Banjir or Disney Land?

I think I’ll begin by saying:

Ms. Eny, my God, you never fail to deliver!

January 10th was Tahun Baru (New Year’s) for Muslims, year 1428. And, to celebrate this occasion, I agreed to cook spaghetti for Ms. Eny’s entire extended family. Well actually, I agreed to cook spaghetti for Ms. Eny and her mother, but when I arrived at her house and met a crowd of hungry people playing monopoly on her front porch, as well as three more kilograms of tomatoes than what I had suggested she get, I couldn’t really refuse the major cooking operation that was about to go down. I was quickly ushered to the backyard, where the kitchen is located under a canopy attached to the house. We immediately arranged some cutting boards and started a fire.

I arrived at noon, and apparently everyone had been expecting to have already begun eating around that time. So, numerous jokes immediately ensued about how this meal had certainly better be delicious and about how they’d all been waiting. I knew though, that with an intimidating collective hunger working on my side, it would be hard to disappoint, especially with nothing but fresh ingredients at my disposal.

Initially, this was supposed to be the “Ken show,” where I was to prepare everything and serve the meal, but since Ms. Eny had opted to buy cherry tomatoes, it was imperative that I enlist some help to dice the couple hundred pieces of fruit sitting in front of me (so are tomatoes fruit, or what?). This was a really fun undertaking; Ms. Eny and I got to sit around at her home for a couple hours, preparing the meal for everyone. All the while, we were able to chat without any pressure on us from other community members. I know her better than most people I’ve met here, just because she can speak English pretty well, but our relationship is still kind of superficial (by my definition of friendship). Any time we are in public we can’t really walk next to each other, and at the school, we never could have anything more than a passing conversation between classes. The very real fear of Ms. Eny getting fired because of an alleged relationship between us is not worth us sitting together at the same table in the teacher’s lounge. In all seriousness, because I actually speak to another female openly in public, every single one of my female classes makes jokes about us “being together.” Case in point, it was refreshing to have a nice conversation with her. But I digress.

The spaghetti was a success, and some of her relatives had actually never eaten pasta before. And because of this, many liberties were taken to Javanize the meal! I started to laugh out loud when they all brought out the kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) and crupuk (rice crackers) to eat with their dish. By our standards, Javanese people in general must have their food screaming with sugar, so my conservative use this staple ingredient did not suffice. When I saw 15 plates with dark goopy ketchup plopped on top of my wonderful tomato sauce, I could hardly deal with the atrocity I was witnessing!

Despite what I had initially assumed, the New Year was, in fact, not the occasion why so many people had unexpectedly dropped in to enjoy a popular American meal. This wasn’t a typical intentional scheme to put me on the spot, and my suspicions were raised when everyone sat down to eat in Ms. Eny’s living room. It was completely rearranged, and beside it was a luggage-packed foyer. Her relatives actually were seeking refuge because of the fact that their living rooms were sitting about two feet under water.

Upon hearing this, I was truly shaken and felt a good deal of remorse, but I can’t say I was surprised; right now flooding in Indonesia is worse than most of my friends here have ever seen. There are floods displacing families all over Java, as well as in many other places across the country. When we hear about floods in the US, it’s usually because of a natural disaster or an unexpected excessive amount of rain – but mostly because it’s occurred in a populated area. On an island with more people than Japan, Java doesn’t boast many rural districts. So when it floods, somebody is affected, and it’s not because of a natural disaster; it’s because of the rainy season – every year.

For the last week or so, I had been hearing about the flood in Juwana, the closest city to my village, but I hadn’t yet seen it. I’d listened to some stories about people helping their friends and family move out of saturated houses and of others who were preparing for an imminent river through their neighborhood. So, along with many graphic pictures in various newspapers, I was feeling reasonably distressed. What I couldn’t initially understand though (and I’m sure you can relate) is why no one else seemed at all worried or even unhappy about the situation. I guess when you live in a country rife with earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, sulfur geysers, corruption, and poverty… floods don’t really add a whole lot to the playing field. If there’s one difference I’ve noticed about people here, it’s that their outlook on misfortune is completely nonchalant. They deal with it much better than we do, and that’s for sure. I was introduced to a woman two days ago as follows… verbatim:

“Hey Ken, this is Mrs. Sujono. You know, the pregnant lady in the office who lost her baby last week.”

“Oh. Hi… yeah, I’m… really sorry? …”

I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised when, directly after the meal, Ms. Eny excitedly asked me if I wanted to go hang out at the banjir (flood) that had just rendered her family homeless. I guess I was expecting a more solemn tone in her voice, especially right in front of her refugee aunt. Nevertheless, I was curious to see the condition of Juwana, and from her enthusiasm, as well as from what I already knew about Indonesian people, I was confident that I wouldn’t have to witness pain, misery, and panic. So with that in mind, I looked at the time and realized that, actually, I was overdue that day for a life changing experience. Camera and plastic bag in hand, we immediately hopped on a motorcycle and headed toward the disaster area.

Crossing the familiar bridge into Juwana, I looked down at what was once a calm stream but what was now a massive torrent of water, engulfing houses farther than I could see. From this perspective, even the word, “flood,” seemed like an understatement. Traffic was terrible because of the alternate roots that had to be utilized, and once we finally parked the mo-ped, among hundreds of others, I saw canoe-like water taxis taking people to their homes in the middle of the newly formed lake. Most people, though, were just swimming to their destinations.

The goal for the afternoon was actually to visit Imam, my counterpart, whose house is currently located about half a yard from the edge of the water, which had extend about a kilometer past the banks of the river. This meant we had to travel up stream about two kilometers through the submerged neighborhood before taking a left and heading away from the river toward his house. But first, we had plans to stop at the home of another of Ms. Eny’s reletives, who had decided to stick it out, even though her house was about 25 yards from the river.

As we approached a water taxi at road’s end, I could immediately see that the atmosphere of this occasion was certainly not that of a flood – but of a banjir (flood in the Indonesian sense). All the ingrained images I had of people crying because of lost possessions, of families seeking refuge on rooftops, and of rescue boats frantically stretching their limits to save as many lives as possible were thrown completely out the window. This banjir defied every news report of a natural disaster I’d ever seen. The backed up traffic, in fact, was not the result of an inconvenient detour; it was queue. It was a line in which people were waiting patiently to come and enjoy this once-a-year festival, brought by the broken banks of the Silugonggo river.

I realized the surprising reality of the line to enter the community when the flooded streets became exponentially more crowded as time went on. By evening, there were so many people chest deep in water, playing merrily in the alleys, that the boats could barely pass by. Even still, I could hardly shake my deep-seated western perspective, and I was constantly focused on the blatant damage all around me. I couldn’t begin to count how many times I exclaimed to Ms. Eny, “…and they’re not even upset about this???” To which she finally responded, “Ken, this is like temporary Disney Land for these people.”

Wrapping my mind around that statement took a while, but I guess I can understand. In general, traveling is not a pastime for most Javanese people. In fact, the government is giving transmigration incentives to those who will actually consider moving off Java to another island. That being said, something out of the ordinary is exiting, no matter what the context. Also, houses are simply not the same here. A flood isn’t going to do a whole lot more damage to most of these homes than a hard rain would do. There’s no such thing as weather stripping, expensive carpets, insulated walls, or furniture you couldn’t just replace by bartering with the local carpenter or wood carver. Not to mention, the sense of community is so much stronger here. For example, the roof over Imam’s kitchen was ripped right off his house during a powerful storm last month, and it was actually a joyous occasion for his friends and family to gather together and build a brand new one, the very next day. So, cleaning up after the water finally drains out will not be the depressing, murky project that I could only imagine for populated city in the U.S.

That being said however, next year, if Juwana’a village leader charges admission to enter the floating town, I’m confident it would more than fund the efforts to clean it up afterwards. And now, I’m also confident that if Disney World dropped its crappy western-themed section and added a brand new water park, resembling a half-sunken Indonesian city, where children could share in the experience of swimming to their bedrooms, inner-tubing to their friends houses, or buying freshly cooked fish from a vendor on a raft with a portable kerosene stove… well, at least I would be much more likely to take my family there.

Since I’ve been in this country, some of the most powerful images for me were of the small neighborhood close to the river where Ms. Eny’s relatives live. Off the beaten path (stream?), where not as many people were gathering to play, residents of the village were sill going about their normal routines – just in a slightly different manner. Laundry was hung out to dry on tall TV antennas, people were bathing in their front yards, and I helped to make a banana smoothie in someone’s kitchen, waste deep in water.

As children, we are taught to make the best whatever situation we might find ourselves in, illustrated by the hackneyed expression, “If life gives you a bowl of potatoes, make potato salad.” Well, in Indonesia, if life gives you a bowl of shit, guess what you make…