In Gunung Pasang

Gunung Pasang in Jember is a small farmers town on the edge of Gunung Argopuro. It is the home of 100 families, around 600 people.Foto: The village Gunung Pasang, Jember with the new riverbed in the front.

The village has known a big flood onJanuary 1st, 2005, 00.15AM. After 5 days of continues rain the river became too big and powerful and swept along the farmers house. Numerous landslides destroyed farming land and more houses. Om Stevanus by that time was on a training for search and rescue in a village, a four hour trekking away away from Gunung Pasang. After the training that ended on January 1^st they headed back to Gunung Pasang to find the catastrophic situation. Jember was immediately informed by radio. On January 2^nd all access roads to the entire region of Gunung Pasang were blocked. However, the first rescue team could enter the area on January 2^nd and build a radio system to ensure communication with Jember and the area. On January 3^rd the second rescue team could enter the area and started data collection on the houses destroyed and the people who died. For two months the rescue teams searched the missing people. The data sent to Jember was 122 dead and 60 missing. However, to keep the compensations low and to hide the number of illicit workers in the coffee production, only 80 dead people were reported to Surabaya.

The village is settled in a fertile area where people mainly grow coffee. There is a coffee and rubber fabric where most of the people are employed. They work every day except on Sundays, starting at 7 am, ending at midday. This is time enough to go uphill, collect 40 kg of coffee beans and carry them down to the state-owned coffee fabric. They earn 14´000Rp per workload, which gives them an income of 40USD per month. As I learn from the kids, most of them finish the school with 12 or 13 years. Their families can not afford to send them to the high school in the next bigger town, mainly because of the transportation costs.

The purpose of my weeklong stay in Gunung Pasang is to give English lessons to our future guides and porters and to show the women how to make handicrats. Together with Om Stevanus I live in the house of Pak War, Taman Hidup´s contact person in Gunung Pasang. Compared with other houses Pak War´s home is relatively big with two sleeping rooms, a big living room and a big kitchen. Next to the kitchen there is a small stable for the hens. Next to it is the famous kamer mandi which benefits of the proximity of the river. However, this proximity to the water brings some other natural friends with it. Yesterday I just saw how a young frog jumped into the water bin out of which I take the water for my mandi. However, so far I have not seen a prince coming out of this well. Despite of this private mandi (as many are public) the young women from the village ask me every day to take my mandi in the big river, together with them. I can not tell if it is for fun, if it would be an honour for them, or if they are just curious to see a white person to take mandi in a river.

Foto: Our porters and guides from Gunung Pasang.

Foto: Om Stevanus giving the handicraft workshop.

Most houses are made out of wood or bamboo, hopefully with a small flower garden in the front. Inside the house, the floor is made out of clay, it is rather dark because the bamboo construction does not allow big windows. People sleep on wooden beds, some without mattresses. The kitchen remains very simple. Ibu War (Pak War´s wife) cooks with wood that men collect during the day. The tomorrow’s chicken runs around in the chicken and is locked during the night. Having a cow is a sign of wealth and so far I have not seen one in the village. If there is electricity it only runs during the night and can not be shut down. Hence, it is finally here that I am forced to learn to fall asleep with light.

The food is simple. It consists of rice, three times a day, sambal (chili, garlic and boiled tomato, all crushed together), vegetables that mainly grow in the garden, salty fish and sometimes cow. I tried to get along with that food, with some troubles. The sambal is just tooo spicy, the fish to salty and if I eat cow I think to have a wooden stick in my mouth with the taste of a stable. One may think that the cow has been killed while walking from the stable to the kitchen. Hence, the guys at Taman Hidup might have been aware of that and insisted on buying some special food for me: Some potatoes, tomatoes, one bread, chocolate powder and one liter milk. Om Stevanus showed Ibu War how to make French Fries, scrambled egg with tomatoes and toast. In addition they were told that I like eggplants (which I am glad they have a lot). Hence, today I ate French Fries and fried eggplants for breakfast. For lunch I had toasted bread, scrambled egg with vegetable soup and for dinner I had grilled corn with fried eggs, rice and some vegetables. Bon appetit! As they are coffee farmers coffee is served whenever people are around. They roast and grind it manually in a big hole of a stone with a stick. Everyday I drink a lot of ginger tea, which they collect in the forests close by.

On Saturday I held the first English class. At the beginning I was disappointed to see only 4 people showing up. I was told that all others were about to collect the Arisan, which takes place twice a month. The Arisan is a custom for which every family who can afford it gives 5´000 Rp. (9`000Rp. =1USD) Per men and 1´000Rp per woman into a common pot. The lot decides upon the family receiving the entire amount of the money. After the flood in 2005 half of the money was used for reconstruction, half of it was used to allow the young people to play football. By now the full amount goes to the families again. I was told that many use is to finance traditional parties, a marriage ceremony, a cow, educational or music instruments. Basically the family is free to the decide upon the use of the money.

Foto: Women from Gunung Pasang with their first self and hand made Angklung

Hence, on Wednesday the last handicraft workshop was held and the women were proud to show their Anklungs and the self-made paper. Pictures were taken and everybody was happy. In the evening, as usual from 7-9pm the last English class was held. Participation and motivation was high during the entire week (expect the first day) and it was a pleasure to teach them. It was a nice week. I had enough time for myself, spent the time with locals and once a day I assisted the handicraft workshop and gave some English classes.

A last goodbye

Yesterday morning I left Jember for a daytrip to Wato Ulo. I left with Yuni at 8 am to pick up two friends of her on the way to Wato Ulo. By car we went which gave me the comfortable opportunity to extent my few sleeping hours from the night before.

When we arrived I was surprised to see so many people. Many Warung were open and sold Ikan baker (grilled fish) to the tourists, only locals. However, I turned myself to an attraction as people started staring at me. However, because I was traveling with locals they did not start talking to me. So I could discover this nice place on my own with my friends. Happy to be outside, to see the sea and to walk in the water we went back to Jember in the afternoon.

From left to right: Yuni, Novi, Maya.

Tutup and time to wash

Tutup is the word a tourist may learn at the fastest rate at the moment in the beloved Jember (and on Java). It means closed and stands on placards on most door.

Since October 13 Ramadan is finished and Idulfitri has taken place. This consists of a one week holiday that shall allow the people to visit the family and friends closer or farther away from their homes. Firstly confronted with the quiet mood because of Ramadan I try to deal now with the scarring silent atmosphere in the campus (the area I live). Even more Warungs than during Ramadan are closed, the students are simply gone.

However, this gives reason to travel further down the road or to the city center to find something else, hopefully something I have never tried before. In that mood of let`s try what exists I ate Gado Gado (vegetables, peanutsauce, potatoes, longtong), Bakso (for real meatballs soup with noodles), Lalapan crispy (fried chicken which is particularly tasty for breakfast) and a lot a lot of kue (sweet snacks). Because it is the visiting-week, wherever you go you find some pots with diverse cookies. So, even though the word Tutup is present all over, it am not starving so far.

Instead I am kind of forced to do a step ahead in my integration process.: My laundry is closed for 12 days. I could manage my stock of clothes if it would not be that hot (using almost one t-shirt per day) and if I would not go on a weeklong workshop the day the Laundry opens again. Being alone in my home (because the family is travelling for a couple of days) I take the courage to do my own laundry, by hand washing. Ohhhh ya, some may not believe me (?), here below you will find the proof. The lesson is that I appreciate more to have proper clothes, that I can be happy to have a well just next to me and that I appreciate to do that alone because I guess the family would not let me to do that..... (before they would offer to do it for me)

Hence, tomorrow I will leave to Gunung Pasang where I will give another workshop to learn English and to do Handicrafts. I will be back in Jember on Hari kamis (Thursday, October 25)

Back from Bloooging break!

Do not worry, I am fine, everything is alright. Since I am back from Yogja some major steps have been made in the Office of Taman Hidup. The progress makes me happy and confident that we reach our goals by the end of my stay,

But not only at work, but also in my sparetime I am full of energy and started to work off my list of things to see and to do. In that vibe of good energy and motivation I managed to do a Pizza day. This means the following: Rendez vous at 9 am to go to the market. Finally, the woman supposed to take me to the market arrives at 10.30am. On her motorcycle squeezing under (mainly her) our weight she starts the sightseeing tour to present me to all of her friends. We stopped here and there, it was hot and basically I just wanted to go the market. Finally in this big building where smells differ with the amount of people being there and the food being sold, people start shouting my name as Fran introduced me once. Saying hello and hi here Selamat siang there and ya, sudah beli ayam (yes, I already bought the chicken) we managed slowly to get our things for the Pizza. It was hard work as the woman accompanying me always thought we need to buy more. 2kg flour was maybe not enough, 1 kg chicken not good for a tasty Pizza, etc. etc. The only thing that is impossible to buy here is cheese, in the Western sense. You can buy cheese, however, it is a rather a salty-something that does not need to be in the fridge and does not melt in the oven. But anyway, some cheese needed to be on the Pizza, little important if it is melting or not. At 1 pm we started doing the bread and I was happy to count on Ari’s muscles to help me knead the Pizza pastry. With the heat we were soaked with sweat after 5 minutes. The tomato sauce I made by myself and by the end of the cooking process it became a good ground for the Pizza. Finally, we could put the Pizza in the oven, which is basically and aluminium box you put on the gas stove. 6 hours later all the Pizzas were made and we enjoyed them with big pleasure. From left to right: Lusi, me, Fran, Ari. For Fran it was the first time eating Pizza.


Then, on Tuesday I went with Linggom to Gunung Pasang, a farmer’s town one hour by motorcycle from Jember. At the end the road became steep and bad, the fun started rising.


After a tea in Gunung Pasang we walked one hour to the waterfall Kancak. The scenery was beautiful. Deep green with diverse trees and flowers made me stop several times just for looking around. The closer we came to the waterfall, the steeper the path, the denser the vegetation. It was so good to walk. After a short break at the waterfall the weather changed and I felt some raindrops. We started going back and suddenly on the way it started pouring down. Within 5 minutes we were completely wet and were happy to find a cup of coffee (from the local production of course) in the house of Pak War. I started getting cold and soon we were on the motorcycle back to Jember again. After the mandi I wrapped myself in a sleeping bag, trying to bring my body’s temperature on a normal level again. Ari served me tea.

On Wednesday then I went with Lis (the familiy’s housemaid where I live) to visit her town , Kalisatan, 1 ½ from Jember by public transport. All villagers are farmers, mainly poor. Poor means that the house is made out of bamboo and not bricks. (picture: Lis in the middle with her Mom, grandma and some of her brothers and sister) There is no stove, people cook with wood. The floor is not paved, it is hard dirt. The roof is bad and as soon as it rains the water runs into the house. Medical treatment is wishful thinking, the kids can barely finish secondary school. Lis is 18 years old and the oldest of seven brothers and sisters. She is been working now for 2 ½ month as a housemade in Jember and earns 250.000 Rp. /month, this is 28USD. I think most of it she will give her parents to help the family. During these 2 ½ months she could not see her family. She told me that sometimes she feels incredibly lonely in Jember and feels sad that she can not see her family more often. Lis can be very serious but I have never seen her smiling more than the day I went with her to her home. It must have been a great honour for them to receive me. After a walk in the neighbourhood and a small sightseeing tour of the fields by motorcycle I went back to Jember. It was that moment all faces turned sad, as they wanted me to stay longer.

Yesterday, my birthday. I asked Fran to organise a Buka puasa bersama (= gemeinsames Fastenbrechen) for my birthday. On Thursday already he went to the market and bought everything necessary. On Friday morning then Fran started cooking: Es buah (Fruit juice), terong (eggplants), and cucumber, beans, some other green vegetable, Sambal (chilli sauce), rice and Gurami goreng (fried fish). He spent the entire day preparing all the food, refusing any help. The good thing about Ramadan is that everybody arrives on time for dinner. Hence, on 7.30pm between 10 and 15 people came to the Office of Taman Hidup and enjoyed the great meal. Against the usual Indonesian habit of eating and leaving the place right away, people stayed a bit longer, chatting and smoking. At 9 pm all were gone again and tired I was I fell asleep….

Not the only tourist

Being with tourists changes a lot. For the first time since my arrival in Indonesia I see other "white people" (except the familiy Hunziker and Andrea in Jelbuk). To be at places where other tourists are has some positive consequences.

Firstly, there is a wide range of hotels and homestays. The prices start at 2.5USD per night per person rising up do I do not not know how much. For my personal well being I offer myself a simple room in a homestay with a private shower (still cold water as hot water is even in middle-income households rare), a nice garden and Western breakfast. Moreover, there is a tourist information office that provides maps and travel agencies are abundant to arrange tours in and around the city. There are things to do and to see, Western restaurants (with Jazz) to go and souvenirs to buy! All that changes a lot from modest Jember!

The downside of the presence of other tourists is the behavior of the locals. They are aware of the money that sits in the pockets of Western tourists and are creative to attract their attention. However, they are not begging nor grabbing and I am not feared to see my wallet pulled away at any time. Instead, Indonesian people show themselves helpful and grateful and keen on showing you around a little bit "for free" or bringing you to a place that might be interesting. What one should not forget is that most Indonesian people may do little if there is no financial interest behind it at a certain point. By the end of the “service” they provide they start on trying to sell something. Some paintings, t-shirts, souvenirs, textile, whatever! And of course showing someone around for free who then does not show any interest in buying something vanishes their smile and their grateful behavior. This is the moment to say Terimah Kasih and to leave.

Better to state from the beginning on where the interests are (or not are) which is sometimes difficult as a curious and open-minded person.