The Road Home

I have left Meulaboh. It’s one of those things you can’t imagine ever happening until it has already happened. I didn’t really know how to feel about leaving this place. Since I last wrote, I’ve gotten used to it, such that when I left for a weekend getaway I was actually relieved to return. I’ve come to love the daily 5am chanting of the prayer from the nearby mosque, and then come to expect it, and finally depend on it to tell the time. Those who perform it do not receive any pay. They do it because it’s an honor. I look forward every night as I lay down to sleep, to the once awkward breakfast of fried rice and papaya, the familiar feeling of my squeaky rolling chair at my desk in the office, surrounded by an assortment of crispy chocolate wafers found to occupy ¾ of all the aisle space in all the supermarkets, and the excitement of deciding which of the 3 restaurants we will be eating at that day (each of which only serve 1 item). Then of course there is the rare pleasant surprise of the occasional downpour that breaks the heavy heat which has made me understand why every civilization simply must have a rain god. I sense that I don’t crave home as much as I did when I wrote last, so perhaps, is it possible that I have found a home here?

I met an ex-pat on an island at the farthest western point of Indonesia called Sabang. It’s a popular weekend destination for NGO workers living in Banda Aceh. I asked her if she missed home. She said that she doesn’t really have one. She was born in some town in Germany but then grew up in Frankfurt, then went to school somewhere else, and since then has spent a year or two here and there. She said she was sad that she didn’t have a home, or didn’t know what to miss or where to feel like she belonged. It seems to be a common dilemma for this crowd of 20-something yo NGO workers all lost at sea and washed up here clinging to each other. As we sat in a small restaurant by the beach, I watched the chitter chatter of small talk in English flavored by accents from all over the world generated by this crowd of pale skinned, multi-color haired, T-shirt and cargo pant-wearing, beer drinking ex-pats, being served by the local brown skinned islanders who have picked up a good deal of English from their regular customers here, I was reminded of some scene in an old movie set in Africa, where women wearing puffy skirts holding parasols, men with top hats, and black skinned servants carrying their luggage stepped off the train into a desert savanna landscape civilized with white pillars and horse drawn carriages. We were all there for some purpose, brought together by the fact that we didn’t really belong anywhere else and the fact that this was one of the two restaurants in Aceh that openly served beer. What an interesting study of displacement and migration! We were the Western diaspora. Was this just another wave of colonization…only a bit more polite this time around? The presence of NGOs in Aceh is defining of the place. NGOs have spurred the economy, become a market in itself, dug out its territory into the culture and history of the people and become a new indispensable vocabulary word in the streets. I could not help but continue staring for hours, in the way one cannot help but stare at some bizarre evocative mating ritual on national geographics, at the phenomenon taking place in front of me over my grilled fish with coconut milk. What is really happening here? Is this what I am to be a part of?

The first thing I realized I will miss about this place is the sound of the language. Indonesian is hard to come by, unlike the dime-a-dozen Chinese or French or Spanish. So unless I decide to become one of the ex-pats I have just described, I will be saying goodbye. It’s funny that I’ll be missing a language I barely knew. But I suppose in some ways it makes sense. The languages we do understand are merely ideas. But those we don’t understand we can still hear as music.

I said goodbye to the children by taking their pictures…which is in a way not having to say goodbye I guess. I have over ten or so lined up to be sketched now and I’ve had surprisingly little time to do as I promised. It’s amazing how excited I get when I see the same child a second time, and to sense that twinkle of recognition in their eyes. It’s as though we’re old friends reunited by some tremendous feat of fate. Things are so transient here I suppose…for us and for them. We are in one village one day, another the next. They meet one NGO worker one day asking about water sanitation, and another the next month asking about schools, and then for moths - nothing. It seems to be a miracle that something happens more than once in this place. And I too am uncertain whether fate will miraculously bring me back to Aceh again.

I’m not really sure what to make of my time here. There are now 66 typed pages of notes on the stories of parents and children – their tragedies, hopes, and fears – a crowd of voices, once in a while chanting in unison but most of the time not. And yet this is how a “people,” a “culture,” is defined…by straining their most complicated thoughts and emotions until only the dry filaments of fiber remain: the Acenese complain that their children are naughtier after the tsunami, hope their children will get higher education but fear that they will not be able to afford it, but above all hope their children will be good people.

I watched the sun set over the shore of Bali today, and at the last gasping breath of sunlight, - at that point when it looks so ripe that it could either set like it’s supposed to or somehow burst into the universe staining everything bright orange – I felt an explosion. But instead of the world bursting into flames, just a single tear rolled down my cheek. It caught me by surprise because I hadn’t been thinking of anything in particular. Nevertheless, I found it saturated with the close-up photographs of the wide-eyed children, the relentless heat and stench of sewage lined dirt paths, the noise of the voices on those 66 pages, the taste of room temperature deep fried fish, and that all too familiar feeling of not being good enough. Strangely enough, that moment was the closest thing to clarity I’ve had all summer. And the sky thereafter was left with only gray clouds and the air with a subtle chill that hints that something warm had come and gone.

We asked a group of children what they would be like if the tsunami didn’t happen, and a young girl replied ‘I would have more spirit.’ Later that day, my partner told me that third year seemed to have broken mine. I wondered if I was really broken, or just weakened, or just growing up. I thought the little girl was remarkably clairvoyant. If there was a psychiatric term for “broken spirit,” I suppose that’s what we would diagnose them with. It’s not depression or anxiety…but a stunning sense of sobriety towards life – one that ought not to be found in someone so young.

It’s amazing what tunnel vision I have – I fill out the rest of the world with the images I have collected in my meager travels. Until my last days here I believed all of Indonesia to be like Aceh but I could not have been more mistaken. It’s a fascinating country consisting of multiple civilizations with their own dances, music, fashion, and gods – of which Aceh is only a small remote member. I guess that’s what to be expected from a country of a thousand islands. In Bali, the architecture is mainly reminiscent of India with Hindu temples and statues. Out of respect, they dress their statues with cloth sarongs and gold sashes. In front of every front porch and even dotting the beaches, there are small banana leaf baskets of herbs and flowers and burning incense used for prayer. Unlike in Aceh where skin is rarely seen, the Balinese used to all walk around topless until Westernization. Their dance consists of quick syncopated movements of hands and eyes that mimic the poses of goddesses in Hindu paintings, tightly bound to the beats of drums and chimes. The people’s faces are gentle and round compared to the rough jagged features of the Acehnese. I have never seen more smiles and greetings. Despite the number of sketchy dark allyways along the main street, one needn’t worry because all one has to do is scream and all the men in proximity will come running out to help, armed with clubs and knives of all sorts – and will gladly beat the poor thief/rapist/random suspicious guy to death. In Aceh there is the uniformed military strolling along the streets with machine guns; in Bali, I suppose they keep the peace the old fashioned way.

The beach is filled with as many beach boys as tourists, identifiable by their thoroughly deep bronzed skin, offering you surfing lessons, a tour of the island on their motorbikes, and a good time in other ways if you’d like. In the clubs, gorgeous local girls can be found with their slender limbs draped over the couches and each other in the dim light, glistening with jewels waiting for you. Anything will do for a bit – or a lot – of money around here. One can be entertained all day, all evening, and all night long. If one is lucky enough to meet a real friend, one might actually see where the Balinese really live: in the dimly lit basketball courts of the high school, at the half off sushi supermarket, in the mall arcade playing a jazzed up pirated version of DDR, within the steep cliffs of reefs set back from the beach strewn with winding roads leading to quiet neighborhoods, in the wave carved caves along the rocky coast blocked off from the beach, and in the roadside light-bulb lit tent-covered eateries that make the best satay around. There is enough for anyone to fall in love with here.

Sitting in the New York Laguardia airport now I can understand all the signs, all the conversations. It seems much too easy. I strangely miss the challenge and mystery of deciphering the language. This time around, I don’t feel myself rejoicing at the sight of my country’s people. Rather, I sense how overweight, how rude, how hasty of their appearances, how unaware of themselves, and how full of attitude everyone is...but then, perhaps this is just New York. Perhaps I belong in an island nation, where it is warm, where there is always music in the streets of colorful rhythms, where understanding will be a constant art that requires effort and perfection, and where I will always be suspended between foreign and familiar. I believe I will have to return one day.