Alam (Nature) Islamic School in Banguwangi

The Banguwangi “Alam” (Natural) Islamic School: “The Character School”

 On the way back from Bali and Banguwangi, at the far end of the island of Java, I visited this very special alternative Islamic school.  It calls itself (in English) the “Character School,” specializing in “leadership, religion, language, and science.”  To say I was greeted warmly would be an understatement.  As I got out of the car, I was surrounded by somewhere between 35 to 40 students, even on a Sunday, a holiday for most schools here.  The staff member driving the university car remarked, “you are famous here, like a movie star.”  But what was overwhelmingly touching was the way each student gave me a “selaman” greeting, taking hands to their heads first and then to the heart.  I was speechless.  My friend and colleague, Habib, had arranged all this, because he has taken an interest in this school from the start.  We then proceeded to open the boxes of books that I and others had donated.  I saw the headmaster brush away tears from his eyes as he held a Qur’an I had given.  (I did not get a chance to tell him that a friend in Bosnia had given it to me after she came back from the Hajj.)  After opening the boxes, the teachers and headmaster asked me to give a little speech (this is done regularly here in Indonesia, and public speaking is an emphasis at the school.)  I don’t know what I said, but I wanted to convey how happy I was to share these English-language books with them, and that I would like to come back and hear them tell me in English what they have learned.  

Habib told me on the long trip through East Java afterwards that, “The School makes the students more creative, more independent, more innovative, since they learn by themselves, not because of the teachers.”  It is an alternative to the madrassahs and “pesantrens” (special Indonesian boarding schools that have traditionally taught reciting the Qur’an and only recently added a fuller curriculum).  What distinguishes this school is that it is open to all students, regardless of their ability to pay.  In fact, it is famous in the media for being the school where parents can pay with vegetables.  Each Monday the students bring vegetables from their families to cook for the week.  The students even cook by themselves.  When students do not have money to pay, they are welcome to come, and the school tries to find sponsors for students who cannot pay.  The school does not need expensive facilities like big buildings, and does not even need classrooms. The teachers are motivators, not teachers.  That is why they spend less money.  The group with the student leader sets the lesson plan, and the group evaluates the plan.  On the exams, their grades are not so high, but above average, but the advantage is they are more self-confident, and have more facility in English and in Arabic.  When they continue their study to senior high school, they can work as tutors because they have acted as mentors to other students in their elementary school.  Their skill in mentoring is more important than the scores on their subjects.  They become trained as trainers; from the beginning they are sent to other schools to be mentors to students of the same age.  When they graduate from the school, they are really self-confident mentors.  Even in everyday life, they feel everybody should have an opportunity to be a leader in the group.  Not only in learning, but also in praying. They have to be ready to be imams.  Class is community-based.  Every week the leader changes.  

Of course the school, taking children aged six to twelve, is Islamic and at the same time stresses  “generous character” open to global insights.   It is inclusive, open, not exclusive, and welcome to the poor.  Not fundamentalist.  In their studies, the teachers and students try to strike a balance between religious education and life skills that will be useful in religion, society and the nation.  As Habib has often said, Indonesia is still a feudal society, so the emphasis on independence and creativity is hugely needed in a country and culture where innovative thinking is not prized, and people expect to follow orders.  I hope that in the future I and others of like mind will be able to contribute in some small way to this school.   “Selaman.”

The Thousandth Day

Last night I was invited, along with Fr. Joseph, the director of the St. Joseph Retreat House, to attend what is considered the three-year of thousand day anniversary of the death of a spouse.  Some say this is old Javanese custom, commemorating first the fortieth day, then the hundredth, the one year, and finally the thousandth day since the death of the loved one.  As we arrived in the large music studio where Mrs. Cecelia Tolus and her husband have conducted their teaching in all kinds of musical instruments, we were led into a room where an altar was decked in flowers, and where somehow it smelled funereal.  There was no body, however, only a picture of the husband, and three pictures beside his, one of his mother, one of his brother and one of his sister, all of whom had also passed away.  Our only ritual act at this point was to take flowers from trays arranged in front of the photo, and put them in a box to be taken to the graveside this morning.  After a time of chatting among the guests, some two hundred of them, a group of us remained for a memorial Mass.  All these people were there to support Cecilia, who told us that she was both happy and sad that night, and her face really showed it.  Cecilia, now one of my good friends here in Bali, had already shared with me at her house some thoughts she had written, in which she put into writing much of what she has been learning from the words of Neale Donald Walsch, that death is not the end, and that with every loss there is something of a gift to be discovered.  The priest who offered the Mass told an interesting story (translated for me by Fr. Joseph) that when he left the seminary in Malaysia he was told he would be working among the Bataks (I think that’s the right ethnic group but there are so many!) who are people of the “long house.”  They have always made their houses one long house, where people can come and go and be connected.  Now, they are making separations, putting up walls, changing the character of their life together.  All this relates to the point made so well in a book I have been reading about Java that I will quote it here.  The book is A Shadow Falls in the Heart of Java by Andrew Beatty, an English anthropologist who lived over several years in a small village in east Java with his family.  Here are his words about leaving the village life and returning to what was once “normal” :

"In the village, daily life was shared.  You grew up with people, attended their weddings and prayer-meals, shared their misfortunes, helped dig their graves.  And at every waking moment they were around: tending the next field, sweeping the yard, sitting on your doorstep in the evenings.  As you fell asleep you could hear their coughs and murmurs through the wall.  Their presence was the inescapable condition of your existence.  I was always we. In death or life, nobody was every really alone.  If you moved to a different part of the village, our old ties fell away but there would be others just as strong.  It wasn't depth or continuity that counted but the sustaining presence of others, like Frost's silken tent.  One could drift between families and neighbourhoods, marry and remarry, but the gentle embrace of the community was constant.

In the West,--or perhaps simply out of the village--you pursued your 'own life.'  Of course, you had friends and relatives and at regular moments your lives overlapped with theirs, but your path was separate.  An individual destiny, with goals and obstacles, life was 'what you made of it.'

We knew what it would be like to return to the isolation and boundedness of the nuclear family:  an adjustment of shape; a shock for the children; separate lives.  . . .  We had nothing to go back to, no jobs or settled life, nothing planned: it was too soon."

Those are Andrew Beatty's words, but as I end my Indonesian journey, I can relate to them in my own life, and, to my surprise, even as I look toward leaving here, I also contemplate returning, and making a place for myself that is not separate.

"Quiet Saturday" and Easter

My blog would not be complete without finishing the journey through Flores, including what is called "Quiet Saturday," the day between Good Friday and Easter.  On that morning, we left the cathedral grounds in Larentuka, but paid a visit to a shrine dedicated to a Monsignor Mannick, a bishop from Indonesia who ended up serving the Native Americans in Colorado and whose body has been miraculously preserved.  This preservation thing is such a Catholic phenomenon, and in many ways my contact with the Catholic community here has taken me back to the American Catholic Church of about fifty years ago.  Outside the shrine, the sisters who tend it told me that he left Indonesia because of a conflict within his order, and that is the kind of sanctity, a difficult and  messy one, that I can relate to.  We paused for photos with the sisters and their pumpkin produce, and then packed into the bus for the journey westward, pausing at an incredibly beautiful beach, Wayterang Beach, along the way.

As on the other days of riding the bus, we laughed and prayed our way along the steep and narrow highway taking us westward to a Carmelite retreat house at Mauloo.  We arrived in time for a quick "shower," (meaning hand dips with cold water), and went to the church for the Easter Vigil Mass.  What made it poignantly beautiful for me were the young girls dressed in long skirts and sashes, swaying to gentle rhythms of a music not unlike Hawaiian.
  On Sunday after Mass (which I missed having "slept in" till 6:40 AM), we piled into the bus for one last ride to Ende, our starting point for the flight home.  That night we had what seemed luxurious accommodations in a hotel after such primitive, insect-ridden rooms.  The next morning four of us rented a car and drove along another beautiful beach outside Ende, and then up into a "kampung," village, where people of Flores live their lives as they have for hundreds of years, and where everything revolves around the church life.  At the very end of our journey, after the flight home, we arrived back at our retreat house in Bali.  To our surprise, there was a feast waiting for us, complete with whole roast pig.  Then came the Balinese dancers, beautifully attired in off-shoulder (no head-scarves in Bali) flowing dresses with wide capes at the sides.  The Bali dancers finished their dance, and then before I knew what happened, I was invited to go up and dance with them.  I see that invitation and dance as a good metaphor for the end of my time here in Bali and in Indonesia generally.  The hand of the Bali dancer beckons: "Come join the dance."  And I will.  I am ending my time here in a much better place than when I started.  I am ready for the dance.  

The Parish Councils At Carmel Retreat House, Bali

I am once again enjoying the beauty and peace of the mountains of Bali; I could almost feel guilty at being offered such a paradise this close to my return to the States.  But I am soaking it in, including the feeling of being family here, of belonging.  This morning, I had been asked by Fr. Joseph to give a talk to the leaders of parish councils, all men (!) who had come for the weekend.  I had been hearing their laughter wafting periodically from the conference room next to my room.  I knew my talk on “Christianity and Human Rights” and the situation in Indonesia, far short of upholding the rights of the minorities, would not be laughable.  But they were great good listeners, despite our language barrier (I still have not mastered the language enough to speak and even understand questions in Indonesian).  I had a very good translator, two in fact!  The most interesting part came in the questions period when one man described having been a leader of his Muhammadiyah Muslim youth group while in school, then going into a church and seeing a statue of Jesus holding a lamb (the Good Shepherd) and wanting to study Catholic teachings.  When he signed up for the Catholic classes, he said everybody, including the headmaster, hated him.  He went on to study to be a catechist, and even considered the priesthood.  Another man told of being part of an interreligious dialogue begun in Bali after the Bali bombings, and how the top-down approach, beginning with religious leaders, was having an effect.  Finally, a man who described himself as a policeman spoke, telling a gripping tale of violence when a Catholic policeman was defamed by someone in East Timor (no longer part of Indonesia, but a country that won independence through a bloody rebellion against the government of Indonesia).  He described a Catholic mob that was out of control, attacking and burning Muslim homes and markets.  He told them at one point they would have to kill him first if they wanted to keep on burning down homes.  Then he put the Muslim people in the police barracks to keep them safe.  The men asked me at one point for a solution to all this, and my only response could be to have the religious leaders, now so powerful in the political sphere, speak out forcefully of the forgiveness and mercy and justice at the heart of each religious tradition.  I told them my personal story of having my research proposal turned down by the Ministry of Research last summer, and that my director at the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation, Nellie Paliama, had confided in me finally a couple weeks ago it was because they feared “Christianization.”  These are some of the realities of the complexity and intractability that is Indonesia.  I can only hope that pointing to the problems rather than covering them up will help make a difference.

A Month of Conferences

Two Conferences, Two Concepts

In the last two weeks, I have spoken to the Peace Corps, have given a paper at a conference on human rights in the Law School of the University of Jember, have gone to Jakarta for a Fulbright conference, and have given a presentation on character-building at an education conference here at the University of Muhammadiyah Malang.  Two of these conferences, one on human rights from the Christian and Muslim Perspectives, responded to the actual problems of violations of human rights between majority-minority religions in Indonesia, and the other was a Fulbright conference where all the 200 or so Indonesians granted a scholarship to study somewhere in America were invited. 

I feel strung between two very different Indonesias, the one in trouble from radical forces within Islam, and the other wonderfully hopeful.  One speaker at the Fulbright conference was one of forty people selected by Sukarno, the first president of the independent republic of Indonesia, to study in the United States.  This first group of Indonesians from an independent republic came back and started programs that shaped the whole future of education in this country, even adopting the American system of education (though they have a long way to go to meet American standards, sorry, Indonesia).  He said, wisely, that “this is the era of the battle of concepts, of knowledge,” and nothing could be more true of Indonesia right now, as it teeters on the brink of further radicalism fostered by certain Islamist groups even recruiting in the universities, and most recently at the university where I am teaching, taking students away to radicalize them and make them “ministers” in the new Islamic country of Indonesia.  The hope for an Islamic state under Shari’a law is still very much alive among some small but influential groups.  This same ambassador has been around a long time, and so he remembered taking Gus Dur (the familiar name of the much loved but impeached president of Indonesia, Abdurahman Wahid) to America, where they met with President Clinton.  Clinton said in an aside to Gus Dur, “A successful Indonesia will help to characterize the twenty-first century.  If Indonesia can show that Islam and democracy are compatible, we will have a successful century.”

That hope was actually the substance of the conference I participated in at the University of Jember in East Java. These speakers (and I) were really very serious about seeing the enforcement of Indonesia’s constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion.  Having me on the panel representing (ha!) the Christian perspective on human rights made a strong statement of openness to a more pluralist ideal in Indonesia.  Yet, there were hints that this too was an ideal that still exists on the horizon of people’s consciousness.  A kind of apologetics for the dominance of Islamic mosques and the difficulty of getting permits to have churches built was a sub-text of one speaker’s presentation, no matter how he tried to make it sound open and fair.  He pointed out the one instance of difficulty in mosque-building in a generally Christian area of West Timur without mentioning the numerous instances of denial of permission for building churches all over Java, not to mention . the 240  church burnings and attacks on churches in the last six years.   I hurriedly cut out some of the more stringent comments I had in my paper about the Muslim majority’s fear of Christianization being the reason for most of the denials. 

But I really felt the audience’s sympathy in the question and answer period.  One participant described her “sadness” for her country at hearing what I had to say; and much concern was expressed over the ongoing conflicts between religions.  I guess I am always on the side of the underdogs, since I systematically took the side of Muslims when I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, seeing their persecution and outright genocide at the hands of so-called “Christians” like the Serbs and Croats.  Here, my sympathies go to the Christians, many of whom just want to co-exist here without bothering the majority.  It is such a complex question!  Unfortunately, I am feeling more difficulty accepting the predominance of one religion, especially when it invades the air space over loudspeakers at four in the morning.  But this Fulbright conference gives me much hope for the future, and even inspires me, seeing these young scholars and students willing to venture forth to our country to learn and bring back knowledge that will surely bring Indonesia closer to its democratic ideals.

"Pilgrimage" to Flores

 Wayterang Beach, Flores

Last week I took a flight from Malang to Denpasar, Bali, where I was picked up by Fr. Joseph Gerungan, director of the beautiful retreat house up in the mountains of Bali, a region called Bedugul.  Once there, I was joined by a group from all over Java who were heading east to the island of Flores for "Pasca," Easter.  What a trip it was!  After a day spent at the retreat house, we arose early the next morning (3:00 AM Java time!) to catch an early flight to Ende, in the middle of the island of Flores.  Once there, we boarded a bus traveling all day on narrow mountain roads through breath-taking scenery, high mountains on either side, and lush greenness untouched all around.  That long ride got us only to Maumere, where we had a hotel for the night before boarding the bus again to get to Laruntuka, just in time for "White Thursday," or what Christians in the West call "Holy or Maundy Thursday."  Holy Week had begun. 

On the boat before the crowd 

   The traditions of Larentuka are Portuguese Catholic, and most of the people, well over 90% are Catholic, the exact opposite of the situation in Malang, where the population is well over 96% Muslim!  At Larentuka we stayed at the cathedral "guest house," but that is dignifying it a bit too much, since accommodations, designed for visiting priests, were rather primitive.  The next morning, however, we got to the beach, where we boarded a boat that would take us first to a small chapel on a nearby island, where numbers of pilgrims entered, approaching a statue of the crucified Christ on their knees.  After that moment of piety, we were off again on the boat to join dozens of other good-sized boats, each carrying increasing numbers of people, for a boat procession, that would follow a very tiny boat, rowed slowly by a couple of men, and I am told holding an image of the Child Jesus.  (I never found out why that image was the one that 500 years of tradition had employed, but I liked it that we were following an image of life and birth rather than death and suffering.)  The whole experience was fun, relaxing, and extremely scary, as our boat got so overloaded that it kept tipping to one side and the other, taking on water each time, until finally a few people got off onto yet another equally overloaded boat.  Thank God!  There were no life-jackets, and little children, three and four years old, were stationed right along the sides. 

  After the boat procession, we had just enough time to get ready (very hot and sweaty by now) for the afternoon's "Way of the Cross" and donned our second special tee-shirt of the day (both saying "Ave Maria Larentuka") for this ancient ceremony.  As usual, as the "bule," foreigner, I was asked to sit up front, and since my camera was totally out of charge, I borrowed my new friend, Josephine's, who accompanied me at the front (to the protests of the usher because she wasn't bule).  There are fifteen priests at the cathedral, and most of them were up at the altar for the veneration of the cross and Holy Communion ceremony (no Mass on Good Friday).  After our next meal (Indonesian Catholics don't seem to make much of the fasting rule for Good Friday, as snacks kept being passed around throughout the boat ride) we assembled again at church for a symbolic procession where the body of Christ was symbolically carried in a coffin accompanied by wailing lamentations and powerful drumbeats.  Girls carried sticks of bamboo, rice, fruits, and the other produce of this incredibly fertile land.  At the front of the church was the ancient Portuguese "Mater Dolorosa," Mary, Mother of Sorrows, and at Fr. Joseph's invitation, I went up to take a picture of her, seeing her strength and firm gaze on the scene. 

  Numbers of groups of Confraternities and other lay groups were called, and our group waited until finally we were able to join the long, very long candlelight procession wending its way the along the main street, also candlelit on either side, of Larentuka.  And that was only the first day of the Triduum!

Teaching at "Pascasarjana"

In March, I began my teaching assignment at the Post-Graduate School (Pascasarjana) in the area of sociology of religion.  Actually, I share a course with another professor, who is teaching a class on social analysis using the works of a group of Italian social theorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.  It's a really weird fit.  But I squeeze my course on the world religions into the middle of it, and the students don't seem to mind.  They are supposed to be doing presentations on papers they write using those same Italian social philosophers to analyze the current social problems of Indonesia.  Huh?  But despite the incongruity of subject matters, it has been a rich and challenging experience for me.  I get to teach only twice a week for an hour and a half each time, with two different groups of students, only about 6-10 in each class (when they all show up, which is not often).  What I really like are their questions.  They are often so profound as to catch me off guard.  Yesterday I was asked what about the nature of "hyper-reality," a student's made-up term for metaphysics.  And what is the origin of the images of gods and goddesses in Hinduism.  Do they only have a destroyer god in Hinduism, and if so, how does the creation get started?  Where is the "proof" for their religion? I answered, and I hope did not destroy their faith in the process, that there is no proof in religion!  (They like to think of Hinduism as a tourist attraction for the many visitors to Bali, but I wanted to show them it is a far more serious religion than meets the eye.)  Of course, all this has to be communicated in our mutually broken languages.  Sometimes, but not always, there is a "translator," who often goes off on tangents of his own if he is there. 
  A greater challenge is meeting the unspoken paradigm of their religion of Islam (but I do have one Catholic student) as the true and perfect religion.  This idea came out forcefully when I introduced the work I was doing on comparative spirituality last semester.  A student said that since I teach all religions, I do not have enough sympathy with Islam.  I bring a pluralist perspective to some who are clearly exclusivists.  Even among the "tolerant" of this Muhammadiyah institution, I hear that it is "natural" to have separation among the religions, although Muslims are commanded to treat others well.  Muhammadiyah is known as a "purification movement" that was founded with some influence from Wahabism.  My friend, Yuli, who teaches Buddhist studies at the Buddhist college attached to the monastery up the road, believes I am here opening the door of the Muhammadiyah community just a little, and my presence will do some good.  I hope she's right.

At the vihara

  Today I was invited (at the last minute of course) to go to the vihara, Buddhist monastery, just up the road, and give food offerings to the bhikkus (senior monks) and samaneras (maybe something like seminarians).  The vihara has become my second home as I have gone together with friends to have long chats with Sister Mutia, a "holder of the eight precepts."  She has been there since 1995, after studying to be a Protestant theologian and deacon for six years in Holland and after that, three years as a Hindu in Bali.  What a journey!  I only had time today to gather up some cookies from my pantry, although Mutia had offered to buy some from their own store, but I didn't find her.  So I humbly, really humbly, offered my cookies to the monks who passed by with their begging bowls by the table of foodstuffs arrayed in front of a line of lay people.  I had seen this practice of monks going out begging, and lay people acquiring "merit" by offering from their own food.  But here I was participating in it.  An even bigger privilege awaited me.  While all the hundred monks or so were eating,  I sat with some of the laity in the back of the dining hall, where I was suddenly told by a very young novice nun that I would be offering my food to the Abbot!  I was feeling so chagrined, and saying, "I don't have any food left; I gave it all away," when suddenly a tray of goodies, fermented coconut and "sticky rice" appeared, and I was able to bring it up to the front of the hall, in front of the hundred or so monks and about fifty lay people, laying it at the table of the head monk, Bhanti Kanti.  There were tears in my eyes as I offered it to him, and said, "I feel so privileged" to be able to do this.  Indeed, I felt more privileged than I had ever felt as a Fulbright scholar here.  The privilege was that of a simple human being being acknowledged just for that.

Ayutheia, Old Capital of Thailand

Summer Palace of the Kings of Thailand

I could not leave the subject of Thailand without passing over the trip some of us took to the old town of Ayutheia, Thailand's capital for over 400 years.  After about an hour's bus ride north into the countryside, we arrived at the place where the kings had a summer palace, consisting of buildings spread over acres of land. There is the Golden Palace of the King, a corn cob structure in the style of the Khmer (Cambodians), the Assembly Hall for Royal Relatives (where we borrowed sarongs to be allowed inside, in case a royal relative came along), The Divine Seat of Personal Freedom (what a name!), and other structures such as the Excellent and Shining Heavenly Abode.  The whole compound apparently began with a monastery and was founded by a king who was an illegitimate son by a king who was shipwrecked on an island and befriended by a woman with whom he had this boy, who became the future king.  Such is the stuff of legends, but maybe true!  The palace grounds stood neglected for a century or more, until the mid-19th century when one of the kings began to restore them. Returning from Ayutheia, we had a most delightful river cruise. After touring the summer palace, we were taken to several "Wats," old Buddhist temples, most in ruins, where we discovered this head of the Buddha woven into the tree roots.   

 On a similar note, I could not believe the adoration and attention given to the current king of Thailand.  His picture, and that of his family, adorned medallions set above the roads and parkways.  Even scenes from his childhood!  It is adoration approaching idolatry, in this thoroughly Buddhist country.  Our host, Pontip, the Executive Director of Fulbright Thailand, told us that she "loves the king" and doesn't really sympathize with those "Red Shirts" who protest some of the policies of the monarchy (symbolized by yellow shirts).  She makes sure to wear yellow, along with many of her compatriots, at least once a week.  She avoids wearing red unless she is out of the country.  So much for color-coded politics!

Fulbright Enrichment Conference, Thailand

In March, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a Mid-Year Enrichment Conference sponsored by the Fulbright Thailand association, bringing together U.S. scholars and students in the Fulbright programs from their respective countries all around Southeast Asia.  About 60 or more of us gathered at the luxury Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok, and from the first "cocktail reception" I knew it would be a party.  Wine (!) flowed freely, and I found myself having to refuse a fourth refill on that first night, having gone wineless for the six or seven months here in Muslim Malang.  Thailand is Buddhist, but that doesn't stop ordinary lay people from the finer things, and we were treated to one after another gourmet meals and buffets.  Among the treats were trays of lobster tails, I remember at one point.  The feast carried over into the various paper presentations being given, under the overall banner of "America's Engagement in Southeast Asia:  the Role of People-to-People Ties in Strengthening Connections."  Panels were organized around topics of business, public health, religion and anthropology, biology, law, politics, and human rights, art and culture, art and education, and more!  The whole conference was topped off with a beautiful, moon-lit evening at the National Museum, us mostly garbed in the dress of our host countries, and adding to the splendor of the lovely Thai dancers who performed for us. 

     After that evening, we had the choice of "study visits" and I chose to attend the Thai Traditional Medicine one, offered at the traditional medicine clinic at a hospital in Bangkok.  There I experienced a diagnosis of my body-character (I am water and fire), making a healing compress, taking a steam detox, and of course massage.  Perhaps the best part of this truly "enriching" conference was the time spent getting to know other Fulbrights.  I talked to those from Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, northern Thailand, Vietnam, and several other places that I can't even remember now.  It was a whirlwind, but really accomplished its purpose of giving us "people-to-people ties."  I am grateful for the experience.  

Life in a Hindu Village

Musicians at clothing shop in Menyali Village

I did not want to let the story of my time in Bali pass without saying a little about the daily life of a Hindu village of Bali.  I presume that what I experienced with Pak Budasi, a very modern man with a Ph.D. from the premier Gadja Mada University in Yogyakarta, is still fairly close to what is typical.  To put it simply, the life of the Hindu village revolves around ceremony.  While for Muslims, prayer is often but not always in the mosque (you can get your prayer rug out anywhere and pray), for the Hindu it takes the form of offerings gathered and bought from flowers and fruits and arranged in little bamboo leaf dishes.  These offerings are placed everywhere, and we saw them in front of almost every shop in Ubud.  They ask the spirits for blessings of whatever endeavor is at hand, whether selling or farming or just living.  When we stopped at a Hindu Shiva temple, the primary god for Balinese of the many within the Hindu pantheon, we visited a woman whose task was to arrange these tasteful offerings for sale in temple ceremonies. 

  Just after we arrived at the Budasi family compound, we were invited to witness the annual blessing of the land belonging to this family, and so we trekked up a rather long hill passing the trees and plants planted to renew the land, and then watched while Pak Budasi and his wife made their dinner plate-size offerings.
  At the end of our stay, we were busy packing but got a glimpse of the blessing of a new motorcycle, with the priest saying prayers over the new bike amid several offerings.  Our visit to the family "sangha," the place where a number of shrines sit around the outskirts of a field and where once offerings have been made it is hoped that the ancestors of the family, those who have died and been cremated, will have their spirits descend and take up residence to bless and guard the family even more.  All of this sounded beautiful and "connected" to me, the living with the dead, the everyday with the world of spirit, the ordinary with the extraordinary.  To enter even more fully into the life of a Hindu village, visit the blog of my fellow Fulbrighter's wife, Judith Fox, who has lived for several months in a village to the south of Ubud, Batubulan:   http://macambali.wordpress.com/.

Nyepi, Day of Silence in Bali

A couple weeks ago, I learned that classes in the Pascasarjana (Post-Graduate School) of Universitas Muhammadiayah, where I am teaching this semester, would not be started.  So I scooted off to Bali for a long weekend and this time went by "Travel," which meant a 13 hour trip east including a long ferry ride to the little island.  On the map it looks close, but these roads make that an illusion.  Once there, I met up with Elisabeth, Regional English Language teacher at Universitas Jember, and a foreign student there, Sabrina, who is from Paris.  The first night was spent in a lovely hotel in Ubud (famous from the "Eat, Pray, Love" phenomenon), and a text message the first morning invited us to visit a professor whose village abutted the north coast of Bali.  As we drove north the next day, we met one after another large handmade figures, one more gruesome than the next.  These were the "ogoh, ogoh," which, we learned from our various guides, represent the low spirits.  How low can you go, I sometimes wondered as I saw grotesquely violent and rapacious beings being constructed on platforms for the processions that would follow that night.  Pak Budasi, our professor friend who hosted us in the village of Menyali, explained that they were not to be killed by fed and appeased, so that they would go to their proper place.  What astute psychology I thought; like Jung, the Balinese have known that the demons can't be destroyed but only quieted and befriended in some way.  By the time we were in the village, preparations were being completed for the ceremony to begin that evening.  We visitors stood in amazement and delight as one after another of these creatures came by carried on bamboo platforms by groups of boys and young men.  The whole event was a combination of Halloween, July 4th, and a religious observance--certainly it was a communal ritual full of good spirit.  After dark, and some combat between a few of the bad spirits, they were carried in procession around the village until they ended up in the cemetery where they were burned. 


  The next day was a total contrast to all that noise (including firecrackers that last into the night).  Nyepi's Day of Silence in Bali means no cars, airplanes, television transmission, no lights, and no fires.  People do not leave their family compounds, and though we had planned a walk with the village head, we stayed put all day, and took the opportunity to visit the family "sangha," a field of 17 shrines to the ancestors that sits on a rise above the rest of the family dwellings.  Up there Pak Budasi guided us in "pranayama" meditation, a form of breath control.  The whole experience of being in the village with such a tight-knit community feeling was comforting.  And the significance of Nyepi, which a brochure from Ubud describes as "a way to begin life anew, with the troubling and dark aspects of the past year put well behind us," was especially timely for me.

Graduation at UMM with US Ambassador and Obama Contest

I know how neglectful I have been of the blog, but it is not for want of interesting events to report.  I will need to catch up!  The blogs from now on will be coming from me, Maria, since Bob has gone back to America.  But I had the pleasure yesterday of being at one of the three graduations this university holds each year, as it welcomed the US Ambassador to Indonesia, Scott Marciel to give the commencement address.  

Ambassador Scott Marciel and students

Everyone here, the Indonesians that is, say that he is much better than the last one, who was a "military sort."  And indeed, he as well as the Consul-General, Kristin Bauer, who has become a friend, have very warm, open personalities, not at all intimidating.  His speech was mercifully short, emphasizing the importance of the connection between our two countries, and how important Indonesia, such a large country with so many human and natural resources, is to the world and to America.  I was proud of my country and its ambassadors.
  But the most interesting part came afterward, when "Scott" and his staff went over to the "American Corner" (one of only a few in the country spreading the word about American education, culture, etc.) and participated in judging a contest of caricatures of President Obama done by high school students around the region.  I had watched the day before as the students sat for two hours on the campus doing the drawings.  They were amazingly good.  Even the likenesses of Obama were excellent.  But of course I was most interested in what they would say about how they perceived our president and his role in the world.  They were at least to my viewing universally positive.  One showed Obama filling the sacks of the world's poor countries with bread, peace, and freedom--a tall order for any human being, no matter how idolized.  Another, my favorite (and apparently the Ambassador's though not the Indonesian judges') showed Obama looking on in front of a background of mosques, churches, and temples while a Buddhist (I asked the artist who it was) wrapped arms around a Muslim and a Christian.  I told the young woman that one was close to my heart.  Ambassador Marciel gave it a "distinction" award.  I thought they were all wonderful, and such a window into the hearts and minds of the young people of Indonesia.
  I promise that more blogs will follow, so don't give up on me!

On Retreat in Bali

Just returned from an amazing week in the mountains of Bali, complete with a visit to the village of Batubulan where fellow Fulbrighter, Richard Fox, lives with his family amidst a Bali family.  As we drove from the airport up higher into the mountains, accompanied by Fr. Yoseph, whom we were going to know and love during this week, all images of resorts and beaches dropped away.  Instead, we saw much natural beauty, green rice paddies, small villages with family "sanghas," beautiful little shrines for offerings of fruit and flowers right in the family compounds, and of course the mountains. 

Over the course of the next week, we were taken on "tour" to the lake temple, the "botanical gardens," lovely forests which stretched for miles, lush green rice fields, and even to Ubud for art gallery shopping and sightseeing.  In between, we had time to join the Carmelite priests and brothers twice each day for morning and evening prayer and for Mass.  The retreat house itself, built entirely with donations and with great beauty and simplicity, was like a hotel.  We couldn't have felt more welcomed.  In fact, Fr. Yoseph was so sad that we might leave after three days that he invited us back after our visit to Batubulan to see Richard (more about that in the next blog).  So we returned and had a chance to join a group of retreatants from Denpasar who were attending talks by a well-known priest-scholar from Malang who has invited me to his school of philosophy and theology.  Making these connections with the Catholic community has been very helpful to me as I hope somehow to link the Catholics of Malang with the Muslims I will be teaching and working with.  All that will be challenging, I suspect, but I am more hopeful now that I know these ties have been created before.  Just sitting face to face can undo so much distrust and suspicion, all too common I am learning in parts of Indonesia.  I have a feeling I will be back to this healing space before I leave Indonesia. 

Wayang Performance

A Wedding and a wayang (shadow puppets)

Bridegroom and Bride at UMM Dome Wedding

Last evening we attended one of the most sumptuous wedding celebrations I have ever seen.  The whole of the University "Dome" was filled with perhaps twenty tables offering wide varieties of foods, from Peking Duck to Arabian stuffed filo dough, to Malang "bakso" (meatballs) to an American-inspired chocolate fountain. The caterers dressed in red uniforms along with the wedding committee went about collecting dishes.  Lines snaked through the entrance to the Dome for hours, with people from the university coming to pay tribute (and pay money I found out) to the newlyweds.  The bride was adorned with a headdress bedecked with jewels, looking very Javanese in a shimmering magenta form-fitting dress with the bridegroom in a matching suit by her side.  She was the daughter of an engineering professor, I learned. 

  The next event we attended was a wayang, the shadow-puppet play that practically defines Javanese cultural tradition.  If you have seen the film, "The Year of Living Dangerously," you know how important these puppets are to the psyche of Java.  It was the first wayang we had been able to see, since the other one was rained out (as described in a previous blog).  This one was put on by a very rich man, under an enormous tent, big enough to hold a couple hundred people, right at his house.  A great and famous dalang, was brought in at great expense, and the whole event was televised.  The puppets themselves were selected from stacks of puppets along the state, and held in front of the white background, giving the effect a lighter feel than the darker world behind the screen.  Still, the puppets created their shadows and almost interacted with them, making for almost a dual presence.  The actual story was a familiar one from the Ramayana, but the skilled puppeteer very much improvised, even including criticism of the government in his dialogue with the puppets.  The reason for the wayang, we learned later, was to keep safe the only son of the rich man and his wife.  To keep safe from what, you may ask?  From the dangerous spirits, like those under the great banyan trees, that can attack and destroy a life at any point.  Wayangs, it seems are often held to keep something awful from happening.  The first, postponed wayang was to "cleanse the village" (bersih desa) by an offering to the guardian spirit of the village.  Food is an important part of this performance, as in a slametan, and so we were urged, if not ordered, to partake of what turned out to be our third dinner of the night, and were even televised sitting next to the rich man and his wife.