Reflections flying out of Ternate

My soul has reminded me that it’s not the material world that really matters. It’s about feelings, will, and thoughts that guide me to the inner connections that feed my inner spirit. Through that I have something to offer the people of this world. 

For many, I could not speak their language, but I could look into their eyes. 

Walking past an older lady sitting on a bench under the shade of a tree, I stopped and sat with her. We held hands and valued the moments together. Walking into a restaurant, I was greeted by teenagers who were so excited to see us. I shook their hands and found out their names and exchanged our greetings with eye contact of joy, leaving them with smiles and laughter. I made connections with ladies who wear the niqab, a garment which totally covers their faces except for their eyes, their words were spoken under the cloth that hides their lips; softly spoken words while pleasure twinkled in their eyes.

 

While walking up the mountain for my exercise in the hot, hot sun and stopping in the shade, the children followed me, laughing and cheering. I would stop and teach them, “1,2,3,4…” in English, then go to the ABC’s. Parents would join in and we would all laugh and sing the ABC’s and take photos while I guzzled down water. 

Another day as I was walking up hill, an older man stopped me saying, “Hello” and I stopped to return the greeting. He called out to someone inside the door of his home and a woman came out speaking English. She immediately suggested I get out of the sun. I agreed and walked under the eaves of the house, but she said, “No, please come into my home and cool off.  So I followed her into her home where it was cooler, although there was no air conditioning. She gave me water, and we sat and visited. There were children of all ages inside, along with her mother, a woman in her late 60’s (but she looked to be 80). She took me into the dinning/kitchen area where there was a table loaded with food. She invited me to eat and I did. She handed me this triangle made of banana leaf with rice inside. At that point, I had not eaten anything like it, and I loved it. They had the usual fish and water spinach… and more rice. Then it was time for me to thank them, “Terima kasih,” (thank you) which was one of the few things I knew in Indonesian.

Then back up the hill I went, but I didn’t get too far before it started to rain. This was our 3rd day in Ternate and I didn’t realize that it could rain so frequently and at any moment. And that when it rains, it pours straight down with no wind. Well, I ran up the hill on this narrow road and reached the main road where I found that most of the motor bikes were parked on the sides of the road with the bikers all huddled together under eaves of buildings holding onto their helmets, trying to stay dry. The rain stopped, the sun came out, and just like that, everyone is riding again. I just kept walking, because at that point, I was soaked so it didn’t matter. When the sun comes out after a rain, it is brutally humid. I’ve never sweat so much in my life.

One day I was walking up a hill heading towards the volcano that I looked out at many times a day from my balcony. I had planned to leave earlier in the morning for this walk, but it was raining at that time, so I waited a while. That meant I was walking in the heat of the day and it was humid as usual. As I walked up and up, I noticed two men in their mid-twenties/early thirties sitting in the shade in a rest area next to a shady tree.  As they said hello to me, I walked over and stood with them under the tree. One of them could speak some English. As we began to talk, more and more young men gathered. Even some parents joined in, people stopped their motor bikes, so eventually there was a crowd. I would ask about them questions, trying to include everyone there, and they wanted to know about America. I used my sons as examples while answering their questions. I was there for probably an hour which gave me time to cool down, empty my water bottle and of course, take some photos. 

I continued up the hill heading closer to the volcano and the hill became steeper. Some of the houses were really nice and had air conditioners in their windows. Other homes were like the majority of homes in Ternate; old, with simple dirt yards where laundry was hung out, but swept clean of debris. The front doors are usually left open, and most always, there were wonderful food scents coming from within. If someone happened to see me, they would always come out to see what I was up to. At this point, a young girl drove past me on her motor bike and I stepped to the side to clear her way. Shortly after, she came back by and came to a stop. She was concerned, you see, that I was walking in the heat of the day and told me that I should take a ride with her down the hill to the hotel. I felt I was doing okay, so I told her I appreciated her offer, but it was (haha) “all downhill from here”. (I really didn’t think it was a good idea to ride with someone so young on a windy road going steeply downhill!) 

 

What I found interesting that when I would tell friends and people at the hotel I’m walking or taking the blue vans, they would say it’s not safe. I never figured out what wasn’t safe about it. The roads are not pedestrian friendly, but knowing that, I knew what to watch out for when walking. The blue vans are a major type of public transportation. I really liked taking them. It was cheap and easy. The hardest thing was communicating to the drivers where I wanted to go. I would usually write down the name and address of my destination, and if they didn’t recognize the place, someone else sitting in the van would. 

 

Going out to dinner one evening, Stewart and I hopped on a blue van and discovered there was a goat in there tied to a seat post. I laughed and laughed while petting the poor thing (who I figure was not long for this world). When we arrived at the restaurant, I had to get out of the van to make way for the goat to get out. The people receiving this goat were waiting for its arrival. It was a pretty funny situation, and we all laughed and took photos. 

In Ternate, I was on a quest to find a certain batik store. We had driven past it in the blue vans all the time, but I couldn’t figure out when to tell the bus driver to stop until it was too late. My idea was to ride to a known location and walk back to towards the hotel following the van’s route. Well, I finally made it to the batik store, but they were closed. I decided I’d walk to the hotel which was about a mile away. So I was walking on streets I had not been on before, noticing different businesses and restaurants, when I noticed a bakery. I was so excited, because there’s not much in the way of bakery/pastry items in Indonesia. I walked inside and found that there was even refrigeration! With flan! And cold water! I sat down with a tray full of different sorts of desserts and cooled down as much as one can with no air-conditioning. 

While I was noticing my body temperature go down, two ladies peeked around the corner. I smiled at them and they came out, and then other ladies came out. I tried to tell them they had really good baked goods. Then I asked to see their kitchen, and they were all giggling as they showed me where they worked and how things worked. We took photos, and I bought a bag of all sorts of goodies to try.

I continued on, still heading to the hotel when I came across people on the side of the street selling produce next to a school. I stopped and shopped a little, took photos and kept heading back when I came across a cute little girl and her brother walking home from school. A few others came along and joined in. They followed me to where I had to turn. The boys were being typical boys, but they did start to ask me for money. I told them that their parents would not want them to be asking me for money. They were kind of bratty at that point, so I was fine with walking away from that encounter, but the little girl was a cutie. And she spoke a little bit of English.

The currency in Indonesia has a lot of zeros. They have a million-rupiah bill that is worth around $72.00 US. This meant we were carrying around a lot of paper bills that did not add too much value at all. My first time paying this sweet little lady for our laundry, I gave her way too much money, I guess. When I left the shop, I walked right up to my hotel room. Later on, I came down stairs and there she was… my laundry lady. She had brought back my change. I could not believe that. I thanked her, we hugged each other, and then I gave it back to her. It probably didn’t add up to more than $8.00, but she was so surprised. At first, she wouldn’t take it, but I insisted. People in Ternate seem to be honest people. 

One day Stewart and I stopped at the ATM machine. Now Stewart wears this leather bag around his neck with his money and all the other papers needed for traveling. After hitting the ATM, we then walked across the street and down a-ways, and into a restaurant. As we were entering, a young man ran inside holding his hand out with lots of money in it. Well, it turned out that Stewart’s bag was not zipped, so his money had been falling out onto the road. That young man left after receiving our appreciation for his honesty, and soon another young man came in with another handful of money! I guess there must have been a stream of money going down the street, if you can imagine. So after two people had brought us money, Stewart counted it up  and told me he had more than he’d taken out of the ATM! We laughed and remarked about the honestly of the people here.

I’ve mentioned that the hotel allowed young people to come and use the pool. There were, at most, twenty people between 5 and 17 years old. I was often at the pool when they arrived. I had decided to swim since the pool was there, and wore my shorts and t-shirt to swim a few laps. It’s sad to say, but the kids here don’t know how to swim. They would stand in the water, possibly dog paddle, but mostly they just stand and jump in. 

Stewart has captured the interest of these young teenagers

The kids would watch me, and when I swam, they would really stare. When I passed the young teenage girls, I’d ask them if they could swim. “No,” was always the answer, but some showed an interest in learning. I first showed them how to blow bubbles through the nose. Well, they thought that was funny and a strange thing to do, but I did get a few to catch on. The next lesson was learning to back float, and at some point, depending on the age and skill, I would try to teach them how to dive off the side of the pool. It was such fun, and on my last day, I left two teenage girls so excited and happy because they were able to dive and were comfortable putting their heads underwater. 

It’s really amazing that people here don’t know how to swim. After all, it is a small island, and the only transportation is boat to most places nearby. I’m glad I could help a few of them anyway; a great use of my time and I will treasure the memories forever.

One day I had planned on walking, but it rained the whole day. So I watched a movie. With subtitles. It was about these scientists who were in the Amazon looking for a special flowering plant that would help people grow strong and live a long life. As they progressed deeper into the Amazon, they noticed that the river people had begun to disappear because of these anacondas which had found the special plant, turned vegetarian, and had been eating it… it made them humongous. So humungous, they could eat people in one gulp. Very creepy.

Well, that night I woke from a sound sleep because of this noise right next to my bed. It was coming from the drawer. I could hear the sound of the papers I had in there rustling, and the shells and coral moving. I was freaked out. Did not want to open the drawer thinking about the movie I had just watched; sure that there was a big snake in there. I woke Stewart up and he too heard the noise… but it had moved behind our bed frame! We banged on the bed frame, and I kept the light on and just sort of dozed the rest the night. The next morning, I cleaned out the drawer. I had thought it might be possible there was still a snail living in one of the shells I had in there… but no… no snails.

 That night, the noise was back. This time I heard it on Stewart’s side of the bed and it ran across the floor. Rats is what we think it was. So at 6am in the morning, I went to the manager and asked for another room. She got right on it and was very apologetic. I asked if we could be on the other side of the building, facing the ocean. Then I ran into the General Manager and told him. After that, everything moved much faster and we were moved into a great room immediately. We even got a fresh fruit basket, too. It was a nice change to be able to look out onto the ocean and see all the islands.

When it came time to say our good-byes to the staff at the hotel, I give them all cookies with a card that I had Paul write for me in Indonesian. I asked them to make sure they shared the cookies with the old man gardener and house-keeping, and with the IT person who kept trying to keep us on line.

Ternate was good example of how minimalistic the people in Indonesia live their lives… and they don’t even know it. It appears they are living a simple/easy life style, but they have to have jobs, and the children have to go to school. It doesn’t matter where you are, people all have similar responsibilities. Putting food on the table, a roof over their heads, and a source of clean water is basic. But to some, it’s all they need. Going into grocery stores in Ternate was an eye-opener. There really isn’t much food in them. Very, very basic. I had to be reminded that everything comes to the island by air or water, which makes things expensive. That is why people sell fruit and vegetables on the side of the streets and fish is bought at the markets. Indonesians eat fish and rice, fish and rice, and more fish and rice. God bless them all. 

People of Indonesia