[East/Central Indonesia] Day 05 / 31st May 2006 - Recharging and House visits

You can consider today as a rest day for all of us.

After a restless night, we were up at 1000hrs. It was unusually quiet, with just the three of us, as well as Sali, father of Nanga (I think), as well as Si'a. Nanga was not around as well - the past few mornings, we had been awakened by her playing the same pre-configured tune form the keyboard repeatedly. We found out that the men had worked till 3am the night before just to get the parabola working. The original plan was for the technician and his family to stay over for the night and start work today, especially since given the arduous expedition the day before - however, it seemed that they were not quite prepared to stay so long on the island, perhaps after seeing the surroundings (this is just hypothetical - no basis established). In the end, they managed to finish it late into the night and had left for mainland early in the morning. MD was commenting that the pork that we had during last night's dinner, as well as the kueh lapis that we just had for breakfast were probably for the family more than for us...

More talk after the breakfast, and MD was talking about his experiences going around doing fieldwork in the various Austronesian places. There was this particular island where it was literally swampy everywhere, like an atoll - the place would just flood when high tide comes in. The most scary thing was that, according to him, one would not be able to walk around in the day time and open the mouth - there was the danger of mosquitoes just flying into the mouth any moment! The island was just so full of mosquitoes that people had to cover themselves up every single moment - he lasted 3 Days 2 nights there before quickly packing up and leaving.

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As noon approached, MD began work again. Naga and I were tasked to double-check on the aspirations on certain words in the word list that he had came up with prior to the trip - our informant was Sali, with Edo occasionally helping out. We started with those words beginning with "p" - turned out that alot are with aspirations. We almost completed "b"-initial words - not much aspiration there. The phonology, as it turned out, looks very interesting...

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. We had already been accustomed to the house pets - the family dogs and this cat - hovering around us whenever we had dinner in the living room, waiting for any piece of bone or meat that we would drop or throw onto the floor. Occasionally, a scuffle would break out between any two dogs over who should get the bone/meat. Even with the door closed, the animals would still manage to find their way in! But what was most unbearable, in my opinion, was the cat - it would appear from the kitchen just before the meal would have started, start its "meows" way before the food was to be served, and continue meow-ing throughout the meal, hoping to gain some sympathy and food for itself. The cat was so particular that it only ate specific food, specifically bones and meat - the dogs were more accomodating, feeding occasionally on non-meat stuff; apparently, they loved the coconut flesh as well, and whenever we couldn't finish the flesh inside the husk, we would leave it to the dogs to lick and scrape them clean. MD commented that this was probably why people eat dogs and not cats - the meats of carnivores generally taste inferior to those of herbivores (think cows, goats - pigs are an exception I think).

After lunch, Naga and I retreated for further rest; however I couldn't sleep - afternoon naps aren't my cup of tea, unless it's cooling and I'm dead-beat tired. I came along and watched MD continue his work...

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He was chatting with a few women who had walked past the house we were staying at; initially there was eliciting and double-checking of lexical entries, but occasionally, the interaction went on to non-academic domains - like how MD had been sitting...



One of the women was remarking how MD was sitting with the pose ala a woman (see above photo), to giggles from the others present, and that made him change his pose - only to be commented later that he now looked like a woman in pregnancy. That made MD stand up to avoid more comedy!

Another instance was how another of the womenfolk commented that I closely resembled her nephew in Surabaya - her sister married an Indonesian Chinese (I think) - just that he was rounder (meaning more plump?) and perhaps darker. From then on, I became the clone of her nephew Daniel, and whenever we would see her for the next few days, MD would just remark about the round Chinese nephew Daniel amongst us, as well as jokingly suggesting that I stay behind with the woman so that she could feed me, thus becoming rounder, and eventually becoming a REAL CLONE for her nephew Daniel!

*One of the many jokes surrounding me during my stay on the island is my roundness - very round meh? Nonetheless, the people seemed to be intrigued by how "round" this orang cina is, and it's one adjective that MD never failed to describe me during the week...*

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Naga woke up a while later, and the womenfolk had went on to do their own stuff. Sia was pounding some winged beans, as well as some chilli to make the deadly sambla. We tried the winged beans (not bad, tasted like, erm, beans? Ok, like green peas), as wel as the sambal, available in both green and red chilli. Once again, it was attested that the sambal could kill.

The three of us were chatting again, this time about academic stuff - Chomsky, and the two branches of linguistics; went on to talk about various staff members, like LE, ER and OG. Can't really remember what we had been talking about, but it sort of revolved around the need for certain sub-branches of linguistics, along the lines of "If you get it, you get it; if you don't, you don't - simple as that."

It was around this time that my stomach started acting weird - I could sense the first signs of sickness coming in. Slight indigestion, then i slowly feel myself getting lethargic, body temperature getting higher. Was it because of inadequate rest? Maybe, but I was struggling to keep upself attentive and alert for the rest of the evening...

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We were invited for a house visit - and I decided against not going, hoping that the walk would do me some good...


It was evening when we made our way to the village square...

As usual, MD made the village stop in its tracks (hehe) - every house we went passed, there would surely be someone emerging from inside the house, or someone who was doing something outside the house, greeting us and asking where we would be going. Once we had reached the village square, we just had to stop because everyone just approached us and went up to him for a chat or two. Only once was the commotion interrupted - by the resident buffalo which was being brought back to its resting place for the evening. A few of the womenfolk were clamouring after MD and his camera; he duly obliged and took a few photos of them. We resumed on our house visit after stopping for 10-15 minutes.


The ever-popular Lise

Our first house visit was at this house - the back of the house was built amongst the branches of these huge trees. We made ourselves comfortable on the bamboo floor as MD started conversing with the women in the house, who had been doing their kitchen chores before we came in. There were some containers made from rattan-like material and used by the folks to store their various dried foodstuff - greenbeans, corn, etc. - and MD was quite intrigued by them, because it was another chance to expand the Palu'e lexicon. I still wasn't feeling that well, but the sight of the sunset cheered up my spirits - we coudn't resist snapping photos:


One of my Fav Photos...

As darkness set in, we were served some simple fare for dinner - some steamed/boiled pumpkins and fish. Remembering MD's advice after that evening where we had several rounds of dinner, I started to pace myself; eating slowly, in anticipation of the possibility of more dinners that might be coming up. I ended up having more pumpkins than fish - I'm not really a fan of fish, and I don't really know how to eat fish as well haha. The cats had come out by now and were frequently trying to get us to feed them. They must had been really hungry, for there was a flying beetle of some sort which happened to come to rest on the floor for a second or two, and in no time, one of the cats pounced on it and began feasting on it while the others could only stare and reflect on the missed opportunity. That was the first time I had witnessed a cat feeding on an insect!

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Next we went to Sali's house - there was no dinner, thankfully. We were just sitting around, sipping on our beverages, and listening to MD chatting with the people in the house. Oh, there was once or twice when Naga tried to take a photo of the crowd who had bathered at the window and door of the house, leading to the crowd ducking under the window or scampering for cover to svoid being captured by the camera.

We were off soon to Edo's house for - surprise, surprise - dinner. We gathered around the same table where dog meat was served previously; I made it a point NOT to occupy the same place as I had done previously, in case dog's meat was on the menu again. And I was lucky. Wasn't sure if the hosts were encourgaged by Naga eating some of the dog meat served previously, but there it was again. In addition, there was another dish with dog as well, and it's definitely not for the faint-hearted - fried noodle with dog's heart! The locals lapped it up with generous servings, but even Naga did not dare try it. At first, I was welcomed by the sight of noodles as an alternate staple to rice and tubers, but then, I quickly changed my mind. Luckily, instant noodles were on the dinner list as well, and the three of us gladly helped ourselves to it, even though MD was commenting on the relatively poor quality of the Indonesian-made instant noodles.

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There was no more surprise when we went back to our place, and there it was, our thrid dinner of the evening waiting for us. I just ate whatever I could, and I had actually been quite amazed at my own appetite, given the physical condition of my body at that time. Perhaps it was due to the exertion yesterday...

After dinner, the TV and the VCD player provided us with the first part of the evening's entertainment. This time, the songs were Christian songs translated into Bahasa Indonesian. I was particularly curious about how Jesus is spelled "Yesus" in the lyrics of the songs, and how it was strikingly similar to the Mandarin pronounciation. MD explained that "Yesus" was due to Dutch influence, but I still couldn't really figure out if there's any reason that the Mandarin pronounciation is so similar to Indonesian.

The second half of the evening was spent entertaining the crowd with the photos that both MD and Pele had taken for the past few days. There was a cable that could link the digital cameras to the TV, and everyone could see the photos on the 29" inch. We had quite a few laughs at some of the photos, like the one where Pele candidly snapped of Florida (one of his girlfriends), as well as Naga's blood-red tongue and my pissed-off/tired face during the volcano trip - which made me slightly embarrassed as I truly was not feeling pissed, and was afraid that there might be some locals who would be offended by my expression. (Ok, maybe I should stop the defence - it seems that the more I defend, the more guilty I would seem. Nah.)

MD wanted to show the videos that he had taken as well, but his video cam had ran out of batteries and needed a charge, and so entertainment ended at that point. The crowd dispersed and I went to take a shower in the dark - even though there wasn't any real sweating for the day, I felt uncomfortable enough go for a quick wash. MD and Naga subsequently retired to bed while I was bathing.

I had wanted to take some Panadol before I sleep, but after the shower, I felt way better and thought that the illness was temporary, and just went to bed after that.

4 more days on Palu'e island - what could be in store for us for the remaining days?........

To be continued...