so the reason we went to pangandaran (the town we were in) in the first place is because the missions org i was working for was having a conference there. starting at 3:00 on the second day of my time there. so after returning from the beach, i was on my own. it was raining pretty hard by this point. and after being on the go since 4:45 that morning, it was getting REALLY hard to stay awake. so i took the opportunity to crash for about an hour. when i woke up, it was still pretty gray out, but at least the heavy rain had subsided. so i ziploc-ed my camera and decided to go for a walk.
i made it more than a kilometer down the road, chatting with a few people here and there, taking a shot here and there, but mostly not finding much that caught my eye. it was dusk by now and getting too dark to hope for many more good photos that day. so i decided to head back to the hotel via the beach. i sat in an old lifeguard stand and watched some guys playing soccer for awhile. but the wind started picking up, signaling more rain, so i started walking again. i didn’t make it more than 100 meters when drops started falling. the closest shelter i saw was a small tarp stretched out over 4 pieces of bamboo with a stack of boogie boards underneath it. along with 4 street musicians/beggars and their instruments. not ideal, but it would have to do. so i ducked under and asked if i could wait out the rain with them. they were happy to let me. we chatted a little bit. turns out, they’re all still in middle school! an older guy came over and wanted to practice his english, so we chatted awhile too while the other guys played some songs for me.
(someone running from the rain)
a big tradition in indonesia is that of bringing oleh-oleh any time you go on a trip. oleh-oleh is like a souvenir. and you’re expected to bring back something for basically every person you have ever met any time you leave town. a great thing to bring back is something that has the name of the place you visited on it such as a keychain or magnet. another popular oleh2 item is food. because there are so many people groups in indonesia, each area has its own distinct flavor, literally! so while i was huddled under the tarp with the guys, i asked them what they would recommend i bring back for oleh2. they instantly said “jambal roti”. which is apparently a very famous chunk of dried fish dish. i asked where i could procure said fish, and they pointed to a bunch of shacks and tarp structures a little farther down the beach. so once the rain let up a little bit, i said my goodbyes all around and headed in that direction.
(a food vendor carrying boxes of food along the beach)
outside one of the tarp huts, a lady was sitting. she motioned me over and invited me to sit with her. her name is ibu iis. her husband, pak supri was sitting beside her, repairing a fishing net. i chatted with them a little bit then asked if they knew where i could get jambal roti. they said they didn’t have any but that they knew where they could get some and “bisa antari”. (can deliver) i was confused about this arrangement. where was the fish? where were they going to deliver it to? my hotel? when? who did i need to pay? after about 5 straight minutes of talking in circles, i finally figured out that they meant they could deliver ME to the place where it is sold!! oh, the dangers of not using subjects and objects when speaking…
anyways, pak supri charged me what i know was only about 1/4 the normal price to drive me in his becak to a house in a village a little ways from the coast. a very nice lady there (possibly the second wife of pak supri… that situation was kinda vague) sold me some salted, preserved, dead fish. when i told her i had to take it on the train with me, she made sure to wrap it up in alternating layers. newspaper, plastic bag, newspaper, plastic bag, and another plastic bag for good measure. quite thorough. pak supri asked me if i wanted to go back to my hotel, but i said i wanted to go back to ibu iis instead.
she was surprised to see me back there, but she invited me back in and offered me a drink. we were actually in a small restaurant owned by her. there is one table and one kerosene burner to cook on. she serves things like small fish, rice, noodles, cigarettes, coke, and tea. in fact, that might be the entire menu right there.
i asked her how long she had been working there, and she explained to me that it was pretty new. after the tsunami, people were prohibited from building structures on the beach side of the road until just within the last year or so. since she mentioned the tsunami, i asked her about her story of that day. she told me that she was at home when it happened and that her house and everything she owned was destroyed. but she was able to get out safely.
i asked her where she lives now. and completely matter-of-fact, she replied, “well, here”. she pointed to a spot in the sand near the back tarp, behind the table, where they sleep every night. then she looked me right in the eye and asked me why allah made some people so poor.
how do you answer that?
i told her that the Allah i know is so big He can’t be understood. and that the Allah who made the poor is the Allah who made the rich and the Allah who made the sad is the Allah who made the joyful. and He doesn’t make anything that is kurang indah (less than beautiful).
we talked more. about life. about Allah. about families. about jobs. about america. they didn’t believe me when i told them there are poor people in america too! like, they actually argued with me and told me i must be wrong.
eventually, i realized that i had about 20 minutes to walk the kilometer back to my hotel, shower, change, and meet the whole group there for dinner. i asked if i could take a picture of the two of them and they were happy to let me. (see above) then pak supri asked for my address. that’s a first. i happily gave it to him and asked his in return. i mean, it seemed the polite thing to do, right? so between the two of them, they came up with about 7 lines of information that should be sufficient for getting something to their location on the beach. and they asked me to send them a copy of the photo i took. everything they ever had was lost in the tsunami. i am so happy to be able to do this one small thing for them…
(a picture from earlier in the day of a tarp house/restaurant that looks basically like ibu iis and pak supri’s. except this one has some heat control (the palm branches) and a bathroom (the white part).)
my time with bapak and ibu in their home on the beach was hands down my favorite part of this trip. i loved getting the chance to connect with someone that i normally wouldn’t ever cross paths with. i’m realizing more and more what a passion i have for just sitting and listening to people’s stories. there’s not a person on this planet who doesn’t have one. but i estimate that at least 90% of them will never be heard. also, this is part 8 of my adventure, and 8 is my all time favorite number (a coincidence, i assure you).
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