Kebayak Time in Bali
Sometimes my friends will introduce me at a dinner party, and in a rapid attempt to break any lingering silence, they’ll say,
"Christina’s from Bali!" with an eager grin on their face.
I bashfully hesitate, then explain “Well technically I’m not from Ba-
and one person will say “Bali? Wow that’s so cool, Bali is where it’s at these days!”
I continue to resist. “Oh well all my family does live in Bali now, yes, but you see I was born in Ja-
and another person will say, “I heard you can just live in a super luxury villa with a pool for like, a couple thousand US Dollars a year, and like, all you need is a good internet connection to work!”
So my origins remain untold, as I quickly ask where they are all from to change the topic, because the idea of millennial techies lusting over Bali as a cheap paradise nauseates me. Bali is so much more than that, but I’ll save that for another story.
What I wish more people knew was that I was born in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Then I lived in Balikpapan, a city in the province of Kalimantan within the island of Borneo for a couple years. Then I moved to Pekanbaru, a city in the province of Riau on the island of Sumatra. A huge chunk of my life and my childhood memories come from Pekanbaru. My Indonesian accent was a wild mix of Batak and Melayu slang. “Wa’ang Kecek”, ato, “Danghadong Hepeng” :P Instead of Satu Dua Tiga I was saying Cie Duo Tigo Ampek Limo.
My father was working for Caltex, in Rumbai, and one time he took me out to the pipelines in Duri. They had elephants out there on the campsite, and they had been saved from poachers and were used to help carry pipes. "Do you want to ride one?" he asked. It was the most amazing thing. I got up there with the elephant’s handler, and we just rode around on this beautiful bareback elephant until it started raining, but I didn’t want the ride to end. The drive back was about and hour and half long. Half way through, I had to pee so badly. I begged him, "Dad I really can’t hold it anymore!"
He pulled over, but the road was so completely open, with Highlanders and Kijangs whizzing past, and not a bush or tree in sight. I was so embarrassed and shy I refused to pee out in the open. I was a girl, what if someone saw me?? Also, this was Sumatra in the early 90’s, and gas stations were only in the big city centers. Ever the problem solver, he said, well go in the back of the car and look for a bottle to pee in!
I was in a desperate state. I hurried back there and said, "Dad, the only things back here are your hardhats :/ a white one, and a yellow one.”
He sighed and said, “…the white one.”
There I was, squatting in the back of my dad’s Toyota Highlander, my dad shaking his head in the front seat. I filled it nearly to the brim, then carefully opened the door and sloshed out the pee.
Ciehh bonyok gue keren ya
Outings with my mom in Pekanbaru were a little different. Most times she would drag me to the Bongkaran market, where I would hate getting stared at because of my light colored skin. They would ask my mom, “Anak ibu? Bule ya?” meaning, “Is that your daughter Ma’am? She’s white huh?” And she would jokingly respond, “Yeah, why, you want her hand in marriage?” I’d scrunch my face in disgust and groan Mo’oommm. There she would bargain for hours in the sweltering heat while I begged, moaned, and cried to go home.
You know those parents whose kids cry in public and they, the parents, just don’t give a damn? They just go about their business and pretend it’s not even their kid? Yeah, that was my mom. One time she pointed to an ominous looking man and told me, “Christina, you see that man? He just offered to buy you. He really wants you. Better stay close, he might try to kidnap you.” I later realized that poor man was a complete stranger and was probably wondering why we were looking at him like he was satan.
Other times, she would take me on her visits to her Dukun. Which is so crazy now that I think about it, because she made me go to church every Sunday and sit in a polyester dress for 5 hours in a stuffy church with no air-conditioning. (Sumatra’s right on the equator, btw). I mean, isn’t weird to go to the dukun and worship God at the same time? Let me backtrack -
A Dukun is a magic man. I think Americans call them Shamans. He’s the gateway to the thousand year old spirit, and the spirit can tell you all the things you want to know. But first, you have to bring the spirit a “donation”, cash money, via the Dukun. Yup, 9 years old and I follow my mom into a dark room in which she hands the Dukun a carton of eggs, a needle, a black and red piece of thread, and some flowers. He picks one egg at random, pokes it with the needle, and out flows red ‘blood'. “See!” He whispers, “Someone has cursed you!”
“I knew it!” My mom exclaims, “See Christina, that’s why I saw the pochong* under my bed!”
I have to admit, I went in there with bratty American cynicism, and walked out pretty convinced. I kind of felt relieved that we had our own family dukun…just in case, you know?
Okay so I have lots of stories about Pekanbaru, but it’s important to know that Pekanbaru was a pretty small city back then and there were not many expatriates there. My father, brilliant man that he was, was determined to provide a western education for me, so when Caltex kicked us out of Rumbai, he somehow found the only white lady in the city and made her my homeschool teacher.
He goes, “You’re British. You’re a teacher. You’re hired.”
Samantha is her name. She has a daughter, Lucy, who I am friends with until today. Samantha dipped out of England because she was just over it. She started teaching English in Pekanbaru, put Lucy in an Indonesian Catholic school full of rich Chinese Indonesians, and restarted her life. When I say homeschool, I mean, it was me, Samantha, and my dogs. That was it. For 6 years of elementary school. Hanging out with Lucy was fun, that girl was crazy. But shit, I wanted more friends! I kept reading these books like Baby Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High that my Dad would bring back from the States and here I was with Lucy, Samantha, and my dogs.
And one day, my father spoke the magic words:
“Christina, you’re going to go to a real school. So you’re moving to Jakarta.
But, your mom and I won’t be moving with you.”
That’s a whole other chapter, my Steemian friends, so stay tuned for Part 3 of my Introduction :) To my Indos - how many times have you seen a pochong? hehehe
*Pochong: umm..just google it :D