Visits

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Hillbilly

Indonesia has its own brand of hillbilly. They come from the little villages on the far flung islands, or even on the heavily populated islands such as Java. I occasionally meet these people on the language sharing app I use--young people who have signed up to learn the English language, but really just want to chat, for they speak no English at all, and do not attempt to do so. 

A girl who is 17 told me all about her five chickens and her father's goat. The goat, she says, likes to eat grass and is very funny. She offers me a chicken, but then withdraws the offer, because her papa will be angry to find that a chicken is missing. Her aunt, she tells me, works all the time but never has any money, and she wishes her aunt did have money because she wants her to buy her some new clothes. 

She asks me what sort of work I do. I tell her I do not work. I am retired. What is that, she asks? Sudah pension, I explain, which in Indonesian means the same as retired. She asks if that is what my work is called, or is it the name of my company? It is a term she has never heard in her language, because where she comes from, there is no such thing as retirement. There is only a lot of work, and never enough money. Pride and joy is found in five chickens and a goat. 

I ask her where she is from (dari mana?) and she says she is just home from school. I say, 'No, I mean, where do you live?' She says, With Mama and Papa. 'No,' I say, 'I mean what island do you come from' (tinggal di pulau yang mana?). What is 'pulau', she asks? 

Is it possible that she doesn't know what island she lives on, or whether she lives on an island at all? How far does her world stretch? To the edge of her village, and then the jungle? 

One imagines that she herself will one day have a daughter who enjoys five chickens and a goat and lives with Mama and Papa.

And I guess they ain't nothin wrong with that. 

Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north,
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

No comments: