Hog Heaven

Kelly woke me up at 6:30 am, whispered through my mosquito net, "David, they want to begin soon".  I crawled under the net, disentangled myself from it, and put my sick, sore, muddy body into some clothes.  

I walked to the village of Pyramid the day before and was deceived about the distance.  The boys said 'a guy can walk it in four hours', so I was questioning my masculinity seven hours in to the hike.  And it was no mere 'walk'.  There were landslides to navigate, ridges looming thousands of feet above to hike, rivers to cross on hanging bridges with rotten wood, all under a sky with no atmosphere to protect us from the equatorial sun.  Several times I glanced down to see my socks saturated in blood, so I'd stop and pick off the leeches.  Don't get me wrong, it was an adventure (that I'm glad is behind me), I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't gain some sick sense of pride from it.

I came to Pyramid to see my friend Kellion, who's family was hosting a bakarbatu.  Literally translated from Bahasa Indonesia, 'bakarbatu' means cooking stone.  It's an eons-old tradition of cooking a pig in the ground.  

A bakarbatu is reserved for very special occasions, as they're a lot of work and pigs are a huge portion of wealth.  A pig is killed for a birth, a death, a marriage, a homecoming, or a great accomplishment.  In this case, a class at the Bible school in Pyramid was graduating.  Kelly's father is the director of the school, and above is his pig.   

A good amount of time was spent trying to apprehend the animal.  It was clear that these guys really enjoyed this process and it wasn't to be rushed.  

 The pig's snout was tied with grass to muffle its ear-piecing squealing.  I followed Kelly's family who followed the pig-bearer to the meeting grounds.  The whole community would come out for this event, each family bringing gifts of food to share.  

When the community gathered there heard that we approached, they hushed, and the master of ceremonies cried 'wa wa wa wa wa wa...'.  This word is Lani for 'respect' and 'thank you', and it's sound is repeated quickly to generate an atmosphere of respect.    

I couldn't help shuddering at the sights and sounds that followed.  The shrieking pigs sound very similar to screaming humans, and I was reminded of the strangest idea.  Pigs are genetically very similar to humans, thus they've been tried for organ transplants in humans.  This stomach-turning reality led me to imagine the similarity of this process to cannibalism, which is so recent in this culture's past.  This thought process, which drove through my mind like a train without a conductor, almost drove me to vegetarianism.  But not quite.   

This celebration was exceptionally large.  About twenty pigs were killed that day, which is larger than most weddings.  Field anthropologists who had come to the Baliem Valley 50 years ago said that they could identify the significance of an event by the number of pigs changing hands or killed.  For a people group with a diet lacking almost any protein, this was a mouth-watering event.  Call me a cannibal, but my mouth was no exception, as I've been trying to get used to the diet, myself.  For me, the whole event was bringing a brand new meaning to the term 'hog heaven'.  

There were so many traditions I couldn't begin to understand.  Kelly explained that if a pig resisted death and kept fighting after it was mortally wounded that it was a very bad omen for the community.  He said it signaled war, famine, and all kinds of misfortune.  He said the smaller the pig was, the darker the omen.  A very young pig did just that as I watched an old man crouch down and whisper to the pig.  The pig continued to fight for a long time.

Kelly and I returned to the honai with some old me for tea while we waited for the workers to finish cooking all the various foods in the earth ovens.  Traditionally, what I experienced in the honai would be considered taboo, and I wouldn't share it with anyone else.  Kelly said it's ok these days, but that story will have to wait for another time.  

When we returned to the community meeting grounds, masses of villagers were huddled together in different groups.  Each area was marked off by a stick in the ground.  The people were being sorted by their status.  Kelly brought me to sit with some common people.  The status system in Papua is part of what keeps the people in bondage.  It's what keeps the poor people poor and the Javanese in power, it's what keeps their identity in the dirt and their hope deflated.  Kelly's father, invited us to sit with the highest status, but Kelly shook his head.  He told me 'I've spoken with my parents about this before, but they're too old to change'.  

I was honored with thick layers of fat and skin with hair that hadn't been incinerated.  I couldn't help but indulge their generosity, and after waiting for slug of protein for so long, I didn't mind the strange delicacy so much.

Accommodations

I'm exhausted.  It's been a day and a half, and as much as I'd like to share some significant reflection, I have nothing less asinine than some photos of where I'm living.  It'll have to do.  

This is the building where I live.  It's part of an old MAF complex.  The ground level is used for a classroom and computer room.  It's also got my kitchen and bathroom.  My bedroom's upstairs.  I'm all for living communally, but the roaches, rats, and bees are all too friendly for my taste.  I didn't expect this sort of cross-cultural experience.

From the doorway of my bedroom.  That's an actual bird of paradise, dead and stuffed, hanging from my window frame.  The locals like to kill anything that moves, both to sell and for sport.  It's beautiful and tragic. 

My bed and mosquito net, which I like to think of more as a fort than a net.

Stuff.  Gotta have that mandolin and slack line, just little sanity.  

Finally, my desk.  Not bad.  A few nostalgic items, some knives, bug spray, medicine.  Tupperware. 

Okay, I promise more substance soon.

Bapa Assam

The highland Papuans here in the Baliem Valley first met outsiders in 1952.  Twenty-five years later the Indonesian government sent war planes to drop bombs and napalm on the villages.  In less than a lifetime the tribes found themselves defending themselves against bullets using spears, bows and arrows.  There has been government sponsored terrorism, political assassinations, and torture.  There is a powerful hunger for freedom here, there is suspicion and seething anger.  

My friends Elu and Yenni sat with me in their home tonight as we discussed the recent schism in the church here in the provence and the mistrust of westerners that's spreading as a result.  A nearly inaudible voice called through the window, Elu called back "mari mari", and an old man peeked through the door.  The power cut out, which is not unusual, and we sat in the light of a headlamp.  Elu began to ask the man with big bright eyes, spindly arms and legs, and mismatching round stomach about his time here working on the compound.  The man revealed scars and mutilations from his strong and calloused feet to his proud bald head.

Everyone loves Bapa Assam.  His name is pronounced suspiciously like 'awesome', a befitting moniker.  He cuts the endless lawn on the compound with a machete, I hear his chuckles early each morning.  The students laugh and joke with him, always with an underlying respect.  Elu and Yenni's children played with him all evening, laughing and poking his swollen stomach.  His smile only leaves his face before he delivers the punch line.  

Years ago, when a policemen shot and killed a chief, Bapa Assam reached for his blade to defend himself and the policeman fired into his calf.  The resulting scars of the entry and exit wound suggest that the bullet did significant damage to his leg.  There was a story for each scar from bullet and machete.  Elu asked something and pointed to that big round stomach.  Bapa Assam lifted his shirt to reveal two large circles, one on either side of his abdomen.  A spear was driven through his belly, one flank to the other.  At the same time and man drove an axe into his skull.  Bapa bowed low to show us the deep rut in his hair.  When his family found him they rushed his body away.  Believing him to be dead, they built a pyre and placed his body on top.  Just before they set it ablaze, he regained consciousness and asked for his friends.  He asked for something to eat, the pig they killed for his funeral.  As miraculous as this seemed (and there are some incredibly interesting animistic explanations for this phenomenon), his family whisked him off, deep into the jungle to hide him from those who hunted him.  There he lay buried in underbrush for four days before the leaders of the freedom movement arrived in Bokondini to surrender to the Indonesian military. 

It's so strange that this is Bapa Assam's lot, while my fortune has been so different.  I don't know why God has spared me and my family from the withering fire of war.  Most Papuans seem to have absorbed a deep pain, many have inherited a violent malice.  But this man's spirit is changed, this man's spirit is alive with love.

I Like to Whisper too

Kellian poked at the glowing coals the other night in the cook shed, reaching toward the fire to test their heat.  "Still hot?" I asked.  He whispered, "Yes."  Papuans seem to whisper when possible, often times while breathing in.  So I leaned toward his ear and whispered 'good' (think of the movie Elf when Will Farrell delivers the line 'I like to whisper too').  I thought this was hilarious, but I composed myself.  

Kellian met me at the airport along with Scotty, the director, and Elu, the other adventure team leader.  Their restrained enthusiasm when meeting me melted my heart.  We all bonded through those many hours to Bokondini in the truck.  Mucking through those mountain passes in a four-wheel-drive vehicle creates relationships.  All reason would tell me 'if we drive up that way we will roll off this mountain'- but we continued.  At several points the road seemed to disappear, and I thought 'I guess we'll walk from here'.  We proceeded, 'oh, we're going down there'.  

Kellian's 's the kind of guy who knew me for five minutes but would lay down in traffic for me.  As we rolled into Bok, Scotty said, "David, you'll be living there with Kellian".  My new housemate grinned with pride.  After a late dinner with Scotty and Heidi, Kellian and I conversed into the night.  His brothers are political refugees in Papua New Guinea, his sister's husband left her with child for her best friend (and now another wife), and his father is a pastor who is dying from lung cancer.  He's eighteen years old.  He's so excited about what he's learned at Netaiken that he's going home to tell his village.  He's writing a research paper on the societal effect of tribalism and animism in Papua, a very controversial topic.  While he's home, he'll interview the most powerful men in his village, facing potential ostracism.  Our conversation didn't stop when the power was cut at 10:30 pm, we grabbed a candle and a headlamp.

We sat around that fire in the cook shed the next night because Kellian bought a chicken to celebrate my arrival.  He flayed the bird and jammed it onto a two-pronged stick he sharpened with my pocket knife.  The coals gently lit our contrasting faces as we watched the chicken with anticipation and discussed all topics of life.

If ever I think I came here to teach the Papuans, I ought to guess again.  

My Smile's Bigger than it Used to be

Mom's dad's face used to just hang in a frown.  It wasn't that he was always upset (contrary to my childhood opinion), it just hung that way.  Well my face seems to do the same- I have to work harder than most people to convince them that I'm having a good time.  And my dad's dad was Swedish, so nothing to smile about there.  

I met an old Lani man about half my height and the brightest eyes this side of the night sky.  He worked for the Dutch missionaries ages ago and he continues to take care of the buildings they left.  When he met me his smile stretched from one ear to the next and his two teeth popped right between his lips.  It was at that point that I think my smile doubled in size. 

The old man ran off, hunched over, and returned running with a wheel barrow bouncing behind him.  This was an old friend of Kellian, who was showing me around the village.  The man showed us the pride of his work, taking us through each of the mission houses.  I wasn't nearly as interested in this subject as his speech- he only spoke Lani, one of the oldest and most complex languages on the planet.  Though we never exchanged a word, the man put a fire in me.

The Thing

Franky and I took out the Volkswagen "Thing" this Sunday afternoon.  It's been a project of his to refurbish.  Franky's learning to drive, which takes incredible precision on the roads between Bokondini and Wamena.  Franky's a wicked cool guy.

White Tribe

Well there was definitely a dead chicken on the flight into the highlands.  A woman mumbled something to the flight attendant who tried to shut the overhead compartment door on the chicken's leg.  To answer your question, a dead chicken is cheaper than a live chicken, and if I were a flight attendant I think I'd make a rule about livestock on board.  I'm just saying.

Before I get to the flight, my friend Neill took me through all the towns around Lake Sentani on the back of his brother's motorcycle.  Which was awesome.  He's about to graduate from a post high school program in Sentani that teaches everything from English and business to cooking.  He took me home to meet his family- delightful.  We had hung out at the 'mall' the night before with some of his friends, a mouthful of Indonesian culture.  We ate street food, and I'm still kicking.  These guys were so generous to spend time speaking English to some awkward orang barat (westerner).  

Allow me to step on your toes.  I was deciding between going to a western church and an Indonesian church- I chose the former because I had a ride.  It felt a little strange driving passed the barbed wire, but something was definitely wrong as the car was checked for bombs.  The church sat high on a hill next to the missionary school with all the accouterments, satellite dish, basketball courts, and an impeccably manicured landscape.  You might imagine the Indonesian church looks a little different.  Among the 'white tribe', as it's been called, I counted two native faces.  'Birmingham' echoed in my ears over the sermon.  I just thought these were missionaries come to serve the people, but there were no people.

This place is not safe.  Of course it's not safe, it's the frontier, economically, politically, spiritually.  I won't repeat the stories I've heard, even what's occurred since I've been here.  But this society subjugates the Papuans, the government sabotages them economically, Indonesians call them pigs, and the white tribe's response?  Missionaries hire Papuans as 'helpers' to work in the house and yard.  I met some lovely people at church that day.  I'm just not sure what they're doing there.  

Anyhow, I wanna get you over the mountains with me.  To make a very long story short, many things came together at the last minute to get me on that plane inland- my surat jalan (police approval to travel in the province), a plane ticket, and a bag with half my belongings (I'd like to say I can carry everything I own on my back, but...).  I couldn't have done all this without the generous help of a wonderful and well-experienced missionary couple, the Walkers.  Security was on holiday, so I climbed the stairs of the prop plane with three of my four bags, knives, fingernail clippers and all, piled them on my lap, and relaxed as the little plane winded through the mountain passes.  Forty-five minutes later I stumbled off the plane.  The first person I saw: a Dani tribesman with his gourd (and not much else, google it).  I have arrived.