Sitting around me are dozens of Indonesian families all fully transfixed on me whispering "...bule..." (foreigner) and pointing. Children stare wide eyed, bewildered at my very existence. Girls giggle and hide. Young men stand back trying to show indifference to this intruder in their domain but as curious as anyone at my presence. Once they find out I speak more of their language as they do mine I am asked where I'm from, my age, marital status and the basic small talk. The conversation then moves to "What in the fuck are you doing here?" (I might be paraphrasing). My explanation is simple in this language "jalan-jalan" cruising, roaming, rambling, freewheeling, gypsying.
Geckos zig-zag across the walls and ceiling all jockeying for the best spot, closest to the light bulb. Occasionally going on a frantic chase after a mosquito. Cockroaches scurry from in and out of baggages.
As the boat starts to pull out from the harbour there's a mad dash, all the food and trinket hawkers scramble over the railing and these old women impress as they hop to the boat docked adjacent. Nuts.
This is all somehow normal to me. I'm hardly stirred by the insanity of third world transportation anymore. It's become my normal everyday life, being a rock-star on Mars. But then something does stir me. A parrot. Beautiful in powerful colours and perched not 2 metres to my left on a horizontal metal bar. She is chained by the ankle by a short chain, having about a half-metre. two dimensions of freedom.
She gnaws at her shit-crusted chain - a great escape on her mind. She paces back and forth on her perch. She bobs up and down crying out loudly. She pecks at the small plastic cup that once had food for her, who knows how long ago. Small children and adults alike take their turns waving their hands at her, taunting her with food. I am transfixed. Furious to a point of violence, if only there was a singular person to whom I could direct this anger.
To try to explain to them how horrible and barbaric these people are is futile. Just as trying to explain what's wrong with throwing your cigarette butts, plastic garbage, entire cigarette packs and diapers directly into the ocean. As their prisoner - their en-route sadistic entertainment - begins to call out loudly the Indonesians look at her annoyed. How dare she interrupt their soaps!
I daydream of her cries being not just of pain and longing but a true bugle of war. Two hundred rabid parrots descend on the boat from all directions freeing their comrade and exacting revenge on her slave-masters. I picture them pecking out the eyes and sucking the ocular juices of these evil fucks. They don't come. And if they did nothing would stop them from liquidating my skull as well. I'm no different.
So I sit there watching this beautiful birds horrible existence. I fantasize about walking over ripping off her chain and sending her flying for the jungle, free. She'd have a hard time finding land from here, and if she did there's hardly any jungle left thanks to logging, mining and consumer-capitalisms new malls. I don't move I just watch.
I stand at the sidelines of this culture. This is the same country where the night before a man I met in a minibus immediately invited into his house and fed me, giving me a bed for the night. The country where fathers hold their children in their arms while smoking unfiltered kreteks right in their faces. Where a few weeks previous an old woman was crying when she learned of where I was travelling to and how, so worried for me, a stranger she met minutes previous. A country so full of corruption and greed by a few, subjecting millions to a level of poverty this middle-class Canadian can't ever know. All I know how to do is observe. Apathy is almost necessary to keep mental health intact.
When the boat docks fourteen hours later I leave her there. I move on to further islands and further boats and more things beautiful, disgusting, inspiring and infuriating.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment