An unexpected welcome

Banyuwangi countryside in the evening

After saying goodbye, we climbed back into the car with Azan and we drove back over the same country roads, to Kota Banyuwangi. Kota means ‘town.’ The drive back was pleasant as the evening wore on, beautiful farmhouses and fields passing us, and the air fragrant with the start of night-time scents. What would we do when we got back into town? It would be too late, of course, to take the ferry back to Bali. Our flight home was from the Denpasar airport in the south of the island. I’d just assumed we would find a hotel and Yudhie and I would stay the night, and then find our way to the port in the morning.

‘No, no, no,’ protested Azan. ‘You can’t stay in a hotel. Besides, there are no good ones nearby, and you want to get to the ferry and board it without a problem. You will stay overnight in the home of one of my brothers. He just lives around the corner from me, and he has a spare bedroom.’ I shouldn’t have been, but I was astonished at his hospitality, even after he and his family members had been such help to us already. It just seemed like asking too much. Except that we weren’t asking. He was offering.

‘Are you really sure it’s alright? I mean, have you asked him?’ I said. ‘No problem, he will be happy to have you. He and his wife have only a small baby. They have room.’ And so, that settled it. We just accepted with thanks, and continued to enjoy each other’s company on the way home. We three, Yudhie, Azan and me, sat together in the back seat of the car. Occasionally there was chit-chat in an Indonesian language, probably Javanese, as that is what is spoken in this province, and I didn’t understand very much of it. But it was on the ride back that Azan started up a conversation with me.

Knowing that we are Christians, and even more, that I was an overseas Christian, it seemed that Azan wanted to ask me questions about, well, spiritual topics. But they were not about comparing religions or religious ideas. He never mentioned Islam or Muhammad at all. He wanted to know if I believed in black magic! This really took me by surprise, until I remembered that in Indonesia, magic of all sorts, black and white and everything in between, is practiced and taken quite seriously. This is a land of shamans and sorcerers, though I never actually saw any. I wasn’t meant to.

Santet, Indonesian black magic

I’m not just talking about things like the evil eye, which is a common belief that spans the globe from Morocco to Indonesia, but hard-core magic, casting spells in particular. There’s a real belief here that spells can be cast and have an effect, bad or good, on people. There is also a strong belief in ‘fate,’ that is, a force that directs your life to a certain end that you have no control over, not even by free will. This idea didn’t begin here but is the heritage of all Indo-European peoples from Ireland to India, and the lands influenced by them, the Indies, the Far East.

‘You know, there are people here that will put a curse on your enemy for you, if you pay them, and it is very hard to escape the curse,’ Azan told me. ‘Do you really believe in that?’ I asked him. ‘Yes, I do. I have had experiences of this kind. I know it happens.’ He actually looked a bit scared when he said this. We were sitting together quite snuggly, and my right arm was resting on the top of the seat and touching the window frame. I slid my hand down and rested it softly on Azan’s right shoulder. ‘Don’t you know that curses have an effect on you only if you believe in them? If you are a servant of Allah, as I know you are, He is protecting you, so you should not believe in such things as curses.’

‘Our God is a good and man-loving God,’ I continued, ‘and there are no other gods, He is One and there is no other. There may be devils, yes, and they may attack men, but even they have no power over us, because God has broken their power. They can only trick us into fearing them. It’s the same with curses. If we fear what cannot really harm us, we open ourselves to attack, and even to being captured.’ ‘You really believe this?’ he asked, ‘How can you know these things? How do you know that black magic has no power?’ What could I say but what I did? ‘Because I believe in the One who went down to hell, put death to death, and awakened and freed all those who slept in the tombs. He has destroyed not only death, but every evil power is under His feet. You know who I’m talking about?’

An uncomfortable silence, but I looked at him and a wave seemed to pass over his face, then he looked normal again. ‘This is why we are Christians,’ I continued, ‘and why we are not afraid of black magic. The Lord has defeated it already, long before we were born. His power is infinite. Trust Him, Azan, and don’t fear what doesn’t really exist.’ Did I speak the name of Jesus in this conversation? No, I don’t remember speaking His name, but what I really said was something along the lines of what I have written here. I spoke as a Christian to a Muslim brother, saying nothing to break down what faith he has, but only what I hoped would encourage him to believe more deeply. He knew that Jesus was in my heart. That was enough, for now.

This interesting testimony by an Indonesian who was formerly a practitioner of black magic will shed more light on this subject for those who are interested.

Next… Yndonesia by flying carpet

At home in Siliragung

                   some things that are cannot be told in prose
                   evincing poetry, these acts unrhyme
                   the past, the present, future, and all time,
                   rewriting all that happened, all we chose

                   a son returns a man still aged fifteen
                   his dreams as flowers scattered on a stone
                   remember still the land where they were sown
                   so he his heart unearths, uncrushed, unseen

                   too large, let it be written as it may
                   mine eyes have seen it, truly, through a veil
                   a tear in time admits one lately born
                   to regions where the mind can surely stay
                   awaiting all that left behind must trail
                   until all shall be mended that was torn

Going home and being at home take on many shades of meaning.
For Yudhie, the village of Siliragung had never been his home, though it was his mother's village, and he continues to have relatives there—his aunt (his mother's sister), his cousins, and their children. He had not been here in Siliragung since he was brought here for Indiyati's funeral when he was just a boy of fifteen. His mother was never well, and one day she told her daughter and son that she needed to return to her village in far away Banyuwangi. They were living in a small village near Lampung, Sumatera. That was the only home Yudhie had known up till then. But Indiyati wanted to return to her home village and see it for the last time. She knew she was going home to die, to be with the Lord. One of the last things she asked was, 'Who will take care of Yudhie?'

Back to the present, riding in a reliable old car piloted by our friends from Banyuwangi town, navigating our way through the beautiful countryside of southeastern Java—at the time I didn't realise how close we were to the sea—we were finally in Siliragung. Mir guided our driver to the first stop, the first of the many relatives we would meet that day. As happened to us before in Nakao village, in Sumatera, people, especially children, poured out of the house. Here the houses were constructed a little differently, but still they were brick with woven bamboo walls and shutters. We removed our sandals and left them outside, and entered the small ante-chamber and then a large living room.

Greetings and introductions were made, and I understanding hardly a word, except for the universal language, smiles and handshakes. We were made to sit down while a ceremony of bringing snacks to the table began. After a bit I walked around and took a few photos. Our camera was not adjusted properly for the first couple of images, which are too dark, but you can see in the second of them, the people sitting around the table, our only photo of Azan. He's the young man in the center facing us. He would stay with us and be our guide from now until he saw us off at Gilimanuk, safely on the bus to Denpasar.

As all farmers' homes in every land, the place was homey and comfortable, 'a place for everything and everything in its place.' I admired the gracious naïveté of my surroundings, the display of pictures hanging on the walls reminding me of what I saw as a child in the homes of my own farming relatives, and of peasant cottages I had visited in the Orthodox homeland of Alberta when I lived there as a young man. Religious images intermingled with secular photos and artwork, cute little knickknacks and souvenirs in a shadowbox just like my own home growing up in Chicago. Life can be simple and unpretentious when you let it be.

After a short visit with the family in this first house—because the time we had before evening was limited—we reluctantly said our goodbyes and proceeded to our next stop, following Mir. This was to visit Yudhie's aunt, his mother's sister and, according to him, she resembles his mother quite a bit. It was in this house that Indiyati passed away. It was a small, clean cottage with packed earth floor, not the concrete floor that was in the first house and every other farmhouse we'd visited. We still removed our foot gear as we entered, of course. The floor was clean and dry. It was the first time, I think, that I'd actually been in a house with an earthen floor.

People crowded around and welcomed us as we entered, and they gave us the best seats they had to offer. Yudhie's young second-cousin was particularly interested in us, and we in him. He is the boy wearing what looks to me like a Simpsons T-shirt, but it's some kind of cartoon character anyway. He stayed close to us the whole time. When Yudhie returned here for his mother's funeral, this boy was eight years younger, just a little tyke, and even then he stayed close to Yudhie, and was his only comfort. I look forward to coming back to Siliragung in the years ahead, and see how everyone is doing, especially this young lad.

Yudhie's aunt was tearful and quiet when she came out to meet us, and sit next to Yudhie for a photograph. She was slender and graceful, her movements careful as a dancer's as she greeted us and sat down. 'Nobility,' I thought to myself. In this land, nobility of spirit, artistic refinement and sensibility, are not restricted to those who have money and social status. I already understood this from knowing my son, and him explaining to me how traditional Javanese culture was gentle and courtly, coming down through time from the days of the ancient kings, being preserved by the common people. How true what I'd heard, they are all artists.

In this home, like the other we visited, family iconography was mixed. On one wall, for example, there is a Roman Catholic print of Jesus Christ pointing to His Sacred Heart, and beside it is a photo or print of a couple of long-haired guys in cutoffs. Then a little further to the right, above a curtained doorway (there seem to be no interior doors in Javanese country homes) was a wayang, a traditional Javanese shadow puppet, usually a character from one of the national epics, Mahabharata or Ramayana. Yudhie is himself named after the oldest of the five Pandava brothers, Yudhisthira, in the epic Mahabharata. Even the Christian Javanese often take names from the ancient Hindu epics.

After we visited the home of Yudhie's aunt and her family, it was time to walk down to the village cemetery to visit and pray at the grave of Indiyati. Somewhere on the way here, we had stopped and bought some bags of fresh flower petals to strew on her grave stone. We made sure we had everything we needed as we headed down the road, a small procession of family members, one with a little brother on his back.
I followed behind them all, because I didn't want to miss a thing. I took a couple of photos on this walk, but already I was sensing we were leaving the world behind, and going to a place where, though we might take photos, the reality of our experiences would elude them.

The cemetery appears to be set in a farmer's field, or at least is surrounded by them. Following the cousins, we approach a very plain, uncared-for gravestone. The center of the grave stones here are hollow, so the whole is something like a rectangular planter, in which people can plant flowers.

It is Indiyati's grave, her name traced in the concrete perimeter at the head. We surround the little grave as Yudhie squats down and opens the first bag of flower petals, and begins to scatter them on the surface of the dry soil.

Then the bag is passed and another opened, so the rest of us can offer flower petals. There is no ceremony. I would like to sing the memorial service for Indiyati in Greek, but it isn't the right time. Not now, not yet.

God knows what is in our hearts, and who is singing what, why and when. He honors the desire as much as He praises the deed we do out of love. Yes, I took some photos, but they only show the externals. The sonnet at the beginning of this story I wrote only much later, after I returned to America, and seeing Yudhie at his mother's grave in the picture, and remembering what cannot be photographed.

After this, we all follow Yudhie to another grave, an older one it seems. It is the grave of his grandfather, and there we again deposit more flower petals and dedicate more secret prayers. This is the field where on the Day of resurrection, everything that we have broken in our lives will be unbroken, everything we unmade will be remade, all dreams dashed by the world's reality awaken to the Only Reality. Here we will meet again as we always wanted to meet on earth. Here Yudhie will be able to finally embrace Indiyati, his mother. Yes, it is an old story, but it is true.


We returned to another house in the village, where more relatives were gathered. Yudhie and I were seated at a table in the first room. Again, snacks and refreshments were brought. Most of the cousins were seated together opposite us and in front of an old TV set. Yudhie discussed with them the state of his mother's grave, and how much it would cost to have it fixed up and cared for. We had already decided to leave money for the family to refurbish the grave and care for it until we visited again. An amount was proposed. I asked, 'Is that really going to be enough? Please tell them what you have in mind, and find out what it will really cost,' I said to Yudhie. With some hesitancy they talked further, and came up with a more realistic sum.

We counted out the banknotes and handed them over to Mir, who was going to be in charge of the project. Then it was time to take a few photos before we had to leave. Yudhie's young second-cousin, the one who follows us with his eyes, volunteered to get a couple of shots of Yudhie and me sitting together at the table. Then, we took some other photos of the family, but—too bad—all but one of them (the one above) were just blurs.

Then, a real surprise and for me, a joy. Mir, who doesn't speak any English and was very reserved as well, suddenly leapt out of his seat and flung himself into mine and put his arm around me, and smiled. He wanted to be photographed with me! Yudhie got up and took the photograph, and though I still look a bit stunned in the picture (at least to myself), Mir looks exactly the way I want to remember him, until I see him again.

At home in Siliragung? Well, not this time in the 'real world,' but my heart is at home here, with the lovely people from whom my son Yudhie drew his human life, and maybe next time, with more preparation and time, we can stay with them a few days.

Next… An unexpected welcome 

Banyuwangi

Once again, nothing could have prepared me, perhaps even prepared us, Yudhie and me, for the care and welcome we received from people who were up till then complete strangers, when we arrived in Banyuwangi. But let me back up a bit.

We knew our stay in Bali would be cut short because it would have to be from our home in Singaraja that we made the trip to Yudhie’s ancestral village across the strait on Java, in the far south of Banyuwangi Regency. To get there, there was only one option, to ferry across to Java from the port of Gilimanuk, at the western tip of Bali. Once across the strait, we would have to get in touch with Yudhie’s cousins in Siliragung village, and see if they could pick us up. Otherwise we had little hope of finding our way, let alone public transportation, of which there is none, unless we hired a car with driver.

After considering all the possibilities, our family in Singaraja decided to take us as far as Gilimanuk and the ferry terminal. Moda and his wife drove us there in the morning along the lovely north coast of the island, passing under over-arching trees that shaded the road a good part of the way. The road is well paved and the traffic was light in comparison to most places we’d been. I think I could even drive there without a problem. Gardens and rice fields and banana trees in profusion flowed past us almost without interruption. Before we knew it, we were entering a town, Gilimanuk, and headed straight for the ferry.

Here, as happened to us again when we were to buy tickets for the return trip, our friends bought our tickets for us, six thousand rupiah each. That’s about sixty five cents (USD). We were only penumpang, ‘passengers,’ hence the low fare. We said goodbye and thanked Moda and his wife again for their hospitality. Then we ran to the ferry and got on. It was with mixed feelings, sadness and excitement, that we watched Bali slowly distancing out. The strait is narrow, but the ferry still took almost an hour to make the crossing, because of dangerous currents, and having to wait for an open dock.

Looking back at Bali

When we finally arrived on the other side, we disembarked and as we were getting off the ramp, a woman looked directly at us and said something to Yudhie that I didn’t understand. We stopped and Yudhie talked to the woman and the man who was with her, presumably her husband. He turned to me and said, ‘These people are going to take us to where we can meet my cousin, who will carry us to the village.’ At the time, I really wasn’t sure who they were. I thought they might be some of Yudhie’s relatives, but after we got into their car and started driving, the woman handed Yudhie her cell phone.

Yudhie started talking to whoever was on the line in bahasa, and then handed me the phone, ‘Here, it’s for you.’ ‘Who would be calling me?’ I wondered, as I took the phone and cautiously put it to my ear. I have never owned a cell phone and still don’t know exactly how they work. The voice on the other end was a woman’s voice, and speaking mostly in English with a few bahasa words thrown in. She asked me at first, ‘Is this Pak Romanos?’ and it took me awhile to realize I was talking to Ibu, because I’ve never spoken to her on the telephone before. Whoever it was kept asking me, if we were safe and alright.

‘Yes, yes, Ibu, we are safe and well, kami aman dan semua baik,’ I assured her. She warned us to be careful when we were in Banyuwangi, ‘You are not in Bali, people will be different, take care.’ She seemed more anxious for us than it seemed she should be. Perhaps she was only being motherly with us. I can understand that, being dadly quite often myself with anyone even slightly younger than me. I told her not to worry, and asked her how she was, and if there was any news about her husband. ‘He is alright. No surgery till maybe I get back to the States. He will wait.’

Busy street in Banyuwangi

The couple who were driving us didn’t speak English, and so I asked Ibu if she knew who these people were. ‘They are relatives of Ali, the one who Moda works for in the States, his wife is their sister.’ I knew that Moda’s wife was from Banyuwangi, from a Muslim family there, but I didn’t expect that she would involve her relatives to help us. ‘They will take you to a place where you can call Yudhie’s cousin to pick you up.’ Only later, when I had returned to the States and talked to Ibu, did I learn that she had contacted her in-laws and asked them to take care of us while we were in Banyuwangi.

Large mosque in Banyuwangi

After they picked us up, they told Yudhie that we were first going to go to their house in Banyuwangi town, and wanted us to meet some of their kin. Yudhie could also call his cousin from there, to arrange a rendezvous, so we could go to the village. At the house we were presented to several people, parents, sisters, brothers, cousins. One of the sisters, a young woman, knew some English and we talked, and I also taught her some English usage that she didn’t know. She was so excited and told me, ‘I will never forget you!’ People started arriving home from prayers at the mosque, and we were introduced to them.

Banyuwangi pasar

Soon, a young man turned up who would become our English-speaking chaperone. He was one of the Ali brothers. All three brothers have the first name Ali, but each is known by a second name. This young man, twenty-six years old, was Azan. He started talking to us in English, hesitatingly at first, and apologized for his poor command of the language. As it turned out, his English was quite good, and he and I had many talks together. I could tell that he was just itching to talk to someone who was from the outside world. It seemed all of them were, but most couldn’t because of the language barrier.

Our driver and his wife

After meeting many members of the family and having refreshments, our driver and his wife reappeared. Their place was just next door on the same lane. Everyone in this family seemed to live almost on the same block. We thanked our new friends and loaded ourselves back into the car. Azan came with us. Yudhie had made contact with his cousin Mir, to meet us at such-and-such a place on the edge of town. This was something like an American strip mall, a small gas station at one end of the ‘u’ and many small shops all around a central parking lot. There was a warung offering refreshments.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Azan asked us. ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘what do they have?’ ‘Various kinds of iced drinks. Would you like to try an es campur?’ I had no idea what that could be, but I didn’t want to refuse to try something new, even though it was an iced drink, something the guide books had warned tourists against. Once again, as in the village in Sumatera, I just said ‘yes’ and accepted what was offered, seeing how Azan and Yudhie didn’t have a problem with it. ‘If it doesn’t kill them, it won’t kill me,’ I thought to myself. How foolish it all looks in retrospect.

Es campur
(pronounced Ace CHOMP-poor)

Wow! What a different kind of drink, if it can be called a drink at all! I think this was the first time that I had such a drink in Yndonesia. First of all, it was white because of condensed milk. Then it had ice cubes in it. Then there were different colors and flavors of small cubes of stiff jelly. Then chunks of white bread, and bits of orange, pineapple and other fruits. I couldn’t believe it when I came upon the kidney beans and the kernels of sweet corn. ‘Oh my gosh! What is this stuff?!’ I thought but didn’t say out loud. ‘How do you like it?’ I was asked. ‘Oh, it’s quite delicious, enak sekali.’ And I wasn’t lying.

Yudhie's cousin, Mir

The weather was somewhat drizzly on and off, and as we waited for Mir, I began to wonder how exactly we would be carried to the village. Did he understand that there were two of us? Would he come by motorcycle with a friend? We couldn’t both ride behind him on the same cycle. I’m not a native, but a hefty bulé weighing in at 80 kilos. He wasn’t showing up as we expected, so Yudhie called him again. ‘He says he’s almost here.’ That conversation happen two or three times. Finally, here comes Mir on his motorcycle. He drives right up to us, gets off and then everyone but me gets into a conversation.

As the huddle began to break up, I called out to Yudhie, ‘What are we doing?’ mostly out of concern that Mir had come alone with a single motorcycle. ‘There is some problem with the motorcycle that has to be fixed. Azan is going to stay with the cycle and see to repairs, and Mir will come with us in the car to show us the way to the village. Azan will follow after he gets the cycle fixed. They will stay in touch by cell phone, so he knows where we went.’ I was amazed how smoothly and friendly the process of problem solving took place, especially between people of different faiths who had only just met.

Mir, along with all of Yudhie’s relatives, are Christians belonging to the Javanese Reformed church. The family that was helping us, Azan and the couple who was driving us to the village, are Muslims. Yet I never saw anything pass between them that would betray any hint of animosity. I had read, now I saw for myself, that the people’s bond to each other as members of the Javanese race is stronger than the religious ties. Yudhie had told me about a concept when he was still a college student—gotong royong—that means something like mutual help or spontaneous response to joint action. Sounds good to me.

So, we waved goodbye to Azan and drove off, following Mir’s directions. Soon we were outside the town of Banyuwangi heading south. The roads here were better than those we encountered in Sumatera, but still had some treacherous potholes. At one point we came up behind a van that was stuck in an enormous mud hole, spinning its wheels. We stopped the car and all of us men put our muscle behind the stuck vehicle and it broke free. The driver thanked us, and drove off. Now it was our turn to avoid the mud hole. Luckily, our car was the land rover type and by carefully skirting the danger, we escaped.

But down the road another problem presented itself. Our driver was noticeably bothered by something. I was sandwiched in the back seat between Mir and Yudhie, and the driver and Mir were talking about something. He stopped the car and pulled over to the shoulder of the road—actually on the grassy side of it. The two of them were inspecting the left rear wheel. It wasn’t exactly a flat tire, though it did look a little flat. Suddenly I noticed what they were looking at. The lug nuts—there were only four out of six!—were not all the same, and one of them was so loose you could turn it by hand.

The driver got out a jack and tried to raise the car up to straighten the rim and retighten the lug nuts. He couldn’t seem to find the right place to position the jack. I was out there with them, and I got down on my back and slid under the car to find the right place. The little notch I’m used to seeing on American cars wasn’t there. Finally, he found the right spot, raised the car and tried to reposition the wheel and tighten it down. I noticed that after trying to help them and ‘getting my hands dirty’ there was a different rapport between me and the other men. Maybe even my attempt at gotong royong opened a door that might’ve remained closed.

Yndonesian people are very smart and resourceful, and they know when something needs to be attended to. They don’t just give up and hope for the best. After a few miles, our driver turned off the road at what must have been a mechanic’s, though it looked just like a little shed to me, filled with men and boys. We all got out and watched as a young man serviced not only the problem wheel but checked and attended to all four of them. I noticed that his tools were mismatched but he made the best use of them and got the job done. Now we were ready to brave the country roads again.

Next… At home in Siliragung