Indonesian Thanksgiving is Slightly Different

At the beginning of November another teacher here, Ms. Eny informed me about two happenings in her village that would occur at the end of the month. Ms. Eny has become one of my best friends here (despite the fact that she is female… har har har), and she always keeps me up to date about opportunities to have an authentic Indonesian experience. She told me that I simply could not afford to miss Wayang Kulit and Panjat Pinang near her house. I was very disappointed to tell her, though, that I had already made plans to attend an “American Thanksgiving in Indonesia” with some other Fulbright scholars on the island of Sumatra. After telling her this, the celebration never really came up in conversation again, and the idea of going to the traditional function left my mind before I really knew what I was going to miss. However, as Thanksgiving started to draw near, I had not yet ordered plane tickets because I started to have second thoughts about traveling so far away. I already knew that I would be gone from the village for the better part of December, and I started to feel guilty about leaving.

On November 18th, I found myself at Ms. Eny’s home, talking about my Thanksgiving plans. She has traveled inside Indonesia more than anyone else I know here, and she has given me valuable tips every time I’ve had an aspiration to leave Guyangan. On top of this, she’s the only person I know who has an internet connection in her home, and hence, she has affectively assumed the role of my travel agent. So, as I was talking to her about buying tickets to Sumatra, she casually interjected, “Too bad you can’t see an Indonesian Thanksgiving in Indonesia.” Her comment genuinely confused me, and I asked her to clarify what she meant. Apparently, because of where Ramadan fell this year, the Javanese equivalent of our Turkey Day (a sort of giving thanks type of holiday) was happening on the exact same weekend. With this new knowledge, combined with my already ambivalent attitude toward leaving, I made the executive decision to experience Sedekah Bumi as an Indonesian.

I’m not entirely able to express how happy Ms. Eny was to hear about my staying. At age 30, she has really started to enjoy living vicariously through me at events that would never be tolerated in my pesantren community. She’s always encouraging me to do silly little things like gamble behind an eating stall (illegally) or to enjoy a savory meal in front of people during Ramadan. The hilarity of these situations never stop for me because she absolutely falls into the category of a conservative Muslim, even for a Javanese person. She’s just so excited to have an American friend that she’s always cheering me on to do all the things that she would never do. On top of this, her sense of humor is spot-on, and wow, if only I had known a bit more about Panjat Pinang before smugly riding the headmaster’s mo-ped to her home.

Any time I leave Guyangan, the novelty of my presence is immediately set back four months, and I feel like a rock star all over again. Even though I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t anticipate that the Sedekah Bumi celebration in Ms Eny’s village would be an exception. I’ll tell you what though; if I told you that I didn’t enjoy every minute of the attention, I would be inaccurately conveying to you my genuine feelings about living here! Nevertheless, because I know that I will be leaving after only one year, it has not been a challenge for me to strike a balance between vanity and humility.

Ms. Eny and I left her home and made our way to the popular event. Upon entering the mystifying scene of a few hundred Indonesians huddled in a scrappy back-alley, a makeshift wooden stage, and two 30-foot-tall oil-slicked shoots of bamboo with prizes dangling from the top, I knew immediately that I was about to witness some sort of wacky competition. After being urged to the front of the crowd to get a better view, I stood and waited as the M.C. blared his introduction to the audience in traditional Javanese. At this point, I was pretty inattentive because I’ve made very little effort to learn the Javanese language, and I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. However, I became promptly engaged after I picked out an unmistakable “Mrrrrrr. Kennnnn!” While a cheering audience pushed me up to the stage, I quickly forced a smile to mask my shock, and I looked back at Ms. Eny with a playful sneer and a sigh. I quickly noticed that everything else seemed to be totally blacked out by her glowing grin, and it then occurred to me – she must have previously informed someone that I would be attending.

An intense tag-team competition was about to go down, including a combination of events that the producers of Fear Factor would love to get their hands on. Panjat Pinang is no joke! Starting with a group of blindfolded people, jumping around trying to smash hanging ceramic pots (with their heads) that were filled with red die, to pulling out embedded coins with your mouth from an oil-covered coconut, I was in for a real treat.

The last and main event, however, was the Panjat Pinang, from which the whole competition gets it’s name. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin with this…

After being thoroughly humiliated during all of the previous events, I was ushered over to one of the axel-grease coated towers, around which this event was to be centralized. All of the people I had been competing against in the previous competition now joined with me in order to defeat a common enemy, the Waria, who were already waiting for us at the other pole. This was a big surprise to me. Waria have quite a reputation in Indonesia; they happen to be a socially accepted, vastly prevalent, jolly group of transvestites and transsexuals. They are loud, crazy, and many times homeless (but more in the sense of a gypsy, not so much that they sit around asking for money). And apparently, they have a reputation for honing in on events such as this, in order to try and win money, prizes, and the attention of audience members.

As you might be questioning right now, considering what I’ve told about how much Indonesian people love to be entertained by my being around… which team do you think I was urged to join? Well, it wasn’t the crew of people I had just made friends with during the rice-eating contest!

For the first couple attempts at climbing the tower, I was to join the team of Waria, who predictably enjoyed my being on their side more than the audience members. After sufficiently patronizing me, attempting to flirt, trying to kiss, and making very little effort to win the competition, I fled the scene and joined my former teammates. Unfortunately (mainly due to the cheating Waria, who were constantly leaving their post and knocking down our tower of people), my team did not win, but the memories I gained from this experience certainly rival anything else I’ve ever done in my life. From here, I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves. They’re coming soon, I promise!