Mentawai

Where do I begin? I have just returned to Surabaya after an 11 day absence. In that time, I drank rain water, drew water from a well to bathe, ate food cooked over a wood fire, said prayers by kerosene lamp, spent long hours in dug-out canoes, witnessed a traditional healing ceremony, and met lots of wonderful people. I suppose I should attempt a chronological account…

Tuesday night I scrambled to finish the SIS newsletter, which goes to print at 4pm every Wednesday. I also wrote my articles for the following week and set a template, and packed my backpack with lots of clothes, mosquito repellent, a collapsible mosquito net, instant oatmeal, granola bars, fried tempe, canned fish, dried fruit, and mosquito repelling incense coils. Wednesday morning I left for the airport, got my boarding pass, and got on the plane. I noticed that the dates on my ticket didn’t match the dates on the boarding pass, but decided it must be a computer error, since I certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to board the plane a day early. I had a layover in the Jakarta airport, during which time I smsed (text messaged) the woman I would be meeting in Padang, Soesi. It turned out she was in the same waiting room, and was confused because she thought I was arriving the next day. That meant that instead of following the plan that she would pick me up from the airport and we would go to the boat that night, I actually would have an entire day free in Padang. That was strange, since we’d worked the schedule out beforehand. I smsed Greg, asking what the date was and he confirmed that it was April 12^th, which was the day my ticket was issued for. Finally, I asked Soesi. She said it was the 11^th, which in fact, it was. How weird is that? That day and the next consisted of sitting around in Padang totally bored. Thankfully, I had books to read.

The night of the twelfth, we decided to take a speed boat to the ferry at about 7:30pm rather than board the boat at 4 and sit on it anchored while the tide went out. It was a good decision because when we did board the boat we still had half an hour before it left, during which time Soesi definitely started to look a little pale and I worried about getting seasick myself. Once the boat started moving I was fine, though. Our friend and guide, a Baha’I man from a village in Mentawai, Pak Salim, was able to secure a bunk for us even though they were all full (one of the two ferries was out of service so there were more passengers than usual). We slept the whole way, and woke up in Pokai, a village slightly north on the eastern side of the main Mentawai island, Siberut. Pak Salim immediately shuttled us one at a time on his motorbike (a rare commodity in Mentawai) to his house. I was first, and met his very cheerful children, elementary school-aged Sari, and one-year-old Anu, and his wife Zaynab. Despite being named after the historical Baha’I heroine, she was Muslim. Zaynab’s mother also lived in the house. All visible parts of her body except her face were tattooed with dark blue lines. Zaynab didn’t mind that I didn’t understand most of what she said, and served me tea and warm kolak, bananas and sweet potatoes stewed in sweetened coconut milk. I also drank my first glass of rainwater. Later in the afternoon I watched her collect rainwater dripping from the roof of the house. The rain prevented Soesi and I from visiting many people, but we did go to a nice blue-painted house of an older couple who harvest coklat, the seeds from the fruit of the cocoa tree which they sell to merchants who later sell to companies who turn the stuff into chocolate as we know it. Later, we were again shuttled by Pak Salim to the nearby town of Polopo where we sat in the local shop drinking more sweet tea. We needed to get to M----- but the boatmen insisted on charging us the tourist price to get up the river - $40 US instead of about $10, or 100,000 Rp. So we hired another ojek, a man with a motorcycle, and got him and Pak Salim to drive us half of the 8 Km. Then the road turned into a muddy trail so we walked the rest of the way. We reached our destination at sunset. Soesi was first to bathe, and when she was through, told me that she had kindly drawn water for my bath. I put on my sandals and walked out to the ‘bathroom’ which had a short ply-wood wall around it and a nice banana tree with over-hanging leaves as a ceiling. In the middle was a square well, swarming with mosquitos and next to that was the large rubber bucket with a scooper for bathing. The only difficult thing was finding a place to hang my dry clothes. We spent the evening walking through the village by flashlight and visiting houses lit by kerosene lantern. We returned to our house (the stars were amazing!) to find that it was one of the few houses with power. We watched awful soap operas in which people murdered and stole things, then lay awake listening to the generator under our mosquito net until we fell asleep. The nights were surprisingly cold!

The following day was incredibly hot, and we spent it sitting and talking. We sat on many wooden floors, on porches, on benches, always drinking hot sweet tea. We met several Baha’is, the village head, and many people curious about who we were and why we were there. There used to be many, many Baha’is in Mentawai (there still are a lot) but some time ago, when the government outlawed Baha’I administration along with the Rotary Club, Chinese language schools, and every other organized activity, the police in Mentawai decided to use the law to their advantage. They decided it was illegal for anyone to be a Baha’I (which was never true, but was a common misconception at the time), and did things like close the numerous Baha’I schools on the island, arrest Baha’is, interrogate them, forcing many to choose one of the five recognized religions (Islam, Christianity, Catholocism, Hinduism, or Buddhism), and causing many others to go into hiding. As a result of this, there are many people who used to be Baha’is, or who consider themselves to be two religions. For example, they say Baha’I prayers at home, but go to the mosque or church every week. Since Baha’is believe all religions come from the same God and are all equal and valid, it seems pretty ok, except that the Baha’I Faith is a separate religion requiring utmost truthfulness on the part of the believer, so it’s not quite in keeping with the teachings to pretend to be another religion.

In the afternoon Soesi called together as many Baha’is as could come to read and deepen on the most recent letter from the Universal House of Justice which makes special mention of strengthening the Local Spiritual Assemblies, the elected local branches of administration. The administration has been legal for seven years in Indonesia now, so it’s still a fairly new concept. The idea that no person is superior to any other person in the Baha’i Faith (which has no clergy) is very difficult in places ruled by village chiefs and family heads, but each of the nine elected members of an Assembly have no special station whatsoever – it is only when they are consulting together that they have any ability to plan for the future of the community or offer guidance. We discovered that the biggest problem facing the community was that of disunity. Some Baha’is don’t like other Baha’is, some Baha’is look down on people who were forced to change their religion, or look down on people of other religions – and the Baha’I Faith is a religion that says “It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness.” I was surprised to hear about disunity in the community, because the village is so small and it seems like everyone is friends and everyone was so happy and loving. Soesi and I formed an idea to help the community and were invited to an event at the school the following day. But before we could rest, we attended a healing ceremony done by five Secray, three men and two women. We stayed until midnight, but after we left apparently many people went into trances. The Secray wore mostly red and blue – red skirts or loin cloths, with headdresses made of leaves and feathers and beaded jewelry, and they pounded leaves, poured water, and chanted while ringing bells for an incredible amount of time. Later they danced with a plate of food while others played drums. It’s a good thing we didn’t stay up all night at it, because we would have been exhausted the next morning.

We had three different breakfasts that morning, at different houses, then went to the preschool (TK) which is run by a Baha’i foundation in Medan. Every child in the village is required to attend, and the parents love what their children are learning. The get a head start coming into Kindergarten, since they already can count and know the alphabet, and they are better behaved because they learn about sharing, helping, treating others nicely, and about accepting people from all backgrounds and beliefs. The teachers come from several different religious backgrounds, and are all well-trained and brought especially to teach in the school from other places. The parents were holding a meeting with the TK teachers and Elementary heads of schools to find out if they could improve the quality of education for the Elementary students. Now that the preschool is so good, they feel the Elementary school is lacking. The kids have to be sent away for Middle School. There was a very long discussion about whether paying 1,000Rp (10 cents) a month for each child was too high a fee. Then it was our turn. Several teachers had told us that they have trouble teaching the children to be respectful, have good manners, and be friendly, because the parents don’t support what they learn at home. The parents all say they like what the kids learn, but feel that it’s not their job to require anything of the children because they themselves are not educated at all. Our goal was to help the parents attending the meeting (over 45 mothers and fathers) understand their role in their childrens’ education even though they may be illiterate. We started by discussing a quote “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.” We talked about ‘gems’ and passed out a virtue written on a slip of paper to every person (love, generosity, creativity, etc.) Then they formed groups of 5 according to their paper to make a ‘visual representation’ of a quote that talks about how a child without knowledge (intellectual, moral, and spiritual) is like a tree without fruits. Within 2 minutes, every group was ready and eager to perform, and the various plays, pantomimes and so forth were hilarious. I was amazed! The first time we asked adults in Java to create a drama, they were incredulous and were able to come up with presentations only a full 15 minutes of hesitation and questions. The people in Mentawai lack all of the ‘saving face’ culture present in Java, and don’t hesitate to disagree or tell you ‘no’ when the answer is no. The woman spoke as much as the men, and were listened to. All over the island I saw men taking care of toddlers and women working in fields. In any case, the parents loved the little ‘class’ on parenting and wanted more! The few Baha’is in the group were thrilled that people outside their religion liked the Baha’I concepts presented so much, and they actually met new people (how is that possible in such a small village?) because of the random assignment of groups. It turns out that the village chief (a self-proclaimed former Baha’i) had asked that all the mosques and churches in the village urge their followers to attend this very important meeting on education because the children are the future of the village.

We left from the school, picked up our bags, walked to the river, and climbed into a very unsteady dug-out canoe with a motor on the back called a pompom. We sped down the wide, curvy river as the sun turned the clouds gold, reflecting off the smooth water surface. Our navigator was a teenage guy who took the curves like an American High Schooler would cruise the curves in his new car. We passed a few dug-out canoes without motors, the people paddling along.

We stayed in a house/shop at the transfer place for small boats, and the next day took an only slightly larger pompom out the mouth of the river into the ocean. We were drenched within minutes, and glad we’d wrapped our gear in plastic garbage bags. I talked to a young man sitting behind me the whole way. It turned out he was going to become the new Arabic teacher (and acting Imam) in the one tiny mosque in the town we were visiting. He was from an Islamic school in Jakarta and was volunteering for one year, starting the day of our arrival. That night we heard his first call to prayer over the town. There were only two Baha’I women in that town. We stayed with one of them, a teacher at a TK the same as at the last place. Unfortunately, the room in her boarding house reeked of the drying green cloves that filled the house. Cloves (cengkeh) are the main source of income for most of the people there. When it was sunny, every path in town was covered with cloves and clove stems in various stages of dryness. It was cool, but that smell made me totally nauseas. We hiked to the top of the mountain and could see the sea and the bay where we’d come in. The path we walked on continued up the hill to the next village, a two day walk away, and down the hill to a patch of forest overlooking the bay. Our guide told us that was the only place near the village you could get cell phone service. We didn’t go there. Instead we sat on the porch of a house for several hours, watching groups of teenagers or older women going to pick rambutan in the forest, and men trekking into the village from the next town barefoot and smiling. After some time, a young couple with a toddler and a baby came to the porch – the house was evidently theirs but they didn’t mind us. We left anyways, but I took special notice of the man cuddling the sleeping toddler while the mother put down her work basket – a type of long basket worn like a backpack. We left the next morning the same way we came. This time the tide was high so we didn’t have to wade through the sticky mud (Soesi’s flipflop broke on the way in). It was very sunny and the sea was calm. A nice old lady held her umbrella up as a sunshade over both of us, and we saw so many dolphins that I thought they’d never end – they were going the opposite direction as us farther out to sea and they kept surfacing in a line for about 5 whole minutes.

Back at the shop, we picked up the extra clothes and food we’d left and went on to Labuanbajao, the northernmost fishing village, by private pompom in the ocean. We stayed with a wonderful young couple with a toddler and a one-month-old baby. It turns out that over 30% of the people in the village are Baha’is. I walked out to the beautiful beach the afternoon of our first and only full day in Labuanbajao. It’s a long crescent of powdery sand reaching into the turquoise ocean, free of rocks or coral, with palm trees and jambu air trees next to the beach. Definitely at least one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen in Indonesia. So I walked along the beach, and saw a group of about 8 fishermen untangling net in a painted boat. One turned out to be my host who called me over and introduced me to his extended family – all of whom replied with “Allah’u’abha,” the Baha’I greating that means “God is most glorious.” The father of the man we stayed with is a Baha’I secray. The Muslims and Christians in the area forbid their members from practicing the old traditions and he was afraid the same was true for Baha’is. Fortunately, the Baha’I Faith encourages people to keep their own cultures alive as a necessary component of the diversity of the human race. His wife invited us to a huge breakfast before we left, including chicken, vegetables in coconut milk and spices, rice, and sago steamed into a chewy, purple bread. The sago was not passed to me, on the assumption (rather, well-known fact) that sago shows primitiveness and anyone modern prefers rice. The people in Mentawai pay more for rice than we do in America even though they have very little money in an effort to be modern. Throughout Indonesia, and particularly in the nearby city of Padang, the Mentawaians are looked down on and viewed as primitive, so they respond by buying generators if they can afford them and eating rice. After finally getting hold of the sago, I said it was delicious, but they just laughed, thinking I was being polite but not honest. Really, though, I’d take sago over flavorless white rice any day. The sago tastes like eating a good whole-grain bread, something that doesn’t exist in Indonesia, and I’m sure it’s much healthier than rice. Besides which, sago grows in Mentawai and rice doesn’t! We returned to Pokai and decided to go back to Malampolo. We planned to stay a whole day, but it turned out that the ferry back to Padang had changed schedules so we only went for one night and had to return the next morning. That night we met many Baha’is that we hadn’t met on the first visit. There must be many more that we never met.

On the way back we stopped at the shop and Soesi chaired a consultation on the much-needed boarding house – many of the Baha’I children have to move to another town just to go to jr. high school, and because of lack of accommodation, the best option is to send them to the Muslim or Catholic schools which provide housing but make it known that it’s expected that all the Muslims at a Muslim school are in fact Muslim. Providing a Baha’I dorm in the village that has a middle school would allow Baha’I children to attend without pressure of conversion. The ferry was supposed to leave very soon and we were 30 minutes from the port. I left first and waited with Zaynab, worrying about missing the ferry and eating kolak with pumpkin. But Soesi arrived and we boarded the boat without a problem. We saw dolphins again on our way to Maurasiberut, the biggest ‘town’ on the Island. The presence of occasional glass windows, satelite dishes, and electricity in most houses clued us in to just how much more modern this ‘capital’ town was compared wo where we’d come from. We spent a few hours docked there, so Soesi borrowed a motorbike and navigated the holey roads and bridges to meet with a few Baha’is including a couple that knew Dr. Mohajir. Then it was back to Padang where we were immediately shuttled into an air conditioned car with leather seats and we were back in ‘civilization.’