26 years. Nevertheless, as the pictures flutter across my computer screensaver, I feel like they were different lifetimes. Unique and diverse. The continuity difficult to identify externally. I, however, see the line, the connections. High school, Ohio State, ‘The Summer of 2005’, Reading, London, Maine, the brief South American adventure… and this life in Indonesia.
I’ve discovered the freedom from having liberated hair… a hairbrush is dispensable. A toothbrush is not. Of this I am reminded daily from the prolific toothless, brown, and crimson grins. Stained brown from a diet of coffee and cigarettes (especially men). Stained crimson from the betel nut chewed diligently in the villages (especially women).
The electricity has just awakened. Off for nearly 4½ hours. The brown outs are frequent and sporadic. When one will occur there is no certainty. I am learning to have a steady supply of candles and matches handy.
I came to Flores eager and ready to move into a bamboo hut. Surely, camping in Maine and Ecuador had prepared me for the challenge. However, I find myself in ‘luxury’ accommodation. I have electricity… sometimes. I have running water… sometimes and only in the bathroom. I have real walls and a floor… sometimes they leak and pool with water. VSO even provides money to purchase a refrigerator, however, with the unpredictable brown outs of several hours, I think it’s best to keep its contents to a minimum. Unfortunately no ice cream in Bajawa L
I even have a family. Indeed it’s actually their house, I merely rent a part of it. Their inquisitive, as is the Indonesian nature. They peer over our partitions from their perch on the steps or magically appear outside when I open the door… seriously it’s as if they’ve been teleported from the Starship Enterprise.
In the morning they ask if I have already showered… even when I am dripping wet.
In the afternoon they ask if I am back from work… even when I am sitting outside my room reading.
In the evening they ask if I am cooking dinner… even when my rice cooker has sprung into action and I’m eyeing a bunch of leafy greens that appear to have direct from a tree. I explain all my ingredients to practice my language and set to work attempting to prepare something with the exotic veg. Then they bring me food… obviously unimpressed by my recipe ideas. One by one, they call out their edible offerings. A sweet. A fruit. A veg. A soup. A saucy something. As if each member has had the same enlightened idea… to feed the strange white girl. This evening the healthy gifts of fried bananas and fried rice with pork. I eat the pork gingerly… it’s my preference for hairless meat that looks less like a pig and more like a pork-chop. Crazy. I save my already prepared leafy greens with chilies and rice for breakfast. No Wheaties for this champ.
My goal of the first weekend was to get settled. After work on SATURDAY, I had intended a leisure unpacking. Milkey, a work colleague, was amusing my indecisiveness on cabinet locations. In a cloud of smoke. ‘My family’ was in the room. They just appear. Like rubbing Aladdin’s magic genie lamp. They sprung into action. My thoughts didn’t seem to matter much… perhaps because they were in English. The girls were cleaning. The mother giving orders. The father taping cords to the wall and moving furniture.
Co-habitating . Living together. Living in harmony.
I have my cockroaches. I have my family. And now 2 geckos have moved in to taunt a tranquil 2 inch black month that clings in the crevice between ceiling and wall.
Sometimes I see them, sometimes I don’t. The cockroaches will play dead for days on end. Nevertheless, I am not fooled. They are alive. They lie there and lie there. Then one day they’ve disappeared. I let them play… spray doesn’t work and ‘popping’ them is beyond me.
The geckos dissipate with the flick of a light switch. Where to, I don’t know? Attempts to find them in the lit room are futile. I hear them re-emerge as I drift to sleep. Their “gecko-gecko-gecko” chirps.
No comments:
Post a Comment