Marking time until the final gong in Indonesian jails

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.