s o m a n y s t o r i e s: November 2011

My first sight of Merapi - it was a grey and green day

Gunung Merapi, Indonesian for Mountain of Fire, is one of the most important symbols in Yogyakarta (or Yogya). The volcano is located on the border between the provinces Central Java and Yogyakarta, 25 km from the city of Yogya. When the clouds are willing to cooperate, I can see it from my place! Merapi is the reason why the fields are green and fertile, and it is of great spiritual importance to the people who are living on its flanks. Also, the sunset gets just a tiny little bit more exciting when this miraculous fire mountain is involved. Breathtaking, really!

The '10 eruption was much bigger than the ones before

But there is a price to be paid. Late October 2010, after four years of sleep, Merapi starts to yawn. On the fifth of November the volcano wakes up and shows its devastating power once again with the strongest eruption since 1882. Hot lava, sand and ash cover the region around Merapi. Fields where vegetables were grown to provide the landowners an income, bridges to connect remote villages to the main roads, houses, livestock, nothing stands a chance against Merapi. The lava streams reach up to 18 km from the top and even in the city it is hard to breathe because of the ash. Even today, more than a year after the eruption, Merapi is still a common topic. Especially with the start of the rainy season: the loose volcanic sand which is still on top of the mountain will mix with the rain and create streams of cold lava. Many bridges have already broken down as a result of these powerful streams, and January and February will surely bring a lot more trouble.

Javanese dancers at the Merapi Museum

Still, people consider Merapi as their friend, I have heard some people literally say. There is an obvious danger of living on the flanks of a volcano. Having to evacuate your family as a result of an eruption is a terrible experience. It takes time to rebuild and to recover. Yet, there is a special connection between the mountain and the people, their history and their future, their community spirit and strength, and their willingness to stay. Hopefully these sentences will make more sense to me in a couple of months, when I’ll be writing my thesis on the social impact of the eruption.

Learning a culture starts by learning the language, and Indonesian is not quite as easy as I imagined. Sometimes I just wish I was fluent without having to put in all this effort. Now thát is not going to happen, but I díd finish my language course last week! On the certificate it says Fluent, Natural Communicator of General Indonesian. Although it is not really true, it motivates me and I am learning new words every day. Having Indonesian friends helps a lot, and if it weren’t for my Dutch roomie Carlijn, I wouldn’t have already met so many nice people here in Yogyakarta. Carlijn and me are doing the same master’s program, NOHA International Humanitarian Action. Carlijn and five other NOHAs have been living in Yogya while I was in Melbourne. Four of them have moved to different parts of Indonesia for their internships, and I am going to meet them all in Sumatra next month! Six NOHAs will be reunited surrounded by orangutans in Bukit Lawang. Oh yeah (:

Carlijn and me are happily having a Bintang beer

Alright, a little bit more about this exciting upcoming trip then. On Wednesday, I’ll be taking the plane to Padang, a fishing town on the southern border of Sumatra. From there, Carlijn and me will take a boat to one of the remote Mentawai Islands where we will spend one week. Last year, at the same time as the eruption of Merapi, a tsunami took place near Mentawai, wiping away big parts of the islands while killing a number of its inhabitants. Many might not have heard of it, as natural hazards are very common in Indonesia. The country is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is therefore vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding and volcanic eruptions. This does not take away the fact that every disaster, as small as it can be, has an impact on the affected population. Local organisations, sometimes in cooperation with (inter)national NGOs, work hard to prepare those communities for possible threats, provide relief in emergency situations, and recover and rehabilitate when the worst shock is over. Together with one of those local NGOs, Carlijn and me will visit the Siberut Island, where we will be learning about their disaster management and hopefully experience the local culture. That is why we like to call our week on this tropical island a ‘learning experience’. We will also do some empirical research on the credibility of the beach pictures that Google provides.

The Three Musketeers in 3D!

Then, on the 15^th of December I will be back in Yogya to settle down for another 3 exciting months. If I am lucky, I’ll rent a motorbike, I’ll find an internship, I’ll have dinners in rice field restaurants, I’ll sing more karaoke, I'll go to the cinema, and I’ll practice Bahasa Indonesia with anyone who wants to listen to my stories because A Fluent & Natural Communicator in Bahasa Indonesia I Will Be!

Maybe I can go up to Merapi several more times, together with local volunteer Pak Edy. He is a little man of about fifty years old, always willing to help where he can. When Carlijns friends Lorijn and Gerbrich were visiting Yogya some time ago, we all went up to some villages on Merapi where we donated several water tanks. Because the eruption covered all water sources with lava it is now difficult to access clean drinking water. Pak Edy arranged to have our names on big posters attached to the tanks. Also we brought some bags of cement so that villagers can construct shelters for their water tanks to keep the water clean during the rainy season.

Our names on the water tank

Refilling already existing water basins

Here a shelter will be built for the blue water tank in the background

Maybe I can experience some more Indonesian rituals up-close, like the slaughtering which took place for Idul Adha, after the end of Ramadan. We did not expect this at all, and the whole happening was rather straightforward and unusual, but the cause was a good one. Rich Muslim families provide cattle to the mosques, which then ritually slaughter the animals and distribute the meat to the poor. We witnessed the whole process from beginning to end but I will save you the details, also for a good cause. So maybe I wouldn’t necessarily want to see another slaughtering, but a wedding would be nice. Or New Years Eve.

And maybe I can even learn to sit still and enjoy another meditation ceremony with the medicine man. Last week, Carlijn and me had the privilege to join one of these ceremonies that took place at a graveyard in the middle of the night. With a small group of seven people we entered the sacred place of the graveyard, close to the grave of the first Sultan of Yogyakarta. We were sitting there for almost an hour, and my legs started to ache and my mind started to think many thoughts and the little kitty that walked around us started to get my full attention. In other words, it was very hard for me to concentrate and to let go attachment, ignorance and aversion, which are our biggest enemies in the journey to mindfulness. They say. But during the Javanese sentences that the medicine man spoke out when we were seated there, I heard him say my name three times… I was involved in the ceremony, my name was spoken out loud in a sacred place in Yogya, I am really here!