Walk Our Gold-paved Streets

My family is very privileged to have mbak Tuti as our domestic helper. She has been with us for more than 10 years and seen my younger brother grow from a teeny-weeny disgusting baby into an aspiring teenage musician. My mom hired her when she was just another newcomer to the Big Durian from a village near Wonogiri, East Java. (Interestingly, my mom also has a helper who had worked for my grandparents since my mom was a baby). She is diligent, smart, and trustworthy; we had no qualms leaving her alone at our home. She can do almost anything my mom didn’t have time to do. During the years, every time my family moved houses, she came along. Every lebaran she goes mudik, and faithfully came back.

During those years too, we witnessed her marriage and first child. In fact, I clearly remember the times I used to spy on her flirting sessions with her then-boyfriend now-husband who was, and still is, a driver. Then they got married and the young family was quickly blessed by the birth of a baby boy. The three of them lives with us and my mom supports the boy’s education. We often eat out together, go for leisure trips, and went to the movies once, where the boy slept through Madagascar 2.

Good help is hard to find, let alone trustworthy ones, so we are determined to maintain our mutualistic relationship. Additional information: the husband developed a small business selling mobile phone credits and snacks on his motorbike. If I may be so bold to coin a new term, I would say she and her husband achieved the Javanese dream, if not Indonesian, of escaping one’s monotonous village and making it –relatively- big in the capital city. In mbak Tuti’s case, she just bought a house in one of Jakarta’s newer suburbs and sends a steady flow of money to her hometown.

It is exactly stories like this that brings throngs of people in the end of the annual mudik season. “Pioneers” share stories of how modern things are here, how everything is bigger and better, and how the streets are paved with gold – which is not true; all we have is a gold-plated eternal flame. Never mind their omitting the sadistic parts such as the life-sucking traffic jams and choking air. Their glamorous stories awed the villagers and prodded them to try their luck here. They will, in turn, become the next Big Durian evangelists who pulls in even more people.

Workforce mobility is naturally beneficial, but in this very case it has brought undesirable effects to the city and the village. According to a data from a national newspaper, an overwhelming majority of the newcomers are unskilled labor. They will land a job in either the informal sector or low-paying workplaces. The effect of this influx is real, unless you can deny the existence of dense slum areas in the city and its associated problems like infectious diseases, high crime rate, and flooding. On the other hand, the village is losing a big part of its workforce. Additionally, as more people leave a village, the culture of that village changes more often in the wrong direction.

If life in the city is so hard, why do villagers keep believing that shiny dream of a city life? From my own observation, there are at least two factors playing a part in this phenomenon: the pull from people who had worked in the city and the willingness to be pulled on the villagers’ part.

First, the people who had moved to Jakarta comes back to their villages and, perhaps unknowingly, exudes a signal that tells everyone to brave the city. Let’s put it this way: one who courageously went to the city and didn’t fail so badly would only share the better experiences of his/her time away from home. It is not so strange if domestic helpers take their pictures with their employers’ homes and cars to boast about it back home. Some mudik-goers also dress the part (fancy clothes, tons of jewelry, inches of make-up) to create the impression that they are prospering in the Big Durian. Those with better income usually take home bundles of small changes to give away to the village kids. This kind of performance never fail to engender the urge to urbanize.

Second, there are intrinsic and extrinsic factors that made the villagers themselves want to try their luck in the city. To begin with, life in the village is not so easy. There may not be enough jobs there, and the ones available are not paying so well or too blah for youngsters. The development in some villages are very slow and the facilities for health care and education is not adequate. Villages that rely on farming is not saved either. Even though Indonesia claims to be an agrarian country, farming is never the priority of our government, who seems to be enamored of factories.

To stop this unhealthy migration, there is nothing the government can do but start closing the development gap between urban and rural areas. They cannot restrict anyone’s movements or deny them the right to (look for) a humane occupation and to fulfill their needs. Until villages and small towns are developed enough for its population, the government should just let the newcomers struggle to get by in the city and extend a helping hand when needed. If they have to live in a slum, let’s at least give them proper health care and get the children in school. If they cannot cope anymore, send them back to their villages.

I’m Bringing Ponorogo Here

You might have noticed that I have decided not to participate in an Indonesian Eid tradition: homecoming, or mudik in Bahasa Indonesia. I stopped going to my grandparents’ hometowns of Solo, Central Java, and Ponorogo, East Java, several years ago after my grandpa’s mom had passed away. In fact, the last time I went there was for her funeral.

In the previous years, my family drove all the way from Jakarta to those cities. Since we were not overexcited homecomers who were willing to get trapped in their cars for hours, we carefully chose when to hit the road, avoiding the frustrating traffic in the whole island of Java. That smart choice cut our travel time significantly, which means there were two less cranky kids (my brother and moi) in the car.

Mudik is fun, despite my objections back then. Hello, in the mind of young me, it was just wrong to pluck a kid from his PlayStation and plop him down on a mountainous small town. GameBoy, and later GameBoy Advance, did appease us a bit, but still we were not satisfied. Now, imagine kidnapping someone away from his/her FaceBook access. It is not only technologically impossible, but also morally deplorable.

Anyway, since my hometown is not graced by a visit by yours truly this year, I decided to do it a favor and bring it here on my blog. Here are some of the best things I love about Ponorogo. As it is based on my own experiences, some stuffs aren’t specific for Ponorogo. It’s just that I found these in my visit to Ponorogo.

Ponorogo itself has unique characteristics. Its people –ponorogoers?- is widely known to be very brash, brave, and determined. And I did not just describe only my grandpa. Perhaps it is connected to its cultural product, Reog Ponorogo, and the stories that surround it. I am not an expert on this anthropological matter (if that’s even the appropriate field for this), so I hereby grant you full freedom to research Reog and its star Warok yourself.

source: detik.com 

Before anyone even start to think about going into another round of Malingsia-bashing, I’d better explain my position. Reog Ponorogo, as its name clearly says, comes from Ponorogo, East Java, Indonesia. Malaysia have never “stolen” it; they were just lucky enough that some Ponorogoers migrated there and brought their culture with them.

Next, Ponorogo has that certain Javanese small-to-medium town feeling. It has a real city square, the alun-alun, where fun fairs are occasionally held. It was not the most sophisticated fun I ever had, but hey, who cares? There were daredevil shows, amusement rides, and a sprawling bazaar. While we also have crappy pirated stuffs here in Jakarta, the tiger- and ox-shaped clay coin bank, which were the only stuffs I bought there, are memorable treasures.

There were still many traditional Joglo houses with their distinctive roof – at least they were still there the last time I came. The real old ones were built uniformly to a specific orientation, north-south if I’m not mistaken, to respect Nyi Roro Kidul or some other mystic bigwig of the area. That is why the houses don’t really face the street.

It is inevitable that I must boast Ponorogo’s yummy food. We have sego pecel, sate gule, and the whole traditional lot. One thing that sets the town apart is sate ayam Ponorogo or Ponorogo chicken satay with its special dressing. It is unquestionably a treat for the body and soul, yet deceivingly simple. Near the alun-alun is a es dawet ayu vendor. Es dawet ayu is an example of traditional cold desserts. To tell you the truth, I have never grasped why this one is so special, but because we went there each year, I think it’s worth mentioning here.

On a more personal level, I love staying in my great grandparents’ house. It is locally known as “rumah pak kades” (the village chief’s house), because my great grandpa had served as one…in the early years of this republic. He gladly stepped down when Soeharto and his Golkar party started dominating the nation. I don’t know how he managed it, but his legacy lived on today.

The house is one of those traditional Joglo houses. It has a spacious pendopo (a gathering hall) where the whole family can come together. Like other old houses, it still has a water well working along a typical jet pump. We loved playing with the ropes and getting buckets of water just to pour them back into the well. In the backyard, My great grandma used to have a chicken coop. My brother and I enjoyed attempting to feed the chickens, and the chickens surely had fun freaking out two city boys.

Ponorogo is not such a boring city after all. When I think about it now, it was the trip there and back that really took a toll on us, not the city itself. My family loves to dream up an imaginary trip there, conjuring images of delicious satay and refreshing es dawet. Then we cringe on the thought of locking ourselves in the car between hordes of motorcycles in the mudik trail. No, thank you.

Proud Party Eid-nimals

There is something different about this Eid (locally also called Lebaran) for me. In previous years, my family usually went to an Eid prayer open-air congregation, got prepared back at home, and dashed off to two big family gatherings.

The first would be to my father’s side of the family, and the location always changes each year. I met my grandma and my dad's siblings there; not to mention the familiar faces (their names keep eluding me every year, let alone how they are related to me) and the who-dat-uncles. They are what I call Lebaran relatives: you discover their existence and chat with them in a Lebaran gathering, only to forget about them as you leave.

After that half-fun half-ordeal, we zoomed to my mother’s huge huge family. I did so with great alacrity since there are only so many I’m-trying-to-be-nice-even-though-I-have-no-idea-who-you-are smiles you can give your Lebaran relatives. It was held in my great grandma’s house and I know everyone who comes, even if my family tree knowledge is a little fuzzy. This family gathering, or some sort of a reunion, is reliably refreshing. Apart from the interesting random conversations, in which SBY got frequently bashed, the Lebaran photo-op is never to be missed. Squeezing my mom’s family into a single frame is no easy feat, but being in that very frame gives me a strange sense of being at home.

There’s none of that for this year. I don’t know how events transpired in the higher tiers, but suddenly my mom announced that the -for a lack of better term- “elders” decided to have the Eid festivities in my home. Well, to be more accurate, it is actually my maternal grandma’s home. Because she is the first child, somewhat automatically her house becomes the place of choice. Hassles and persistent mess aside (our helper has gone back to her hometown in East Java earlier), the seemingly simple change created even bigger changes in my Eid experience

First, I could take my time after the Eid prayer. As the feast is at my home, I had to travel nowhere, which saves a lot of time. I helped arrange the meals, move furniture around, and then relax. My mom didn’t have to brandish her whip to make me rush for a shower.

Having the gathering in my house also saved me from going to the other side. I wanted to meet my paternal grandma there, I really do, but the prospect of meeting a crowd of Lebaran relatives deterred me. I’m not that bad a grandson; if it gives any reassurance, I did go to my grandma’s place that night for the Eid.

The annual photography moment took an exciting turn: the house can’t accommodate everyone for the picture. In an almost literal example of thinking outside the box, my dad as the official photographer of the day herded everyone to the street. Everyone was to line up in the roadside in front of the house so we wouldn’t interfere with whatever traffic that comes. However, it appeared that my dad still couldn’t get everyone into a single picture. He didn’t have enough room across the street to fit everyone. As I said before, I have a huge family.

So God wanted us to be a little naughty, and we changed the orientation of the picture. Now the line goes from one side of the road to the other. We effectively blocked the road. If you can’t picture that, I made a rough visual aid.

The yellow dotted line is the former position, and the yellow arrow is the farthest my dad could go. Then we moved to the position of the red line, which is the point where the street splits into two, making it wider - though we we still have to squeeze in. The advantage of that orientation is that my dad (the red arrow) could go backwards all the way. The greenery to the back of the crowd also served as a gorgeous backdrop. The presence of a big old beringin tree made someone comment that the pic was taken in a botanical garden.

Because we aren’t such obnoxious people, we did take the minimal traffic into account. We thought that we wouldn’t be blocking the road too long so the plan was OKed without much debate. Well, we forgot that the traffic obeys Murphy’s law. As we tried to assemble everyone, traffic suddenly increased. At first, when the formation wasn’t quite stable, a car pushed through and we gave way with a “mohon maaf lahir batin”.

But then, after everyone lined up for the camera, cars started to avoid the street. I counted at least three cars -I’m sure I missed a car or two- that had entered the street and turned back to look for another way. We honestly didn’t think we looked so intimidating back there, yet the result from the camera proved us wrong. We looked like a mob ready to charge at anything. Not my fault. Really. If you are wondering: yes, we blocked the road once and we went all the way. We took tens of pictures on the street. Thank God none of us had to be questioned by any policeman for causing unrest.

Last, after everyone went home, we had two things left: the good thing and the bad thing, although the difference isn’t quite clear. The bad thing is rather obvious. The house was, let’s gently say, not as clean and tidy as I would like it. The four of us (my parents, me, and my brother) had to mop the floors multiple times after realizing that it was so sticky that a spider could have trapped us there. The dishwashing department was not hit so hard, thanks to my mom’s preference for disposables. (Sorry trees and hippies). We only had some trays and serving plates to clean. Moreover, the furniture arrangement have not gone back to its original state.

The good thing: leftovers! Ketupats, opor ayam, sambel goreng ati, and cakes abound! Before you have any crazy thoughts, we were not a hopeless family that feeds solely on leftovers. For the sake of our sanity, we (had to) go out for lunch. Only at night we take a bite on the lebaran food, which saves us from endless nights of instant noodles.

Eid 2009

During the Islamic lunar month of Ramadan, Muslims everywhere in the world undergo a period of spiritual rejuvenation through fasting, prayers, and acts of benevolence. It is said that the good deeds done in the holy month is another huge step toward God, so every Muslim is encouraged to take his/her “game” up another level.

However, Ramadan possesses a different side not to be forgotten. As ignorance, intolerance, and violence tighten their vicious grips, it is more important now than ever that Muslims grasp that Ramadan is also a month of transformation. The month demands that its observer be a better person: a person of awareness, tolerance, and compassion. Mankind has witnessed too many evidences of how cruel a man can be to his brothers and sisters just because they look different, think differently, or call God by different names. I genuinely believe that Ramadan is an appropriate moment to reflect upon our actions, whether we really deserve to call ourselves Muslims.

As we celebrate our personal victory after going through the grueling days of fasting, yet another victory awaits to be claimed – together. Ramadan, with its call for Godly characters, must put Muslims in the frontline of establishing peace, fostering open-mindedness, caring for the Earth, defending liberty, and respecting equality. Or more precisely, we have to change ourselves so we may contribute towards a better world for all.

Have a blessed Idul Fitri, 2009.