This entry is actually two entries. (And this, hopefully, is a picture of Jayapura Bay from the top of a lighthouse at the beach). I have (finally) found a way to connect my computer at the internet cafés, so I can type my entries at home, where there is no SHITTY DISTRACTING MUSIC, and then post them in a lump later. And incidentally, everyone should use AIM more.

10/25
Idul Fitri. I find myself on a long, skinny speedboat with skids on the side, weaving in and out of of heavily jungled islands, with a family that is only tangentially mine – the family of a fellow teacher’s fiancé. Everyone is shy and they pretend we aren’t there. Where did they get the boat? I don’t know. Whose house is this that I’m standing in? Could be anyone’s. Why is there a Canada plate mounted on the wall? Why are we taking the baby parrot on a boat ride? Now we’re in another house. Whose house? Beats me. There’s an entire village built on sticks sticking out of the shallow bay. The roads are wood slats laid across stronger wood slats laid across stronger wood slats laid across… what? Does anybody know why our motorcycle isn’t falling through into the bay filled with Pocari Sweat cans and black plastic bags and sickly looking fish? Whose porch are we parking on? Why is that guy taking all our shoes and throwing them in a plastic bag? Why do biscuits exist that are flavored with salt, butter, and artificial grape syrup?

We maroon ourselves on a tiny beach at dusk that only gets tinier as the tide rolls in. I’ve been there before; it’s the one that takes the two hour long terrifying hike to get to. I prefer the boat, even with all the uncertainty and the fact that no one seems to notice that we’re going to have to eventually navigate our way back home on the open ocean around random rocks and coral reefs and treacherous cliffs’ edges in the pitch black night. I ask Nick if this is such a great idea, to which he replies, “No big deal, dinghies have pretty powerful lights.” Except ours doesn’t, because it’s made out of logs. But, you know, it’s all the same to him.

The anticipation of the night to come makes me slightly insane, and as I’m struggling in my soft, bare feet after the group as they clamber up the slippery, steep rocks of a mountain stream to see what is promised to be an amazing waterfall, I’m silently muttering in my head: “Myeh myeh myeh, I’m Indonesian! The soles of my feet are like leather! I can walk on volcanic rock that has sharp points sticking out of it everywhere! I like running across narrow logs balanced precariously on mysterious chunks of dirt that are suspended over hundreds of feet of nothingness! I can relax anywhere because I grew up without chairs so I can squat on absolutely any surface for hours without looking awkward and falling over! I can selflessly help the stupid American move maddeningly slowly for hours and hours without showing the least bit of impatience! Myeh myeh myeh!”

But, to tell you the truth, I loved them the entire time I was muttering, and after, when we all showered together under the waterfall, and before, when they fed everyone fish barbecued over a fire on the beach. “Hey, our people have custom,” Daniel, Ike’s fiancé, says. “Custom is, we must eat all we have brought, or else we not allowed to leave. It’s your responsibility.”

What it is is an excuse to get us to eat our eighth slice of fish without feeling guilty, and it works. “This is my favorite kind of responsibility,” I reply, pouring peanut and chili sambal over the fish and the rice. I have a pile of pink and purple and green and cream shells around my feet. Nick is trying to surf on a piece of driftwood. Hiron has the parrot riding around on his head like some kind of pirate. Daniel is telling me how bad he feels for us that we don’t have any family in Papua, and how, if we want, he can be our family. It’s a pretty perfect day as perfect days go, even with the bleeding feet and a cashew chocolate bar melting all over my backpack. Even with that.

10/20
We raced our engine up and down cliffs and our motorcycle is a quiet one so we had to scream the engine noises instead.
“BURRRRRRRRR!” Nick yelled as we downshifted for a steep climb and passed a pickup full of Papuans*.
“BA-BAP! BA-BAP!” I shrieked with the gearshift as Nick kicked it down, down, down, down, one for each gear, to stop at a stoplight.
‘REOOOOOH! REOOOOOOOOHRHRHRHHHRH! REEeeeeoooooHHEHEHRHRH!” we shouted together at bikers without mufflers as their exhaust pipes shot out blipblipblips of smoke and we went flying past them.
“Hey, QUIT holding onto my shirt!” Nick spat back at me, so I threatened to pull it up and flash passersby his tits. “Do it!” he said, so I did, as we flew around a corner and through a little cluster of warungs and markets screaming girls-gone-wild style all the way.
People don’t stare, or at least they don’t stare anymore than they do already just because we’re bules (Westerners, but slightly more offensive), which is always and hard, so I guess they do stare, but we’re past caring. I pull his shirt back down just as we pass a traffic cop, blowing his whistle in vain at every single driver on the road, because every single driver on the road is doing something illegal.
Road rules here are more like suggestions, anyway. "One Way Street" means "don't go the wrong way on this street, unless of course you're in a big hurry to get somewhere, or you are learning to ride your bike and don't want to make a bunch of right turns unnecessarily, or are going to speed down it so fast the police won't care about catching you." The other day Nick weaved around some blocking cones that were meant to control rush hour traffic and shot down a one way shortcut street the wrong way, and right at the corner was a police campout. One of the policemen yelled 'Hey!' and then went on chewing his betelnut. The others hadn't noticed because they were watching an attractive woman coming out of the marketplace.

*Is it clear what I mean when I say Papuans, as opposed to Indonesians? In Indonesia, there is, and was, a resettlement effort, to try and shuffle the population so it would get more evenly distributed. Papua has only recently become part of Indonesia, so the native Papuans look entirely different and have an entirely different culture than the Indonesians who have recently moved here. When I say 'Papuans', I mean the natives, even though they are also Indonesian, technically. They, however, are much much more polite, helpful, and friendly than Indonesians from other parts of the archipelago, and I know that this is a generalization, but everything I've observed so far holds it to be true. Every time I have spoken in this blog of someone helping me through the jungle or up and down cliffs or someone cooking me food for no reason, it's been Papuans who have done it.