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.