Em.'s In & Outs

Indonesia is part of the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, whom for those who have been there mean much more than a strange coincidence with the Johnny Cash song. People in Yogyakarta would tell you. In fact, last May 27th, a strong earthquake shook the city, followed a month later by a tsunami.

Stian had been working on earthquake relief as the personal assistant of Aly-Khan Rajani, our senior IDSer (and superstar) who is now an expert in emergency response. He had a mandate to bring a printer’s piece to the CARE office locally in Jogia, and he had been offered a two-weeks intensive course in Bahasa Indonesia (the national language) in a reputed language school there), so on Sunday we went to Jakarta’s train station to embark on a very cold journey (pushing the air con to the limit of freezing seem to be a symbol of status here!) that we almost missed as two people told us the wrong platform for our train. During the eight hours ride, I kept on wondering what it would be like, considering the recent catastrophes that hit Java’s cultural capital. Would the city be destroyed? Would people have reengaged in their normal daily lives? Would we be the only foreigners to not be affiliated with NGOs?

We arrived in Jogia at night and then the next morning went to meet Stian’s professors. He was in class all day, and I was restless and could not wait to learn more about the city’s arts and craft and scene so I hoped on a local bus (30 cents for the ride). For me who was expecting some kind of Ground Zero, I was strucked to realize that, for an unaware observer, it could have seemed like nothing happened there at all (at least in most of the areas I visited in the 3 days I was there). I did some people watching, which was well reciprocated by the other women on the bus . I love how local transportation provide an insight into people’s daily lives; the baskets, the food, the clothing, the social life, the hierarchy, the male-female relationships, etc. To the moment I go to Malioboro St, which is the main street, I met some ‘instant friends’, people who engage into conversations easily and then advise you that the batik (Javanese craft in which fabric or canvas is covered in wax and is dyed several types to produce an avalanche of colors) on Molioboro St is of bad quality and then they get you a becak (small cart pulled by a bicycle, this means of transportation had been banned in Jakarta for reminding of colonial oppression) to a professional gallery, and if you buy something, they get a high commission. Typical scene. But the batik, traditional or modern, is stunning.

The kraton (palace) of Jogia is the thing to see, besides the amazing, inspiring Borobudur temple’s (like Cambodia’s Ankor Wat). The kraton is where Jogia’s sultan lives. Jogia, along with Jakarta and Banda Aceh, are Indonesia’s special administrative regions. In fact, Jogia, along with Solo (Surakarta), its neighbours, have been famous throughout history for anti-colonial strifes and political activism, and to this day still maintain a certain autonomy from the central government. So they still have their sultan, sultan number 10, who has only one wife (!) and who has five daughters, one in California who just got married, two in Australia and two who live with him in the palace (my instant friend told me!). You can see the carriages of the royal families in this enclave, and you can also visit the remnants of the Water Castle, which is comprised of many swimming pools, in which sultan number 4’s wives, concubines and children used to bathe under the supervision of his majesty. There’s some really neat area around the Katron, along with a couple places to climb around (although some parts have been destroyed by the earthquake) and a very lively bird market.

Later that day I met up with Stian and we went to deliver the printer’s part (which we had dropped and could not really put back into place!) to the CARE temporary office, which they had rented from a local organization. I felt very privileged to see from where the NGO operated their relief activities (which were mostly in the form of distribution of clean water, I believe); a small office with friendly, smiley, mostly Indonesian staff, all working on spreadsheets on their laptops. For sure it was now in the aftermath of the emergency, and the crazy busy intense intervention phase was over, but it was still surprising to see that the place did not look any different than any other office. But oh well. Then later I went to a museum downtown where there was a wayang kulit performance. Wayang kulit means ‘shadow puppet’, and it’s a traditional Javanese show that most often relates the tales of the Ramayana, an ancient Hindu story. (It must be said that Javanese religion is an active blend of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and indigenous animist beliefs). The performance I watched lasted two hours, but some of them can last a whole night! It was very very cool. On the one side of the stage, there’s a gamelan orchestra playing, which is a ensemble of percussions and strings playing beautiful music, and the puppet master, who is extremely impressive, as he makes the voices of all the puppets while manipulating them and giving the beat for the gamelan by hitting a bell with his feet! A genuine Jack-of-all-trades! The show was very impressive, although I didn’t get most of it (it was in Javanese; although I picked up maybe 20 words of Bahasa Indonesia, I don’t know any Javanese whatsoever…), I was explained the meaning behind, for example, the shape of the nose of the puppets (which determines if they’re bad or good characters), and things like that…And then the puppets where fighting, and there was the music and wow, it was great!

The next day, I felt a bit weary, for some unknown reasons (could be many things), and felt like I should move on to somewhere else promptly. I went to the bus terminal and then was reading my book and some guys standing there, I could have sworn they were talking about me and taking pictures with me on their mobile phones, so I got very annoyed and took a bus to Bali. I still enjoyed Java, although I wish I had more time to give it an extra chance…