Playing Santa to 900 Orphans

Bob's Story: last Thursday I met for the first time Joe and Ratih Kirk. Joe keeps a web page for Expats in Malang and sends out announcements to everyone on his list. I was happy to make their acquaintance and enjoy their hospitality for dinner. Afterward, we proceeded to the Wesley International School, a private English language school for the children of expats from many countries. The elementary school children staged a play based on a short story by Leo Tolstoy. With their own musical creations they enacted "Papa Panov's Magic Christmas." Their pleasure was infectious.

Earlier, Joe told me that he was slated to play Santa at a special program the following evening. But he looked at my white beard, and thought.... Of course, I said yes, who would pass up such an opportunity, not a ham like me, and so the next evening we went to the NHK hall, snuck in the back and found a room where I could robe in Santa attire. Then I was brought out onto the stage for the initial Santa appearance.

Before me sat a crowd of some 900 or more children from twelve Christian orphanages in Malang, Batu, and surrounding areas. I waved and "ho, ho, ho-ed" and they cheered and waved back. Then Santa went down the aisles calling out "Merry Christmas" and "Salamet Natal." Children smiled, answered, reached out to shake hands, and a dozen photos with happy kids were taken (you wouldn't believe how many of these children had cell phones with cameras), before I returned to the front row to watch the show.

Kids from each orphanage put on a musical performance, to the enjoyment of the crowd which applauded each one with delight. At the end the two MCs invited Santa back to the stage to announce the top three acts chosen by the judges. A representative from each winner came to the stage as I called out, "Hadiah ke tiga; Hadiah ke dua; Sekerang, hadiah ke satu." There were cheers for each, and especially for the first prize winner, the group from Bhakti Luhur.

Let me say something about Bhakti Luhur, which brought 200 kids to this annual event. Founded by a Roman Catholic priest, the organization has set up a home in Malang for physically and mentally handicapped children, some deformed, some missing limbs, some showing the marks of Down's syndromes, some blind, some in wheelchairs. To see this group enjoying this moment moves me even now as I write. I felt privileged to be Santa for them as well as for the other orphans.

Well, I know not why, but after the prizes were announced the female MC turned to Santa and said, "Would you like to sing a song?" Did she intuit that I love to sing? I said yes, paused, and then began "Silent Night." The keyboardist immediately came in with backup, but what blew me away was the sound of a thousand voices joining in, singing both in English and Indonesian. We sang two verses, ending with "Christ the Savior is born." There are no words to describe the spirit of that moment.

Then I made my way to the back of the hall where an Indonesian Santa waited with a dozen women who had neatly packed a thousand Christmas gift bags for each of the orphans, standing efficiently at the ready. We two Santas took turns passing them out and shaking hands with each of the orphans, who smiled and occasionally held a hand of ours to their cheek in a gesture of gratitude and respect. We moved quickly along, and when the last group, the children from Bhakti Luhur, came through I found myself moved as we exchanged greetings. They touched something deep inside me, some emotional or spiritual connection that we made.

I will never forget this evening. It was more than simply the most enjoyable evening I have spent in Malang. It was an evening of grace.

The Wayang We Almost Saw

On December 11, we took Habib, his wife Nancy, and their younger son out to dinner. Afterward Habib drove us to the village of Pendem, just outside of Batu and close to Malang. We were going to see a Wayang.

A wayang is a traditional shadow-puppet play. Large leather puppets are held high behind a plain, back-lit screen by a highly skilled puppeteer, called a dalang. He manipulates the puppets, imitates voices, sings when appropriate, and provides sound effects as he improvises on a familiar story. The play often consists of scenes from the Ramayana. Thanks to the light thrown on the puppets behind the screen, the audience sees the shadows of the puppets. Singing and music from a Gamelon band accompany the play.

It had been raining that day, and we had to pick our way through a muddy field, the track partially covered with mats. We came to the front of a large tent set up for the audience, and could see another tent before us for the musicians, singers, and puppeteer. Habib uttered the magic word tamu, then left us with the village officials. They greeted and invited us to sit in plush seats in the front row. Once again we were kindly shown matchless Javanese hospitality. We were greeted by the headman of this village of 10,000 people and by the village secretary, who sat next to Maria. The two of them and an army officer living there managed some conversation. Someone bought boxes of treats.

A young man came up, dressed in Javanese formal attire with that magnificent and mystical curved dagger called a kris stuck in his belt. He explained that he was the Master of Ceremonies, and that this wayang was a ceremony being held to cleanse the village. We were not going to be entertained with a show but witness an important spiritual event in the yearly life of Pendem. The news gave this whole experience a new dimension and meaning and we responded to the solemnity of the event.

Alas, the ceremony was cut short. A unusually strong wind had been blowing through the region all day and that evening, and the workers were unable to get the puppet screen up. The ceremony was put off until the next evening. The secretary graciously provided us with transportation home, but we had to turn down his invitation for the following evening, to our great regret, as Maria was leaving for the States the next day. We were touched by the hospitality of Pendem's leaders. We hope that there will be an opportunity in the future to be present for such a celebration.

Javanese New Year

Just two days after our trip to Bromo, on Saturday, November 20, we were treated to another cultural event, thanks again to Habib. A van picked us up, along with friends Izidro and Cristina and their friend Inge, and we were taken to a suburb of Malang. We drove along a parade route lined with spectators into a stadium parking lot to a stand already filled with men and women. It is a custom here that if you are a foreigner, you are automatically a tamu, a special guest of the event. So, to our surprise we were seated in the front rows, introduced by name to the audience, and given treats, while we awaited the arrival of the Mayor and other dignitaries. It is really nice to be offered such hospitality.

We learned that we were celebrating New Year's Day in the Javanese calendar, and also the 1250th anniversary of the founding of Malang. The Mayor and his wife arrived in an old Dutch-style carriage, and took their seats. He gave a speech welcoming all; following another speech and a prayer, the parade began.

A panorama of Javanese history and legend passed by us, in colorful costume and drama. The first group performed traditional rituals, another staged a toepang scene from the Ramayana, others performed other ceremonies, all in gorgeous, traditional dress of bright golds, reds, greens, and yellows. Dancers from Bali, dragon displays, clowns dressed as monkeys from Madura, and many other groups paraded by, including men and women dressed as Sufis, representing the spread of Islam to Malang. This parade was a feast for the eyes. The celebration brought home to us how deeply embedded Javanese culture is in this predominately Muslim island. The Javanese are intensely proud of their mythology, history, social relations, and customs, and they showed it in this festival of the New Year.

Our day concluded with a dinner of traditional foods hosted by the Mayor. Once again we enjoyed hospitality and history, as well as time with our friends. We took delight in this celebration, grateful for another opportunity to participate in the life of these lovely and gracious people.

The Haj

  We returned to the home of Bandiya and her husband this week to welcome them back from their 25-day pilgrimage to Mecca and their performance of one of the five great "pillars" of Islam, the Haj.  It is every Muslim's duty, at least once in a lifetime, if they are financially and physically able, to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and there perform the sacred rituals that recall primarily moments in the life of Abraham.  Here in Indonesia, this obligation is taken very seriously, and neither distance nor finances seem to be obstacles.  Just as before, at the Slametan that sent them off on their journey, we were greeted and sat, the women in one room, the men in the other.  Bandiya made herself available to me, the foreigner, as she came in (obviously exhausted from the trip and a flu she had caught while there) and sat down on the floor in front of me, allowing me to ask whatever questions I might find appropriate.  Of course, it was hard to think of the most important ones.  I asked her what were her greatest spiritual experiences on the Haj, and she replied, "the prayer."  When I asked if she thought it would change her life, she nodded vigorously.  What was even more moving began shortly afterward, when both women and men, excluding Bob and me, gathered in the next room, while Bandiya's husband led the chants from the Qur'an, and broke down in tears continually as he clearly opened his heart to God and the tears just flowed.  We are told that many people cry at Mecca, and that they are very conscious of their sins there, and perhaps this was part of it, but I can't help thinking there was this sheer love for Allah pouring out of him as well. 

  Many people save their whole lives here not to buy a new car or renovate their homes, but to go on the Haj.  That is the kind of piety and single-minded devotion we see often in the Muslims we meet here.  When I try to think of what counts as sacred places of pilgrimage for us Christians at this point in our shared but diverse history, I see it as far less important.  I did tell them about Lourdes and Fatima and even Medjugorje, but so many Christians and even Catholics ignore these places.  The whole idea of pilgrimage, that these are places where we touch God, where heaven and earth meet, is disappearing from our sensibility of what it means to be religious.  May it not be replaced by mall-hopping!

Bromo

Step back to the day following our journey to Sendangbiru Beach and come with us to Mt. Bromo, one of the several active volcanoes in East Java. We left at 2:30 p.m., mercifully affording us a morning's rest from the previous day's exertions. Our driver took us north and east into the Bromo Tenggara Semeru National Park and part way up the mountain to a little village. There we checked into our hotel, the Yoshi, a charming place with rooms in cabins set among a delightful garden of trees and beds of flowers. It was dark by that time, so we ordered dinner. The German owner had taught the kitchen staff how to make really great roasted potatoes, and to our surprise we dined on good German peasant cuisine.

We retired early to our room, most charmingly appointed with colorful spreads, throws, and other furnishings, and to bed to catch a few hours sleep before our 3:00 a.m. wake-up. Then, bundled up, we boarded our jeep, and our driver drove us through the darkness to the very top and edge of a huge caldera. There, in the cold (yes, in East Java!), wearing rented sheepskin coats, we joined other tourists to watch a breathtaking sunrise over the caldera and view the cone of Bromo below and the cloud of sulfuric steam and ash that rises from it. We gawked. There is really no way to describe with justice this remarkable scene. We took turns trying to capture it in digital images, and they do better than any words of ours.

After some time, we headed down the road which in the growing sunlight we could see hugged the interior edge of the vast caldera, covered with green, the remains of a more ancient, now dead volcano. We passed up a chance to ride ponies up the side of Bromo and opted instead for the restful, leisurely breakfast we enjoyed in the beautiful hotel garden, before returning to Malang.

Chorus Sounds

Kecak Dance Chorus


 

This group of about seventy men are performing the kecak "dance," named for the cak -cak chirps that sound like hundreds of geckos (or at least that is what I was told by someone who also does this dance in his village).  Originally, this was a ritual performed to purify the village by communicating with the spirits.  It is the most amazing sound that goes on throughout the performance of scenes from the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, and lasts for an hour.  They move and sway in rhythm, almost at times it seems in a trance, and their bodies rise, arms waving above their heads, and then they fall back to the ground, while one man hurls a chant in what is likely the Balinese language.  I couldn't help but think toward the end that if I closed my eyes, I could be in the Trappist monastery at Gethsemane, listening to Gregorian chant.  there was something ancient and primal about it all, something I as a modern Westerner, could not quite grasp, at least not intellectually.  But the whole setting of the dimming light, the sun setting so majestically in the background, and the actors lightly gracing the scene, was mesmerizing at some visceral level.







 

Bali

I went to Bali to meet my cousin, Vivien, for the first time, so my trip was colored by the poignancy of a family that had been torn apart by the ravages of WWII and the Holocaust.  Vivien's family chose to go to Israel before it got really bad in Austria, our common ancestors' homeland.  But from Israel they went some years later to Australia, and so it was that I had never met that part of my family.  Yet, my mother and her mother had kept up a thriving correspondence for many years until her mother's death in 1981.  So we mostly shared stories and photos and tried to catch up on about 60 years of life.  She had not known that my father and grandfather had gone through a concentration camp experience, and that my grandfather had not survived. So that was the main purpose of the trip of three days.

 

    Still, I wanted to experience Bali, since I had heard so much about it here, and the saying is that you haven't been to Indonesia until you have been to Bali.  Even with the knowledge that Bali is far more oriented toward tourists than the sleepy big small town where we live, I was disappointed by the rush of vendors and hawkers everywhere in the resort area of Nusa Dua and the surrounding towns.  When we got out of the car in Kuta, a place that Vivien had remembered as a quaint little town, we were surrounded by people shoving merchandise in our faces.  I found myself buying a sarong (when will I ever wear a sarong?) and several other articles just to get rid of them.  I even bought a fake wood case containing three "silver" elephants.  Yes, I guess I bought a white elephant or three.  But despite the clamor of sellers with money on their minds, I found the scenery quite lovely.  The dance performance at the temple at Ulu Watu was memorable, with the chirping chorus of seventy men whose sounds were unlike anything I had ever heard.  In addition, I found that the people of Bali are just as committed to their Hindu religion as the Muslims of Java.  I found little "chanang saris," little bamboo plates full of offerings of flowers and fruits, in front of each shop and stacked at the many shrines and temples along the way.  The whole experience just deepened and enriched what it means to be in Indonesia's incredible diversity of cultures and ethnicity.