A Change in Perspective

I felt, the other day, what it’s like to fly. I ran off the edge of a mountain and soared, feeling the cold mountain wind directly on my face. After about five minutes, I landed in a tea plantation. Crash-landed, actually. But it didn’t hurt. I just laughed and laughed.

It was an amazing feeling, and if weren’t for the fact that the weather completely changed minutes after my take-off, I’d’ve gone up the mountain, paid another $30 and done it again.

Paragliding was one of the most amazing experiences: simply sitting in a harness, looking at the valley below with its tea plantations and the rows of traffic snaking their way over and around the mountains, some villages, and umpteen shades of green covered the hills. And in the sky was just a splash of blue from my paraglider plus a spot of yellow—my pilot’s jacket.

See, the week before, friends from church had mentioned that they had paraglided during their Easter break.

“I want to do that, too!” I blurted out.

“Oh, we can go again,” someone said.

“OK, how about next weekend?” I wondered out loud. There’s no point in wasting time when you only have a few weekends left in a country, is there?

Others piped in, a short discussion ensued, and before our ways parted minutes later, we had all agreed that we’d go to Puncak the very next weekend.

So, last weekend, after our Saturday night small group, we all squeezed into Diane’s van and headed to Sentul (a town in the mountains an hour or two outside Jakarta where the core group of adventurers live). We spent the night there and decided that the eight of us will head out earlyish the next morning, packed onto four motorbikes.

Stopping halfway to our destination to stretch our legs

Some fruit stalls on the side of the road

It was still foggy when we crossed the mountains, inadvertently joining some large bikers club. Helmets and motorbikes despite, you could spot the bules (/’boo-lays/, or foreigners) a mile away with some very, very white arms standing out in the crowd… (Rest assured, I wore my heavyish brown winter jacket for protection. I’ve seen too many scooter accidents!)

Spot the foreigners...

We fought our way through the Sunday migration of city folk going to the mountains, and we killed some time close to our destination, waiting for the fog to lift.

We killed some time by taking a side road toward Taman Safari, an outdoor safari park.
All the vendors on the side of the road sell bananas and carrots for people to feed the animals

A vendor at a tourist spot where we stopped

Just looking at all the tourist stuff

Kiptoo checked out some of the bamboo balls...

... and hung out under some of the bonsai trees

Then we went to a little tea house/restaurant. Kiptoo wanted to pose with the napkin holder,
since Sinarmas Pulp and Paper is the company that owns the school where I work...

Enjoying some jokes over our snacks.. Katie is also leaving Indonesia soon.
She's not laughing because she's happy to leave. She's laughing at the very immodest drink stirrer,
which is a very odd thing to see in this very modest country...

Sally, we discovered, has a very odd habit of putting ketchup on individual fries... Is it an Aussie thing?

When that seemed to be starting to happen, we headed farther up the mountain, disappointed to find that no flights were happening. Not yet, at least. We spent another hour or so sipping Indonesian clove tea at a mountainside warung (kiosk).

 

Finally on the mountain. But as you can see, it's way foggy. So foggy that you cannot even see Diane in the picture!
Why's Diane hiding behind Brittney and Tara??

Fun conversations over some clove tea while waiting patiently for the fog to lift

We tried some steamed bananas. It is served with chocolate and grated cheese. Kiptoo and I decided that
a) bananas should never be steamed
b) one should never put chocolate and cheese in the same dish, especially not on steamed bananas!

Brittney, Lisa, Adele and Tara. And 99 bottles of soda on the wall...

Finally, we decided to give up and head back down past the ever-growing snake of cars making their way back to the city. But then I felt it: My phone was ringing in my pocket, and Mr. Pilot Dude announced that the weather had changed, and we’d be able to fly.

“Shall we go back?” I asked my seven friends.

“Why not? We’re not too far!” our lone Aussie, Sally, suggested. The four bikes turned right around and wiggled our way through back up the mountain, only to find that it was once again shrouded in a thick fog.

I didn't want to risk losing my camera in the crazy traffic down,
so no photos of the ride down and then back up the hill...
Back at the place, we headed up the hill once more
following these guys who had been hauling building sand up the hill for hours,
and kept doing so... What a job. What a life!

Some members of the group decided to take on the zip line as a fun second option. (Having had an unforgettable zip line experience just 3 months prior, I decided to forego.) But then, as quickly as the mountain had hidden in the clouds, she lifted her veil once more.

Killing time once again by enjoying the zip line. You can see how foggy it still is!

Tara and Katie, coming in for a landing...

And it's a safe landing!

Who's next?

Coming closer...

It's Sally...

... and Lisa, happy to be back on the ground again

“Let’s fly!” the pilot exclaimed. “Who is first?” The group graciously agreed that Sally and I should go first, seeing that we were the ones leaving Indonesia the soonest.

I strapped in and only then I got a few butterflies. It’s a bit crazy running off a mountain, I thought to myself. What if the chute doesn’t open?

Suddenly, the fog lifted and we were called to gear up

We're excited to fly. Can you tell?

Here, I think I was starting to wonder if I were nuts for wanting to run off a mountain...

Sally and I, both ready to fly

Not that that’s an issue. You don’t run first and hope it opens. You stand on the mountain and some guys lift two corners. The wind does the rest. It fills the chute and almost immediately lifts you off the ground. At the same time, the pilot, who’s strapped in tandem behind you, says, “Walk!” Soon after, he’s supposed to say, “Run.” I was told not to jump under any circumstances. Just walk and run.

Except things didn’t work like that at first. A side wind twisted the chute right away, and the crew jumped to let out all the air and straighten the ropes again. I’ll admit that I felt a bit queasy right then again, wondering if this were really a safe adventure.

Here, the corners of the chute is being lifted so it can catch some air.
We're standing in the exact spot where we girls had posed early on, when you couldn't see a thing behind us

My pilot dude is fixing the ropes after they got twisted by a side wind.
Notice I'm looking less excited over there. I'm wondering if this is a good idea...

And we're almost ready to run!

Moments later, the chute once again filled with air, and we may have only run three steps before my feet were off the ground. We made several sharp turns to get into the wind well, diving hither and thither, bringing some of the same thoughts back to surface of whether or not this really was a safe thing to do… Those thoughts instantly dissipated when we straightened into a glide and sat mid-air, the verdant valley spread below us.

Off we go! We had to make several sharp turns and maneuvers to get into the wind...

It was incredible.

After a flight of close to a very long and leisurely five minutes, we approached the tea plantation with the landing strip, and I noticed a couple and their toddler walking right in the narrow pathway.

“Lift!” the pilot shouted. This was the signal to lift my legs straight forward. The next command was supposed to be, “Run!” But that one never came. We were approaching the narrow path fast, and the family below just kept walking slowly until the pilot shouted, in Indonesian, “Get out of the way!” Or so I assume, at least, judging by how fast they dived off into the tea fields to the right, and we crashed into the tea bushes to the left.

I just laughed and laughed. “You should’ve run, not sit!” the yellow-jacketed-pilot dude said with a smile, pulling me up. (I didn’t succumb to the temptation to tell him that he never told me to run like he said he would, and that I’d have proof since I had my camera rolling all the way.) I just smiled and said, “That was AMAZING!”

And then I photographed Sally coming in for her landing right behind us. Their landing was a smooth one with no obstacles on the strip.

Sally coming in for a landing

Some kids from the local village help to fold all the gear after the jumps

We were relieved of our harnesses, and told to wait patiently until we were able to drive back up the mountain. “Sorry,” yellow-jacketed-pilot dude said. “Right now, the cars can only come down the mountain. We have to wait an hour or so before our car can take you up.” Which made me extra thankful that we had come on motorbikes in the first place, since there are no weekend travel restrictions for those. The traffic-in-one-direction arrangement on the mountain is to help with flow.

Sally and I played around in the tea fields, sorry to hear that none of our friends would be able to fly after all. The wind had become too erratic. When our friends pulled up on their bikes some time later, they all assured us that they were OK with only us having flown. Everyone had had a fun day, after all, and they were determined to make the same trip back in a few weeks.

Sally's pointing out the spot where we flew from

... while I am ready to fly again!

Marlboro Dog came to check out what the crazy bule girls are doing in his field...

When we headed back to the road to be picked up by the rest of the group, I spotted a Land Rover almost like my old TDi
and decided to take a photo like I've done on some safaris in Kenya...

The hill from which we flew, from a different angle

Some of the traffic passing by. By this time, the traffic had calmed down a LOT!

We finally got picked up and then headed straight to Cimory, a famous restaurant in the area

... and then we headed back over another mountain, back to Sentul. The sunset was spectalar! I took these shots on the fly,
so pardon the wires in the frame. The colors are too good not to share them, though.
I really miss seeing amazing sunsets in Jakarta!

More of the sunset

By this time, my behind was more than ready to get off the motorbike. Diane (you see only her helmet on the right)
is an excellent driver, though. I'm glad I got to ride with her. :)

At Brittney and Leanne's house. Leanne (on the couch) couldn't join us since she had been sick all week.
You can tell how tired we are of being on motorbikes for such a long trip!

Would I paraglide Puncak again if I had the chance? You bet I would! Though there were moments when I was a bit scared, it was nothing compared to the many times my life flashed before my eyes as we weaved through oncoming traffic!

The experience was somewhat akin to when I scuba dive. Though the sound and the touch of the wind on my face was different from the sound of bubbles and cold water on my face, it’s also very similar: It’s the exhilaration of seeing the world from a completely new angle.

It’s about fresh perspective.

And that, I like.

The Sacrament of Waiting

Slowly
she celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green,
then the orange, yellow, and red
finally she let go of her brown.
Shedding her last leaf
she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky
she began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf
she watched its journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
wearing the color of emptiness,
her branches wondering;
How do you give shade with so much gone?

And then,
the sacrament of waiting began.
The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness.
Clothing her with silhouettes
they kept her hope alive.

They helped her understand that
her vulnerability,
her dependence and need,
her emptiness,
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening they stood in silence
and celebrated together
the sacrament of waiting.

I had posted this poem by Benedictine nun, Macrina Wiederkehr almost 3 years ago, when I left Kenya. As I'm yet again waiting to see what the next season holds, I was reminded that waiting can be a season that can produce good things.

Brilliant!

A Very Close Call

Today was our last day of diving off Bunaken. The weather was questionable when we left, but the skipper assured us it's changing for the better, that the weather forecast for the day was only light rain. Connie, my friend visiting from the US decided not to go diving today due to a headache, and Marion, my colleague, thought she'd just snorkel around this area today, once the weather cleared up.

The hour-long trip over to the island wasn't too bad. We dived*, possibly my best dive in the 14 years I've been scuba diving, and then I stayed on the surface, seeing that my flight is at 10 tomorrow morning, so a second dive would cut into the 24-hour rest period.  Once the other three divers surfaced, we were told we're heading back right away since the weather was changing.

We were in a smallish scuba boat with just two little outboard engines. About 20 minutes into the trip, the sea got VERY rough. Some of the waves were about 20 feet tall, according to the skipper. It's plain scary when the wave behind the boat is much bigger than the boat itself. Fortunately, those were rolling waves, so they'd literally just lift us up and plop us down with a bang! But some hit us from the side, and sent some gear flying.

You know you're in trouble when the crew turns the boat around, then try going in a third direction, simply following the waves. The boat itself was hardly moving; the little propeller engines were worthless against the force of the storm.

You also know you're in trouble when the crew start yelling. (Fortunately, our dive master, Ken, was as cool as can be. If it weren't for that, we'd all be panicking! But he was going back and forth from the bow and the stern, trying to problem solve.) The skipper, Simon, suddenly gestured to us four divers to shift to the other side of the boat to shift weight... He didn't have to say a word! We moved like we had rehearsed for days!

I asked Yori, an Indonesian girl who was with the two Indian guys in the second dive party, what the skipper was saying. All I could understand was the word for "Help!" She was smart enough to say that they were speaking the Manadonese dialect, that she wasn't able to follow. But later, she told me that he was yelling to the rest of the crew to pray.

I didn't need anyone to tell me to pray. I was sitting there holding on to whatever I could, praying for God to calm the storm. The next moment, four life jackets come flying out from under the dive tanks, landing RIGHT at the feet of each one of us four. I kid you not. It was surreal! We looked at each other and immediately put on the life jackets.

The sound of the wind and the waves was deafening. As was the wind against the roof. Until the roof blew off with much of the wooden structure with it! Amazingly, no-one was hit by any of the poles! At that time, I told the rest of our group that we should probably get our dive booties on and get ready to grab our fins. But dive master Ken, who had seemed calm the entire time, suddenly yelled, "Put on your BCDs!" Which we did, of course! Afterwards, we laughed so hard at one of the guys who said he had forgotten so many of the little details regarding diving, but in that moment, he remembered right away how to manually inflate the BCD. Ken grabbed a phone and called for help. Then he told us to prepare to go overboard. (He said later he was CONVINCED the boat was going to capsize.)

Suddenly, there was a very loud thump or three, and our boat came to almost a complete stop! We had hit a reef.

Ken told us to take our BCDs and fins off but to keep our dive booties on, and to grab what we can and walk to shore. We grabbed towels to stay warm (thinking we were on an island where we might not find people!), and we were given some bottled water, which I think none of us opened, saving it for later, when we'd be stuck for the night? I was very thankful that I had a dry bag for my camera, and even before, I had decided to take the bag overboard with me with its own life vest, if need be!

We got off the boat, and we started wading through beds of sea urchins, through sand that was like quick sand, where we were stuck all the way to our knees at times, through mangrove forests, and finally (maybe close to an hour later?) we hit dry land. Then we learned that we were, in fact, right at the end of Sulawesi, rather than on one of the outlying islands, which meant that there were people nearby... We weren't going to have to survive on a remote island for the night, after all! (We weren't sad about that.)

We walked past homes out in the bush, through coconut plantations and past lots of cows. (Funnily, I kept thinking of beef rendang, my favorite Indonesian dish, which is beef with coconut. But that's beside the point.)

It "just so happened" that we ended up only about a kilometer or so from the house of a cousin of the skipper, where we could rinse out our booties as part of the marsh we waded through was full of sewage! From there, we walked to the main road, where we barely had to wait five minutes before the cars from the dive center (more than an hour away by road) arrived. We were whisked off in one vehicle while the men in the other vehicle headed to the boat to salvage what they could and to try and tow it to a safer spot.

All along the drive home, you could see the damage from the freak storm everywhere, with trees blown down, power lines being downed by some of those trees, and small roofs blown off. It was bizarre to think we were in the water when the worst of storm hit!

By the time we reached the dive center, the waves were still growing bigger, and were pounding the buildings. The dining area, which is right on the water, was hit several times, so much so that we had dinner in the back kitchen tonight.

But we were safe, dry, clean. And alive. I have no doubt that God heard our cries today. Though he didn't calm the storm, he provided a safe passage through it, he kept the boat from capsizing (the crew thought that the fact that the roof blew off saved us from being flipped over by the wind). And despite all the craziness of the trek through beds of sea urchins, sinking sand, and sewage, we made it through unscathed.

Despite the craziness of the entire event, I never felt like any of our group panicked. In fact, I finally took out my camera when we got to dryish land and shot a clip of the rest of the crew emerging from the mangrove swamp. Through it all, we were still smiling, infinitely thankful that the boat didn't capsize...



* In case you're wondering, dived is indeed the past tense when you refer to scuba. Soon after I started diving, I was told that dove refers to diving vertically, as in "I dove into the pool." But I just looked it up, and from some of the reading, it seems that both are correct past participles, but that that dived is actually the preferred past tense for dive. There. Just in case you, too, were baffled by this.

A Day of Contrasts

So, we went to a Toraja funeral today. We were told that this is not the high season for funerals in Tana Toraja. Most people have funerals during July and August. Not that more people die at that time. They just keep the deceased in the house till then. In fact, the body could be kept in the house for years, even as many as 20 years, while the family works to collect money to have these elaborate funerals.

Depending on which of the four classes you are from (the highest being gold class, the lowest slave class), you are required to sacrifice a certain number of water buffalo for the event. Someone from the gold class has to sacrifice minimum 24 water buffalo, but there have been some funerals where as many as 100, even 200 were slaughtered. Someone from the slave class would not need any buffaloes slaughtered.

It's odd. The Toraja people are mostly Christian, but their faith is interwoven with many animistic rituals and beliefs. For example, they believe that the deceased never really leave. Hence, if someone dies but there's not enough money to bury them right away, you not only keep the body in the home, but you converse with them, you ask them permission to come and go, you serve them meals... And even after they have been buried, you keep taking gifts to the grave, such as water and cigarettes, even items they would have used in their office, or money.

But at the same time, they believe the person does go to heaven, but the water buffalo is needed to escort them to heaven...

They do not fear the spirits of the dead, but they do fear that if they do not do the right things for the men who come to slaughter the buffalo, that spells can be put on the animals, which have been said to run around after their necks had been slit open.

Today's funeral was for a middle-class man. They had brought nine water buffalo to kill, but kept two to give away to a future funeral. I have no idea how long it has been since the man had passed away, but no-one seemed sad. In fact, it was quite the party. There may have been more than 500 people at the event, all sitting around, waiting for meat. Some were singing traditional songs. Community announcements were being made. And a lot of blood was being spilled...

Fortunately, we didn't see the actual killings. But we saw plenty of guts and as much blood.

Then we left and had a delicious lunch.

And went on to do more sightseeing, including the hanging graves. Now, these were something really, really bizarre! The original Toraja tombs were wooden ones which were hung high against rocks as to prevent grave robberies. In later years, more people got buried in rock graves. Nowadays, most people get buried in house graves, meaning that a house is built to keep the bones.

In all cases, these are family graves. The bones from the entire family is put into one coffin. Hence, in the case of the hanging graves, the coffins have been eaten by bugs over the years and the bones just lay around...

In some cases, effigies are carved out of wood or made of clay. These are made to look like the family members who have passed, and are placed by the grave site.

The photos show a much clearer picture of all of this.

First thing this morning, we visited a Toraja village. The traditional Toraja homes are built to look like the horns of a water buffalo. Yip, they love their water buffalo. These animals are considered the strongest, yet in this culture, they do not work. They are only kept for funerals, or for trading

Inside a Toraja house

I bought a piece of Toraja art, an actual panel from a Toraja house

A vendor on the side of the road, selling vegetables. To his right, you can see how people sell gasoline around here, by the bottle

Original rock graves. You can see the effigies of the old man and woman in front of the grave, along with their dog

We stopped for coffee at this spot where you had a view of the entire valley with its rows upon rows upon rows of rice terraces

My colleague Marion and I, enjoying a cup of famous Toraja mud coffee. Nope, they didn't have any milk at this store, so we enjoyed it black. And I can actually say I did enjoy it, though I had to add sugar

Spotted water buffalo are highly revered. They trade for Rp150 million (about $17,000). All they are used for, though, are to be slaughtered for funerals... People was their buffalo with soap, and rub them with coconut oil to make them look even more beautiful. The men washing this buffalo do not own it, they'd only be employees of the owner

At the funeral. The buffaloes are slaughtered in front of the room where the coffin lays. Pigs were being slaughtered in other places. People were sitting around in buildings all over the property, patiently waiting for more food

After the intestines were removed, the pigs were charred on bamboo fires. You can only imagine the smell...

This is the registration table, where guests have to register what they brought for the funeral (a buffalo, or a pig, or money). They are issued with a receipt, and when they have a family funeral later, the hosts of today's funeral will be expected to give at least as much, if not more. There are also government officials at the table, keeping track of the gifts, and charging the hosts funeral taxes

These boys were playing on the road on the way back to our car. What you do not see in the photo, is that one of them had the hoof of one of the slaughtered buffalo tied to a string, and was dragging that behind him as his new favorite toy

After a delicious lunch, we stopped by another Toraja village, where we watched this carver in action

We then proceeded to the cemetery behind the village, where we saw this elaborate house grave

Next, we walked up this little hill and voila! there were hanging graves and coffins all around...

Since many of the coffins were completely weather worn, the skulls were out and about. It's eerie to think that these belong to real people

This was a cave full of effigies, carvings that look like the original people, dressed up like them, and wearing their real jewelry. It is kept behind lock and key because of grave robberies. We named the grandma in purple Ethel

Here you can see the bones spilling out of the hanging grave, as families are buried together in one coffin

This grave on the right belongs to a government official, and 100 buffalo were slaughtered at his funeral. Connie decided his name was Winston. We named many of the effigies...

Finally, we went to a place where we watched ladies do ikat weaving

Beautiful ikat weaving. One piece like this can take months to complete