Life is not simple for Balinese teachers

Life is not simple for Balinese teachers

By Degung Santikarma

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): In the ancient tales of the wayang kulit
shadow play there are teachers. Sages like Indra and Yama sought
out the wisdom of the natural world by retreating to the forest,
returning to the world of humans to offer lessons and guidance to
kings, heroes and the common folk.

For these mythological figures, it was easy to get by, living
off the bounty of the land and the generosity of those who
appreciated their gifts of knowledge. But for Wayan Mendra, a
teacher at a public high school in Denpasar for the past 15
years, life is not quite so simple.

As an experienced teacher, Wayan Mendra's wage is Rp 600,000 a
month. But each of his paychecks is cut to shreds by the money he
must lay out to maintain his job and his family. Each month,
there is the mandatory fee for members of the state civil
servants corps (Korpri) and the payment owed on the loan he took
to build his simple, three-room house.

There is the cost of the uniform he must wear for civil
service celebrations, and the fees for tuition, books and
clothing for his three teenage children. There is the scholarship
insurance contribution to ensure his children can later afford to
attend university, and the credit payment owed on the motorbike
he bought for his sons to get to school.

And if he wants to introduce his students to something not
found in the limited state curriculum, like a newspaper or
magazine article, he must buy the materials himself. Even though
Wayan Mendra tries to supplement his income by driving for a
travel agent, and his wife also works, earning Rp 250,000 a month
as a seamstress for a garment business, at the end of the month,
they are lucky to have anything left to show for their toil.

Wayan Mendra knows he lives on the edge, where one major
expense or serious illness can push his family over into poverty.
This is why he still drives the same motorbike he owned when he
started his career. Not long ago, when the tire went flat in the
middle of the road, Wayan Mendra was rescued by one of his
students, who happened to be passing by in his late-model sedan.

But even this type of kindness cannot be counted on from his
students. Some of his pupils, whose parents have showered on them
expensive cars with their new riches earned from Bali's tourist
industry, find it highly amusing to watch their teacher try and
start his ancient bike in the school parking lot.

Hiding behind the wall, they mimic his frustrated motions and
his sweat-streaked face as he works to kick the starter into
life. Mimicking the "gruk-gruk-gruk" sound of the bike as it
spits and struggles its way toward the road, they double over in
a laughter that is sometimes hard for Wayan Mendra to ignore.

Resting at home one night after an especially tiring day,
Wayan Mendra got an idea. Like most contemporary Balinese, his
media is no longer the shadow play with its ancient moral fables,
but the television, with its endless ads and images of worldly
success. But that night, as the shadow-like shapes cast by the
tiny box flickered against the walls of his living room, Wayan
Mendra saw something he had never seen before: teachers, like
himself, leaving their classrooms to fill the streets of Jakarta
with their bitter experiences and their hopes for change.

Carrying microphones and waving banners, they were proclaiming
their anger with a system that had left them struggling to
survive. Without realizing it, Wayan Mendra, his wife and his
children began to echo the shouts of the figures on the screen:
"Support the teachers! Education is our future!" As Wayan Mendra
watched, he began to wonder if this was something that could
happen in Bali as well.

With May 2, National Education Day, approaching, Wayan Mendra
talked to his colleagues about his desire to join the new round
of demonstrations that teachers in Jakarta had promised to mark
the occasion. But he failed to persuade his peers. "Bali's
different from Jakarta," one of his friends commented. "We have a
culture of art, not a culture of politics," he continued. "That's
why we've been so successful at attracting tourists.

"If we demonstrate, the tourists will be scared off and that
will hurt everyone," he warned. "Not only that," cautioned
another teacher, "but we'll probably be fired, and then what will
we do?"

Frustrated, Wayan Mendra left the school for the boarding
house where one of his nephews, a university student activist,
lived with his friends. There, he thought, he can find the
demonstration experts who can help him figure out a way to make
something happen. But pouring out his plans to his nephew, Wayan
Mendra received a response he had not anticipated.

"When I went to demonstrate against the BNR [a project to
build a luxury hotel near the holy temple of Tanah Lot], you got
angry and told me that protests didn't fit with Eastern values!
You told me that Balinese had to be polos, naive, that they had
to live a harmonious life and not start trouble!" As Wayan
Mendra's ears began to burn, his nephew's friends joined in the
tirade.

"Wasn't it you teachers who taught us about the history of the
New Order? Wasn't it you teachers who told us that critiquing the
government went against the philosophy of Pancasila? And wasn't
it you teachers who warned us we'd be called communists if we
tried to fight poverty?"

Returning home, full of confusion and impotent anger, Wayan
Mendra looked around his narrow living room. Hanging proudly on
the wall was an old picture of himself, dressed in a neatly
pressed safari uniform, receiving an award for his role as an
orator during a campaign for the Golkar Party, which all
teachers, as members of the civil service, were required under
the New Order to join.

Underneath it was a photo of his oldest son on his first day
of school, dressed in his new uniform of shorts, shirt and tie, a
look of great solemnity on his still-unformed face. And stacked
neatly on the table were the books on the nation's history that
he had to teach tomorrow morning to class. As an educated man,
Wayan Mendra knew there were things in those books that were
wrong.

But as a practical man, and as a man with few alternatives, he
also knew he would not risk his job by trying to teach what had
not been handed down from on high. He knew he was not Indra and
he was not Yama, and he had no forest to retreat to when things
got complicated in the real world.

The next morning, Wayan Mendra parked his bike behind the
school and walked into his classroom, the weight of his bag heavy
on his shoulders. But this morning, his students did not rise,
like they usually did, to wish him a good morning in unison.
Instead, one of the pupils called out, "When's the demo, Pak?
We're all ready to go to the Legislature building." "Cool!"
another one exclaimed. "We're bored in class because nothing ever
happens," said yet another. Wayan Mendra was speechless. All he
could do was imagine, with a new hope rising in his heart, that
something might be possible after all.