Night Hike

Instead of working in the village today, Dessy and I went looking for our next study site. So we headed off with two very cute 20-something young men to check out neighboring villages. Traveling by motorbike in Ketapang is a hate-love relationship for me – now that I’ve gotten over my fear of traveling far to fast up and down slippery dirt roads, I am more aware of the incredible discomfort that comes with gluing myself (and whatever bags I’m carrying) to the motorbike for hours at a time. This is particularly difficult as my legs are simply too long for riding on the back of most bikes here. Yet the travel is almost always exhilarating, and the landscape is often gorgeous – today’s trip is no exception. Baya contains a mountain called Batu Daya, which I saw from afar last year. The mountain consists of four peaks. Depending on the viewer’s location, Batu Daya appears to have either 1, 2, 3 or all 4 peaks. Unfortunately (or fortunately) all roads must be redirected around this massive landscape feature, and I’ve seen all four perspectives in our two days in Baya.

Of course our trip took us past the mountain, particularly stunning this morning, wrapped in clouds…but soon enough we entered the oil palm plantation again, and my thoughts ran away from mountains to the boredom of endless palm trees. Our trip was relatively uneventful (we got a flat tire, observed a pack of otters, took a break at a lake, and checked out a cave full of bats) – and were home by 3 pm. After a quick snack and drink, we put on our hiking sandals and started the 7 kilometer trek to the neighboring village – Kembera. We arrived at around 5 pm to see that almost everyone in the village was at – guess what? – a meeting about the wedding that had happened in Baya the night before.

At the invitation of the village head, we sat down in a house filled with men animatedly talking in a Dayak language that was totally incomprehensible to me. Half of the men were drunk, and I was immediately offered arak which I sipped as the customary leader of the village introduced himself. He asked me the following question:
“Should religion and culture be tied together, or should religion and culture be split?” He was seeking this answer because there was a problem regarding weddings in the village – apparently some of the villagers preferred good Christian weddings without all the customary Dayak traditions (e.g., beating live pigs with live chickens), while others felt that despite the fact that everyone in this area is Christian, the traditions of the culture should be observed as well as the traditions of the religion.

So this was a loaded question. I tried to explain that in my country religion and government are separate – yet religion is intertwined with culture. Religion and culture really can’t be entirely separate, no matter how hard one tries. I don’t think this satisfied the customary village leader, because about five minutes later he asked me the same question for the second time!

Before I had sipped too much arak, we finally left the meeting to get the data we had come for – village population, oil palm status and village facilities (water sources, etc). At around 7 pm we started the walk home in the dark, and I realized this was the first time I’d been outside in the Indonesian rainforest at night. Our path was lighted by an amazing full moon, and the sky was totally clear so that we didn’t have to use our headlamps except under the forest canopy. Marvelous! These moments are the times I most love working in Indonesia.