings. The still pray five times a day. They wake up around 3 a.m. to have a hearty meal. Of course, when you do physical labor, fasting is particularly demanding. Apparently, in that case people are allowed to break the fasting. But then you have to make it up some time before the following year. Same for pregnant or breastfeeding women. The assistants in the forest are impressive, they keep running after the siamangs, seemingly not affected by it. I tried, loosely, and while it is fine until around 2 p.m., after that you really have to struggle a bit. And strangely enough, eheh, you even have to work on the mood aspect, you get quite nervous!
But then, of course, it is great to break the fasting (buka puasa). A special drink is prepared, very rich and sweet, every day slightly different, made of bananas, cassava, coconut milk and pulp, and many other things I don’t know. People gather in the common area and start inquiring about the time, one of the leaders would check and communicate. They all hold one glass of the special drink and one of water. And the attitude, composure of the drinking is special, intense. Rahman doesn’t sit, stands looking at the river, takes the first sip of water, rolls it around the mouth and spits it quietly. Then, slowly, the chatting and laughing starts.
Way Canguk is a hotspot for bats, an ongoing research is establishing. There are many species, different sizes and shapes, funny scary little faces, helpless noises when trapped in the white cloth bags, the familiar ammonia smell, crazy twirls around the common area to catch insects around the light. But the best image is when you walk along a trail at dusk, and you see these quick dark shapes running along the open paths, avoiding you at the last second, in complete, unreal silence.
There is a new assistant I am training, Usman. When you tell him something important, he adopts the following body posture: staring eyes fixed on you, raised eyebrows, sagging shoulders and wide-open hands. In Italy, that means “What now?”, in a rather condescending and rude way. But it is just his way of demonstrating attentiveness, and I have to make a conscious effort to block my instinctive reaction. Another fine exercise, you learn..
At the end of day in the forest, tired and sweaty, you go take a bath (mandi) in the river. The water appears brown, but it is actually (almost) crystalline, you can see 2m deep. It is a great scenery, a funny contrast to a bar of soap, a colorful towel, conditioner..
To collect data, I am using for the first time PDAs, portable computers. You control them using a stylus, small and thin, the easiest thing to lose when running after gibbons in the forest. Not knowing much about these things, I got suddenly nervous, before leaving, for for I hadn’t thought of buying replacements. Then, here, I realized that any small wooden stick works perfectly. And actually now each observer fashion his own, with his favorite size, length, material and texture. You also learn about woods, in the process.
I have a small backpack that was bought in the USA. Many of the conversations with the assistants concern the expensive equipment we brought and use. When I confirmed its provenance, the voice of innocence (Mislan) said “but it says ‘made in China’..”. To which I definitely did not give a good answer. I cursed once again my poor knowledge of the language, but at least it made me think.
Fieldwork exposes you to unusual experiences and allows you to learn new things about life and the world – here is an example: you are going down with an escalator, facing down, feeling cool in your luxurious mall, riding this powerful piece of machinery, defying the sign asking you to hold on to the rail, you are not an old scary lady who waits and looks before climbing on it, after all. Well, if the engine stops, as it happened to me yesterday, you are suddenly projected forwards, in proportion to the speed of the escalator. If you are lost in your thoughts, it is an interesting, surprising and dangerous experience. You could fall headfirst down steep sharp metal steps, I never thought of it! Ah, the things you learn doing fieldwork..
There is a fruit in the forest, which you have to eat with your tongue. You cannot pull out the pulp with your teeth, and if you bite it, you dent the seed, which is extremely bitter. And you cannot suck out the pulp either. You just have to slowly work with your tongue. Again, a metaphor of different approaches to things, different, more delicate ways to experience things.
The memory of the rattan swamps is still fresh on our skins. We think of ways to avoid that area. Eddie, “not a strong swimmer”, opts for following the beach to a large road that cuts across it. I go for the obvious: I build a raft for my backpack and swim upriver. I think I found something important about rafts: layering. You have a lower layer that will sink, and an upper deck which will stay dry. It works perfectly. And rope, oh, how it is important in some circumstances.. All reports say that crocodiles no longer live on this river, and I guess I trust them when I start paddling with my skinny white legs in the brown calm waters. But as I hear a slow and heavy splash to my left, I wonder.. then it also dawns on me that nobody talked about the sharks that in some places go upriver.. I cannot turn easily, for fear of unbalancing the raft, but part of me wonders, again..
After a while I abandon the fears (it is sad how one can feel reckless and stupid, and not even brave..) and enjoy the trip. Silver langurs start, then stop and look, puzzled, wondering what is this strange creature. And they stay there, I can observe them at ease (as I am definitely not fast). Monitor lizards, basking on a trunk above the water, open one eye, and follow my progress, deciding not to flee. Birds fly across the open sky, when they see me it is too late to change course. Small electric blue dragonflies search the water surface and rest on dead leaves.
After a couple of hours I decide to go back ashore, I would need more time to be able to go all the five km to camp, though I would have loved to bring the raft home. Instead, I send it back down the river, wondering what other experiences she will go through. It takes me little time to find a comfortable natural trail running along ridges that soon takes me back to the trail system. It is funny how this periphery of the study area, usually felt as “wild”, seems now “home”..
Worn out by stress I decided to go and see the sea. This entails walking to the end of the trail system and then abandoning it to cut through the forest bearing southeast for about 2km. I am joined in the trip by Eddie, a British WCS officer visiting from Cambodia. Tall, slow, large heavy boots, GPS and camouflaged bandanna, saved by a dose of acceptable British humor. We cross the illegal road, and then up and down through hills and swamps filled with thorny bushes and noble nasty plants. We have to open our way along small rivers til we find fallen trees to cross them, and then elephant or wild pig trails to help us get through the worst thickets. It would be cool to imagine us with a well-honed machete, but as it happens we didn’t have one. It has some nobility, passing through the forest without leaving a trail of dead vegetation, but I confess that had I had machete when I was bleeding from rattan, I wouldn’t have hesitated to use it. After 2 hours of struggling (and weighing the feasibility of offering it to visiting friends, eheh), you hear the thunder closer and closer, you see a white cloud of sea spray, you smell it, you touch sand.. it is a powerful emotion. When you see it, the lungs open, maybe something happens to the heart too, and as ridiculous as it seems, you would want to scream (there is no witness to say if I did, as Eddie arrived some time later). I am ready to pick up the duel with the waves I left at Krui, but here the sea is very different. It is powerful and dangerous. Even small waves are heavy and vicious, full of water, long; the undertow is mighty; there is no pattern to discern. I try to reach where the waves break, and still retain some control on the situation, but I am soon beaten up and dragged out until suddenly I cannot touch anymore. At which point, contrary to all the knowledge I accumulated, I waste 80% of my energy to regain that one meter, that one-second-ago, and luckily I manage to touch again. After that, I don’t risk anymore. No wonder you can hear the waves from so far away. We see where the mini-tsunami reached, all the way to the edge of the forest and inside it, leaving a trace of wooden debris..
Sumatra – and Indonesia in general – is an area of high volcanic and seismic activity. At least once or twice a week there are small earth movements. The low wooden buildings of the field station tolerate them well, there is only more or less shaking and creaking noises. One romantic touch: there is a bird, the Argus pheasant (remember Argus, the Greek guardian of a hundred eyes – this beautiful peacock-like bird has a gorgeous tail), which senses the earthquakes, and start calling – only few seconds before the shaking, so not too useful as a warning system.
So picture the scene: you are sipping your tea, perhaps playing the guitar, in the dimly lit common area, when a far away cry, a long and alarmed wail, “Kuau” (that is the local name of the Argus), breaks the darkness. It is followed by others, all around you, near and far. And then the building starts shaking, at times gently, other times more strongly. It is not alarming, not frightening, you can focus on the experience of feeling the earth below you moving, you think of how deep is the movement, how many layers of ancient rocks are shifting, and the very superficial one of trees, small wooden huts, rivers and animals that lays upon them. As many thoughts in the forest, profound, eheh.
Wiyono, one of Alice’s assistants, got married. For a series of circumstances, that day we were coming back from TK, it was getting late, that hour when you won’t be able to walk to camp before dark, but we decided to look for the little kampung where Wiyono lives, to briefly pay our homage. We had stayed in TK for longer than expected, we had no clean clothes, we were dressed like dirty, trashy Americans, we didn’t have a wedding present. Quite embarrassing. But we were welcomed warmly, all of the innumerable family members smiled at us, they decided that it was too late to go back to the forest now, that they would feel worried on account of us, and that we should spend the night in their home. We accepted.The only gift I could give Wiyono were photographs, since I had my camera (with dying battery). I told him to let me know what he wanted immortalized, and he accepted with a glimpse of a smile, and in his quiet and composed way took my arm and led me around the place, away from the “main hall” and where people were cooking, washing, preparing decorations, hanging out. He would softly point at a person or group of people, murmuring their identity, and proceed.
We were politely asked if we wanted to take a bath (a ritual before prayer, and in this case, the vain hope we could reappear wearing more appropriate clothes). One of Wiyono’s cousins took us “there”: a well, surrounded by a low mud wall and a loose wicker fence, and dozens tiny chicks and hens running excitedly around. I wore my forest pants (smelly and not completely clean) as they were the only long ones I have.
Here is how the wedding works: a large patio is built and decorated. Right outside the house, on a row of elegant chairs, sit the couple, the parents, and other notable members of the family or important persons. In front of them are placed seven or eight rows of plastic chairs. To their left, an imposing (and frail) entertainment system, including two TVs (facing opposite ways), DVD/VCD player and big speakers. To their right, a large box with a small opening on top, and a long table with refreshments and food, preceded by another small number of “welcoming personnel”. I am not sure about the time this starts, but people come, are welcomed by this avant-garde, are given a package with food (rice, vegetables, egg, a piece of chicken), sweets (a strange sort of merengue, one made from rice wrapped in banana leaves, another very heavy made from a local fruit), and drinks (water); then they place a folded envelop (with money) in the box, and ceremoniously shake hands with the family/important people. Then they sit down on the plastic chairs in front of them and eat. And then they leave. Sometimes, a member of the greeting committee stands up, to give orders or rest, and is replaced by another. My feeling was that it is important to leave a valuable representation there at all times. We arrived at 16.30 (when we were told that a lot of people had already showed up and left), and at midnight they were still coming. Music was played continuously, and then movies, narrating edifying tales of powerful and pure Muslim heroes. I was constantly offered food, every 15 minutes Wiyono would come and say “Luca, makan!” (Luca, eat!) and present me with some new treat. Then we had the proper dinner, inside the house, with the family. A great honor. Then we sat down on the greeting committee, an even greater honor, though I also hope we were being helpful, by replacing flagging members and giving an exotic touch. What you do is pay attention, and when the people come, you raise, shake their hand and take your hand to your heart, with a large smile (and possibly some nodding and a little bowing). One difficulty is calibrating the force of the handshake: what you receive goes from a manly clasp, to a firm grip, to a weak limp hand, to an even deader squid-like pulp. And you have to be good at guessing the kind of handshake you should deliver to each person, and extremely quick to adjust when you make a mistake. An additional honor was to be seated next to the chief of the village, beautifully dressed, a friendly and self-assured look, willing to talk about life, siamangs, the movie we were watching, the village and his experiences with the forest and WCS. I was kicking myself for the poor control I still have of the language (the million dialects don’t help..). At around 1 a.m. we retired, we slept in the common room, on the floor covered with colorful carpets and rugs, we couldn’t refuse pillows and sarongs, with the family. Music and movies played all night long, and then people started cleaning up, and when we woke up at 4.30 most of the work was already done. A trip to the bathroom (a hole on the ground, covered with cut palm trunks and protected by (low) palm leaves, some distance from the house), and then Wiyono and his cousin took us to the entrance of the forest by motorbike.
The Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, where I work, is almost the only patch of lowland tropical forest left in Southeast Asia, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage site, and accordingly it is (or should be) protected. As it happens, there is an enclave, right in the middle of it, along the coast, and a small forest trail that is used on market days to get to the other villages. Two years ago, as population was growing, strong pressures let to a plan to build a new road, and the clearing of a 7m-wide trail in the forest started. The regional government, WCS and other NGOs vehemently protested, and the cutting stopped. It started again last year, and again, a big effort, many meetings, threats, pressures, obtained a new halt. But each time, progress was made. This year, they started again, and instead of being few dozen men that could be scared away by Park rangers, they were hundreds. When Opo, Way Canguk station manager, my friend, and one of the best people I know, went there with two rangers to film the progress, there were tense moments (as you can imagine when dealing with many people brandishing machetes..).
The bathroom in our room in Krui deserves a description. Maybe with a quick introduction to Indonesian bathrooms. They have no sink, no shower or bathtub, and the toilet is Turkish-style (hole on the ground). There is a large, concrete, open, water container, from which you take water and throw it on yourself, with a small plastic pan. I will refrain from optimization considerations, lest I should be accused of narrow-mindedness.
In this case, the bathroom is green, several shades of it. It has a high step to get in, and a smaller one to keep the water from overflowing out. The toilet is on an even higher step, unusual. You barely have room to close the (green) door when you are inside. Coming out is dangerous. And the water tank is huge, on a side, 1.5m deep, alimented by an intermittent flow of water from a tiny old tap. It has a strong personality.
We have to report to the park headquarters before entering the forest. We wake up full of hope. I even wear a shirt. I think they should cause no more problems, given that it is my birthday. This does not move them. They simply and serenely say that we cannot go until we see the chief of the park, who will come back, maybe, on Monday. It is now Wednesday!
We try to take it well, though I am extremely upset.
We go to the beach, where we play with the waves, which soothes me a bit. A group of small naked laughing children. Anton and his pictures. And his judo moves, and his knives. But Anton is nice and arranges something to celebrate: we go to the fish market, and buy many fishes (like small tunas) which we gut (in the traditional way, detach the gills and pull out the esophagus from there – leave the liver to give flavor) and grill. They are very good. We also decide to have beer, kindly provided by Opo. The feeling was that they would drink to humor the crazy western drunkards, and that they will just buy, and share, a little. But this is not the case: bottles keep coming, Opo doesn’t hold back, we sing and play the guitar, I learn “House of the rising sun”, then Anton retires to design new knives, Alice joins Heather, and I am left with Opo making plans. A good night, I end up going to sleep at 2, a record.
We decided that the next day we would go to Krui, a place famous for the big waves, along the west coast of Sumatra.
A loud karaoke restaurant, on a rooftop, with palms, many stalls selling food and the omnipresent, great fruit juices. Singing, accompanied by a live band, a 10-year old chubby girl, with a long white head veil and sharp voice, and her father, about 50, wearing a white t-shirt with an aggressive skull and swords and flags, and broad fancy breeches. They were good.
(Deciding where to go to have dinner):
- Anton (former WCS staff, now graduate student in Australia): “we should let Opo decide, the big boss”
- Opo (station manager, Way Canguk Research Station): “no, no, Luca will decide, powerful Mafioso!” (laughing and bowing until he sits on the floor)
- Luca: “oh, noo, the boss Opo must decide” (jumping off the chair to lower myself on the ground as well).
The movements (more than the words) were funny and touching. We continued the discussion on the floor.
It is fascinating the interest Indonesians have over Mafia: the angkots (small colorful minivans that scuttle around, in large numbers, in every city) carry names such as “Don Vito”, I have been asked countless questions on details such as the power structure, the history, the names of the most famous bosses (much more than I was prepared to answer..). Great excitement at the news that the famous “Provenzano” was finally captured. When asked why would I want to spend one year in the forest, I answered that I was wanted by the police and needed a safe place to hide for a while. Now it all makes sense.
