die, you!

alex woke up much earlier than i did today, around 5am. i was up long enough to take this sunrise picture from our front porch before going back to bed.




we were both ready to work by eight am. we set off to go find alek to see what today's adventure work was going to be. it was pretty hot out, but we didn't mind and knew it would be a long day of work.

when we found him, he took us to combro, another guy with whom we'd work, who held two tools with long, curved blades on the ends.

aka, machetes.

we followed our bossman for the day. he spoke no english, and we only speak inappropriate bahasa indonesian, so communication laid completely in the hands of monkey-see, monkey-do. we walked along a path until it was no longer a path, and grass as high as my chest surrounded us on all sides. a few more yards in front, he stopped. he put one blade on the ground, bent over to grab the top of the grass, lifted the knife above his head, and chopped at the roots. after he had a handful of grass, he threw it to the side. he did a few more handfuls, then handed us the blades and motioned his hand to the grass.




i looked at alex, who was already looking at me. then i glanced at my skin. yep, still white. looked at my chest. yep, still boobs. i thought, this guy is handing a white girl a machete. is this a good idea? i looked around. white girl and machete? since when is this a good idea?

alex is already hacking away at the grass. suddenly this looks fun.

combro moved out of the way, and grabbed some more tools for later. alex and i started to go to town, but our proximity to each other was ridiculously uncomfortable. “i’m not really sure how to steer this thing.” we spread out, each of us chopping our own little corners out. i wasn’t sure how much we were going to do, so we just kept on doing.




but five minutes later, it wasn’t fun anymore.

it only took about twenty minutes to form a blister on my hand, and about 30 seconds for it to break open. wonderful. jocean warned me that my white hands would be hurting in less than a half hour, but why listen to the man who's been doing this for way longer? i'm such an idiot.

trying to keep my slight whining to myself, i kept going. it was hot, and sweat was pouring down alex and i’s faces, but this is why we were here. we wanted to learn, and wanted to show the workers that we were willing to work hard at whatever task they gave us.

within about five minutes, i heard alex yelp.

i looked over to see blood trickling from her fingers. that’s not good. the grass we were cutting at this point was low, and with every hack i thought how lucky i was that i didn’t cut myself yet. but here she was, the first of the two of us to do the machete justice. it didn’t seem so bad, but alek came over when he saw what she did. i looked at him as he asked what happened, and by the time i looked back at alex, the back of her one hand and the palm of her other was covered in crimson. alek told her to go back to the house and wash it out. i wanted to help her, but still wanted to continue to work for them, so i stayed in the field as she reassured me she’d be fine.

alek then told me that i could go take a break if i wanted, but we had only been out for about an hour and a half and i didn’t want to stop yet. i did a few more piles of grass, then asked him how far we were going to cut.

“to this line… that tree… and that tree.. and that tree.”

the eyes on my white face got wide. shit, that’s kinda really far.

“ok. i think i’m gonna go get a drink of water and check on alex…”

..

back at the house, alex and i guzzled water. her hand looked pretty painful, and though it wasn’t an extremely large cut, it was deep.




as we discussed the actions of her mistake, alek came back in the house with a woman behind him. he introduced us to her. the day before, we had asked if someone could give us a lesson in traditional indonesian food.

but as we talked to alek and he examined the cut, she started doing our dishes. we were confused, and she started taking ingredients out of the fridge, too. it turned out that she was under the impression that she’d be doing most of our cooking and cleaning.

good lord we’re spoiled.

we were slightly uncomfortable with having this handed to us, but figured we’d try to work it out later. i still can’t believe the willingness of the people here to help us and get us what we need. the morning before, we asked alek for passion fruit, and a boy arrived at our door five minutes later with a basket of it. last night, the security guard brought us boiled peanuts, still warm, harvested only about three days ago. he speaks no english, and talks fluently as though we understand everything he is saying. we usually have no idea, but he smiles at us, and we smile back, and he’s absolutely wonderful. soon after, alek brought us more, and we devoured them within a day. jocean has messaged us from jakarta with a list of groceries he’s picked up, asking if we need anything else. and today, alek even took us down the hill to pick some of our own crops.

i absolutely love how warmly we’ve been welcomed.

..

alex and I made our way back outside to the clearing we were working on. i had told her inside that the area we had to clear was going to take a while, so she asked alek where exactly we would go to. it looked less intimidating the second time around, so she and i got started again. after hacking the lower brush, i got frustrated and moved to the longer grass. alex got angry with the longer grass and moved back to the lower stuff.

we were made for each other.

i haven’t mentioned it yet, but alex and i are slowly losing our sanity, with me being in line to the mental hospital first. since we were working closer this round, we started rattling off stand-up comedy as we could. laughing and loud, the workers started looking over at us as we chopped away, and conversed in their language.

this was nothing new. we know they’ve been making fun of us all day, and even though we don’t know everything they say, they’re always watching us. alek tells us that they’re fascinated with our american backgrounds and our desire to work, but we know that they’re finding us hysterical more than heartwarming.

after all, they literally point and laugh.

i mean, it doesn't help that i'm yelling obscenities in their language, goblok at the ants or an-ging when i fall, or yelling at the weeds to die. they eat it up. but our bossman also yells over to the guys that are about twenty feet away after we stumble or laugh or swat away freakishly-large bugs in a panic, and they laugh back. i can only imagine.

“white girl cut herself, haha! white girl hate beetle, haha! white girl fall on ass, haha!”

whatever it is, alex and i don’t mind one bit. in fact, i hope this is what they’re saying. i hope they’re getting a good laugh out of us, because we’re getting a good laugh out of us too.

..

right around twelve, it started to rain. jocean told us that in the rainy season in indonesia, as soon as the clouds break, work stops. they don’t like to be rained on.
i mean, neither do we, but alex and i were willing to work in the rain.

as soon as the drops started to pour, we heard them groaning and complaining. alex and i both tilted our heads back towards the sky, put out our arms, opened our mouths, and sighed relief. it was so hot out, and the rain felt so good. but alek came over and told us to go inside, and we heard them laughing at us, confused. but it was time for lunch anyway, and we’d regroup around one.

..

as soon as we stepped inside, lunch was made. we thanked our soon-to-be teacher as much as we could, and when she finished cooking, she simply left the house. we thought she might eat with us, but she made our lunch and went off. alex and i both felt bad, but agreed that we’d talk to jocean about it when he arrived later.

lunch was delicious. the two of us devoured a few plates of rice, chili, and beef in a palm brown sugar sauce (you will get to experience this phenomenon / palette addiction when I get back). we sat down to enjoy a few minutes of rest before heading back out, and I looked out the front window. in the distance, we could see rain pouring down on the towns below. it was about five minutes to one, and the cloud was heading our way.




we smiled, knowing what this meant, and we were right.

alek eventually told us that we wouldn’t have to return to work today due to the rain. thank god.

..

we tried to rest, but the call to prayer kept us somewhat alert. five times a day, the islamic religion does a public prayer. so far, we’ve found it to be announced on a loudspeaker everywhere we’ve gone, and since we’re halfway up the mountain, it seems that we hear every call to prayer from five miles away. and that’s probably not a very inaccurate statement.

it’s easy to distinguish all of the voices, considering many of them start within a few minutes of each other according to their clocks. alex and i hate to be offensive, but if we were islamic we’d be going to their little islamic hell for saying that the singing voices resemble a ghost chant more than a beautiful prayer-song. obviously this is half attributed to the fact that we can’t quite understand what they’re saying, considering it’s sung in arabic. sometimes, we sing along, looking out the window to our view below, making up the words as we go, of course.




maybe if you’re lucky, we’ll sing for you when we get home.

it’ll be a nice little duet.

..

he came back the house around four to take us to find some fresh tomatoes. probably one of my favorite parts of being here is the ability to walk out to the gardens and pick whatever it is I feel like eating or making. alek walked us down the hill to some gardens we hadn’t yet seen, and we picked some mint, tomatoes, a plant that resembles parsley, eggplant, some type of pumpkin, and a type of lychee. on the farm, there are also bananas, coconut, arugula, ginger, lemongrass, cucumbers, basil, passion fruit, papaya, dragon fruit, mango, peanuts, and tons of plants we have yet to identify. the neighbor even has a few coffee trees.




we walked back up the hill to the house, happy as two five year olds on christmas morning. we weren’t sure what we were going to make yet, but it didn’t matter. it was going to be delicious.

..

i got back, took a shower, and made some tea. as the sun set, i figured i’d climb to the top of the library again, the highest point on the farm.

jocean wants lots of pictures and feedback, so what am i to do with my two best subjects? deliver, of course:




after my cold shower, i walked the fifty meters to the building that will be the bar. the second floor has been planned to be the library, but there is no formal staircase yet. i grabbed the edges of the man-made, hammer, nail and scrap-wood ladder, and climbed to the top. this is the best view on jocean’s property as far as i know.

i could sit here all night. i listen to the crickets, the birds sing, bats squeaking, geckos chirping, and the leaves rustling. i am in a place so peaceful and pure, it’s hard to imagine that this is the same world in which the genocides of cambodia and the war of vietnam occurred. i couldn’t ask for anything else. well, almost.

i watch the lights of the city below twinkle, the color of the sky shift with the setting sun, and the haze from today’s rain change shape in the distance. i almost understand buddha-calm, and i don’t feel that anything could make me angry or upset sitting here. you can’t teach this feeling in psychology, this beauty in art, this serenity in religion. as I watch the tree leaves sway in the breeze, the no-longer-annoying call to prayers start to fade from the distance.

no wonder jocean moved here.

..






Y rae. racho. d.