[East/Central Indonesia] Day 07 / 2nd June 2006 - Goodbye, Palu'e...

We had to wake up early to prepare for our departure; I got up at six.

In a way, a part of me was quite relieved that my stay on Palu'e would be ending soon - all the climbing and slopes made me realise how much I missed the ease of travelling around back home. The terrain, plus the lack of automobiles of any sort meant that you can only and have to rely on "Bus No. 11" to get around. I swear that the vigorous activities were ten times more strenuous than any dismounted exercise I have ever done during active NSF days, including my very first FTX with Four-Zero XXX, where, after a whole night of bashing and walking, I came to the top of the hill and just puked. If the SA-of-F ever gets shut out of Rockhampton, they can seriously consider this little island as a training outpost. On second thoughts, maybe not - the island will be overflooding with remains of combat rations faster than lava and ash covering the island during an eruption. Also, the diet on the island, though a refreshing change from junk food and MSG, would probably not last me in the long run - I guess my appetite is just too spoilt by the variety of food back home.

On the other hand, I will also miss the Nitung village. The warm reception from the people, who are almost always friendly and with a smile. The kids who are so interested in us, yet shun away the moment we get close. The cooling environment, even in the middle of the day. Dusta and the dogs. The outdoor lavatory that surprisingly has no sandflies. The endless supply of coconuts. The sight of Pagi doing things that no one else half his age could even dream of doing (As proof of his prowess and agility, just yesterday, Pagi had been climbing up tress that were about 20 metres or more in height - he then proceeded on to "trim" the trees of excess branches and all; we estimated that he was at it for a full 6-7 hours. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, can stop the Man. And I'm still indebted to him for pulling me up that treacherous upslope during the volcano expedition.).

Remember what I had said about the strength of the womenfolk that were on display when we first climbed up from the shore to the village? Throughout the stay, the scene just got repeated over and over again, albeit with different loads on their heads. Soil, bricks (sometimes weighing 40-50kgs), local produce, etc. Plus the daily household chores. Plus producing those sarongs in three weeks. Now, add one more feature - women only get to eat leftovers from the meals. The practice during mealtimes is for the food to be served on the table, and then all the men will gather to eat first, while the women will remain in the background; I must confess that I have hardly, if ever, seen, with my both eyes, any Palu'e woman eating a proper meal throughout my stay (of course, Nanga doesn't count, but even then, kids seldom get to eat first as well). This means of course, that the women stand a higher chance of being undernourished, if what they get to eat is lesser than what their bodies require. This sort of practice probably originated from olden times, and I can probably understand (but not agree with) such logic behind such practices - that men were probably busy with fishing and hunting and fighting and building, thus leading to such patriarchial practices. However, the practice seems less logical in present days; furthermore, with the need to protect against other hostile invaders gone, it seemed that men have pretty much more free time on hand. Of course, I am just an outsider who just happened to stay over on the island for a couple of days - my words weigh little. I probably can't get over the fact that women are doing alot, and yet can't eat together during mealtimes.

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Where was I? Oh yes, we woke up early...

After washing up, we packed our remaining stuff and brought our bags out. Breakfast was already laid out on the table. We consumed our breakfast without much fuss; after that, we did our own stuff and waited till Pelé was ready...

It was close to eight when we were about to leave. We came out of the house, and found our bags missing! The women had done it again! Our bags had reached our intended destination before us...

We bidded goodbye to those who had gathered around the house, and then proceeded to walk through the village. Our last chance to rack up a ruckus, I thought. And there was one, though not as big as the one who created on our first day in the village.

We had to stop by the mini-provision shop - I needed some plasters. My wound, which I had thought was healing perfectly fine, had managed to open up during the course of my sleep. Gotten two plasters, but was left red-faced when I realised that my wallet was in my bag. I promised Pelé to pass him some money when we reach shore.

We pressed on and bidded more goodbyes; Naga passed our remaining carton to one of the men to be shared amongst the rest of the men - our parting gesture. We took the same route that we had taken the previous day for our swim; but before that, MD stopped to tie up and secure my plaster with his handkie - now I owe him one handkie, in addition to other endless favours that he had done for us for this trip.

We made our way down; I couldn't spring down the downslopes as I had the day before. Every step taken reminded me of the many more that would be following. It didn't take long for my shirt to be drenched in sweat. Nonetheless, after a few trips and falls, we managed to reach shore without any major glitches. There was already a party of people whom had descended via the other route. Ran to my bag and fished out some cash to pay for my plasters. Said the very last goodbyes to those who had gathered to send us off, and boarded the boat with the rest who were going to head for Maumere...


Leaving on a Motor Boat...

It wasn't that long when the first ever Singaporean landed on Palu'e shore with his butt; now this Singaporean couldn't help but savour the last few moments on this island, asking himself if he will ever get the chance to come back again, to scale the cliffs and the volcano, to wonder amongst the corals and the fishes, to banter with the womenfolk, to befriend Dusta and the dogs, to (perhaps) get a piece of that famous sarong for Mum, to get to learn how to climb a coconut tree...

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The boat slowly pulled out and headed East at around 0830 hrs; we were to travel eastwards and then southwards round the island before travelling east for Maumere (on our way here, we had travelled westwards and then northwards round the island)...

But it appeared that we weren't really headed straight for Maumere - not yet anyway.

We made two stops to pick up more passengers (including a black vavi, which one of the poor helpers had to row out from the boat to the shore in the tiny and spare rescue boat); by then all of us had moved up to the top deck of the boat.

And then we were finally on our way.

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Si'a and some of the others followed us to Maumere - some were coming along to visit some friends, some just to tag along, Pelé gotta go back Batam for work, and Edo just wanna leave home to avoid being nagged at in home by his dad; he was planning to leave for Surabaya on the coming Monday via a four-day ferry trip. Naga and I were half-deliberating on whether to follow him on the trip, but then decided against spending 4 days out at sea...

As morning progressed into noon, the heat became scorching. I had been sleeping during the first hour or so, but found myself hardly able to continue to do so. I woke up and turned to staring at the surroundings to pass time; of course, there were opportunities to take some nice photos as well.


One last shot at Palu'e...



First Signs of Flores

MD occupied himself with a copy of last Sunday's papers, while Naga carried on sleeping before awaking and continuing with his "classic" book, the book that I still couldn't remember the name of. I took the opportunity of the strong sunlight to tan my arms and legs keke...

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Hours passed...

... and yet we didn't appear to be nearing Maumere one bit...

Something worse cropped up after noon - the boat ran out of fuel.

Two helpers had to row out to shore in the same spare tiny boat to buy more fuel, while the boat and the rest of us were left to drift in the seas - we ended up spinning round and round, and that got me into a headache, which meant that I would have to lie down...

The episode did provide a chance for MD and us to chat though; somehow we managed to diverge to the workings of English prefixes, with particular focus on the prefix "be" - what is "be" doing in the various English words? And then we tried to think of archaic words that has "be" prefix; MD came up with a few that we really had not herad of, but we did ocme up with one - bejewelled - that caught him as well. Hmmm, now, how did we come up with "bejewelled"?

When Naga returned to his "classic", I was suddenly reminded that I still had my last few pages of Foucault's Pendulum that I had not finished. Fished it out from my bag and finished it in, like half an hour. By then, the boat had started to move again, after the fuel had arrived. Now the whole boat reeked of the smell from the fuel...

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We finally touched Maumere shore at around half past three. As soon as it appeared that we would be staying at the harbour for quite some time, the three of us made a beeline for the restaurant!

And I made another of those mistakes once again. I wanted to try something new, so I went for something in the menu with this lexical item "Lele" in the name. When the dish finally came...

... it was some sort of fish. A catfish...

Is this some kind of joke??? After avoiding fish for the past few days, I had to order fish!

By then, the rest of those following us on the boat had came into the restaurant as well. I was faced with a dilemma; I was quite sure that at least some of them might be offended by the fish sitting in front of me, thinking: "This rascal ordered fish the first thing he left Palu'e??? Was our fish back in the village that terrible???"

In the end, I have to try to eat the fish discreetly, taking care not to outwardly display any sign of positive expressions so that no one would be under the impression the catfish tasted way better than any other that I had tasted. It was pretty weird, my first time eating catfish and all. The best thing during the meal for me was ironically the mandarin drink, which MD had been drinking - it was sweet, ice-cold and simply best especially on a hot sunny Friday afternoon.

We ended up having a pretty sweet meal, with Naga ordering an addition serving of Ayam Goreng; as he later commented, "From today onwards, we gotta say 'goodbye' to green sh*t and 'hi' again to brown sh*t..."

As a sign of reciprocration, Naga and I shared the meal, which came up to less than RP200k for about 8 or 9 of us. We left the restaurant and left the harbour soon after, in a convoy of ojeks, towards Sentrum; this is a place where we were supposed to spend the night before departing for our separate locations. Off the main road, we were led to a village-like settlement, with small houses and mini-gardens. Our hostess was quick in receiving us, and we were led to put our bags down.

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It appeared that we were not done with travelling yet.

As evening approached, we were told to pack some stuff, for we were going to visit Pelé's "sister" who lives in another part of Maumere.

*The kinship system of the Palu'e people is quite interesting and different from ours. MD spent some time trying to find out how it actually works, and I doubt we have yet apprehend fully the mechanisms behind the system. For a start, everyone who comes from the village has two/three names; one which I have forgotten is for what, but one is definitely the baptised name, and the other is a name which one inherits from another ancestor - a good way of important who your ancestors are, according to MD (and I absolutely agree), but at the same time, confuses things. Then, it seems that someone's brother/sister need not be related directly by blood - apparently, if B is A's wife, then C, B is also the sister of C, who is A's husband. And it gets more complicated, which, at this point in time, I cannot have an example here because I'm still quite lost in the tree of things. But, yah, I have my reasons for putting "sister" in inverted commas...

This time, we took a sort of mini-bus, which is actually those type of vans that are meant to carry passengers at the back instead of goods. Which is kind of ok, except that these vans are often overloaded and overcrowded, they often have loud-blasting 90s' techno music from the blaring speakers, and that they are co-manned by teenagers who just hung out from the side door of the vans while the vans are moving. Luckily the trip didn't take very long, even though we stopped by a market to shop for rice and vegetables (presumbly for dinner).

We arrived at this neighbourhood where most people had settled after the last great eruption of the volcano on the Palu'e island. We had our shower in the bathroom; though there was candlelight, it couldn't beat the shower I had the previous day, under the moonlight and stars and all...

We had a simple dinner with some instant noodles, and as the other Palu'e men were chatting and catching up outside the proch, the three of us indulged in our own "candle-side chat" in the living room - apparently, our coming coincided with an unexpected power cut for the evening. A wide range of topics ensued, from eruptions (Krakatoa, St. Helens') to Indonesian politics (how Parabolas brought down the Suharto regime, how the Government used to divert international aid intended for those who had been affected by natural disasters to the capital and its insistence for cash instead of material aid, how Indonesians were subjected to propagandic broadcasts of ministers meeting up and discussing policies and other stuff of seemingly national interests.) to the issue of standard languages (ok I can't really remember how we got there, but it seems that the idea of a standard language spells something Facist or Marxist - this, I cannot verify haha...).

We were supposed to head for the town centre which, according to Edo, was supposed to be bustling with night activity and all. We left the house at around 8 or 9, and instead headed back for Sentrum. Which was ok with us as well, for tomorrow seemed to be a rather busy and hectic day for Naga and me; tomorrow would be the start of a real adventure...

We got back to Sentrum in a similar van, minus the techno music and the sidekicks. I finally got to call back home! I had borrowed Naga's phone and made the call. Mum picked up the phone and there was an inner sense of relief and delight as I spoke to her for the first time since the morning I had left for the trip. She asked of my trip and whether I was affected by the earthquake; I told her to inform my sis about the bag and whether I would need to replace it. On hindsight, I had probably been too anxious about letting my sis know about the bag that I forgot about other things, like how had things been going on at home, how had others in the family been doing lately. Before long, both of us felt compelled to end the call, for fear of the astronomical costs of international calls. It felt comforting, but at the same time, I was left with a sense of homesickness, that familiar feeling of being around with your own family, and an environment that you are at ease with, familiar at the back of your hand...

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Since it was getting late, we went to bed soon; MD got a room, while Naga and I shared a bed in another. I felt bad as I realised that there weren't any rooms left around, and the rest had to spread mattresses on the floor and hush around in the common area...

We swept off the grains of sand and soil on our mattress, and opened up the mosquito net, and soon tried to sleep...

But sleep would become very elusive throughout the night...

To be continued...