Acara-acara dan kegiatan-kegiatan

Hey guys. I’m officially on winter vacation from school: first semester of teaching has finished! The semester officially started July 17—it’s been awhile.

I haven’t blogged since Ramadan, which was my first month at site, and now I’ve been in Indonesia nine and a half months. Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. I have blogged maybe five or six times since my last posting, but for various reasons I ended up not posting what I’d written.

A main reason I haven’t written more, or posted more, is that I simply haven’t had the time or energy. They tell you a million times during the Peace Corps application process and pre-service training that it’s important not to go into this with expectations. I thought I was pretty set in this regard, ready to take what I got and go with the flow of it, but I’ve since realized I did have one pretty entrenched expectation, and guess what? It got fully upended. Namely, that I’ve perused hundreds of Peace Corps blogs over the years, and one of the few universals I’d picked up on between all the vastly different experiences was that Volunteers tend to have a lot of free time—to the point that they actually complain about having too much of it. But, surprisingly, this hasn’t been the case for me. Instead, I’ve found myself chronically sleep-deprived, exhausted, often stressed, and relentlessly busy. When I come home in the afternoon after an eight-hour day at school, after waking up at 3:30 a.m., I’m definitely not in the mood to blog. Sure, I’m tired; but it’s also that the prospect of writing out the particulars of a day that’s just exhausted me is draining all over again to even think about.

But hey, I’ve got a couple of weeks of vacation now, so no excuses. In this installment, I’m going to write about some of the many life events that are marked by parties and rituals here.

Disclaimer: many of these customs are probably shared by Sundanese, Javanese, and other Indonesian groups. But I really haven’t been privy to cultural customs outside those of the Sundanese Muslims in my region, so that’s all I can speak to here. Indonesia has far too many diverse ethnic groups and religions for me to just say these are “Indonesian” customs, and have you assume that’s how it goes for the whole archipelago, but I also don’t think that all, most, or perhaps any of these are exclusive to my community.

Birth of a baby. I’ve been to two of these. One man told me that the ritual specifically is that on the third day of the baby’s life, a lock of hair is snipped (I asked what happens if the baby has no hair, and he said this is never the case); but everyone else has just told me the event is to celebrate the baby’s birth.

The family slaughters a goat to celebrate. Then, hundreds of friends and family drop by the house over the course of the day. When entering the house, you remove your shoes (true for any house, always) and shake hands with all of the hosts and any other guests in the room.

[There are many subtleties to hand-shaking. Sundanese and Javanese styles are different, for instance. Personally, if the other person is roughly my same age, I use the most common Sundanese way, which is to gently clasp the tips of the other person’s fingers in the tips of my fingers and then bring my hands up, clasped, in front of me, or else touch my fingertips back to my chest (“bringing the person into your heart”). If the person is much younger, they will “salim” me, by clasping my right hand and bringing it up to touch their face or to kiss; if the other person is older than me, I will salim them.]

After greetings, the newborn will be brought out for a quick viewing. Oohing and aahing over the beauty of a new baby transcends culture. Guests sit down on the floor in the main room, which has been prepared with carpets rolled out and all furniture cleared away. (To be fair, there usually isn’t too much furniture in the middle of the room to begin with—sitting on the ground casually is the norm in most households.)

All around the room are plastic tubs and glass jars of snacks, usually things like cassava chips, bananas and watermelon slices, gelatinous rice rolled up in banana leaves, and little cookies and sweets. (Party or no, every household keeps tubs of these snacks on hand in their receiving room at all times to be offered to guests who might, culturally-speaking, drop by whenever.) The hostess will open the lids of all the tubs and push them towards you, and that’s your cue. You must eat some of the snacks, and drink from one of the single-serving packaged waters which are a staple at any gathering.

After sitting, talking and socializing for a time, maybe ten or fifteen minutes, you are invited to eat. There is a catered buffet, and you fill up your plate. The usual fare is rice, diced spicy potatoes, fried vegetables with sausage slices, a beef and/or chicken dish, a meat and noodle soup, glass noodles with bell peppers, and rujak, which is a very spicy fruit salad of mango, jicama and cucumbers.

When you’ve finished eating, you discreetly give the host an envelope with money, shake hands with everyone once more, and then leave. On your way out, you are given a bag of party favors, which is usually foodstuffs, such as small bags of cooking oil; mini bottles of soy sauce; packages of ramen, aka Indomie; canned sardines in tomato sauce; a lemon; a big block of Sundanese brown palm sugar….

The time you spend at this event might be as quick as twenty minutes, and at most usually won’t be more than an hour.

Circumcision. In many (all?) Muslim cultures, circumcision is not done at birth, but a bit later, when a boy is around seven or eight years old. I don’t know the details of who performs the circumcision and what religious rituals surround it, but I do know there’s a party afterwards. I’ve only been to one of these. I’m not sure if there’s a goat/ram slaughter for this occasion, too, but it seems likely.

As before, the house has been prepared for a steady stream of visitors coming by all day, which means rooms are cleared, carpets rolled out, and food laid out. You enter, shake all hands, nibble at snacks, eat a full lunch from the buffet, shake hands again, and leave.

On this occasion there were also three giant, professional cakes sitting on one table. The little boy himself was only seen for a moment: he grabbed one of his toys and then went back to his room.

Wedding. I’ve been to both pre-wedding receptions and an actual wedding party; these were for different couples.

The pre-wedding receptions followed the template you’ve seen above: go to the parents’ house (in both cases, the groom’s), shake everyone’s hands and offer congratulations, sit on the floor with snacks, then eat a full meal at the catered buffet, give an envelope with money, shake hands and leave, receiving a giant bag of party favors (food) on the way out.

The wedding party was different. Full disclosure: I actually didn’t know the bride and groom at all. This wasn’t an issue, though. Guests are invited with official invitations, but drop-by distant friends-of-friends are always welcome. In this case, my teaching counterpart’s badminton partner, who owns the town’s most popular wedding venue, invited me to come to an upcoming wedding at his place the first time I met him.

My teaching counterpart and I went together. You have to look nice for weddings. Women come dressed to the nines with professional-looking makeup and bedazzled dresses. I wore the one dress I’ve had made for me here, and next time I’ll even wear high heels...but just because the dress’ hem is really long and I tripped over it all day.

A portion of the street outside the building was tented, and there was a stage with a dangdut band. (Dangdut: a Bollywood-inspired musical genre that is considered very home-grown Indonesian, as opposed to Western-influenced pop. Dangdut can be sung in Indonesian, Sundanese, Javanese, etc.) Inside the venue, the ceiling is permanently strung with tent-like bolts of fabric in different shades of blue, with a big crystal chandelier in the middle of the hall. There is a stage covered in flowers, and the walls are mirrored.

Big speakers blasted nasheeds, which is religious music in Arabic that’s generally a cappella with drums, somewhere between a chant and a song. The bridal party stood on stage. Upon entering the room, we signed the guest book, I was given a cloth fan as a party favor, and then we made our way to the stage. We went down the line shaking hands with the bridal party, took pictures with the professional photographer there, and gave the envelope with money to the bride. We came later in the day, when there weren’t many people there, but when the wedding is bustling, there is a box behind the bride that she throws the envelopes into, without looking, to keep the line moving.

After taking photos, we filled up our plates at the buffet, and then found seats along the walls to sit down and eat. (Note: eating or drinking while standing is a cultural no-no.) When we’d finished eating, we shook hands with the badminton-partner host again and then left. We only stayed maybe twenty minutes, and this is pretty typical. People drop by whenever, make the rounds saying hi, eat their food and then exit.

White foreigner privilege in Indonesia: you’re never a wedding crasher, just a delightful surprise.

Leaving for hajj. One of the pillars of Islam is making hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca at least once in one’s life, if one has the financial and personal means to do so. You can go to Mecca any time of the year, but these visits are called “umroh.” To count as hajj, pilgrims must go at a specific time, around the time of the Eid al-Adha festival. The Islamic calendar is lunar, so the exact timing changes from year to year, relative to the Western Gregorian calendar.

The Saudi government, as the gatekeepers of Mecca, sets quotas for each country for how many pilgrims are allowed to attend hajj each year. In countries with relatively small Muslim populations, like the U.S., everyone who wants to go, can; but in Indonesia, which has the most Muslims of any country in the world, there’s a long waiting list, generally 5-7 years. When a would-be pilgrim’s turn does arrive, however, the Indonesian government gives them 90 days of paid leave from work. As the rituals to be performed at Mecca themselves only take a few days, most couples spend the remaining time traveling around elsewhere in the region, to Medina and so on.

Because of the big financial investment needed to do hajj, and the fact that usually it’s a married couple who are taking off for three months (so the kids probably need to be grown up by then), people generally manage to do hajj later in life, when they’re in their fifties or later. You’ll know who around you has done hajj, because they will forever afterwards be referred to as Pak (male) or Bu (female) Hajji as a sign of respect.

[Interestingly, my teaching counterpart told me this practice was actually first started by the Dutch colonizers, who used this terminology to single out Indonesians who had performed hajj as possible dissenters to keep an eye on. Needless to say, this connotation has completely dropped out now.]

The religious sanctity and awe associated with getting to finally perform hajj; the fact that hajj is physically demanding, requiring lots of walking in the sweltering Arabian desert; and the fact that most of the people who will be undergoing these physical demands are older, means that there is a certain amount of emotional poignancy that surrounds people who are leaving for hajj. Friends and family are overjoyed at their loved one’s opportunity, but also often fear that loved ones will not come back.

There are send-off parties, and welcome-back parties, for the pilgrims. As hajj must be done at a particular time of the year, there’s one month in which it feels like every other person is having a send-off.

I’ve been to two send-offs, both of which followed the template: come to a house, shake hands, sit and eat snacks, eat buffet food, shake hands and leave. The only slightly different elements were that the couples who would be going on hajj were dressed specially, in all white—note that when on hajj itself, men have to wear white cloths, while women are free to wear anything, so long as their body is covered with their face exposed—and nasheed, the religious chant-songs, were playing out of speaker systems.

Pengajian. Pengajian is Islamic religious study. Every Tuesday night between maghrib (the prayer at sundown) and isha (the last prayer of the night, about an hour after maghrib), a local Ustad, or religiously-learned man, comes over to our house. The women and children of my semi-extended host family sit on the floor of the living room with the Ustad, with each person having a copy of the Qur’an in front of them. The Ustad leads a beginning prayer, and then a chapter of the Qur’an is read aloud by turns, with everyone alternating reading a couple of pages.

Religious education usually starts young here. My little host sister recently turned six, she’s still in kindergarten, and already she can read the Qur’an’s Arabic script at a good pace. She participates in pengajian along with the others.

Oftentimes this local Ustad comes over and leads a kind of pengajian-like ritual, where people take turns reading the Qur’an aloud, on the occasion of family members’ birthdays as well.

Wake. One thing that almost every Peace Corps Volunteer I know here has experienced, which disoriented all of us initially, is how people in our communities speak about death. People are saddened by death, but will often appear to smile or laugh when talking about it. I think this ties into the broader cultural aversion to visibly showing strong negative emotion, and the fact that Indonesians often default to smiles and especially laughter when they are uncomfortable.

Even though I’m also someone who laughs when I get uncomfortable, especially at first I was confused by the Indonesian variety of this, and even now sometimes I find it hard to read certain situations. In moments of ambiguity, kind of counterintuitive to what we generally think about body language and communication, I’ve learned to try to listen to what people are saying rather than relying on their facial expressions. E.g., if someone tells me a distressing story but is smiling, I will guess that they’re distressed rather than amused. But it’s also true that even when people may be smiling or laughing, their discomfort is usually subtlely betrayed elsewhere, in their glassy eyes, in how they clench their shoulders, or around the corners of their mouths.

I’m sure none of us in my training village who were there will forget one incident, during pre-service training, when we were practice teaching at local high schools. One of the English teachers we were working with was telling us about his family, and showed us a picture on his phone of his young, lovely wife. “She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?” he said, smiling broadly, and we all agreed, and then he said, “but she’s dead.” We were frozen with smiles on our faces for half a beat, and then we suddenly all looked around at each other with horror, unable to believe we’d heard correctly. He was still smiling, though now clearly painfully, and none of us knew how to respond. Our smiles dropped off our faces. “Oh…I’m sorry, that’s so sad…”

This situation came back to me many months later when I accompanied some of the female teachers at our school to a kind of wake. A former principal of the school had died, and we were going to see his widow. She brought out the customary snacks, and she and one of the teachers had a lively conversation. Looking at her, I wasn’t sure I hadn’t misunderstood: had a man died? Was this his widow? She was smiling and the two of them were laughing. Maybe a death wasn’t viewed as such a sad, solemn occasion, here, I thought to myself. I certainly don’t think it always has to be. So I wasn’t sure if I should smile as well, or if somber was most appropriate. But then, even while she was smiling and laughing, I suddenly realized she was also crying, and the teachers patted her consolingly.

Prayer in cemeteries. There were lots of festivities and rituals for Eid al-Fitri, known as Lebaran in Indonesia, the holiday that closes the month of Ramadan. One of these reminded me of All Saint’s Day, as celebrated in many Catholic parts of the world: I accompanied my host family to the cemetery, and we cleaned up family grave plots.

All cemeteries I’ve seen here have been grouped by religion, with separate Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. cemeteries. Christian cemeteries have vertical tombstones as are common in the U.S., though often with two slanted pieces of stone atop them, like a little roof. Muslim graves are marked by horizontal raised slabs, with higher stone slabs on one end, like a bed with a pillow. Some of the base slabs are stone, and others are tile, with space in the middle for plants, like a raised bed in a garden.

What is most distinctive about cemeteries for me here is that they always have the same two plants. One is short and decorative and looks distinctly tropical with bright, red-purple leaves; and the other is a kind of tree which never seems to have any leaves at all, but is perpetually blooming with white flowers, just at its crown. When I see either of these I instinctively glance around for the gravestones I know can’t be too far off.

On Lebaran, we cleaned up the grave plots a little, sweeping dirt off the slabs, and then people read aloud from the Qur’an for some time, between half an hour to two hours, before we went home for lunch.