JABAR (part 9) layang-layang

 

he is 8 years old.

he taught me layang-layang.

i taught him kite.

JABAR (part 8) the best part

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).

JABAR (part 7) the beach

after visiting the graveyard, sharon and i crossed the street and made our way to the beach. the water there is absolutely beautiful. it’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, this very water crashed through the boundaries set for it and forever changed the lives of every person living in this small coastal town. it ripped away children. it swallowed buildings whole. nobody here was unaffected.

i mentioned in an earlier post that since there is nothing between this coast and antarctica to break up the force of the water, it is quite dangerous to swim along the southern coast of java. due to this, there are riptide and no swimming signs posted all over.

this no swimming sign is sponsored by one of the biggest cigarette companies in the country. that seems a little contradictory…

while walking in the surf, we saw some people using spoons to dig for something in the sand. i wondered about it aloud. and sharon, ever the extrovert, said, “let’s go ask them!” so we went and asked the matriarch of the group what they were looking for. she promptly pulled a kind of clam out of a small plastic bag she had with her and showed us. i asked if i could take her picture, and she gave a big smile (indonesians often don’t smile for photos with their teeth), but then looked away! too funny…

 

she taught us how they know where to dig. when a wave comes in and then goes back out, if you put your face down near the ground, you can see tiiiiiiiiny little depressions in the sand. that’s where the clams are! she explained to us that a lot of poor people do this to improve their nutrition. they can sell the clams or they can eat them to add to their diet of rice and veggies. also, this certain kind of clam has some kind of medicinal use. it was great to know that they recognize the need for improved nutrition here and that they are DOING something about it! excellent!

the older ladies who were digging did so in very specific places where they knew there would be clams hidden. this kid was just going to town though. give him a spoon and he’ll be halfway to the center of the earth by morning… when his dug up area was about 4 times this size, i remarked about how rajin (hardworking/industrious) he is. they all thought that was pretty funny. and i think it’s a good thing to be able to make people laugh. in a foreign language. : )

i really enjoy the multi-functional hat she is sporting… also, she has a pretty great smile. : )

a tiny crab hole in the sand. God made them such artistic and geometric little creatures! i love it!

JABAR (part 6)

we were hoping to get some pictures of schoolkids or other people hanging around town, but due to the rain, everybody had made themselves scarce. so we regrouped at the hotel then headed to lunch. we ended up at a small restaurant owned and run by a very kind lady and her husband.

after she cooked our noodles and vegetables for us, we invited her to come join us at our table. there was nobody else in the restaurant, so she sat and talked freely with us. she told us about her kids. neither of them live with her because they are making better lives for themselves. she talked to us about old times and how 10 years ago she and her husband were part of a night market. for four years, the lived out of tents, packing up and moving to a new city every 3 weeks. she told us how hard it was to be without her kids during that time. she talked about her life in west java (she’s from central java originally!). she also asked us lots of questions about our lives. a super nice lady. when we first asked for a picture, she declined, saying, “ibu jelek!” (i’m ugly!) but after talking, i again asked, and she let me.

i had heard of a nearby graveyard for victims of the 2006 tsunami (not the christmas eve one that hit aceh, thailand, and cambodia. just for the record.) that hit the area, and i really wanted to try and get some photos there. for some reason, i enjoy photographing graveyards. sharon indulged me, and we headed off down the street. after a bit of walking, we found it tucked away in a stand of coconut trees.

turns out, this was an established graveyard well before the tsunami hit. but sadly, the stone wall around it was destroyed, and then those stones, thrown around in the rushing water, ruined most of the graves there. because muslim headstones are set above the ground, many of them were even picked up and carried away. most people who have a loved one buried there no longer know where their plot is.

in muslim culture, a body can only be dead for 24 hours before it becomes unclean and has to be buried. so after the tsunami, friends and family had only 1 day to identify bodies. all those that weren’t identified in time were buried quickly along one edge of this cemetery.

the green pieces of wood all mark graves of unknown victims.

this grave was for an unknown little boy.

this victim was identified and given a proper headstone.

old graves that were ruined by the tsunami waters.

if you look at the unknown grave markers, you’ll see that each has two numbers labeled NK and NL. i was curious about what those designated, so i went to find someone. i found this man:

he didn’t know what the numbers meant, but he did teach me about something else…

… collecting sap from coconut trees to make gula merah (a kind of brown sugar)!!

twice a day, he climbs 40 coconut trees to collect and replace buckets to gather sap. he then takes it all home to his wife who boils it down into the sugar.

he shared with us his story of the day the tsunami hit. he was up in a tree at the time it happened. he heard people screaming and he looked out toward the ocean. he said all he could see was white. white everywhere. coming toward him. he didn’t know what was happening, but he knew he needed to get out of there. so he got out of the tree and ran. and he and his family were safe.

oh, by the way, i asked him if he’s ever fallen out of a tree in all his years of climbing. and he said, “praise be to allah, NO!”

JABAR (part 5) the market

after getting a wet becak ride back to our hotel and waiting for most of the rain to subside - over omelettes and toast - we decided to head to the local pasar, or market. i’ve never taken a camera to the pasar in salatiga because i hate being looked at as a tourist in my own city. but i’ve always wanted to. pasar is always so vibrant and full of colors and smells and sounds and motion and people selling things and people buying things. it kind of reminds me of going to a flea market back home. so i was excited to head there with my camera. of course, the rain started up again almost exactly at the same time that we arrived there. perfect. i did get a chance to snap a few pictures of the hustle and bustle though.

looking down one of the many crowded alleys at pasar. they had tarps up over everything to keep some of the rain out…

ok, i have to say, the salatiga pasar is way more graphic than this. they stack the guts in one pile, the feet in one pile, the bodies in one pile, and the heads in another. maybe we just use more of the parts here… also, here, if you ask for a kilo of white meat, they’ll take a knife and hack off the breasts, then dump the rest of the mangled chicken in another pile, presumably in anticipation of someone coming along asking for dark meat. all the chickens in this market looked like this. clean cut. if you can call a dead chunk of meat clean cut.

fresh veggies. and usually organic too!

tempe! one of my favorite indonesian foods! you cut it into slices, rub it with garlic and salt and fry it. it’s fermented, congealed soybeans. so appetizing! : ) but seriously, if you ever get a chance to try it – DO IT! and then tell me what you think.

a table of sweet snacks. the stuff wrapped up in the banana leaves is squished up rice mixed with coconut milk. sweet and tasty!!

a clothes store in the market! ok, i don’t know if i’ve lived here too long or if i just have some strange fashion tastes, but jilbabs are CLASSY! if i were a muslim woman, i think i’d own at least 30. as it stands, i currently only own 1. classic black. haha.

two women who own what we call a warung in the pasar. a warung is kind of a catch all place. need something? just go to a nearby warung! you can find them quite literally anywhere. they sell everything from packets of shampoo (hanging over their head) to wrapping paper (in the bucket on the right), from fresh eggs to flipflops!! we chatted with these 2 ladies for quite awhile while it rained. they were super sweet and were trying to think of who they could set me up with. but not until after they interrogated me about what i look for in a man.

we also met this guy, a carpenter. he was selling goods at the pasar with his wife and granddaughter. his granddaughter is 16 and has some kind of debilitating illness. the frail grandma was sitting on the dirty ground in a dress holding the granddaughter, who is both physically and mentally handicapped, in her lap. we went and bought them some food and brought it back for them. sharon told them in sundanese that Jesus loves them. that might be the first time in their lives they’ve heard those words. sadly, it might also be the last.

JABAR (part 4) the sunrise

sharon and i woke up in the 4s on thursday morning to see sunrise. morning prayers are at 4:30, so things start hopping pretty shortly after that. it was really overcast and still dark when we quietly slipped out of our hotel. we walked quite ways down the street before finding a becak driver to take us to the coast on the opposite side to see the sunrise. (our hotel was on the sunset side of a peninsula. we needed to get to the opposite side. about a 5 minute becak ride.) when we got there, the morning looked like this:

we wondered if there would be much of a sunrise at all. but that quickly turned into this:

ok, that ALMOST makes getting up before 5 worth it. by the way, the land that you see stretched out along the horizon is mainland java. remember, we’re on a small peninsula jutting out into the south sea. in fact, there is absolutely nothing in the water between this coast and antarctica. because of this, the water here is QUITE dangerous. many people, indonesians and tourists alike, have lost their lives to the power of the south sea.

not too long after we got out there, the place became action packed. lots of indonesian tourists from other places were there on holiday and turned out to see the sunrise. people on their way to market were making their way down the beach. kids were out trying to catch crabs on the rocky shore. but what caught my eye were the fishermen.

i watched several people on shore load this boat up with nets and send it out into the water. sharon went and talked to the men after they came back to shore while i wandered around snapping more photos because by now, sunrise had turned into this:

amazing! i meandered over and listened in on some of sharon’s conversation with the fishermen. most of them have been doing this for years. four times a day, they send the boats out. they drop the nets in deeper waters, then they pull the nets in from shore. sure enough, shortly thereafter, the real work began!

(the ocean is just beyond that wall)

six people hook themselves on to two ropes (3 people on each rope), both of which are connected to either side of a vast net that is somewhere out at sea where the boat dropped it.  and they begin pulling it in, slowly but surely. each guy uses a small rope tied around his waist to hook onto the rope, backs up until he’s all the way across the street, unhooks, goes back up to the front, rehooks himself back onto the rope, and backs up again. it was amusing to see them scurry out of the way when bigger vehicles like buses came rumbling down the road!

this guy offered to marry me! how romantic… the white thing just in front of his right hand is what keeps his rope (tied around his waist) hooked onto the bigger rope (which is connected to the net).

unfortunately, the clouds came back, and after about an hour of watching the fishermen pull their net in, it began to rain. we found shelter beneath the tarp of a beachside vendor.

it wasn’t too long after that, though, that the net finally made it to shore! someone lent me an umbrella, so i ventured down to take some closer pictures.

the final catch wasn’t quite what i expected… not a lot of fish. no big fish. and LOTS of garbage! unfortunately, they pick the garbage out and throw it along the shore where it gets washed out with the tide to be caught again with tomorrow’s catch!

this lady was possibly my favorite. she didn’t talk to us. in fact, i never heard her say a word to anybody. and she didn’t help pull the nets in either. but she did do just about everything else. she kept all the ropes coiled so that cars didn’t run over them on the muddy road. she quietly sat and sorted all the garbage out of the basket of fish. she coiled the nets up neatly so that they could all fit in the boat, untangled, for the next run. and she seemed to be the one in charge of selling the catch to all the buyers who came. she was always there. a constant in the background of all the motion.

the sorted catch. oh, and look what else they caught!

JABAR (part 3) a short adventure

i met up with sharon at the bus terminal shortly after leaving my becak friends. her teenage son was also with her to help carry bags and ward off any unfriendly overfriendly men. we crammed into a bus that already had people hanging out the doors. but the hustler (this is my name for the guy that takes people’s money and also hangs out the door screaming the destination of the bus to try to get people beside the road to jump on) made some guys move so we could sit down. i think we had 349863aidfh84382 people crammed in a bus meant for 20. yeah. it was tight. and hot. welcome to indonesia. the hustler was quite a player too, calling all the girls on the bus “neng gelis” (which became the first sunda words i learned), miss pretty.

anyways, about halfway to our coastal destination, we decided to get off the bus in a little town called banjarsari. there was a little fair thing going on that we thought we might get some nice pictures of. they must not get very many white people there, because people began following us, whispering and pointing and giggling.  it was still early, so there wasn’t much going on at the fair. instead, we made our way to a kaki lima (little cart that people sell food and drinks out of – kaki lima means 5 legs. the cart has 3 and the person pushing it has 2!) and ordered some refreshing drinks from the lady working there. there were also some kids hanging around and we chatted with them. as it turns out, we were the first foreigners this lady had EVER served at her stand, and she was quite honored! she even asked to have her picture taken with us!

(sharon and the lady who made our drinks for us)

(looking at a picture they had just taken of me using someone’s cell phone. those are mostly all the children of the kaki lima lady.)

(her youngest child. a perpetually worried looking little boy.)

(some neighborhood boys hanging out, sharing a drink)

(a friend)

after chatting with them for half an hour or so, we went to catch another bus to our destination – pangandaran!

much to my surprise, we were staying ON THE BEACH! and in a REAL HOTEL! (as opposed to a hole in the wall dump like i seem to end up in all too often) and… i had my OWN ROOM! it even had a real toilet. and a shower. with hot water. and AC! these people know how to treat a guest ;) haha… i just read back over that. you can tell you’ve lived in a third world country for too long when you get SUPER excited about things like flushing toilets.

after arriving, settling in, showering, and getting dinner, we decided to call it a night. we wanted to be up in enough time the next morning to see the sunrise – this meant being up before 5! NOT my forte…