Islands in the clouds

Mountain tops poke through the clouds as the plane approaches Malang.


June 26, 2011


By Maria "Rai" Hancock



If there is one word I have learned so far it is takut (scared) or perhaps gelisah (nervous), but that's not a bad thing. One week ago, I embarked on an experience which is meant to push me, challenge me, expose me, teach me. While learning in the classrooms at NIU or taking a trip to a Southeast Asia tourist destination can shrink the distance between me and the cultures and people of Indonesia, they cannot eliminate that space. If we could so easily and comfortably understand everything about another culture, we would all be anthropologists, global political experts, and--I think--humanitarians and peacemakers. Instead, creating such knowledge, finding authentic understanding, takes bravery to face travel, immersion, and daily challenge in foreign locations. So then, I embrace "takut" and try to cultivate "keberanian" (bravery) so I can learn.

On June 12, my fiance Justin piled me into the car very early in the morning after a thoroughly sleepless night so that I could tearfully get onto a plane and go to Washington, D.C. On the plane and at the airport, I met other Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) participants from the Indonesia program and from the Turkey program, who were also gelisah to begin the program. In our welcome packets we received a list of participants that revealed the diversity of the group. Participants came from all over the United States, with western U.S. universities sending 40 percent; eastern schools sending 28 percent; and the Midwest and South sending the remaining 32 percent. While there are many small and state universities represented, participants also hailed from big-name schools like Cornell, Stanford, Berkeley and Georgetown, ranging from sophomores working on their bachelor's degrees to graduate students well through their doctoral studies. Some participants came with several years of work experience in the United States and abroad. Although there are some expected clusters of specialities like political science, anthropology, and area and international studies, there are others with backgrounds as diverse as nutrition, forestry, biology, education, musicology, and physical science (and it is certainly interesting to note that one of those in area studies actually studies native Americans).

The orientation was mostly your average job or program orientation--a lot of paperwork and discussing things either readily apparent or in the advance materials we all received. What stuck out in my mind were the stressed and yet thoroughly defeated-sounding warning against riding bicycles and the discussion of bathroom habits, i.e. how hard is it to use a squat toilet? The Indonesian Embassy's educational and cultural attache, Haryo Winarso, and the counselor and head of the information division, Heru Subolo, came and spoke to us a little about the warming relationship between the U.S. and Indonesia and had lunch with us.

Studying Southeast Asia should come with a warning label that begins like: "Southeast Asian studies may cause excessively long flights, long layovers, upset stomach, and . . . ," well, you get the idea. I can now testify that regarding airports: the security at Hong Kong is low-tech, but very efficient; the floors in Singapore are surprisingly comfortable; and the local food options in Jakarta are amazingly good for airport food. The airport in Malang, however, I can say little about because I was pulled through it like Justin Bieber through a crowd of panting teenage girls after a concert. As bad as it was, however, that flight to Malang was worth the view as we flew around mountains that stuck up like islands in the clouds, like a heavenly version of the country below, some of them with light plumes of smoke. All the participants were just bursting with excitement as the Resident Director Dr. Peter Suwarno (Pak Peter) and a collection of porters and students gathered our luggage and got us settled on the bus and then in our hotel.

On Friday--yes, that's right, we began orientation on Monday, then traveled for three days before finishing it--after a night at a swanky hotel, we went by bus to the Universitas Negeri Malang (UM). In a way that I have come now to expect, the length of the bus ride has little to do with how far apart places are here. While one of the participants had easily and quickly found UM while running, it took us almost thirty minutes to navigate the crazy narrow streets of Malang in the big bus.

The opening ceremonies included a formal welcome from Dr. Dawud, the Dean of the Faculty of Letters, and Pak Peter, but also an enthusiastic introduction, all in Indonesian, by Mbak Ardurna (Mbak is a term of respect for women, with Mas being the male equivalent). Between speakers, Javanese traditional dancers performed in costumes and even brought up participants to join in. Best of all, when we were released and sent to snack--even though we had only just gorged ourselves on the luxurious breakfast at the hotel--our tutors found us (there are two for each of us). Mbak Dwi and Mbak Anin pulled me over to the refreshment table through a sea of batik-clad Indonesians and conspicuously tall bule-bule (Caucasians) and helped to load my plate with fruits and cakes. We sat and talked as well I could expect with jetlag, sleeplessness, and a cold weighing on me. Mbak Dwi is an effervescent and beautiful young student and Mbak Anin is sweet, tiny, and more withdrawn, even quiet but helpful.

Before lunch, the regional security officer from the U.S. Consular Office in Surabay addressed us in theory about safety, generally assuring us that within reason, we were pretty safe in Malang, and that there was excellent surf to be had in Indonesia. While important, this visit seemed more like a formality than anything to be really concerned with. After lunch, the ubiquitous orientation materials and discussion of goals, schedules, logistics, safety, etc., continued. The most interesting part was signing up for our elective classes. My choice of pencak silat (traditional Indonesian martial arts) elicited giggles and gasps, but in the end that class was actually weighted toward females.

By the time I reached my host family Bapak and Ibu Iqbal, I was so congested that my breathing was somewhere between a wheeze and a gurgle, and so tired that I could barely hold my head up. Mbak Dwi accompanied me in and helped to introduce me and find my room. My host parents introduced themselves and the children, but my brain was soup and everything they said seemed like submerged nonsense. But then I heard an amazing word, istirahat, meaning "rest." After putting my things away and sharing a gift with my host mother, I laid down and was asleep almost before I hit the pillow. They woke me for dinner--something resembling a hot dog and roasted chicken with rice--which was somewhat awkward since people still did not make sense and no one else was eating. Despite my exhaustion, I woke up ready to go at 2 a.m., which I eventually considered a blessing because it gave me almost four hours to study for my placement test. I started through my books and made some notes about grammar and vocabulary. This is when I bothered to find out what nervous was. I can't say that I was any less nervous when I arrived and they had me on the list with all the people I knew had serious language skills, who had lived in Indonesia or visited several times. I was taking the hard test! On the bright side, I told myself, that means I have potential, right? The test was tough, because there was a considerable amount of grammar, but there was a large chunk on the di- prefix that Bu Henry [NIU language professor Patricia Henry] had drilled into my head at NIU. There was also reading and working with suffixes, which it seemed like everyone was lost on, and the part I was most worried about, the Speaking Test. I think they took it easy on me. When the numbers came back, I was in Intermediate 2B just below Advanced. Wow!

On Sunday, our free day, my tutors met me at 6 a.m. to go running--to avoid the heat of the day--and to do some shopping. I didn't expect to do these activities together, but I ended up at the Pasar Besar (Big Market) and Pasar Minggu (Sunday Market) in my workout clothes. But it was a wonderful journey, talking with a few children on the way and receiving a wide range of greetings ("Hi, Mister!"). I bought batik, shoes, cakes, and fruit all in one place--and very cheaply--like Walmart with more character! We headed home from the Pasar Besar and ran smack into Pasar Minggu and had to walk through it to get home. That surely doomed us because the market was full of good smells, of meat roasting and cakes. With empty bellies, the smell was killing us, so we found a nice stall and ate heaping plates of rice, noodles, veggies, tempe, and other things covered in peanut sauce and sambal (chili sauce). We finished up with a sweet snack, like cotton candy but on short sticks, like little mounds of pink hay.

You can't long stay too scared in a country like Indonesia because every day you have to summon bravery to walk down the crazy roads where lanes seem more like a vague suggestion. You have to suck it up and try to the best of your ability to communicate with cashiers and others you meet daily, even though you're sure you sound like an idiot. And while I could probably minimize my fear by retreating to solitude, I'd miss the whole point. Bravery is a must here, and I have to admit that Indonesians make it easy, with their friendliness (and lots of curiosity) and the examples they set by just plunging head on into traffic and into life.