Adapting to village life not an easy experience<\/p>\n
By Angela Black<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): There's an old man in my kampung with the most
\nwonderful, toothless and heartwarming grin. Whenever he sees me,
\nhe quickens his tightly-saronged stride and makes a dash for me,
\nwith, it seems, no other reason than to present his terrific
\nsmile. I can't resist, and I try to match him with the biggest
\ngrin I have too, which of course makes him grin more. The
\npressure is on, and he sees my face muscles struggling, so he
\ncunningly changes tactics; his hand goes up for a high five, and
\nI happily oblige. Then we both stand there and grin some more
\nbefore passing each other by.<\/p>\n
I don't know why it's so moving. Maybe because he's
\nimmediately made mincemeat out of any bad day that I might have
\nhad, and I'm left with these intense internal giggles. It's a
\nstrange life here and I sometimes feel I'm clinging to a
\npendulum, which swings uncontrollably from one extreme to the
\nother. \"Culture shock.\"<\/p>\n
Does culture shock ever tire of being shocking? I wonder. Just
\nwhen you think it has, it takes a lunge at you from behind a
\nbajaj, or springs unannounced from around the bend with a big
\nGOTCHA! However, I'm not so naive as to think I can have my swing
\nto one side of the pendulum without returning to the other. Bad
\ndays rarely happen to me now, but when they do they remind me of
\na buffalo that I once saw \"teased\" to death.<\/p>\n
I was on a trip around East Kalimantan and had been invited to
\nattend a funeral ceremony. I entered the village and saw the poor
\nold buffalo in the center of a dusty clearing, tied to a pole
\nwith a long vine. He stood there breathing nonchalantly through
\nhis large, flared and rather unclean nostrils. I read his
\nexpression as one of: \"Oh, how tiresome. What are they up to
\nnow\". Surrounding his great hairy bulk were the villagers,
\nlooking excited while they waited for the games to begin. The
\nexcitement was, admittedly, infectious and I found myself
\nrummaging around in my bag for my camera. This I did rather
\ndiscreetly, of course, so as not to give the \"mistaken\"
\nimpression that I was just a tourist, as opposed to a hip, cool,
\nblending-into-the-culture \"traveler\".<\/p>\n
So there I was, desperately \"blending in\", when the activities
\nbegan with an enormous SLAP on the buffalo's big buttocks. Novel
\nway to start, I thought. The earth shook as he snapped around
\nwith an indignant \"Who did that!\" The villagers whistled, tapped
\ntheir toes and stared at the sky Monty Python style. Obviously,
\nnobody was claiming responsibility. I frowned, not quite
\nunderstanding the objective of it all. But then, a young man
\njumped up behind Big Buffy and stuck a knife in his rear end,
\nsending him off in a furious charge around the pole. The young
\nman was long gone - hiding behind the skirts in the crowd. As
\nmore and more young men rushed forward to take a shot, the aim of
\nit all seemed to become clear: Young men had to creep up to the
\nbeast, stab it quickly in the rear - thus proving themselves
\nworthy of the title 'man' - then RUN! RUN! RUN! Out of horns way!
\nSomething struck me as rather unfair about all this.<\/p>\n
The crowd - men, women, boys, girls and chickens - hooted with
\nlaughter. Stitch-in-side, sarong-splitting laughter. I suddenly
\nfelt very sad and guilty. I continued to watch however, unable to
\npeel my eyes away. The buffalo continued to run and lunge at the
\ncrowd, while the boys continued to stab and hide. Gradually, the
\nanimal's spirit began to drain from his body, carried on a stream
\nof blood running down his once strong legs. He stopped running
\nand stood breathing with difficulty, as his eyes scoured the
\ncrowd challenging anyone to deal with him face-to-face. Another
\nyoung boy crept up behind and he felt a sharp shot of pain sear
\nthrough his rear-end, yet again. He spun furiously, but the
\nculprit had evaporated behind the cackling masses. This time, his
\nexpression registered the utter hopelessness of his situation,
\nand his wretched eyes wandered slowly from person to person. He
\nwanted to remember those faces; who it was, that had the audacity
\nto think themselves brave. He could distinguish no friends there,
\nand when he looked at me I felt terrible shame. I heard him
\nwhisper the word \"traitor\" in my ear before he sunk to his knees
\nand died.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, I'm unable to distinguish my friends in a crowd
\nof taunting people who don't know me, and I feel I'm there to be
\n\"gang-laughed at\". When I turn around to speak to them they often
\nwhistle and look at the sky. Then the image of the buffalo
\nsprings to mind, and I despair of my \"victim\" status. But
\nusually, the old man or his equivalent walks around the corner,
\nand I realize that I've been wrong in my generalizations as I
\nfeel the pendulum start to swing again. Though this time, of
\ncourse, I'm a lot more excited about the direction it's heading
\nin. I begin to look at my surroundings with euphoric
\nappreciation. The vibrant life of the community, the colors, the
\nsounds and the laughter. I love the fact that ten people want to
\nstop a bajaj for me, that children want to shake my hand then run
\nscreaming in the opposite direction. I love that there is always
\nan abundance of happy volunteers to run to my aid when there is
\neven the slightest murmur of the word \"help\". I am spoiled and
\npampered. Yes, I am a kampung tourist attraction. But I'm also
\nbule VIP.<\/p>\n
As time goes on, I am aware that the pendulum swings with less
\nforce and that experiences become less extreme as I settle into
\nthings more comfortably. Oddly enough, I feel disappointed at the
\nidea. What if that old man's grin becomes less special to me? So,
\nI lean backwards and forwards, trying to get the momentum going;
\ntrying to push it just that bit further. But my attempts are
\nfutile. There is nothing for it, I realize, but to make the most
\nout of the culture shocks I have left, and to hope that
\n\"normality\" doesn't find me too quickly.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/adapting-to-village-life-not-an-easy-experience-1447893297",
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