Marking time until the final gong in Indonesian jails
By Tina Gue
What is life like behind bars? Only those who have been prisoners know the agony of waiting for time to pass until the day freedom is allowed once again. Time, so many of us cannot afford to waste, seems abundant and endless for those living behind bars. Only the ticking of the clocks and the sounding of bells, or alarms, indicates that life is passing, that existence continues.
JAKARTA (JP): The hollow sound of a gong is thrown out into the midday heat. The sun-flooded court yard with its trimmed garden absorbs the sound, but the young men with numbers on their T-shirts understand the message. Their fingers stop pulling at the minute unwanted weeds, and a pair of shears finishes its last click into the bleached, kept lawn. After handing the shears to the watching warden, the young men slowly walk towards the eating hall.
From one of the dark doorways surrounding the patterns of trimmed hedges, a hair dresser and his model brush off the itchy small hairs, as they discuss the result of the trim. The length is not quite right for the latest fashion, but in a couple of months it will be perfect. Both have nothing else but time to wait for the hair to grow.
As the gong gives its second beat, they stop their discussion, put their T-shirts back on, and hand the scissors to another waiting warden before joining the others in the shadowy isles.
They pass a classroom being used for the final exams. The teacher is collecting the test, but a few students have left some questions unanswered. They have to believe they will pass. If they pass their examinations and behave during the summer break, they may be allowed to go to a senior high school on the outside -- a ticket to at least one morning away from bars and boundless hours of waiting.
After a pile of paper rests on the teacher's desk, the students hurry towards their cells to change their white shirts into their numbered T-shirts Before the 3rd stroke flies out from the gong, they join their hungry mates in front of the bars of the eating hall.
The young men on kitchen duty have cooked vegetables in coconut milk and steamed a huge pot of rice over noisy gas burners. When the tempe (soya bean cake) is about to be cut, a silvery moustached warden gets up from his chair in a dark corner of the kitchen. He doesn't trust the young men to cut the limited amount of tempe into equal pieces. Bending stiffly over the cement table with cracked tiles, he scratches out the portions with his long fingernail before allow the knife to cut today's protein.
After the correct amount of tempe is fried, the heavy pots are brought past the fidgety crowd into the eating hall with its rough tables. Noisy jokes drown the silent young men on the periphery.
The 4th beat of the gong makes the last boys leave the bare hall with brooms and a bucket full of dust. The bucket is quickly emptied, and the brooms thrown into a corner. They then join the anxious faces inspecting the metal plates being filled with the food. The noise slowly decreases as everybody's eyes try to work out which plate to go for -- the portions are never equal.
The lucky ones grab their choice before the empty pots are taken back to the kitchen. With clean hands and hungry eyes they listen to the trusted foreman recited the day's messages. For the privilege of staying in a unlocked cell, he must help organize work for the prisoners. He also settles the inevitably differences between the boys.
Neither he nor the wardens have the power to keep tattoos out of the prison. No matter how many eyes are watching or how many rules are made, the fantastic decorations twine further up and down limbs and torsos telling the romantic fantasies of young men who don't have much to carry their dreams in.
The foreman finishes his speech by announcing the afternoon football match. Within no time the plates are empty. Slowly the young men vanish into the shade of the isles. Squatting in groups they share prohibited cigarettes, the breach goes unpunished for 10 minutes after lunch. Once the cigarettes are smoked right down until they hit calloused fingers, the drowsy afternoon heat has come to stay and the waiting starts.
The football match will start in minute. Somebody may be expecting a visitor today, or, if not today, maybe next week. A friend takes a metal plate of food to the clinic. Without a word he places the tray beside a sleeping man who has an illness no one can cure.
But most of the young men with numbers on their T-shirts are just waiting for the sound of the gong signaling another day has passed -- one less day to count before they can return to their families. They spend the time lying on their sleeping mats thinking about the new brother or sister who has been born in the family, and they imagine their friends who will have grown but not changed. They avoid thinking about life in the neighborhood which will always produce victims who cannot obtain the quality of life produced by a society where money, Mercedes and beauty are the ingredients that count.
As long as honesty and pride don't count in society, young Indonesians will commit crimes which will put them behind bars.