This Was Pompeii

"I think about Pompeii when I feel an end is near

Just before the rain and every time you disappear

I think about a tea cup, suspended and half served

All the scholars know is that it's perfectly preserved." 

We take the early train to Banyuwangi though this means an extra hour on the train. Although we fight the crowds to get on the train, it's traveling farther up the line then back to Malang again to reload. We are lucky enough to find seats though, unlike the unfortunate University students returning home for the holidays most of whom must stand for up to seven hours.

A man tries to sell us newspaper. The headlines say Mount Bromo, a few hours farther down the track, is erupting. I eat a piece of geblong Adik spotted for me in the market. The train rocks me to sleep. I wake up when the IndoMariachi band board the train and serenade us, marveling at the tenacity of their bass player, hauling his cello on and of impossibly crowded trains.

"They never leave this station," Adik tells me, unlike the food and drink sellers who make their own routes hopping on and off trains.

And then, as though it were the most natural topic for our conversation to shift to she tells me my housekeeper wants me to loan her a few million rupiah so she can buy some land.

"I would like someone to loan me money to buy some land too," I laugh. But Adik bites her lip. "I told her you wouldn't. I told her no I don't want to ask her but she said she can't speak English so I must ask even though I knew you say no."

I realize she's serious. "Adik," I say, "I give money to friends and family who need it if I can afford to give it but I never loan money. To anyone. Ever."

Her face goes blank and she pretends to not hear me. This is , by far, one of my greatest frustrations with Indonesia. Indonesians are, by and large, passive and avoid any type of conflict or discussion that might lead to conflict, or even a conclusion they might not want to hear, by simply looking away and pretending you don't exist. This makes it impossible for me to deal with my students when they lie, cheat and steal. (I am slowly learning that there's no need for me to teach them not to lie, cheat or steal because corruption and dishonesty are practically virtues here. Their parents think it's cute that I try though.) So, while on the one hand I admire it as a good strategy, it works well, it's not one I can respect.

I turn to watch the scenery, cursing Elizabeth Gilbert for writing "Eat, Pray, Love." In Bali, the day the movie version was released, they declared the day a holiday so everyone could go see it and now, I think sulkily, everyone who knows a bule by six degrees of association is looking for a house or a piece of land. Then I think of the ironically named Charity, who scolded me in Nepal for giving a school girl a tissue to wipe her nose. "Now she's going to expect Kleenex from every tourist who comes through here."

It's so ridiculous and far fetched I smile at the memory, but living here where at least once a day someone tries to scam or rob you, I begin to wonder if there isn't a small grain of truth in it. And whose fault is it, this assumption that because I have white skin I am essentially a bank machine with limbs? Despite hours of grappling with this question and the innumerable questions that follow it, (What impact do I have on other cultures as I travel, am I selfish to have chosen this lifestyle, unreasonable to want to be known for who am I am not what might be gained by association with me?) I can't find any satisfactory answers.

Four hours later the sky turns grey and as we pass by Mount Bromo I think instead about how much I miss the snow.