Saturday, February 25, 2023
6:48 a.m. Village House
Negari Sariak, Sumatra, Indonesia
I’m sitting on the bed in my room at this house in the village. I just finished taking a cold-water bucket bath that was very refreshing. The mother of the family, Ibu Noor, was busy frying up some lunch or breakfast in the kitchen just off the bathroom that I am using. The family appears to have a different bathroom around the back that they use. No one seems to be using this one nearer the front of the house other than me. The fumes from the frying have somehow triggered a cough reflex, and I’m coughing away.
I’m waiting to see what the weather is going to be like today. Since the day I arrived back in Sumatra, it has been overcast and rainy. That has put a bit of a damper on my return, I must say. The road trip from Pekanbaru to Bukittinggi wasn’t quite as much fun as I expected simply because it was so gloomy. And the rain kept us from feeling like we could stop places. Yet, it isn’t all bad. The cloudy skies keep the heat down. I went for a long walk along the slopes of Mount Marapi yesterday morning, and it was a comfortable walk in the cool morning. And the wet conditions seemed to bring out the green of all the plants in the fields. The one thing lacking has been the views of the volcanoes and valleys. I’m hoping that before I leave here, there will be a period of time in which the sun comes out and I can see everything clearly.
I haven’t written out the stories of my arrival and trip to Bukittinggi, because I recorded some of those stories on video. I recorded a long and detailed account of my flight from KL to Pekanbaru in the morning when I woke up at Adi and Bekit’s house. And I recorded another video story yesterday morning when I walked through the fields on the slopes of Mount Marapi. I don’t think I will repeat all those stories here. The short version is that the one-hour flight from KL to Pekanbaru was much more tiring than I expected. A lot of small issues cropped up that made the flight as a whole somewhat uncomfortable and stressful. This mood carried all the way through the Pekanbaru airport. I made my way through immigration and customs without any major problems, and I was given another 30-day visa on arrival. From that point of view, the trip was a success. It was just tiring in ways that I wasn’t expecting for a simple, short flight, particularly when I had someone picking me up at the airport.
Something went wrong with Adi’s plan to pick me up at the airport, but I still can’t figure out what happened. Everythng worked out fine from my point of view. Yet, he seemed convinced that things had gone wrong, and I’m still not sure what he meant by that that. He wasn’t there when I emerged from customs and entered the arrivals hall. And I walked slowly through the airport until I found myself outside at the area where passengers were picked up. I took the time to switch the SIM card in my smartphone, and I was delighted to see that I had a small amount of valid data left on my Telkomsel account. And I was able to receive WhatsApp messages from Adi. The messages said that he had left his house and he was on his way to the airport. Based on the times of those messages, I calculated that he would be arriving at the airport at any moment. I never did see him drive up, but after twenty minutes or so, I saw Adi walking towards me along the sidewalk. And then the two of us walked to his car, which was parked a short distance away in the airport parking lot. Everything seemed to be on schedule and working out fine. Yet, Adi felt like everything had gone wrong. He apologized a couple of times for making me wait so long. Yet, I hadn’t had to wait at all. It turns out that he had the wrong flight number. I had sent him many messages that provided my flight number as well as exact departure and arrival times. And I confirmed the flight number and arrival time when I was at the airport and when I boarded the plane. He seemed to have checked online for arrival times, or he went inside the airport and looked at the schedule there. But whatever he did, he got the flight number wrong and he checked for an entirely different flight. And this flight was scheduled to land at 7:30. So he figured he was there far too early. He had parked his car and gone inside the airport and seen that this flight wasn’t arriving for several hours. And then I guess he got my messages that I had arrived and I was standing outside the airport, and he came and got me. So, from my point of view, everything worked out perfectly and he was right on time. Yet, he seemed to think he was hours late. Yet, according to the times he was working with, he was hours early. So, I have no idea what happened from his point of view. There was no need for him to apologize at all. It had all worked out fine for me. But he behaved as if there had been a big problem.
We then drove to his house, and I had a very relaxed and comfortable evening and night there. His house is large and spacious, and there was even a large air conditioned bedroom available for me to sleep in with a nice bathroom right beside it. We had a dinner of beef rendang and other things. And I had coffee. And I had the enjoyment of sitting around an actual dining room table and chatting with Adi and Bekti. It was really nice. And then we all eventually went to bed in preparation for the road trip of the next day.
It took Adi and I over eight hours to drive from Pekanbaru to the village. But that included a few errands along the way, a stop for lunch, and a visit to Adi’s warehouse and workshop where I had the chance to check out his restored Citroen cars. The family at this house in the village was expecting us, and there was a burst of activity as we unloaded everything from the car and my room was prepared. Adi stayed long enough to make sure that I was settling in fine and that there was no problem with the arrangement. Everything at this house turned out to be much better and more comfortable than I expected. The room I was given is large and has a kind of large double bed. Bekti sent along a fitted sheet and pillowcases for this bed. And that, combined with my own bed sheet and sleeping bag, makes it quite comfortable and warm enough at night.
There was some concern that the bathroom in the front of the house was locked and that the key was missing. However, that turned out not to be true and I am able to use that bathroom. I’m also able to go in and out via the front door, and that door has its own key, which I’m able to take with me and lock the door behind me. There has been a bit of the expected confusion surrounding food and some guest/host relations. It’s a bit complicated, because the family that is staying here are not really my hosts. My hosts are Adi and Bekti. It is their house, and they were the ones that extended the invitation for me to stay here. But they don’t live here. The people that live here are caretakers. It is not their responsibility to feed me and take care of me as their guest. And, of course, I wouldn’t want them to. I’m happy to be left on my own. I like to be in charge of my own daily life, and it’s no problem to find food in this village. Yet, the feeling of hospitality is strong in Indonesians, and the caretaker family does want to make sure that I’m fed and things like that. But with the language barrier, things can get a bit confusing. But I’ve been here for three nights, and a certain pattern is emerging. They are learning that I can take care of myself. I even have a fair amount of food that I brought with me from Malaysia in anticipation of being in this village for a while. And I have my own coffee and kettle and that sort of thing.
I’ve been sleeping very well here. In fact, I’ve been sleeping better here than I was in Malaysia. I woke up feeling good my first morning here, and I set off very early, when the world was still covered in mist, to walk around the village and see what was here. After a walk along the main road and back, I stopped at a small local shop to have coffee, tea, and snacks. I went back to this shop yesterday for a kind of early lunch. And then for dinner, I went to a mie ayam bakso place a short distance up the road. That wasn’t quite enough food for dinner, and I had a second meal of chicken and rice and veggies at a house that doubled as a restaurant. So, with some effort and careful timing, I can find food here in this village to feed myself.
I was up and moving around a bit later in the morning after my second night here, and I decided to go for a walk up the narrow road that leads into the farmer’s fields on the slopes of Mount Marapi. I brought my GoPro with me, and I recorded some stories of my life here while also taking video of the farming activity around me. I ran into the son of this family, Rudy, at a farm where they were harvesting and washing carrots. I took advantage of that to get a closeup look at the carrot harvest and the carrot-cleaning activities. The land on the slopes of this volcano struck me as extremely fertile, and all kinds of crops were growing: carrots, onions, red peppers, grapes, cabbage, lettuce, and much more. The whole walk was a delight from beginning to end.
I don’t know how long I will stay in this village, but I certainly feel no urge to move on yet. There is much to explore here, and I have a lot of video to edit from before my trip to Malaysia. I can comfortably stay here for a week or two.