Today was an interesting chain of events. Yesterday while I was out celebrating the Lunar New Year with a bunch of Singaporeans (hooray for learning new traditions, BTW), Pak Kur's oldest brother died. So the family would call him pakde-ku (my uncle). He lives in the same village as Pak Kur, but I don't think I've even ever met him. I know his wife though. She is a very sweet, toothless lady who gives me snacks.
Anyways, I left my house a little before 11 this morning to head out to the village and found myself traveling behind two grown men on a motorbike - with their Golden Retriever sandwiched on the seat between them. Um... OK.
I made it to the very edge of Pak Kur's village, but there were two men standing there directing traffic, and they told me I had to stop and wait because someone had died. I told them, "I know, that's where I'm going." I don't know if they couldn't understand me or if they just didn't believe me, but they wouldn't let me through. I could literally SEE the funeral-goers. Finally someone at the funeral saw me sitting there and called my name, and the two men were like, "Oh, you're going to THAT funeral!" Um. Yes. I do not see any other funeral around here.
I made it just as they were carrying the casket to the graveyard, which is a little ways outside the village, kind of in the jungle by the edge of the rice fields. So I jumped off my bike and onto Pak Kur's bike (after parking carefully on someone's front porch. Naturally.) and headed to the kuburan (graveyard). Pakde's grave was the faaaarthest back, basically IN the jungle. And the whole time we were there, I just had this feeling that there were going to be snakes. That is a weird feeling for me, because I'm not particularly scared of snakes or paranoid about their possible presence. But today I was. So every time the pastor prayed, I didn't close my eyes. I just looked down. I think God is OK with that. I didn't even understand 90% of what was being said anyways - it was in high Javanese.
So anyways, my feeling was totally RIGHT. As we were praying - or in my case, looking at the ground with my eyes half closed - I saw a fat black snake slither out from behind a tree to my left and head towards a group of men all praying with their eyes closed - obviously they are much more holy than I am.
I started elbowing the poor guy next to me and whispering furiously, "Hey, hey, hey, snake, hey, snake, hey, hey, look, look." Right as he realized what I was saying, the snake slithered over the foot of one of the praying men. I watched in horror and said my own prayer that he wouldn't get bit as he twitched his foot to knock off whatever was on it. I breathed a sigh of relief as the man didn't even open his eyes. Did he think it was just a big ant or something?
My feeling of relief was a bit premature though... The instant I felt it, the man ended up opening his eyes and having what appeared to be some sort of seizure/rain dance as he attempted to kill the snake by stomping on its head. Unfortunately, it has rained a lot lately, and the ground is extremely soft. The snake freaked out and started slithering all around, over other people's feet, who in turn joined the stomp fest. No matter how hard they stomped though, the snake WOULD. NOT. DIE. The soft ground protected it from the blows! One of the grave diggers finally opened his eyes and ran over with a hoe and tried to chop the snake in half. Still no such luck.
Meanwhile, the pastor was still very solemnly praying.
Finally, the hero of the day was a very old man who had watched all this happen and eventually pulled a machete out of somewhere (his pants??) and in one fluid motion flipped the snake over the blade of the machete, onto another grave's headstone, and chopped the snake's head off.
I didn't know if I should be horrified or laugh or cry or feel relieved or what.
Finally the pastor said "Amen" (the only word of the entire prayer that I understood). The whole snake debacle had taken only about 30 seconds, and only about a dozen people had witnessed it. I don't think the pastor had even noticed. He seemed really into that prayer.
I'm thankful nobody died at the funeral. Though that would have been handy. Like getting sick in a hospital.
After the funeral, I went to visit some friends in another part of town. Instead of returning home first, I went straight there from Pak Kur's house and ended up on some cool back roads that I rarely ever travel on. I should more often though, because in a matter of 10 minutes, I had driven through a rubber tree forest, a bamboo forest, some jungle, two villages, near some mountains, past a giant magic rock and an old train station, and through several rice fields. I had to wait for some goats to cross the road at one point and I had to hold my breath several times as I drove past some durian vendors. I live in such a beautiful place... Well, minus the durian.
The rest of the day involved falling asleep on a friend's couch while watching World War Z with their son, helping people out by doing the math for a building project, getting SOAKING wet in a freak rainstorm while driving on my motorbike (my shoes turned into swimming pools for my feet), accidentally walking in on some people while they were doing their prayers (uh... don't mind me, the awkward white person smiling like a crazy person while backing slowly back OUT of the room), eating BEEF stew for dinner (a rare treat), making new friends and hanging out with old ones until late at night, and teaching quite a bit of English to a 2 year old.
This is my life. My everyday life. Sometimes I forget how crazy and fun and wonderful it is. It really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment