Indonesia Research Program

The program (and especially Sari and her family) has been treating us to all sorts of goodies in Jogja, it’s been such a blast (especially the food).

Jacob has explained many of the activities we did. Since his internet is currently disagreeing with him, he and I decided that I should post some photos.

The best part is meeting people, practicing the language, and discovering more of Jogja. I’ll write more about our adventures and WALHI in my next post.

I cannot believe that it has already been a little more than a week since we all arrived in Jogjakarta (Jogja). We have done so much already. In the mornings we have four hours of Bahasa Indonesian language class and in the afternoons we have been visiting all the different NGOs that we will be interning with in the coming weeks. We have four wonderful teachers who work with us every morning. Their names are Ade, Ayu, Aci, and Dani. They have all been pushing us to learn Bahasa Indonesian and have been really supportive and encouraging. I think we have all been grasping the language pretty quickly. You do not have to conjugate verbs in Bahasa Indonesia, so really it all boils down to learning vocabulary and understanding placement of words. Most of the time I spent learning Spanish was spent learning different conjugations of verbs and understanding when to use the conjugations, so learning Bahasa Indonesian has been a welcomed change of pace.

I have found traveling in Jogja to be quite a shocking experience. The most uncomfortable part of driving in a major city like New York or Philadelphia for me is that awkward moment when I have to pass someone who is on a bicycle. Unfortunately, for every car in Jogja, there must be at least 10 motorbikes. Whenever we drive, motorbikes surround us. Often times there are two or three and sometimes four people sitting on one motorbike. It is a surreal experience to watch a mother drive a motorbike with two babies, one strapped on her back and one strapped on her front, and swerve in between lanes while passing cars and other motorbikes. Somehow millions of Indonesians commute using motorbikes everyday without an accident.

Over the weekend, we made visits to both Prambanan Temple and Borobudur Temple. Prambanan is an ancient Hindu temple built in the 10th Century and Borobudur is an ancient Buddhist Temple built in the 9th Century. I wish I could post some pictures of our visits, but unfortunately, my Internet connection is too slow right now. The temples are beautiful. It is amazing what simple manual labor can accomplish. For me, walking around the top of Borobudur was one of the most meditative and peaceful experiences of my life. The view of mountains was by itself an awesome moment, but I think it was definitely enhanced by the fact that I was surrounded by Buddha sculptures built over 1000 years ago.

Our weekend also included a five-hour batik lesson and an Iwan Fals concert. Batik is one of Indonesia’s traditional art forms and “batik” literally means “process.” The process includes placing wax over a design on a cloth, and then dyeing the wax so that the area under the wax does not become the color of the dye. It was pretty challenging to place the wax on the cloth exactly where I wanted to put it, but my design came out ok overall. Eventually I’ll post some photos of our batik making classes to demonstrate the different stages of the art. Iwan Fals is a famous musician in Indonesia. Many people we have spoken to here refer to him as “the Bob Dylan of Indonesia.” His concert was a lot of fun. I was a little tired and I wish I could have understood his words, but I thought he gave a great performance. Here is a link to some of his music.

We have also spent some time exploring the city of Jogja, including trips to Jalan Malioboro (Malioboro street), a famous shopping street in Jogja, and Pingit, an impoverished neighborhood where Amanda will be working later this summer. I really enjoyed visiting Pingit. There were lots of little kids there who were really excited to see us. They were really impressed by Alex’s leg hair. Sometimes, it feels like we are a spectacle in Indonesia. At one restaurant I realized that a flash was going off and I turned to see a few young children taking pictures of us with a camera. Many adults watch us as we walk by, and every once in a while, someone will ask to take a picture with us. It is an uncomfortable feeling to stand out. I have become very conscious of all my actions. When I struggle to order food in Indonesian, do the waiters judge me? When I walk through Jalan Malioboro do the merchants view me as a genuine person? Or, do they view me as an ignorant foreigner, as a remnant of colonialism? I think we are perceived differently depending on whom we are interacting with and where we are. Overall the people of Jogja have been incredibly warm and welcoming.

Tonight we are visiting Elizabeth’s NGO, Kotak Hitam, a documentary film organization that works to promote alternative perspectives of Indonesian history. We will be going to a film viewing and then have an opportunity to learn more about the organization’s current efforts. I promise more posts soon on topics ranging from what each of our NGO’s are and how our language classes are going to the different types of delicious Indonesian food and juices that we have tried. But for now, sampai jumpa (see you later)!

Last summer, I remember reading and loving Jen and Maddy’s blog about their experiences with the CPGC’s Indonesia Research Program. Here I am almost a year later, about to embark on my own journey to Indonesia with Alia Luz, Amanda Beardall, Elizabeth Reilly, Alex Jacobs, and Colin Lubelczyk.

Our flight leaves from JFK in about 5 hours. Right now, I am both excited and nervous. There are so many new experiences and challenges awaiting us: a new language and history to learn, a new culture to embrace, a new city to explore, and according to Maddy, lots of new juices to be tried.

Things I can’t wait to write about include:

-       Indonesian history and politics

-       Bahasa, the main language of Indonesia

-       New foods

-       New juices (are there any Maddy didn’t try last summer?!?!)

-       New friends?!!?!?!?!

-       Yogyakarta, the city where we will be staying for the next 10 weeks

-       Experiencing Ramadan in a Muslim Nation

-       Living in a country with a strong Muslim identity

-       And so much more!

I promise to write a more detailed post soon about what our program is about and what we will actually be doing while in Yogyakarta. There is so much to talk about, but right now I have to get ready for our flight. 16 hours from JFK to Hong Kong, 4 hours from Hong Kong to Jakarta, and another hour from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. Add in layover time and that all comes out to about 30 hours of travel… Let’s do this.

Well, it’s been a whirlwind of a summer/departure/week at home and I’m not sure how to sum it up.  I’ll do so the lazy way: copy and pasting all the other stuff I’ve been writing about my research and my experience.

I think our research presentations went really well.  I really wish we’d had more time to present: 15 minutes of presentation and 15 minutes of taking questions from the community didn’t feel like enough time to cover all of our findings.  Our topic, as explained in the informal paper we’re currently working on (sorry it’s late, Termana!):

Madeline, a Political Science major, was interested in studying women’s political involvement, looking for gendered understanding of Indonesia’s political culture.  She wondered how people were encouraged or discouraged from participating in the political sphere, and how that experience was different for women.  Angga, who studies History, was interested in women and culture.  Focusing on the Suharto era, he hoped to understand why most women were/are not politically involved …

Interestingly, our informants often referenced history in their responses.  Most divided up their history between four main periods, which can be best described as: before 1965, 1965, the Suharto era, and post-Suharto.  What people would talk about depended on their age and occupation, with activists and older people reaching back to the years under President Sukarno and younger people focusing on what it was like to grow up under Suharto.  We think this points to how important modern history is to understanding political culture and women’s involvement in politics.

We ended up calling our topic “a gendered and historical analysis of political culture.”  Our presentation described what we learned about those four periods and then attempted to characterize Indonesian political culture.  We got some really great questions and comments when we opened the floor to the audience.  One man pointed out a women’s movement that we’d missed in our research.  A couple of people challenged some of Angga’s statement’s — to which he gave a very long and impressive-sounding (but unfortunately in Indonesian) response that I wish I could have understood.  I wish I’d gotten a little more feedback on my argument.  I saw a few people in the audience nodding their heads as I spoke, but no one commented directly on what I said.  When I asked a few people after the presentation if they thought my characterization was fair, I got mostly polite answers.

The CPGC has asked us to fill out a final report about our experiences.  Here’s a mammoth of a response I wrote for the question “What was most valuable or successful in this work experience for you?”

The last two months have been the most confusing and rewarding, frustrating and wonderful experience of my life.  I thought about issues that were only abstractions before (post-conflict reconciliation, civil society in a repressive political environment, women’s experience in patriarchal societies…); had difficult conversations about research ethics and cultural sensitivity (what do you do when you find out you may have been offending someone by accident?  Is it ok, especially as an outsider, to ask this grandmother why she thinks her husband was killed in 1965?); challenged assumptions I didn’t know I had (that formal justice solutions are a necessary part of reconciliation, that speech is free and it’s safe to be an activist…); shown me the immense benefits and difficulties of research collaboration (the language and cultural barrier can be as rewarding as it is difficult); and struggled with questions of representation: in my presentation, on my blog, and in my memories.

I’d also like to echo everything Jen said in her previous post.  I am so grateful to the people that made this experience possible and the people that made it wonderful: the CPGC, everyone in the Taman 65 community, Termana and Ika, Leslie and Degung, our gurus and friends at Sanata Dharma University, my fellow interns (American and Indonesian)… I could go on and on.  Aku sudah rindu kalian, teman-temanku Indonesia.

In my first post, I concluded with a list of juices I’d tried.  The list has grown a little in the past nine weeks, so I’ll do the same now:

• Papaya milk juice
• Lychee juice
• Guava juice
• Avocado-chocolate juice: smooth and sweet
• Chocolate juice
• Es jeruk: basically orangeade, served cold or hot
• Es jeruk nipis: lemonade, hot or cold
• Watermelon juice: refreshing, tasted more like a watermelon than watermelon
• Jus terong belanda: one of my favorites.  I was shown this fruit in its fruit form but I still have no idea what it is.  The name literally means “Dutch eggplant”
• “Geromino”: ginger, orange, mint
• Papaya, lime, cinnamon, and honey juice
• Es kelapa muda: pink, grenadine-flavored water with strings of shredded young coconut
• “The Special” at a transvestite-themed restaurant: ice, coconut milk, banana chunks, shredded kelapa muda, tapioca cubes
• Avocado-coffee juice: weird at first but really good
• Honeydew melon juice
• Jackfruit juice: jackfruit is one of the most versatile and most intriguing foods ever.  It can look/taste like a vegetable, like a fruit, or like a meat
• Starfruit juice: tart like limeade, sweet like pinapple
• Orange juice: we found a warung that sells the most perfect orange juice.  It is icy (more of a non-dairy smoothie consistency) and tastes like the best orange you have ever eaten.  We got one almost every day towards the end
• Jus kacang ijo: mung bean juice.  I love mung bean porridge, but this juice was the only one I didn’t finish
• Tamarind juice: this flavor is hard to place but it’s most similar to peanuts or sweet potatoes.  I love both those things but this juice was not my favorite
• Cantaloupe juice
• Mango juice: often with a little bit of chocolate syrup on the edge of the glass
• Apple juice: I’m pretty sure this juice is made from coring an apple and putting it in a blender.  Flavorful, fibrous, and sweet
• Fresh coconut juice: fresh as in, the vendor hacked off the top of a basketball-sized coconut and gave us a straw
• Not-a-juice-but-so-weird-it-makes-the-list-anyway: kopi luwak, a coffee that’s made from beans that, uhh, have been through the digestive system of a weasel-like creature.  A cup costs about $12, but I found a free sample while grocery shopping the last day

Last night at 11pm we left Taman. Just as when we arrived, we were sent off after an impromptu sing-along (of “Leaving on a Jet Plane”). Although I am excited to return to my family and friends and Haverford, leaving was really painful. In the 7 weeks I’ve lived at Taman, I have felt accepted into the community in ways I could not have fathomed. In addition to opening their homes to us, they have opened their lives to us as well. From being invited to go with the Ibus to pick up the priest for a wedding, to being asked to attend and participate in a family member’s cremation ceremony, to being taught to make offerings (even if you’re kind of clumsy and mess up most of the times, like I did), to sharing stories about our lives, our pasts, and our hopes for the future, I have gained an incredible Balinese family.

I know I will keep in touch with the friends I’ve made (via facebook, email, skype), and for that, I am incredibly grateful. It’s surreal to think about how accessible someone on the other side of the world is via the internet, and yet how far they are simultaneously. The time difference, distance and socioeconomic privilege and access remain discouraging. I am aware of how fortunate I am to have had an opportunity to spend the summer in Indonesia: my citizenship has proved to be invaluable cultural currency (most of the time), and the opportunities afforded to me by support from The CPGC, Haverford, and my family serve as reminders of how lucky I am to live where and when I do. My gratitude is unending, both to those in the US who made this summer possible, as well as everyone I met in Indonesia for their incredible warmth and hospitality. I am simultaneously saddened by these privileges, because they are, at times, arbitrary and unfair. Yes, I work hard, but so do the boys at Taman. Why am I afforded such an opportunity while they can’t get a visa to visit the US?

I *hope* I will be able to return to Indonesia over December break to do more thesis research and to see everyone again. I’ve worked with many amazing people, and want to continue that work in the future. I have learned an incredible amount about Indonesia, myself, and life. That sounds so clichéd, but, sitting here in the TaiPei airport, on 5 hours of sleep, it’s the best I can do. And I truly mean it.

Although I’m no longer in Indonesia, I might do a few more posts in the upcoming weeks to help myself work through some of my experiences. I look forward to speaking with everyone in person and continuing to think through this summer both in academic and social settings.

Pictured:

• A food cart where I bought roasted corn after Pengerebongan.  The corn is slathered with butter and sambal (a ubiquitous sauce made from red peppers) and then roasted over coals
• A trip to the beach the weekend after our mini-research presentations.  We also went to Uluwatu, an ancient temple on a cliff.  The monkey is one of hundreds of wild monkeys that live in the temple and the surrounding beaches.
• The tag that came with my laundry when I picked it up from the laundromat (washed, dried, ironed, folded, and shrink wrapped — a new experience for my underwear).  “Bule” is the Indonesian equivalent of gringo, minus the negative connotations.  I have to wonder why it’s necessary to put both my name and “bule” — is there an Indonesian Madeline that uses the same laundromat?
• The wedding that took place at Taman a week ago
• When Jen and I joined Kelsey on her daily walk/run through the rice fields
• The kids playing around while a film showing was set up in Taman.  To celebrate International Youth Day, Taman screened several short films (sponsored by Kampung Halaman, which we visited in Java) made by youth, including some from the community
• Our trip to Padangbai on Saturday: a beautiful drive, lovely beaches with interesting tide pools, and a view of a harvest moon rising at a beach that was only accessible by scrambling down a cliff

Last Wednesday, Ika and I were invited to have lunch at a woman’s house we met in the support group. The woman is a sex worker, and she lives in what was once a hotel and is now a kos (boarding house) for sex workers. I was really excited (and a little nervous) for our visit: it was a completely new experience for me.

Without going into too much detail, let me first say that this kos, although peopled pretty uniformly by sex workers, was not how I had imagined a brothel or similar environment. Unlike Dolly (see: Surabaya) or other areas where the house is the site of business, this former hotel functioned more as a housing community than a place for sex work. The building is composed of a series of bungalows and apartments, and, as the woman we visited explained, she doesn’t work in her home. Instead, her clients take her to hotels or to the bungalows used for such purposes.

So, back to our visit: When we first arrived, we thought the place was deserted. Slowly, men tending the garden crept out and cast us sideways glances. They were obviously confused by our presence. We asked for directions to our friend’s room, and were met with more looks of discomfort. However, we explained we were friends, and were given directions (begrudgingly to her room).

The apartment is small, with beautiful woodwork (the building is in the style of traditional Balinese architecture) and a view of endless coconut trees. We stayed for 3 hours, had lunch, gossiped, talked about her life, family, and HIV, and even met her pacar (lover/boyfriend/husband). Before he came over, he called and seemed angry that Ika and I were there (because he thought I was a man bule, not a woman bule). However, once he met us, and realized I was indeed female, he relaxed and joined the conversation.

Although our friend is confident that this man gave her HIV (he’s the only person she’s had sex with without a condom), he refuses to get tested, or acknowledge the possibility that he is HIV+.  He doesn’t know she is HIV+, or is on ARVs, or why she goes to “the clinic.”

When we asked her about this, and why she chose not to tell him, she explained that he was so deeply in denial that she felt being honest wouldn’t do any good. He’s a pimp for another brothel (not the one where she works), and has another wife, too. Although she didn’t say so, I think that she is afraid of him.

He left after a little while and we resumed our conversation: our friend told us about how her cousin had convinced her to come to Bali to work, and had essentially sold her into sex work. With great sadness she talked about her strained family relationships, and the pain of not sharing her seropositivity with her loved ones.

When we eventually left, Ika and I trekked back to Taman. On the way back she mentioned that in one particular area of Bali famous for prostitution, an “X” on a house number indicates the house is a brothel. Although prostitution is not legal, I’ve learned that the economic exchanges behind-the-scenes have made it permissible and not secretive. As residents of the banjar, the brothel pays dues to the community (including the police).

I’m not sure what to make of this. My initial thoughts: legalizing prostitution would be greatly beneficial to all those involved- sex workers and clients alike would be regulated, thus theoretically ensuring everyone’s safety. However, this isn’t legalized: it’s ignored due to financial relationships; and the women are therefore not protected as they would hopefully be if the industry were regulated. Obviously, this is an extremely simplified argument on an extremely complex issue; but, nonetheless, I am left with a bad taste in my mouth.

Later that week, Ika and I visited a dukun (traditional healer) who claims to be able to cure HIV/AIDS in 3 months. I went into the interview with extreme prejudice. I really thought I would hate this guy. After all, he turns a profit on “curing” people of cancer, HIV, diabetes, impotence, heart disease, etc, without actually curing them. However, through talking to the dukun, I found myself questioning my presuppositions. The dukun was a famous actor,  and self- proclaimed “bad boy” sinner who gave up the fame and fortune (except for the Jaguar parked out front, and the exorbitant fees he charges patients) in order to “get right with Allah.” He spoke about religion and spirituality, and was quite charming and funny. He believes disease is a sign from G-d that the afflicted is living sinfully, and that if someone gets better, it is a similar act of G-d, not of medicine. (Yet he still sells a cure-all miracle drink in addition to other more specific herbal remedies to all of his patients). I disagreed with parts of his philosophy, and still do not think he can cure his patients. I’m wary of anyone who, however indirectly, proclaims themselves to be a messenger of G-d.

At the same time, while we were there, we met one of his patients who, a month before, had cervical cancer or an ovarian cyst. She introduced herself and sang the dukun’s praises: she declared herself cured and feeling great. She was at the clinic to pray and break the Ramadhan fast with the dukun and the staff.

Basically, I was challenged by this interview. I know it’s wrong to go into an interview with presuppositions about the interviewee. However, I felt very strongly that this man was categorically bad. You can’t be cured of HIV/AIDS (unless you consider the Berlin Patient cured). I still firmly believe that the dukun cannot cure his patients, but I also think that some of them do benefit greatly from his services. He gives these people hope, which can be dangerous if it is tried and failed, but can also motivate someone to fight harder and live on. Whether or not he is sincere, his words move people.

Parts of the interview were very scary: he fed me and Ika some paste of herbs he had in his apothecary. Only after eating it were we informed that it is used to cure impotency. He also touched my forehead with 3 fingers, and chanted something neither Ika nor I could decipher. After about 10 seconds, he asked me how I felt. I told him I felt relaxed (which I was) but then I noticed my forehead felt like it was being burned. I told him this, and he asked where I felt hot. I told him the heat was isolated to the 3 points on my forehead his fingers were touching, and he told me that that was good, because he uses this technique to discern whether or not someone is HIV+, and if my whole body had been hot, I would have HIV.

Before we left, the dukun gave us holy water (the bottle has his face on it), stones from Mecca (which we were instructed to make into pendants or rings and wear all the time), and he gave me prayer beads. He told me to smile and laugh more, and to relax. He advised me to be less serious, and to reconsider what I valued as knowledge. Earlier he had spoken about 3 levels of knowing (the first: pure observation, the second: observation and inference, and the third: prophetic wisdom). He advised me that although going to University may be important, that it was “superficial” knowledge. Although I had introduced myself as a student researching women living with HIV/AIDS, he suggested I instead recognize that I was there in his clinic first and foremost by G-d’s will.

This post is very disjointed, and I apologize for that. My head is bursting with anecdotes from our research, and I am trying to process everything I’ve learned thus far. My hope is that, in writing this post, I can help myself unpack what have been both rewarding and confusing experiences. Additionally, I hope that those who read this will be able to help me through this process, and that together we can gain a better understanding of the stigmas and stereotypes surrounding issues of gender and sexuality, HIV/AIDS, sex work, and social processes of othering.

This post looked sad without a picture, so here's one of us contemplating research ethics while admiring the sunset from a tide pool.

I realize that I haven’t devoted an entire post to my research yet.  The topics I prefer to write about — playing with the Taman kiddos, attending cultural events, eating delicious things, etc — certainly make up a huge part of my experience here, but so does my research.

I wrote a couple-hundred-word-long post about my mini research project and started to write one about my big research project, but I haven’t been able to finish them or make better ones.  The reason is simple: I’m not sure what to say.  For one thing, I don’t know how to summarize what I’ve been learning into a short post.  We’ve learned so much about so many things and it’s hard to know where to start.  The more I learn and the more I care about the people I’m working with, the more concerned I am with giving an accurate representation.  Which is difficult.  There’s so much context that is needed for just about anything I could tell you; some it has been explained to me, some of it I know intuitively by being here, and most of it I don’t completely understand myself.  I suppose any description entails selection, but I find that stressful.  I’ll try quickly now.

Our mini research presentations were pretty informal. Yuda enjoyed running in front of the projector and admiring his shadow

For my mini-research project I worked with Aisha and Rere on the topic of rumah asal, family origin houses.  We did about a dozen interviews with people from Taman and neighboring compounds. Here’s some snippets from the writeup we did after our presentations a few weeks ago:

For our proposal, we came up with three main questions: How do people understand rumah asal? How do understandings and opinions change between generations? How have the physical and social structures of rumah asal changed within the lifetimes of the people living there?

… Upon analyzing our research we identified four major themes.  The first – and maybe the most important – was religion.  Coming into the research, Aisha and Madeline did not understand the importance of religion in the very definition of rumah asal.  Many of our informants, however, defined rumah asal by the presence of ancestors and family temples.  We learned that rumah asal is where the temple is, and religious beliefs require that family land not be sold or abandoned.  Tradition and obligations came up in our interviews a lot, especially from women.  One woman in her 70s said that she had been living in her rumah asal for about sixty years and had never considered living elsewhere.  She added that younger generations should decide for themselves where to live, but that it was important that they return to the rumah asal for ceremonies.  Similarly, another woman acknowledged that the world is changing and expressed a hope that her son would travel far for his education.  She insisted, however, that it was still important that he return to the rumah asal when she and her husband had passed.  A third woman felt that it was important to maintain traditions in a modernizing world because she believed in karma: if she “disobeyed” a tradition or ceremony, she worried that something bad would happen to her family.  Furthermore, among our informants that had moved out of their rumah asal for whatever reason, most mentioned that they felt it was important to return for ceremonies.

A second theme essential to the discussion of rumah asal is family; all the informants we spoke to talked about what they saw as advantages and disadvantages of living with one’s extended family. Something many people liked about rumah asal was the existence of a close-knit community and support network, in which family members could assist each other in hectic or difficult times. A man in his 30s who now lives in a kos told us he prefers not to live in a rumah asal because he wants more privacy, but that he still values the strong community ties of family compounds and believes that this network of supportive relationships should be maintained even in the absence of rumah asal. A mother in her 20s who lives in her husband’s rumah asal said that she likes having people around to watch over her children when she’s busy with other duties. A young child told us that he likes living in his parents’ house outside of their rumah asal because it is more spacious, but he enjoys spending most of his time at Taman 65 with his friends who live there. However, many informants also mentioned what they see as the darker side of such tight family ties and close living quarters: they said that a disadvantage of rumah asal is the lack of privacy, which can result in gossip and interpersonal conflicts. Several people told us that it is impossible to keep anything private when everyone lives so close together. A man in his 30s who lives with his parents and wife outside his rumah asal said that he prefers to visit family and friends in houses outside of their rumah asal so that they can speak more freely without a relative passing by and overhearing (and possibly joining in) their conversations. Several people also mentioned conflicts among family members over inheritance of land both inside and outside the rumah asal; if there is no son to inherit the compound, or if he does not want to live in the rumah asal, it can be difficult to choose an alternative successor without offending anyone. Shared bills are also sometimes a source of conflict if certain parties feel that they are paying more than a fair portion of the bill.

Finances, in fact, made up our third major theme.  Families living in rumah asal face not only economic obligations arising from bills that must be split, but also economic obligations relating to religious ceremonies.  One older woman told us that in her lifetime there had been a government reform that transferred the responsibility of paying for renovations of temples from families to the government, making it economically easier to live in a rumah asal.  Other informants emphasized economic benefits to living in a rumah asal.  One man told us that an advantage to rumah asal is that he didn’t have to pay for his house – which he inherited from his father, who had inherited from his father.  Land of course can be expensive, and as the head of a large family, the man was thankful to not have to worry about it.

The fourth major theme we noticed was the way in which gender roles affected our informants’ experiences in their rumah asal. Men are expected to inherit the rumah asal and live in it since the family temple cannot be abandoned or sold. Traditionally the rumah asal goes to the eldest son, but we spoke to one man who had inherited his compound even though he was a third son because his two elder brothers had jobs that required them to live elsewhere. Men are also expected to look after their aging parents. One of the men we spoke to said that he was under a great deal of pressure as the head of his rumah asal because he had to support seven other people with his income alone. Women, on the other hand, have many religious obligations occupying their time. They must make large quantities of offerings every week and perform rituals in the family temple and shrines of the rumah asal and at larger temples outside the compound. On holy days, they are also expected to visit their parents’ rumah asal to pray at their original family temples. Women who follow the tradition of living in their husband’s rumah asal must also adjust to a whole new set of social relationships; a mother we spoke to said that, as a daughter-in-law, she sometimes felt a bit like an outsider in her own home.

We were also asked to present and write about the difficulties we encountered:

We encountered several difficulties in the course of our research.  Some were trivial, such as our experience at the Bali Museum.  The three of us borrowed a car and drove to the museum because we had heard that there was an exhibit there about rumah asal that would be helpful.  Upon arrival, we could not find the exhibit and were told that no one would help us unless we paid for a museum guide.  Finally we found out that there was in fact no rumah asal exhibit anymore.  However, we made the best of the experience by touring the museum and Rere quickly interviewed a few of the guards. Another obstacle in our research was finding people.  Many people we asked to interview said they were simply too busy.  Others felt they did not speak good enough English, putting the burden on Rere to be present for almost every interview we conducted.  Indeed, the three of us struggled with the language barrier throughout our research.  Aisha and Madeline found it hard to only be able to experience the interviews secondhand, losing the many little details of speech that simply cannot be translated.  On the other hand, Rere had difficulty balancing the need to keep up the rhythm of an interview with our need for translation.  The cultural barrier, too, was a difficulty.  There were so many things we encountered in our interviews that Aisha and Madeline – and sometimes Rere, from Java, as well – could not understand because we lacked cultural fluency.  This was often an issue in our interviews, because our lack of a Balinese background made it difficult to understand what our participants were saying or to formulate appropriate questions.

We ended our presentation and paper with a note that our “findings” could not be generalized and our conclusions were only provisional, based on only a week of research.

For my main research project, which will conclude next Tuesday, I am partnered with Angga.  Angga, Louis, Kelsey and I are all researching similar topics, so we’ve been doing a lot of our brainstorming and interviews together.  My specific interest started out as women’s political participation: to what extent and in what ways women feel like they can be a part of the political sphere.  However, my research has taken me in a lot of different directions.  For example, you can’t talk about women in the legislature without talking about the politically repressive era of President Suharto.  You can’t ask elderly women about past political activity without understanding that the terrible violence of 1965 still inspires fear in both men and women.  You can’t compare political activity to that of the US without understanding that the current government still keeps close tabs on outspoken people, and that threatening visits from the military are not unheard of.

I’m not sure what I will say in my presentation next week.  I’ve learned a lot of really interesting things and there’s already an analysis budding in my head, but I have no idea how to express it.  As Degung said to us when we met with him today, “You have a headache from all this?  Good.”

From an excursion to the Kite Festival last weekend:

(Note: this post is actually about last Sunday, I’ve just been writing it bit by bit as I’ve found time over the past week)

Sunday night was Pengerebongan, described to us as the “trance festival.”  Hundreds — maybe thousands — of people packed into the temple and temple courtyard to watch the several hour-long ceremony.  Men and women slowly emerged, supported firmly by family members and friends, from the temple doors.  Eyes closed, they shook, moaned, and shrieked.  Some of the men took a kris, a ceremonial dagger, and pressed it to their collarbone or head without ever breaking the skin.  People who go into trance, we are told, are possessed by a god or spirit and are able to communicate with it for the duration of the trance.   Believers who enter the temple on certain days never know if they will enter trance or not and trancers often do not remember the trance after the fact.

Here ( youtu.be/0EobIC5_pBc ) is a short National Geographic video about trance that features a friend of ours from Taman.  Even as someone who’s lived in “the ancient village of Kesiman,” for only a few short weeks, I can tell you that it’s ridiculously dramatic and exoticizing, even patronizing in its representation of the festival.  But such portrayals of Balinese culture are commonplace.  We’ve talked a lot about representation in our social science classes: what it means to give “thick descriptions” about a foreign culture, what responsibilities and accountabilities anthropologists have to their human data, what is important to include in an ethnography, and so on.  I think these discussions and our time in Indonesia in general made us a weird mixture of insiders and outsiders as we watched the trance festival.  On the one hand, we were more informed (and certainly more appropriately dressed) than most of the bule tourists we saw at the event.  We arrived with a Balinese family and personally knew two of the trancers.  If we wanted, we could walk over to a food stall and ask for a bottle of water in Indonesian.  On the other hand, however, we are and will always be outsiders: nonbelievers, spectators and maybe even dreaded tourists.  For me at least, religion in Bali is incredibly interesting but also the thing that most makes me feel like an outsider, someone that doesn’t belong.  I feel like an outsider in part because it’s so foreign from my Quaker background, but also because I can’t help but feel like a spectator, an uncomfortable position.

Our American group were not the only spectators.  Dozens of journalists clustered around the temple gates.  Many appeared Indonesian, but there were a fair amount of Westerners — more than in the crowd in general, which was by a vast majority Indonesian.  They were aggressive, willing to elbow their way through the crowds to get a good shot.  When a trancer stumbled past they leaped to the attack, shoving their cameras past the supporting friends and into the faces of the possessed, snapping away.

I think the journalists and their sacrifice of reverence for the story was part of what made me feel so uncomfortable.  I became very aware of the camera in my own hands: did I look like them?  Don’t get me wrong, this was not a somber event.  The mood of the crowd was a typically Indonesian jovality, with our friends smiling and waving to us and little boys trailing the trancers, imitating their convulsions and laughing.  My camera itself did not appear to be offensive.  But our classes and discussions have made me (us all, I think) more attuned to the dynamics that are playing out around us.  As Westerners — a fact that (for four of us) is made obvious by our skin color — we carry more meaning than we’d like to admit.  We are exotic, often the center of attention when we walk down the street.  We are admired and spurned as representatives of the culture that brought Indonesia Justin Beiber, KFC, and shopping malls.  We are adapted to, with most Indonesians automatically switching to whatever English they possess to talk to us.  We are assumed to be rich and, comparatively, we pretty much are.  And I think we are often lumped together with the many Westerners who proceeded us: from the Dutch traders who landed here in the 16th century to the tourists whose money-backed needs lead to the privatization of beaches for hotels and surf schools.  We came here to research social justice topics but in so many ways our very existence here is a social justice topic.

I don’t know what my point is.  I’m not even entirely sure what the point of my being here is, but I suppose trying to figure that out is the point.  Frustrating, huh?