I know that you guys wanted to see pictures of the house and where I live. I’m holding off on pictures of the house because Khadir is currently in a fever of home improvement and decoration, so walls are being painted, furniture is being rearranged, plants and small trees keep rolling in so that the backyard is starting to resemble a tropical jungle, and yesterday he bought literally 20 or more terra cotta pots to be used as planters and traditional Javanese water receptacles. I feel like there must be a better English word for “water receptacles.” Perhaps what I am looking for is, jug? A pot with a spout? I’ve only been in Indonesia for a little over a month and my English vocabulary is starting to suffer.
However, I can share with you some pictures that I’ve taken from my afternoon walks. Despite my beloved yoga studio where I am already a regular, and my occasional dips in hotel pools, I haven’t been getting that much exercise here, which was making me feel kind of sluggish and cranky. So last week or so I asked Khadir to take me on a neighborhood walk, and it turns out that not that far from the house there is a naturally occurring river, that is diverted into small irrigation channels, that you can follow for a long time until it reaches a larger irrigation river, which was built by the dutch and is called a “slogan.”
This pathway takes you through acres and acres of cultivated fields, squared off and worked on by villagers, seemingly most of whom are Khadir’s family, neighbors, and friends. There are ponds for decorative fish and fish for eating, fields of wheat, bushes sprouting hot chili peppers, orange trees, herbs, vegetables, rice, and more. It’s like a highly organized complex of lush fertility. And, I’m not sure why, perhaps because of the way they water the fields, the ground is shaped into swells, where sometimes the whole plot of land is slightly depressed by about a foot and a half, surrounded by an elevated footpath, and the plants are set in rows on top of regular, gentle swells of earth. So walking through it is kind of like walking through waves of land, if that makes sense. You can jump or sometimes roll from one to the next, depending on the size of the swell. It would literally be heaven for a young child to roam free in.
My street:
A Neighbor: Giant Bamboo, Tiny Grandma
Fish ponds
Fields of Food
Now every couple of days I make Khadir escort me on this route. I like going with him, because as my friend Q once rightfully said, “the Indonesians are so dang welcoming” and they really like to talk to you when you are out for your late afternoon constitutional. Everybody greets you in the friendliest of ways, which means that when I walk by myself I am constantly responding to a stream of questions, “Where are you going? Where do you live? Why are you walking so fast? Where are you from? Can you speak Indonesian? Are you in school? How old are you?” and, quite often, “Would you like to come over to my house?”
I find it often endearing and often tiring. I used to think it was just me and my glaring exotic difference that elicited this kind of response, but it’s totally not the case. When Khadir is out with me he is greeted with a similar chorus, except often in lively teasing and scolding Javanese, and sometimes his conversations quickly turn to local economic transactions and gossip: how’s his fish pond doing? How is his uncle’s vegetable business? How’s his mom? He greets everyone with what seems like genuine pleasure. Still, I remember last year when my friend Uni would sometimes give me a ride to or from her house, from the driver’s side she would be politely nodding her head, smiling, and greeting every single neighbor she passed on the way so that by the time she got to the main road she would turn to me and say, “I’m exhausted.”
If you’re not up for too much conversation, or if you don’t know who you are passing by, the most simplest exchange in Javanese is this:
“Monggo?”
“Monggo, monggo!”
Which means, loosley, “May I?” or, “Do I have permission to pass you by?” and the answer, “Oh please, go ahead, go ahead!” “Monggo!” is often also used to invite people to drink, rest, whatever. It’s often said in what I interpret to be a jubilant tone.
So, until pictures of the house are up, monggo, enjoy a sneak preview of a section of the back wall near the fish pond.
We also have four different frogs that live in that pond, and a family of ducks that visits.
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