Mar 25, 2020
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Pos4 Mt. Lawu
Ditempat ini kita sempat memperbicangkan hidup. Disini diatas bumi yang sangat dekat dengan langit.
It's hard to believe that five weeks ago, I was stepping off a plane, after 30 hours of travelling, into a foreign land not really knowing anyone. Now we're halfway done with our program. These past several days have been a fitting way to celebrate this milestone in our journey. We'll be moving out of the wisma and into our host families' homes on Friday. From there we'll be learning to navigate getting from where we are staying to our internships since we start working at our NGOs on Monday.
This past Wednesday, we had a group interview with Louis, a former participant of this program, and his friends at a Papuan boarding house near our wisma. They were all incredibly warm and sweet and we got a whole Papuan history lesson. We learned about how Papua has large amounts of resources but the people cannot access any of them because they are exploited by the Indonesian government. We were told how the lack of transportation and inadequate facilities makes it impossible for many children/teachers to go to school. He also talked about the Papuan seperationist movement and how basically everyone in Papua supports independence (except from the wealthy elite who benefit) since Papuans have completely different racial and historical identities but Indonesia makes too much money off of them to let it go. Learning about all of this has really put issues of discrimination and education into perspective as a bigger whole of the overall marginalization of Papua. Last Thursday, we had our last research class and reflective practice class. That night, we went to Phucket, a Thai restaurant fairly close to our Wisma. We ran into Izzy, a fellow Bryn Mawr alum (green lantern of '07) who had previously attended the Iwan Fals concert with us. She studied with our professor Leslie back in school and studied abroad in Indonesia during her junior year. She continued her studies in Indonesia through a Fulbright Scholarship and now coordinates the Indonesian chapter of a program called Volunteers in Action (VIA) for people interested in doing work with NGOs. I love meeting Bryn Mawr alum and hearing about all the cool stuff they do in their post-grad lives. All the while we were chatting, I faced another difficult language experience when ordering my food. To order food in Indonesia, you most often receive a pen and paper on which you write your orders. My friend Elizabeth and I both ordered seafood pad thai so we wrote a "2" next to our order. About 20 minutes later, Elizabeth's food come out but I still don't see mine. This is pretty much the norm in Indonesia. Drinks tend to come first while everyone's food comes staggered throughout the meal so no one waits for each other so that your food doesn't get cold. We waited over an hour and my food still hadn't arrived. I went over to the waiter and asked where my food was in broken bahasa. They had only wrote down on our receipt that we had ordered one pad thai meaning I had to wait even longer for my food. It was all rather frustrating but I didn't want to reinforce any stereotypes of being a rude, entitled American so I waited nearly an hour after my friends had finished to get my pad thai to go. We grabbed a taxi and headed over the Gamelan Festival at NGO. It was really cool getting to hear traditional Indonesian music (even if we didn't actually get to hear any gamelans.)
Friday, we woke up early for our last bahasa Indonesia class. I made a card that our whole group signed to thank our four teachers Aci, Ade, Deni, and Ayu. We were sad we didn't have an official farewell ceremony with our teachers but also relieved that we didn't have to take a test. We didn't have long for good-byes however as we returned to the wisma to pack our bags and catch taxis to the train station to go to our coordinator Sari's village in East Java. On Saturday, we all woke up 4 in the morning to drive an hour to climb Mt. Lawu. It's known for being a very spiritual mountain. Right near the top there is a well where it is said that if you pour the water on yourself you will become very high status. It is also described as being a "beginner's" mountain for those climbing their first mountain. It stands about 10,000 feet but we started climbing at about 3,000 feet. Before climbing, I was already really nervous. I didn't have adequate gear for mountain climbing because I didn't think I'd be doing any intensive outdoor activities since we are living in a city for the summer so I ended up wearing Tevas and a very uncomfortably large backpack. As soon as we started ascending the mountain, it became painfully obvious that I was not going to be able to keep up with everyone. I started to have really bad cramps and felt sick so I had to sit down. Since we were only about 10 minutes in and I knew I would slow everyone down, I told everyone I would just wait for them there so that they would still be able to make it the top and back down before it got dark. My friend Elizabeth generously stayed with me as I caught my breath and encouraged me to continue up the mountain at a slower pace. Climbing the slopes was pretty brutal as we made our way up nearly vertical rocky slopes but we were rewarded with breathtaking views and jalak birds, little birds with golden beaks who only live on the mountain and supposedly guide your way. About halfway up, I told her to go on without me since I was reaching my physical limits and I was worried about conserving enough energy to make it down. I took a nap on a rock until I was startled by "bule tidur" (white person sleeping) and I practiced my Indonesian with several friendly backpackers taking a break. I waited at one of the posts for about two hours until I enthusiastically caught sight of the rest of my group who was returning from the top. Even though I didn't make it all the way, I was still proud of myself for pushing myself to go halfway and recognizing my limits. I am also insanely proud of my friends and loved seeing their photos from the summit. I was extremely grateful to have my friend Elizabeth keep me company throughout our journey and for her patience when I would stop every five minutes and when I stupidly twisted my ankle running down the path at the very end. It was definitely an experience to cross off my bucket list but I think I've gotten my fill of mountains so I don't plan on joining the rest of my group in their adventure up Merapi Mountain next weekend. On Sunday, we all slept in (except Alia who went and saw the beginning of the harvest ceremony) and woke up extremely sore. We lounged about for several hours, enjoying the delicious catfish, tofu, tempe, papaya, and organic rice for lunch. After playing with a group of kids from the village that Sari and Bram teach, we all headed over to see the rice fields. It was absolutely beautiful as we walked around since the sun was just about to set. We saw the difference between the organically farmed and chemically farmed rice which were very distinct in both color and size. We all went out for dinner later that night and woke up early the next morning to catch the train back to Jogja. The rest of the week will be spent finishing up our research for our presentation on Thursday. Mountain: gunung (Indonesian) // bjerg (Danish)