It Takes a Village

When we arrive in Banyuwangi it's almost midnight and there's no one there to meet us. I fall asleep for a few minutes but wake when Adik's adik arrives to pick up a phone.

"Isn't she fat?" Adik asks me.

"No!" I say, "She's beautiful."

Adik laughs and shakes her head. "No. She's fat!" And then, as if to prove it, she slaps her sister's thighs. They talk only long enough to make the transaction, then they hug, and hug again and then one more time before Adik's adik slips back into the night careful to not let anyone she knows see her with us. As she walks out the door a short, man with a receding hairline and happy round face walks in with a very skinny woman on his arm and, when our eyes meet, he breaks into a broad grin. I smile back knowing instantly this must be Wavi.

Outside there are two ojeks waiting for us. I'm to take the one with the man wearing army fatigues but I lose my balance and the weight of my backpack pulls me to the ground instead. Laughing, I flail my arms and legs helplessly like a beetle marooned on it's back for added effect, which tickles the gathering onlookers into laughing along with me. When I right myself in one quick motion the crowd cheers and the ojek driver insists on taking my bag in the front.

We've barely left the town limits when I nod off and drift in and out of dreams. Sleeping on the back of an ojek is not a feat to be scoffed. To remain undisturbed by the cool night air rushing past you, your hair dancing wildly about and occasionally slapping you in the face while teetering on the back of a bike as it bounces down cracked and pitted roads is not an achievement within the grasp of the well rested or sane. Still, it's a relief of sorts, and a blessing because we may be only minutes away from Wavi's village and a bed but we're many hours away from being allowed to sleep.

When we arrive Wavi insists on feeding us so we drink tea and wait for the food to be cooked. Adik reminds me of the oleh oleh I brought for our hosts so I proffer two bottles of Canadian Maple syrup my mother sent from home. They examine the bottles and smell it and Wafi pours some on his finger to taste it. It tastes, he declares, even better than honey.

I am somewhat concerned when no less than two giant bowls of fried cassava are put on the table in front of me. I am even more worried when a third, even larger bowl, of boiled bananas is added to the feast. I think boiling is the cruelest thing one can do to a banana, leaving it flavourless and rubbery, but here it's a favourite dessert. There is enough food here to feed a large army and can't imagine why they've prepared so much.

Until the men start arriving. Every man in the village, it seems, has been woken from his sleep and told the bule has arrived. They are all wearing their very best prayer clothes, kurta pajamas, vests and prayer caps. Most want to shake my hand but some ignore me completely while helping themselves to the food. An elderly man, youthful looking despite his deeply lined face single front tooth takes a seat next to Wafi and beings to interrogate me using adik as interpreter.

"Are you happy here? Do you like Indonesia? Are you married? No? Do you like Indonesian men? Then you must marry an Indonesian man."

When I say maybe, one never knows when love will strike, he eyes me suspiciously.

"Why aren't you married? You are beautiful, with beautiful skin, not like most bules with freckles and bad clothes, why aren't you married?" Sensing his underlying accusation, and uncertain what it might mean for Adik, I confess that I was married.

"Oh. How did he die?" I am tempted to tell a half truth- he was a pilot and his plane crashed- in order to avoid the inevitable fallout from this line of questioning but answer truthfully instead, "He didn't die, we divorced."

Everyone in the room and the men gathered outside on the porch listening stop their chatter at the sound of the word.

"No children?"

"No," I say.

"Well, this is okay. It happens. Now you can marry and Indonesian man," he smiles broadly revealing his lone stalactite tooth. I smile back and shrug, repeating, "You never know."

As if on cue a short barrel of a man with a square, pock marked masculine face pushes through the crowd outside and sits down beside me. Hauri speaks a smattering of English and between us we manage a rudimentary conversation that consists mostly of us laughing at our misunderstandings. He tells me he learned English when he lived in Bali but now he never uses it so he wants to practice with me. "And also only to make you happy."

Wavi, meanwhile, is showing everyone the Maple Syrup and they hand it around the room like the coke bottle in "The Gods Must Be Crazy." I answer all the questions about maple trees, processing, it's uses, nutritional content and medicinal properties the best I can and when they are satisfied, a spoon is produced and everyone gets a taste.

My earlier inquisitor tells Adik to tell me they are all very proud of me, to have traveled so much, seen so much of the world, and all by myself. The turn of the phrase serves to solidify the feeling I've had all night, that I am more than just a bule to them, I am their daughter and their sister. "Terima kasih," is all I can say in response but something in me feels proud to make them proud.

That is the way Indonesia swings and turns you round. In the course of a day I went from feeling like I was nothing more than a wallet on legs to feeling warmly embraced and something akin to cherished.

It's almost time for the morning call to prayer by the time Hauri demands I go to bed, though I don't want this warm gathering to end. "You must sleep. You are tired." Then he announces to everyone I am going to sleep and pushes me towards the bedroom.