On not returning the same way

(September 10, 2010)

(Kirk)

            Yesterday, a holiday, S Stepping Into the Light with the other secondary students at a school retreat, Laura and I kicked around for things to do, wanting badly to get out of Salatiga and explore the immediate surroundings: the mountains at the edge of town, or maybe the Municipal Pool (hot springs), somewhere close, away from the hordes of holiday commuters, explore a little where we live. While I rode my bike up to the Pasar Sapi (the beef market) G rode down to his classmate’s house, where the family we could call closest to being our friends live. Also here on at the Mission Language School, this family – four kids, one a little baby - are headed out to Kalimantan in a few months where he will be a jungle pilot. Religious and devout, they don’t lead with that, don’t use it to assume things about the world or themselves or the people they meet, and I am grateful for that. G came home saying that the dad had offered to drive us up to the trail head that leads about 1,000 steps down to the base of the waterfall, perhaps 15 miles up the mountain outside our town. He would help us figure out how to get back, using motorcycle taxis (ojek) and local busses. We accepted eagerly.

            Brad (not his name) drove us up the mountain in a small van he had bought off a previous missionary family. Forced to reroute because of an Idul Fitri traffic barrier, he got lost for a bit, circling around some neighborhoods along the edge of the city, and then got us back to the road to Kopeng, near the top of the smaller mountain by town, and close to the trailhead. It was raining by then, a hard rain, and we hadn’t brought our rain gear, and the closer we got the trailhead the clearer it was that the short hike was off. In any case, Brad said, parked at the trailhead in the deluge, the steps were dangerous in the rain, and in a heavy downpour you risk the chance of a flash flood at the bottom of the waterfall. He thrummed on the steering wheel and then said (this is when I knew I’d like him), “I don’t really ever like driving back the same way I came, if I can help it. It seems like a waste,” which sentiment is as close to a motto for the way I wish to be in the world as any other. “Do you mind if I try the van on the back road I took on my motorcycle yesterday?” Of course we did not, and soon enough we were headed down a steep rocky road winding through fields full of vegetables for miles – crossplanted with corn and tomatoes and peas and cabbage and beans and bananas and everything, lush and orderly, terraced, mountain springs carefully diverted to irrigate everything. Brad told us the region was famous for its vegetables, that everything we ate in Salatiga likely came from here. It was beautiful, even if any views were shrouded by the dense fog and the rain. Brad showed us a couple of other trails too, a way to climb to the top of the mountain called the Sleeping Elephant, and then he drove us back into town through a back way to our house, and we arrived home refreshed and more excited about where we lived. We walked through the rain to the noodle and chicken stand on the corner, where we had a great lunch, all three of us for about $1.40.

            Brad told us that everything in the city would likely be closed for the next three days, so we took the bus downtown to the main store and stocked up on food and beer (the details of my search for beer here deserve another blog entry on its own, a semi-consuming process that has had me scouting the large and small markets everywhere in Salatiga, a carefully constructed mental map marked with x’s for the Bintang [the Indo made beer] hotspots – lowest price so far at 20,400 rupiah (a little over $2) for a large bottle – by Indonesian standards that’s very expensive – our maid [who is our amazing cook too] makes 500,000 rp / month, something like $60…another blog entry in itself). When we returned home, the Ibu from next door knocked with dinner for us, a delicious chicken dish, with little packets of rice cooked in small packages woven from banana leaves, perhaps a return gift from our visit earlier this week, when we toured the houses on our block with gifts of cookies and huckleberry jam. (My dictionary translates huckleberry as “a kind of small raspberry” which is how I explained it.) Whatever the reason, the gift of the meal was one of the most wonderful gifts I have ever received. My language simply failed me as we thanked her again and again (“Terima kasih banyak, terima kasih banyak.”)  We ate the dinner in gratitude for one of the best days.

Graham, and some banana chocolate from the mosque treats

            At sunset last night, the last air raid signal marking the last breaking of the fast Ramadan brought on a cascade of fireworks; the mosques opened up with song and prayer that would be broadcast over the loudspeakers until three or four in morning. Things got even a little noisier as G was getting into bed, and I said I thought I’d walk around and see if I could find the drumming that sounded close by, and G got up to join me, perhaps a 15 minute delay in his bedtime. We walked up the alley that we live on to the main road, where trucks full of people, mostly children, and drums and lights and loudspeakers were driving, singing, drumming, celebrating. We saw one procession following a small model of a mosque being carried, many people with torches, also singing, and decided to follow it, though at a discreet distance, unsure of ourselves and not wanting to interfere. Suddenly, though, we were not following any more, the procession was around us, and a kind man with a little English talked to us and explained that they were from a nearby village, that they had walked here, that of course we were welcome to be walking with them, and then we at a mosque, and everyone insisted that we come in the mosque, and we were handed food, and everyone came to shake our hands, and welcome us into the building, and make sure we comfortable, and then a young woman named Carmen came to us and asked us for our picture and asked would we like to join them in the back of the flatbed truck for a drive around the city. “We will make noise and play drums and it will be a fun time,” she said, her English quite good.

Our very enthusiastic song leader

            And so there we were, G and I, in the back of flatbed truck, standing among a group of mostly children (smoking, many of them) who were singing the same song broadcast over the loudspeakers from every mosque in town, and banging on drums, and cheering at the crowds on the side of the street. We wound our way through town into a traffic jam with other revelers on trucks, everyone trying to outshout each other, the kids on my truck wanting me to take their picture again and again as they posed for me. “Mister, mister, photo,” they kept saying, and of course I obliged, and we drove around, maybe for 90 minutes, all over town, and then out of town and I think through their village, and then some more around town, G sometimes pounding on the drum, sometimes holding the side of the truck and peering wide-eyed at the crowds lining the street. The two of us made quite a sight – you could see the surprise in people’s eyes when they saw us standing there. We drove and drove, finally, perhaps, a little longer than I wished we would – G was tired and getting a little overwhelmed and I didn’t have my phone, since I’d thought we were just stepping out for a quick look before bed, so Laura had no idea where we were – and then we were back at the mosque, and getting off, and Carmen said, “Was that fun, sir?” and I told her in broken Indonesian that we would never forget it, and she said, “It is such joy, sir, such happiness. We are ending the fast. It is such a special time. We are so glad you came with us,” and then we got a picture with all the kids, and they shook our hands and thanked us and we strolled into the darkness of the night as they waved and went back into the mosque.

            G has been struggling at times, thrown into whirling dervish tantrums on occasion from the slightest thing going wrong or not as he wanted it, but in the last few days his experiences have opened him more and more up to this place. He cracked a coconut that fell from a tree on the school grounds and drank down the milk, announcing that now he had embraced Indonesia, and this morning, after he woke up, still shining from the magical truck ride, he sat out on the balcony wearing his batik shirt and calling out “Selamat pagi!” (Good morning) to all the people who strolled by in their Idul Fitri finery, and they looked up and greeted him back with large smiles, and his Indonesian language teacher picked him up this morning so that he could join her and her husband as they visited neighbors to celebrate Idul Fitri.  All night long the party continued, and it continues now, and it will through Sunday. 

The group from the truck, joining us for a picture after the two hour haul around town.