Indonesian 101

The End (for now)

March 3, 2010 at 4:35 am · Filed under Uncategorized

Salamat malam everybody. I’m back in the United States, specifically in Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, California. It, like Tado, is a very special place with a very unique kind of people much different to where I’m from, so in that sense I still definitely feel like I’m on the road. However, most of the creature comforts I’ve been looking for can be found here in the home of my mentor and ECO-SEA director Dr. Jeanine Pfeiffer.

The past two weeks were a lot of fun. I spent the first in Labuan Bajo, entering data, taking care of business at home, hanging out with the Swisscontact staff and exploring Komodo National Park, which is a very cool area for diving and the biggest draw for tourists in the area. The second week was spent on a trip up to Thailand, where I met up with several of my friends from Dartouth. Both were a lot of fun, and a great reward for three weeks of work in Flores.

My time here in Ft. Bragg is intended to give me a chance to offload the data that I spent a lot of time processing in Indonesia, and talk about where we (Dr. Pfeiffer, the Tado research staff, and I) go from here. Academic projects being what they are, we aren’t entirely sure what the end result will be; however, we have made a deal to finish whatever academic “result” we are planning to collaborate on by this time next year (March 2011), if not sooner. This is important because it also coincides with the time at which I will be graduating from college (!!!).

The decision to not generate some sort of a result immediately comes from a number of different factors.

First, there is the issue of time. Although we are spending a lot of time together right now, more is needed to produce a quality result. I am planning to return back to Massachusetts on Tuesday, and in the meantime it’d be really difficult for us to generate any sort of finished product worth shaking an academic stick at. However, since I would like some sort of an outcome (besides this blog), and since the minimum amount of time I know I want to continue being a professional student is until June 2011, this gives me a window within which to collaborate with Dr. Pfeiffer on this project.

The other thing is that in terms of my major track, I have been thinking for a while about pursuing some kind of an honors thesis in Geography, which at Dartmouth requires me to write at least 70 pages and jump through a number of other hoops as well. However, I think this would be a great body of work from which to start a thesis, and am looking forward to talking with the staff back at Dartmouth about it.

So, for the time being, I’m signing off. I will probably post updates about our findings as they come, and report any new developments with Tado that I hear about. Hopefully in one years time I’ll have a link to a paper, or a thesis, or something else for you. Until then,

-Charlie

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Last night in Tado

February 11, 2010 at 4:18 am · Filed under Flores, Indonesia

In the last week of my internship, I found myself taking stock of everything I’d experienced so far, and seeing what I had left to improve upon. Certainly my Bahasa Indonesia was coming along, but not perfect, reaching a point where I began to realize that unless I continued to immerse myself in it it would not get any better. I made an effort to stop by a few neighbors’ houses, bringing biscuits (as Jeanine recommended) and asking if I might be able to practice with them. People were generally receptive, and I had a great conversation with our neighbor Joseph that started with religion and ended with eye color. The difficult thing about learning in the village, though, is that people are way more interested in learning English than I am with B.I. Here, English is a trade skill, a real sign of higher education that everyone from the primary school kids to the head of the village wants to practice with me.

Everybody, it seems, except Ameh. He’s totally cool to just speak B.I. to me, and sometimes just mutters in Manggarai whenever I’m around. I still like him though; in some ways he kind of reminds me of my dad. He has a good sense of humor, although (unlike my dad) when he laughs you can tell he’s been smoking like a chimney for most of his life.

Anyways, with the coffee and the cinnamon packed up, and the bulk of the old data entered into my computer (now running a trial version of FileMaker Pro), I began to make plans to leave. I decided to bring Eddy along with me, since I wanted to buy him a new pair of shoes (his got wrecked on the trek to Waerabo) and take him out for a drink, he being probably my single greatest source of entertainment for the whole time I had been in Tado.

On the very last night, we had a goodbye dinner that was real fun; lots of food, and afterwards singing. Many neighbors stopped by.

The Last Supper

In the songs that followed, I was extremely fortunate to hear the community get together and sing a little bit. Manggarai singing is something that I had experienced in Waerabo, and thought that I had seen the highest and most magical form of it there within a circle of three men. However, with Eddy playing guitar, and Adol leading in most of the verses, song after song came streaming out of the two men. The best part, though, was when the women, and then the children started joining in; I was totally helpless, barely being able to comprehend any Bahasa Indonesia, let alone Manggarai, let alone singing. So I had to just listen.

It really made me think about how special singing is, especially in most rare form, that of lots of people singing together and meaning it. I’m reminded of the songs that I sing with my rugby teammates after games, the Christmas carols I sing with friends and family at a certain time of year, the alma mater at my college, a national anthem, and the rock music I listened to in high school with my best friends from home. People singing, with little or no instruments, together, and meaning it. It’s a pretty special thing.