Adapting to village life not an easy experience

By Angela Black

JAKARTA (JP): There's an old man in my kampung with the most wonderful, toothless and heartwarming grin. Whenever he sees me, he quickens his tightly-saronged stride and makes a dash for me, with, it seems, no other reason than to present his terrific smile. I can't resist, and I try to match him with the biggest grin I have too, which of course makes him grin more. The pressure is on, and he sees my face muscles struggling, so he cunningly changes tactics; his hand goes up for a high five, and I happily oblige. Then we both stand there and grin some more before passing each other by.

I don't know why it's so moving. Maybe because he's immediately made mincemeat out of any bad day that I might have had, and I'm left with these intense internal giggles. It's a strange life here and I sometimes feel I'm clinging to a pendulum, which swings uncontrollably from one extreme to the other. "Culture shock."

Does culture shock ever tire of being shocking? I wonder. Just when you think it has, it takes a lunge at you from behind a bajaj, or springs unannounced from around the bend with a big GOTCHA! However, I'm not so naive as to think I can have my swing to one side of the pendulum without returning to the other. Bad days rarely happen to me now, but when they do they remind me of a buffalo that I once saw "teased" to death.

I was on a trip around East Kalimantan and had been invited to attend a funeral ceremony. I entered the village and saw the poor old buffalo in the center of a dusty clearing, tied to a pole with a long vine. He stood there breathing nonchalantly through his large, flared and rather unclean nostrils. I read his expression as one of: "Oh, how tiresome. What are they up to now". Surrounding his great hairy bulk were the villagers, looking excited while they waited for the games to begin. The excitement was, admittedly, infectious and I found myself rummaging around in my bag for my camera. This I did rather discreetly, of course, so as not to give the "mistaken" impression that I was just a tourist, as opposed to a hip, cool, blending-into-the-culture "traveler".

So there I was, desperately "blending in", when the activities began with an enormous SLAP on the buffalo's big buttocks. Novel way to start, I thought. The earth shook as he snapped around with an indignant "Who did that!" The villagers whistled, tapped their toes and stared at the sky Monty Python style. Obviously, nobody was claiming responsibility. I frowned, not quite understanding the objective of it all. But then, a young man jumped up behind Big Buffy and stuck a knife in his rear end, sending him off in a furious charge around the pole. The young man was long gone - hiding behind the skirts in the crowd. As more and more young men rushed forward to take a shot, the aim of it all seemed to become clear: Young men had to creep up to the beast, stab it quickly in the rear - thus proving themselves worthy of the title 'man' - then RUN! RUN! RUN! Out of horns way! Something struck me as rather unfair about all this.

The crowd - men, women, boys, girls and chickens - hooted with laughter. Stitch-in-side, sarong-splitting laughter. I suddenly felt very sad and guilty. I continued to watch however, unable to peel my eyes away. The buffalo continued to run and lunge at the crowd, while the boys continued to stab and hide. Gradually, the animal's spirit began to drain from his body, carried on a stream of blood running down his once strong legs. He stopped running and stood breathing with difficulty, as his eyes scoured the crowd challenging anyone to deal with him face-to-face. Another young boy crept up behind and he felt a sharp shot of pain sear through his rear-end, yet again. He spun furiously, but the culprit had evaporated behind the cackling masses. This time, his expression registered the utter hopelessness of his situation, and his wretched eyes wandered slowly from person to person. He wanted to remember those faces; who it was, that had the audacity to think themselves brave. He could distinguish no friends there, and when he looked at me I felt terrible shame. I heard him whisper the word "traitor" in my ear before he sunk to his knees and died.

Occasionally, I'm unable to distinguish my friends in a crowd of taunting people who don't know me, and I feel I'm there to be "gang-laughed at". When I turn around to speak to them they often whistle and look at the sky. Then the image of the buffalo springs to mind, and I despair of my "victim" status. But usually, the old man or his equivalent walks around the corner, and I realize that I've been wrong in my generalizations as I feel the pendulum start to swing again. Though this time, of course, I'm a lot more excited about the direction it's heading in. I begin to look at my surroundings with euphoric appreciation. The vibrant life of the community, the colors, the sounds and the laughter. I love the fact that ten people want to stop a bajaj for me, that children want to shake my hand then run screaming in the opposite direction. I love that there is always an abundance of happy volunteers to run to my aid when there is even the slightest murmur of the word "help". I am spoiled and pampered. Yes, I am a kampung tourist attraction. But I'm also bule VIP.

As time goes on, I am aware that the pendulum swings with less force and that experiences become less extreme as I settle into things more comfortably. Oddly enough, I feel disappointed at the idea. What if that old man's grin becomes less special to me? So, I lean backwards and forwards, trying to get the momentum going; trying to push it just that bit further. But my attempts are futile. There is nothing for it, I realize, but to make the most out of the culture shocks I have left, and to hope that "normality" doesn't find me too quickly.