Category Archives: Sumatra

The mystical pagan land

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This time we try to be smart. We give a phone to a local boy and ask him to reserve a hotel room in pure Indonesian, to make sure nobody will want to cheat on us. However many times he calls, the prices are still far more than we expected.

Then a taxi driver appears and chuckles, “This is definitely not the way how to get a good price. Better show your face, that you’re white people, then you will get it at least half the price. Everyone knows foreigners don’t have money!”

I couldn’t believe my ears as usually the myth goes vice versa. But it worked – we got a lovely room on the lake side while our Indonesian neighbours paid twice as much for the same thing. But this is a special island anyway                                                . 

Toba lake is one of those hippie magnets where a traveller with the aim of spending a weekend finds himself here still two months later, extending the visa in the immiration office. It is a place where people from ultraconservative Aceh come to drink whisky straight from the bottles, loosing themselves to the magic of other worlds. And a lake where a woman with a jilbab finally uncovers her hear. Just a few hours car ride will take the hedonists from hell to heaven.

An what kind of heaven! It has something mystical and powerful in the crispy winds of the lake. With each part of the body one can feel the shivery excitement of the pre storm moments. The long roofs of the houses bring in the sounds of the breeze. This is where we live – in the bottom of an old volcanoe. Reading books on the shores, spending nights with a guitar, walking on the flowing roads and being amazed by the flying roofs. Sometimes passing the signs „Coffee. Breakfast. Books rental. Magic Mushrooms“. It is definitely magical. 


Witty forest people and a stupid clerk – a scheme that proves itself once again

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Having spent three days in the woods and gathered material for the film the forest boys send us back to the village. Our feelings are warm. We’ve finally found our forest people without selling our souls or paying extreme prices.                                                And what is even more important – we’ve done something very important for them.

Many of them have gone deep in our hearts. Sidik, who’d glowed with his wit. His brother, who’d had the most charming smile. Darman, who’d always followed us with a canister of river water and two glasses, even this little glittering girl who hadn’t known his age.

Now we stand on the other side of the river and wait for the boat to take us back to the village. Half naked forest boys leave us alone for a moment and dive into the bushes. A moment later they return like city dudes. They wear trendy t-shirts and jeans, they’ve perfumed themselves and secretly they throw their loincloths into the bushes and are ready to enter the Muslim world. If they weren’t so extremely shy I couldn’t tell they’re nomads from the forest.                                  

Mean while everything has changed in the village, and they’ve heard about our mission, too. Now the village elder invites us to play badminton and openly tells about everything we ask in front of the camera. Finally we leave the village as stealthily as we’d arrived there. On our own we start a walk towards a new world.
By the end of the day we reached a road that hadn’t been marked on the map. In the first car that stopped there were two clerks. They looked at us and grinned. “From France, right? And you can already eat rice? I thought they eat only bread there. You’re 26 and not married yet? Your skin is white, yes? hehehee. You’re rich, right? Everybody’s rich where you’re from.”…

With one go we get all the questions an Indonesian indoctrinated by the TV knows by heart, not to mention all the myths and stereotypes they’re not willing to give up on. We’re sitting in the car, half sad and with good words we recall the forest people who so little have been touched by money, greed and power positions. But who knows for how long, soon the greedy hands of the government are after their land, too.

Co-operation with the forest people – about the funny kitchen side of the film making

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Finally we reach a little shed where there’s some boiled river water for us. Electricity generator humming, tv playing we lay there, worn out in the only shed we could see anywhere near us. How far does the forest people live we don’t know yet, but as we’re tired and hungry we ask no questions. The shed people boils the instant noodles we’d brought into porridge, they add some rice and a few roots from the forest. There’s nothing that has tasted better than this.

A little girl in an electric blue costume that is covered with fake diamonds leads us to a place we could wash ourselves and then in her full dress dives into the water. A Muslim girl living in the deep forest and solitude doesn’t take her clothes off to wash herself.

„How old are you?“ we ask her to keep the conversation going.

„I don’t know, ask my dad,“ a girl who’s about 13-15 says to us.

She seems to be the only one excited about our arrival. Seeing that we use spoons instead of hands when eating she takes the cutlery and tries to be like us. Her older sister is scolding: “You don’t have to do everything like the town people does!” But the forest girl with her glittering ear rings doesn’t care. She doesn’t like it here.

Soon there are more people in the shed, until I can count about 15. But to my surprise I don’t here the “who are you, where are you from, what’s your origin? etc.” so common for Indonesians, the men have their own conversations. Of course, here in the forest nobody cares about our projected status of being rich, smart and skilled, because life like that isn’t tempting for most of them. “To move into a village? No, never!” one of them curses and swears when we ask.                                                     

Finally we’re taken by the hand and led to the savages (direct translation of how they call themselves). Resting places made of bamboo and roofs made of plastic. A few pots and pans and a few cloths hanging on a tree. Some of them wear t-shirts, some only breechcloths. The moment I take my camera out to change the lens half of the population is gone, swoosh! Namely, women and little children are afraid of recording machines since it’s forbidden to be in a picture (unless the group leader allows, which luckily happened to us). The same goes for washing yourself with soap and sharing bed with your husband. What is more, the women don’t have names – they lose these when their first child is born and now you can call them only using their children’s names.

Although in the beginning we’d planned to take a few photos and record a sad interview for a few minutes then now Sidki has new plans. We’ve barely taken a breath when he wants to start working. Already there’s someone sent to the previous resting place and told to catch the forgotten tripod. For us it’s a total chaos, of course, the situation is absolutely absurd but yet intriguing. All of it for the fact that we have three days and they’ve still haven’t got to explain the whole problem. Nevertheless we set the camera and let those who wish speak.                                       

We also give them a little advice. “In the beginning you could chop some wood, then it’s seen what job you do,” we guide the forest witch. The man takes a knife and cuts a tree, moves to the next one and cuts that. But the third three is far away and our witch, we’re supposed to film with a camera that is put still in one place, runs far far away. Ten minutes later we catch him from bosk. We ask him to stand still and talk about his problem. The man stands still as a rock in front of a tree and with his glassy eyes he tells his story.

„Wakil, hey, if you stand like that it’s a bit weird. Look, the camera films from here to here,” I show him the conture around the tree. “You can move freely in this frame,” we try to explain it to the puzzled witch. Suddenly Wakil stands up and starts talking, running around the tree at the same time. Behind us there are 40 people from the village and they’re all whispering Wakil right answers. Suddenly the silent people have so much to say.

At first we tell Sidik to lead the interviewing process, since he’s no doubt sharp and understands what has to be said and how to do it. But when shy village people are around our interviewer is the only one speaking. Thus we understand we have to write a scenario.

This is how we pass our first night. Two white women and 15 men from the village are writing the scenario and coming up with questions. They’re working on the content, we create a structure. And in the morning, when we’re ready to continue filming, we realize we’ve forgotten the charger into the village, because when we came to the forest we didn’t know what was going to happen.

By this time the forest people have started to enjoy shooting and thus everything is really quickly organized in the way it has to be. The first forest boy walking by is told to take a half a day journey to get the charger from the village. We take a torn paper to write a letter for the village elder: “Dear village elder, with this paper here…etc“.

Half a day later we have the charger, the boy is dripping from sweat and we’re ready to continue. We propose, they find solutions. “There should be a kid in the shot, so it could be seen that the problem matters for the next generation, too,” we barely say this when a kid who’s running around with a tinkler is caught, his grandmother telling: “Hey, off you go to a film!” Then we mention to Sidik that we’d need a young man who’d tell he’d like to live in the forest and half an hour later when I’m walking between the terraces I hear our friend convincing a young boy: “Hey, you have to look at the camera and tell you’d always like to live in the forest.” A boy who’s wearing a Dior shirt, sitting on a tree stump and sadly playing with his phone that has no reception, doesn’t seem to like to repeat his father’s words. Luckily he doesn’t have to, we find another sincere boy.

„Now, tell into the camera how old you are.” We ask him to convince people about the existence of the younger generation. The looks startlingly at his father and a great discussion begins. “How old is he?  20? 22? 25?“ What we finally caught on the tape I don’t remember. But I can tell that the boy who so surely tells his age just came up with it a minute before. And there are sentences that so naturally come from a shy man’s mouth that actually took a couple of hours to film. But it finally is one of the most exciting experiences ever – to co-operate with the forest people and film their story on their request. Now we have to hope that the video reaches right places and it could help the people.

A grumpy man to accompany us to the forest

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The men introduce their companion to us. Sidik used to belong to the forest people tribe, too, but when he was 15 and his father died he went to live in a village. The village elder gave him a place to stay and now he’s living there with his wife and child and once a month he goes into the forest to visit his folks. Sidik is brought before us and his role is explained to him in local language, we’re are sent to the kitchen to eat rice at the same time.

There’s no electricity. We sit in candle light, on the wooden floor and eat rice an eggs. We haven’t eaten since our arrival in the village. There are rats everywhere, they’re running on the tables, rattle in the middle of the tin cans. Before us in the dim light there’s a lady in white bowing and mumbling something on her own. In the next door the forest tribe representer is talking to the village elder and if we usually hear any tropical language as  bumba-mumba-djumba we now understand almost every word they say. We sit in the dar, hours away from any bigger village and a half-a-day walk away from an ancient tribe, everything seems so usual. One day in my weird life in Indonesia when exotics has become an everyday thing.

Finally Sidik asks us to go with him. He very seriously keeps a bit away from us. He walks a few meters before us and talks to us only when it’s necessary. Having reached a shop he starts piling up things. A few blocks of cigarettes and tea, sugar and instant noodles. He piles the things until Marie and I look at us with fear in our eyes. I wonder if he knows how little money we have on us? We then explain Sidik the situation that if we buy food for 150 there’s only 50 left for him. Sidik gives us a look even more evil and takes a few things out of the basket. Finally he says we’ll certainly find somebody from the forest who we could follow to get out of the forest, so the fee is smaller.

Feeling ourselves absolutely uncomfortable and not awaited we spend our night wandering the streets. Nobody is staring at us with a nice look, instead people are drilling their evil eyes through our hearts. The phone in our pocket still has no reception, the last message from Hoira tells us to be careful because the tribe we’re heading to are also known as cannibals. With our hearts heavy as stones we finally fall asleep and hope the protective hand of fate will help us.

At 5 in the morning Sidik is at the door. We throw the clothes on and try to make as little trouble as possible. But the man is cold as ice. We march behind him to the forest and wait for the moment the unpleasant relationship between clients and assistant ends. Sitting on the river boat realizing we’re really going we understand we haven’t eaten or drunk anything, we even didn’t have the time to grab a water bottle with us. This is how our journey to the deep forest begins.

We’ve been on the track for a few hours already, we’re carrying heavy backbacks and presents for the village people, Sidik is carrying next to nothing, suddenly Marie’s sandals break. We sit down and our handyman quickly repairs it. At the same time we’re still trying to break the ice and make jokes because if our only contact is against us the journey to the people who’re afraid of the outer world cannot be much of a fun. Finally we start talking about the artificial village we’d been to before, and about the forest people who’ve been forced to leave their former living space. And how sorry we’d felt for the locals who cannot do anything about the government and corruption. I take my camer out and show a few pictures.

This is an important moment. In half a minute Sidik turns from an ice-cold service provider into an open friend. He makes himself comfortable and starts talking emotionally.

„Do you know what’s the problem here in this area? Nobody has told you? We’ve lived here for years, the forest people and the village people, and our only source of subsidence are the trees. The rubber trees we cut and from where we gather rubber. And now the government has come to our land, built the roads and houses for the builders and plans to make money from our trees. But we have a law here, a traditional law that tells if the land has been owned by a community for years it’s the community’s land. Of course the corrupted government doen’t want to hear anything about it.”

Then he looks at us, as if he’s been enlightened and shouts: “You’ve got cameras. Please take some pictures of our forest and let’s sent them to the government. Maybe this would help us to get our land back.”

Being so involved in Sidik’s story and being so astonihshed by his skills we of course agree to help him. And when we take our video camera out there’s a snowball of thoughts  that starts rolling in Sidik’s head.

Mental chess with the village people. The air gets tense

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It’s almost dawning when we’re hitch hiking on the road that isn’t even marked on our maps. The further we get the emptier are the streets. There’s no cracked asphalt, in fact there are paths where there’s never been any asphalt. Some motor bikes stop and offer to take us half a hundred kilometers even deeper into forest, for money of course. We have the 200 000 the police had given us a day before and we had decided to bring it to the forest. Fortunately the men’s hearts soften and they agree to take us a bit further. Just like that we dangle in the disused roads in the middle of forests and plantations and hope that there would be somebody taking us on, although there’s only one motorbike in 30 minutes passing us.

Finally we reach a village that enchants us momentarily. Decaying wooden houses have been built on high docks and the rooms are a meter above the ground. There’s nothing but two parallel sandy main streets. The whole village stares at us upon our arrival and once we enter the village elder’s quarters, half a hundred bewildered children gather behind his windows. From somewhere appears the village elder wrapped in a towel, and asks us to sit on the floor of the porch. We then begin with our usual speech.

We’ve come so far because we’d like to meet the forest people, we proudly say. The village elder studies the two white girls who so suddenly have appeared out of nowhere.
“From which organisation? Who sent you? How did you get here?”
- “Alone, hitch hiking, we try to explain them.”
The men are so confused, but still they bring out the area map.

So we sit there, five of us, around the map and try to find where the nomads are currently about. A few groups are on the shores of one creek, some more are on the shores a bit further away. Choose whichever you’d like to visit! Our hearts were crying of joy inside, but we kept our adrenaline hidden under cold faces. Its never a good idea to hooray before the night as an old Estonian saying goes and it all seemed to be going impossibly well, considering that just a few hours ago we didn’t have the slightest idea how to reach our goals. And now we are here having this trip planned for us.

How many days? Three nights? Okay.

Can you cross the river? You can. Okay.

Can you hike half a day? Yes? Okay.

Tomorrow morning we’ll start at 5. Okay? Okay.

It takes ten minutes to plan everything. It’s 3 pm and we’re exhausted. We’d like to wash, rest and celebrate our success. Now we’d only have to wait for the magic words “Would you like to go and wash yourselves?”.

But no one says those words. There’s only the awkward silence. There’s nothing we’d say and they seem to have nothing to add, too. Although the silence is so unpleasant, everybody seems to be waiting for something. We come up with random questions to stop the silence, but every answer is followed by silence again. “Tomorrow then?” – “Yes, tomorrow at 5.” We fidget. They keep quiet. “And it’s half a day away?” – “Yes, something like that, if you can hike. The road is tough.” The children behing the window are bored and they disappear one after another. Again the silence. About twenty minutes later I cannot bear it anymore. “Is it finished now or is there’s something you’d like to add?”.

The village elder looks at us and starts twirling, until he reaches the key word.

„See, it’s quite far away. You don’t know how to get there. Somebody has to come with you. Be absent from work… And you’d like to spend three nights there. See, it’s dangerous in the forest. Elephants and hippos… He also has to eat. Say, you’d cover it with 200 000 rupees a day… 800 000 all together.”

Sure. All our beautiful dreams a shredded. We have exactly 200 000 from the police and this is all we have until the end of the trip. But if we’ve come so far we cannot give up. And now it’s time for a real mental chess with the village people.

Everybody’s sitting in utter silence, we’ve revealed our striking secret – we don’t have so much to give. The five men on the floor are quiet for the first five minutes, the next five minutes they keep discussing. At the tenth minute the village elders says a sentence.

We listen to his sentence and think. We analyse what he’d meant with the sentence and where is he sailing with his thought. Which steps does he have in his sleeve and how we could respond to his steps. It’s a game where no mistakes are allowed. We take some time to think, mumble something. Marie finally says her sentence.

The men thus take a deep breath, the smoke goes into their lungs and then they slowly let it out from their throats. They’re not satisfied with Marie’s sharp move and they’re thinking how to improve their situation. They circle the pen above different places on the map and come up with a new solution.

No matter what move they make at the end, no matter how much cheaper they make their offer it’s still too expensive for us. But the air is getting more tense, having spent two hours playing chess both parties know that somebody has to lose. And it’s very probable that the two eager white girls, after they’ve hitch hiked through the forest, are very unlikely to step back.

No matter how humiliating the situation is, no matter how nerve tickling it is we let the things go their way. At one moment early in the evening a old man finds us a solution we could be satisfied with. The men stand up, they don’t say a word and leave us sitting on the terrace. We feel how the tense chess game has culminated into boredom and tiredness, and the friendly village people are ready to show their resentment towards us, just like in another Dogville.

Indonesian police like a bit drifted Robin Hood – takes from the villains and gives to the guests

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We’re on our way back to Jambi, to this awkward village where the forest people have been put into the box-houses, renamed as Muslims and who’re now wearing shirts in Indonesian colours. The same village from where we’d been supposed to enter the forest to meet their friends who live there, and the same gates for which we’ve been waiting so long to get the authorization. But the thing we miss the most was our local dad Najib, in whose guest-bedroom we could lay down and be taken care of. No more annoying truck drivers and confusing Indonesians, if only there was Najib who’d take care of our wellbeing.

But the closer we get to Muarakilis the darker it gets, the more we understand that Najib isn’t interested in us going there, the situation seems to be upside down. It’s midnight when we arrive in front the police house, we have no money, we haven’t slept and we ask to be put up. We do something I’d promised never to do again – be tied with the militaristic lifestyle of policemen.

There are five men sitting in the street and they all think: where to put those two girls who speak Indonesian, who’ve come out a truck in the middle of the night. One policeman stands up, circles around a bit, the other stands up and lags in his thoughts, clicking some buttons on his phone at the same time. Another two stand up and start going somewhere. They are walking in the same rhythm and their hands move in parallel. We could see the handcuffs shining in the darkness. It appears they are two illegal deforesters who’ve been arrested in the middle of the night. The police starts organising: “You come with me,” he points at us. “And you go into the cell,” he points at the criminals.

The night passes on the floor of the policeman’s house. We wake up to the national anthem of Indonesia and militiamen marching at 7 am. Our door is opened and a woman who’s nine months pregnant enters the room. Although it’s Saturday every family in the police ashram has to wake up at the same time and start their day with sports. Pregnant women sit in front their mini concrete buildings and look at their husbands running along the court. From another perspective, but this standard military village is as awkward and weird as the one we’d seen a month ago deep in the forest.

When we’re leaving the police boss’s office, an officer puts some money into my hands –  ”For you to have some lunch at the market,” he tells giving a sum that would usually be our budget for a few days. We are utterly confused cause as far as we know, here it is usually the other way around. We suspect the money had come from the illegal deforesters who’d bought themselves out from the cell, so we accept the present and promise to ourselves to take the money back to the forest.

Keep your trash to yourself

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We arrive in another town wher another Police Commander is taking care of us. But as he just received an order from his friend, the welcome wasn’t that heart-warming. Some local policemen were appointed to take care of us. 

So they take us to visit the jungle. We have taken our last cents from the bank and are going back into the car when our guide grinningly, his teeth flickering, says: “You took a lot of cash, didn’t you?”. The man offers us morning pastries, each of which has been separately packed into plastic, the driver rolls the windows open and whoop! a bag from one window and a can from another window go directly onto the street. We’re still looking around, with some garbage in our hands – where to put it? The guide again grins. Outside, of course! With company like that we’ve been travelling for the full day towards one of the biggest national parks in Indonesia. Needless to say how disturbed we are.

Entering the national park one could see nothing that could disturb an Indonesian and everything that would disgust us. Just as the banana leaves fell some twenty years ago on the ground plastic does the same these days, and no matter how much you’d try an Indonesian doesn’t care.

“They’ll clean it up, everything will be clear in the morning!”

“You in Europe don’t thrown your trash on the ground because you don’t have the goats that could eat it.”

“There’s trash already everywhere, my can is nothing.”

(Maaf, ya? – Sorry, ok? a classical sentence what an Indonesian says when he has done something wrong.)
 
But already in Benin Terje and I had learned a lesson, that it’s quite useless to forbid throwing trash on the ground because quite often people just don’t know what trash is.
So, in Indonesia I made an experiment with some students. I read out a list of things and asked to divide them into two: things you may dig under the ground (this is what happens with trash here) and what you may not. All those rich parents’ children nodded and repeated my words: you have to recycle! Then they took their papers and pencils and started categorizing. Plastic, banana leaves, food leftovers in one box (into a bin because you cannot reuse them), glass bottles, fabric, paper etc in another box, (onto the street because you can reuse them). Didn’t make any sense for me. 
Fortunately we have friends who do care. For example, if there’s a plastic cup thrown on the street from a car that’s waiting at a traffic light, then our friend Vlad, who’s on a bike, picks the cup up and throws it back into the car. We don’t want your trash!


A side of Indonesian police that I would have never imagined

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Two luxurious cars with black glasses gallop pass us, leaving a cloud of smoke where we are standing with our sign Takengon. But suddenly they stop with deafening whistle. There are four men around the car, acting in a weird  in a suspicious way. They explore us with their eyes, are skeptical, but take our bags and put them in the first car. Someone tells us something we can not immediately understand, but an outsider immediately rebukes him. Psst! 

We sit at the back of the car, and find a man from the front row seat who had never left  the car. He turns his head toward us and asks a sequence of deadly serious investigative questions. ”Who? Where? Where to? Why not?” Without ever smiling or showing friendliness towards us. A bit spooky it is.

Another quarter hour later when the men in black start to reveal more of themselves and even a small smile appears in their faces. By this time we have understood that there is someone important, so I ask casually about the man’s work. ”The District Police Commander,” he says, and stays waiting for our response. I stiffen for a moment. But not because I had done something wrong, but rather because we know that the Indonesian police is the home for corruption.



But Police Commander doesn’t seem to be interested in bribing us. He is not arrogant nor fancy, and the only clue to that is he is important comes from the officers that nervously hustle around him. Where ever we sit down, we are honored with a seat next to our Police Commander, and the entourage is waiting for His orders a few yards away. Each of his sentences are carefully listened, and each idea received with an approving ​​nodding. But Police Commander calmly waves his rubber sandals on the tip of his toe and talks carelessly with his guests.

Where do you stay for the night? How long are you staying? What are you up to? If we are not able to answer any of his questions, he gives a short look to his most devoted follower who, then, literally runs to his master and waits for his instructions. ”They will stay in the hotel, which we will find for them,”says the Police Commander.

“Done, sir!”, “Clear, sir!” sounds a humble response, and a few seconds later a car turns to our street, again with black windows.

“By the lake is fine?” asks police chief and observes in satisfaction how our anxiety is growing. We have mountains, valleys, a few frigid climates and a mirror smooth lake in the city. Of course, the lake is more than fine for us.

The remaining time in Takengon is passing with militancy regularity. If something needs to be done, a black car is waiting for us in front of the hotel, when our stomach is empty, an army of police will take us out to eat. In most cases, an invisible hand is taking care of our lives. The hand grabs the neck of a ticket seller in the caves and says: “We are the police and they are our guests,” pointing towards us. The seller then, without uttering a word about the ticket price, opens us the gates.

And the invisible hand also pays the bills. The whole time that we are there, we never see anyone offering money for the eaten food nor drinks. Instead, we see something that is forbidden in Aceh. Namely, someone orders us a bag full of beer, which is strictly forbidden in this area by the police (!). But of course, with the presence of the police, everything is permitted. 

After being completely cushioned by the local police and received  all the contacts of the  Indonesian police chiefs, Police Commander puts us into a bus to go to the next city and stay with the next Police Commander. There appears, however, a local journalist from somewhere, who in a few minutes asks us about our stay and how we had liked it. He takes a few photos and promises to publish us in a few days later. That’s how we are leaving the city. Police Chief on one side of the buss, waving, a journalist on the other side, taking photos. 

But most of all, we have seen an ultimate different side of Indonesian police than we could have ever expected. Kind, big-hearted and caring. This was our Police Commander.


Unknown help and forged papers

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Until the very end we don’t quite understand who’s the man dragging us from one place to another. Having picked us up from a coffee stall by the road he follows our every step and tries to do everything we’d get what we want, he doesn’t ask any questions nor money.

Although he says himself to be a mediator between the forest people and the state this social work doesn’t seem to be his only job. In the middle of the forest where we’d expected to meet the forest people we find his flounced house with chandeliers and  a few cars in the yard. We spend our nights there. Our own room with a royal bed, plasma tv and a child welcoming us with a move used in the middle ages are certainly  something we hadn’t expected to find there.

(small villa in the lost world)

They’ve planned us a meeting with the forest people, who’re still living in the shades of the trees, for the next day. Our local dad Najib, into whose family we quietly absorb, takes some presents with him to give to the tribe – 10 kg of rice, a big box of instant noodles, cookies and water. With our bags packed and presents ready we’re prepared to spend a few nights in the forest. The village elder from the kampung we’d visited the day before joins us but his active friend in batik doesn’t – the latter had had a dream we’d have trouble on our way.

We have to drive 70 km along inner forest roads. And when I tell forest I mean industrial forest because in Indonesia there’s been no mercy on forests. Vast palm fields produce oil and locals call these gardens. We look to the left and we look to the right but the view remains the same. We complain to Najib how devastating it is to see how nature has been turned into money (later the irony behind all this appears) and how the forest producing oxygen has become a yard producing oil.

(no more forests left)

Finally we reach a huge gate. Numerous security guards look at us and shake their heads – they won’t let us in. Najib walks up and down the hillocks and looks for reception, the village elder dashes somewhere on a motor bike and the Teacher talks to the guards. An hour later the gate opens. We are full of joy, of course. Only a day before we’ve arrived in the village here and now we’re actually on our way to the forest people. Even the gate that had tried to stop us opened magically. Again and again we realize how powerful Najib is in the area.

Having just thought those thoughts and having driven half an hour we reach the second gate, the old story repeats itself. This gate opens too. But then we reach the fatal last one. No matter how we talk and what we say it remains closed. Namely, the guards are afraid that we might be from the CIA or from Green Peace, because after the third gate the area of illegal deforestation begins, and just a little mistake could cost them millions. Everything that’s behind the third gate is a mixture of total mess and playing tricks on the bureaucracy, so common to Indonesia.

The morning after someone has called a cab that takes us a bigger city Jambi, which is a 4-hour ride away, so that we could claim an authorization to enter the area. To make the situation easier we only need a paper from the university stating we’re students doing a research on the forest people. As getting papers is rather difficult here we have to make one ourselves. Half an hour before the office closes down we go online, compose a very formal letter with watermarks and all necessary details, add Terje’s phone number and submit it to the security company’s office. The important letter in their hands the officers study it and nod approvingly. They never ask why there’s no stamp or signature. They just ask us to write more letters and run from one printing house to another. Totally worn out at night, we decide to wait for the authorization on some beautiful tropical island. Like Pulau Weh, and then return in three weeks time.

A forest soul hiding itself behind a mask of civility

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This is definitely the weirdest village I’ve ever stepped into. After a 100-kilometer journey along sandy industrial roads in the middle of production forests we reach a production village which hides itself in the middle of a palm tree plantation that is playing tricks on the eco system.

There’s nothing that has been left for the fate to take care of in this village, there are very fine border lines and clone houses. The first row, the second, the third, the empty streets don’t differ from each other, I’d say it reminds me of Soviet planning. The only difference is in the fact that should the evil wolf sneeze the houses would fall apart.

I step into one of those houses and find emptiness in front of me. Three small rooms, one of these has a high bed, but there’s nothing besides an empty noodle package. I ask if there’s nobody living in this house, and I get to know that there are three people who spend their nights here. But the former forest child doesn’t need things for living, and even the shelter provided by the government is often unnecessary. It’s so hot it’s virtually impossible to spend some time indoors. In this weird village there’s also a mosque – modernisation always means one of the five* legal creeds.

There’s a group of men who’ve gathered on a terrace of one house. One of them, who’s wearing a batik-shirt**, tries to be in every picture taken and decides to be the speech leader. Indicating to the mosque he proudly says they’re all Muslims now and his name is Muhammad. Later, of course, it appears they’re rather ID-card-muslims. The mark on their cards and the mosque in the middle of their village are actually the only connections to this religion.

It’s hard for me to believe that the man who’s now stating himself a proud Muslim, who’s wearing a shirt with Indonesian patterns and who wants to smile in every photo, lived in a forest just four years ago and wore a miniature piece of clothing around his buttocks.


If we ask politicians why the forest nomads moved into a village, we get a nice answer. “No community did it against their will. At first a group has to show its initiative and request from the government for a living space. Three years later the houses are built and a community is ready to move into stable life. This is their own decision,” the politicians and village people say as one. And the dear Indonesian government makes the forest people’s wishes come true, providing them with houses, doctors and teaches them to read and write. Because Indonesians love the word maju (development, to develop, progress).

Dwelling on the theme, things turn around. The only reason for them to ask for housing is that their former home – the forest – has been destroyed. And the only ones to blame for that for are the corrupt civil servants and other decision makers who have let legal and illegal deforestation reach areas as broad as this. In reality the government doesn’t help the people in trouble, they are the troublemakers themselves.

Chatting with the people reminds me of the opinions I heard in Cuba. Life’s tough, it’s difficult to find a job, there’re problems with food but the government is nice and generous. At least now we’re living in a house like all civilized people do. (But when there’s nobody to see we actually still sleep outside to avoid the heat).

* (In Indonesian ID card you have to be one of the five: Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu of Buddhist.)

** Fabric with traditional patterns, usually worn in formal or ceremonial occasions.

In the reach of the lost world

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Our truck driver, whose vehicle has offered us shelter for two nights already, finally brakes in front of a village which name we had jotted down in our scrap book. We were relieved because the driver’s aim had been to reach the destination in two days, during which he had not slept at all. The latter resulted in moments of craziness with its nervous moves, screams and panic scratching. 

(our quick-tempered truck driver)
Our aim was to find suku (tribe) anak dalam (children of the forest), in other words the natives of Sumatra who still live in forests and travel like nomads. Of course the idea was on a dream level because so far in Europe we were told that finding those people on whichever Indonesian island would cost a lot and need long preparation time because one can never be sure where they’re at, if they welcome guests and how does the path through the forest take you to them. Based on the information got from travel writers and documentarists you should hire a team where there would be a guide, a translator and some bag carriers who’d help you carry food and presents and who’d make you acquainted with the people of the forest. All in all, it seemed a rather utopian project for two girls who, with 10 euros in their pockets, jump out of a truck and start trying to find the forest people.

Immediately a bunch of people flock around us investigating what we’re looking for. We hide our hopelessness behind a mask of self-confidence: “We’re going to meet the forest people!” Hearing our answers Indonesians don’t start shaking their heads, which is usually very common among them, they even don’t start convincing us about the impossibility of our plan, instead they tell: “Along this road and then to the left. The children of the forest live there,” as if our exotic study was the most everyday question. Everything seems suspiciously easy. A policeman takes us to the next spot, introduces us to the village people and orders us drinks. The men around don’t say a word, they simply invite us to play dominos.  When the game is over and our faces and motivations have been checked one of them stands up. “You want to see the children of the forest? OK, let’s go.”

In utter misunderstanding hearing the order we leave our bags and enter a car to sit next to a rifle and a knife. Two men in front, who we’d met less than 30 minutes ago drive us in their bitch trap into a deep forest, along the roads where nobody else drives. “Do you have your camera?” one looks at me with a big smile on his face. A look at the huge knife and study the men’s faces, my heart is hammering. This question could mean anything. We’re in the middle of unknown paths, between weapons, with two strangers, on our mission impossible. My legs are shaking.

(the roadies, pining in the truck, were given a very painful local massage)
  

Concert for a ride

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Having only 150 euros in our pockets we set out to hitch hike from Jakarta towards Sumatra, so that we could spend a month and a half there resting. Catching the Jawa-Sumatra boat we go through our first moments of ecstasy and calm down in a second –  there’s a dark future waiting for us. It’s already night and we’re about to arrive in the most dangerous area of Sumatra, without any money, homeless, perspectiveless.

The only thing that could save us is finding a friendly car driver from the boat who could then take us away from the Lampung port, but their suspicious wives wrinkle their noses to our requests. Nobody wants to help a stranger at night. Two boys in the boat sit next to us. “Can you sing? But play the keyboard?” The boys take us to the VIP room and set the confused Marie ready to perform. Be that as abhorrent as it may, this is our only way to have some fun and catch the sight of some nice driver who could then take us for a ride.

An echo-mic under her nose and keyboards in her hands Marie tries to sing a song in French. But the latter vanishes in extreme echo and reflects back to the stage like a mocking laughter. But the audience is happy, they are having good time, they get to take photos and even the captain of the ship merrily claps his hands.

„What do you want to do now?“

„We’d like to eat.“

The captain takes my hand, climbs up the stairs and pushes us through doors that have big warning signs on. A big room, which sign says “kitchen for the employees”, welcomes us with a swarm of bedbugs. The captain asks us to take a seat and feel ourselves at home. At the same time he brings us a bowl of rice and some fish. But we’re desperately trying to find a place where the bedbugs don’t fall down from the ceiling, don’t climb the chairs or steal our food. The mission appears to be impossible. Trying not to be disgusted we gulp down the white rice and are thankful for the coincidence that we’re currently trying the  Javanese rice fast, which means eating only rice and water for three days.

We spend the rest of the journey in the captain’s working room, rolling the steering wheel and studying the buttons. And when there’s a necessity to turn the lights on so that the guests could take a closer look at the mechanics, there’s no problem, even if there’s no view on the sea for a few minutes and the captains are sailing in total darkness.

But what’s more important – one of Marie music lovers takes us on the car he’s just bought to his wife and takes to a safe sphere.