The First Sun of a New Year
Eight Indonesians and one American climb to new levels of understanding.
Blinding clouds converged on us from all directions. My tired lungs ached as my chest painfully squeezed in on them. I had not experienced such a challenge in over a year. Wet and muddy, I forced my legs to stand, and I strained my eyes to see, but with each breath, my open mouth comfortably formed a natural smile. It was a smile that was immediately answered by eight others, and as two warm arms wrapped around my shoulder, our group shared in a mutual sense of genuine accomplishment. Mixed emotions of frustration, euphoria, and achievement defined the mood and helped to solidify an unbreakable bond between nine very new and very unlikely friends.
Since that moment on top of Gunung Sinabung, two and a half kilometers above the earth, I've laughed to myself about what it might look like to see a group of people on Jalan Setia Budi in Medan, huddled together, each in near agony, some with visible wounds, but nonetheless each person still laughing and joking uncontrollably. You would probably suspect that we were all utterly crazy. Maybe you would even avoid walking passed us until you had a sizable friend to protect you. But nothing like this could ever happen on the streets of Indonesia's third largest city. Our unique case of insanity was actually a healthy condition – a condition which could have only been brought on by the emotional, physical, and mental challenges that only an American English teacher and eight Indonesian college students could experience after hiking together, up to one of North Sumatra's highest peaks.
Our journey began on December 30th, 2008 at the campus of North Sumatra University (USU). I was introduced to most of the group for the first time, and friendships began to form on the spot. Pipi, who was already a good friend of mine, had invited me to join everyone on this expedition. A few nights before I had played indoor soccer with Djarot and Reza. However, Gulit, Noni, Yogi, Hussein, and David, I had only met that day. They were all college students at USU. Some had a great deal of experience hiking, and some had never climbed a mountain in their lives. It was a dynamic group, and each of us were equally enthusiastic.
I was the only non-native Indonesian and the only one who had not been raised in a Muslim household, but that was never a concern of mine. Only six months earlier, I had been living and teaching on the campus of a pondok pesantren in Central Java, where I taught for a year without any problems. So even though I had not yet traveled exclusively with a group of Muslims my age, I had already gained a strong appreciation for Islam and a considerable knowledge of Indonesian culture. The contrasts between us were as clear as day, but our countless similarities were already bringing us together. No differences were interpreted as anything negative. Working together, we organized all of our bags, rolled up the tent and mattresses, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then set off on foot to Jamin Ginting Street, where many buses head straight to Berastagi and to the base of Gunung Sinabung. A new adventure and a new year awaited us all.
Even the first leg of the trip was exciting for me. Bussing cross-country in the United States is an entirely different experience from bussing cross-country in Indonesia. The common occurrences that define public transportation in North Sumatra, which all my new friends habitually ignored, were captivating for me. The iron bars on the outside of travel busses in Medan had always drawn my attention. I had assumed that they were supposed to serve as roll bars. If a bus accidentally tipped on it's side while driving down a curvy mountain road, it seemed to me that these bars would help to prevent broken glass from injuring the passengers. That very well could have been their original intention. However, only as a passenger did I witness a new application of these bars. But startlingly, their new use seemed to present a great amount of danger, rather than protection. They were being used by the conductor who, to my surprise, utilized them to hang, swing, and climb on the outside of the bus to collect money from each passenger. I could have just as easily been watching Spiderman 3, as our Batak superhero risked his life to save everyone on board from forgetting to pay their bus fair!
It is difficult for me to leave the mindset I've always had in the United States. We Americans are a large group of health, safety, and comfort freaks. Our affluent society has molded us so that we have come to expect certain luxuries and some admittedly hard-to-reach standards. For example, I'm accustomed to vehicles traveling smoothly at 100-130 km/hr, while simultaneously obeying very strict traffic laws. A man who climbed on the outside of a bus in my home-state of Kentucky would be out of his mind. Not only would he be braving hurricane-like winds, but he would also be risking unavoidable fines if a policeman happen to see his dangerous behavior. So, when my Indonesian friends saw the genuinely shocked expression on my face, while I was transfixed on our courageous conductor, I was providing just as much entertainment for them as he was providing for me.
In only a day's time, I was going to experience first-hand that the human body is capable of much more on a daily basis than what many of my American friends and I give it credit for. I have always gone out of my way to plan hiking and adventure trips to minimize the possibility of danger. I've tried to bring every single tool that could fit into my bag: tissues, hand sanitizer, band-aids, flashlights, etc. But, when I traveled with this group of eager new friends, who all cared deeply about one another and who were always concerned about each other's well-being in ways other than providing handy gadgets, I could see that my portable necessities were going to become quite secondary. I knew that climbing this mountain was going to be an unprecedented physical challenge for me, but at least the company put my mind at ease.
After arriving at our campsite later that evening, we began to arrange all of our bags in the dark and set up the tent. The night's events would include cooking rice, veggies, and kerupuk on Reza's gas stove, and then playing cards until we could no longer stay awake. That night and the next day were essential for relationship building in our group. With nine people to get up this mountain in the middle of the night, group consensus was going to be important. We did not plan to start hiking until after midnight on January 1st because we wanted to experience the view at the top of Sinabung with the unique lighting of a rising sun. Consequently, we had about 24 hours to relax at the base of the mountain and to strengthen our friendships before we left. The next 24 hours brought us all incredibly close together, and it could have never been planned this way, but I would have been ready to face any challenge with them after creating so much trust in such a short time.
In all honesty though, December 31st was not all fun and games. It was a day of ups and downs. There were invigorating times of warm sun and disheartening stretches of cold rain. The weather prompted a few of us, including myself, to have second thoughts about whether or not we could even get up the mountain. However, we had already come this far, and the elements, no matter how adverse, were not going to influence our decision to climb. The real switch in mood came later that afternoon, and it had nothing to do with the temperature or the rain. Only three days earlier, Israel had begun its most recent bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, and many of our most deeply-seated and emotional ideologies were placed at the head the table.
Throughout my year and a half in Indonesia, I've been involved in countless controversial conversations about politics, current events, Christianity, Islam, “free sex” in America, and corruption in the Indonesian government. But, until I found myself comfortably lying down in a tent, in one of the most beautiful locations in North Sumatra, I had never felt so challenged and unsure about my own beliefs.
This group of college students was informed, curious, and skeptical of American involvement on a world scale. For the last eight years, the United States' government has given Israel what many believe to be unconditional support, and it's no secret that most Americans do not identify with Hamas, who is currently governing the Gaza Strip. However, even our group of young students realized that if we reinforced our own personal prejudices by blaming a single side of this multi-faceted conflict, we would not be able to accomplish anything. Although many pointed and intentionally powerful questions were raised during our talk, we only used this heated issue as a medium of conversation to learn more about ourselves.
The place where we were born and the way we were raised have everything to do with how we feel about these heavily debated issues. Simply watching one of CNN, The BBC, Al Jazeera, or Trans TV will shape our opinions about people we have never met and who we frankly know nothing about. Noni, Pipi, Djarot, and David were the most interested in talking to me about my opinions concerning The Middle East, and our group of five young people did more to clear up the misunderstandings between us than 500 news programs could ever do. What we truly took away from this conversation actually had nothing to do with Palestine or Israel. We learned together that it is important to first understand a person's background and only then to try to begin analyzing the words that he or she says. It takes much more effort to comprehend why a person believes what he believes, but the importance lies in “Why?” and not in “What?”
No feelings were ever hurt during the conversation, but emotions were high. There was a point when tears actually began to form in my eyes, and everyone realized that we were going too far. Some awkward jokes started to circle around the tent in order to lighten the mood, and I got a pat on the back from Djarot. In some ways I felt embarrassed, but mostly I felt motivated to learn more about my new friends, and I know that they were just as happy to learn more about me.
At about 12:30 a.m. Reza, Hussein, and David became our unofficial group leaders. They lead us up the mountain in the rain, only minutes after the fireworks had ended at our campsite. We had hired no guides, brought only a few flashlights, a few bottles of water, and many of us were carrying packs. The six-hour ascent to the top was not going to be relaxing. On top of this, my sandals, which had served me so well while climbing the much less challenging Gunung Sibayak, were no match for the muddy paths that lead to the peak of Gunung Sinabung. Already slipping around within the first hour, I knew that I was going to have to be extremely careful for the rest of the hike.
We spent an hour and a half just searching for the trail to the top before we even stated to climb. We roamed the mountainside, walking through farmland and accumulating new group members who were also lost in the fields. My American danger alarms were loud inside my head. Only a year before, I had climbed a mountain with a friend who was not expecting such an extreme challenge, and she hurt her leg half way through the hike. I was worried about those in our group who had never climbed a mountain before because, even at this early point in our journey, the group leaders and I were already beginning to get tired. I could feel myself getting frustrated. Already our water bottles were starting to get low, and I began to doubt whether or not we could reach our destination at the top, much less make it there before sunrise.
It is important to have a goal in mind, but the road one takes to achieve his goals is no less important. My time in Indonesia has shown me that when we find ourselves in an unlucky situation, we should not worry about what we can no longer do, but instead consider what we can do at that moment to make our situation better. As I shook my head in disappointment, I looked at the people around me and noticed that I was the only person who was overtly displaying negative feelings. In this situation, which would be terribly stressful for the average group of Americans (or at least the ones I know), I was surprised to find myself still surrounded by smiles, people making jokes, and no one complaining about anything. I left my negative thoughts for a moment and imagined the millions of ways in which this situation could have been much worse. It wasn't so bad. I was with friends, and if there was nothing we could do, we would just make our way back, get some sleep, and always remember the fun we had trying to get to the top of Gunung Sinabung.
As it turned out, we were not far from the trail, and our group leaders, whose egos were the only things in jeopardy, managed to find the path. Soon after that, we found a clean mountain spring and were able to refill our empty water bottles. Our climb to the top remained very difficult and strenuous, but we had a direction, and no one was willing to stop. We reached the peak hours later in a thick patch of fog, and we missed the sunrise. However, the volcanic mountain provided us with warmth as we waited at high elevation for the clouds to clear. Huddled together at daybreak, we cured our chills with the steam pouring off the top of the mountain, and some of us fell asleep, calmly passing the time before the clouds cleared and an astounding view was revealed.
The first sun in 2009 broke through the overcast at about 7:30 a.m. and shed light over hundreds of kilometers in one of Indonesia's most spectacular regions. We could see all the way from the mountains of Aceh to the waters of Danau Toba. I'd never imagined my home in North Sumatra could be so breathtaking, and the light in which I saw my new friends could not have been brighter. Our journey back down the mountain was imminent, but we had already raised our spirits and our awareness to a point where nothing could knock them down.
