Minggu Keenam

Eid Al-Adha is an important religious holiday for Muslims.  This year it was celebrated on October 25th and 26th.  Devout Muslims across the globe prepare for it by fasting.  Fasting makes a person more empathetic and charitable, and helps teach one to transcend the physical wants and temptations of the body.  I fasted two days with my family (they cannot eat after the first morning prayer-so we all woke up to eat at 3:30 am so we'd have energy for the day, and fasted until the afternoon call to prayer-around 5:00).  I cheated and drank air (water) because I worried it would be unhealthy for me not to.
The main event of Eid Al-Adha is the sacrifice.  The origin of the animal sacrifice is a story recognizable to both Christians and Muslims.  Allah (God) wanted to test the faith of Ibrahim (Abraham) so commanded him to sacrifice his son, Ishmail (Isaac), to prove his true loyalty.  But just as he was about to sacrifice his son Allah provided a ram to sacrifice instead as a reward for Ibrahim's submission and his son's acceptance.  This slaughter day is a continuation of this story, both proving the faith of the followers of Islam and providing donations of meat to up to twenty families per cow.  In Indonesia I only saw sacrificial cows and goats but across the world camels, sheep, and rams are also slaughtered in a halal manner.
Friday morning there was no school (though my school did a slaughter of goats of its own-that I'd seen tied up in the front yard for a week before and the other students said that sometimes they cried, as if they knew their fate) so I dragged myself out of bed to head over to the block gathering place were the sacrifice was taking place.  Four men dragged in a beautiful and reluctant sapi who was then tied and wrestled to the ground by five more men.  Then they cut off the head of the sapi.  And I don't mean they slit its neck, I mean they literally sawed through the bone and blood and tendons until its head rolled away.  Worse than the projectile blood squirting at least five feet from his artery was the post-decapitation twitching, almost as if the cow's body was still trying to run away.  And the absolute worst part was the attention I continued to get even during this "solemn festival" men were asking to take pictures with me.  How was I supposed to smile while an animal's lifeblood was squirting out onto my jeans?  I felt horrible that this magnificent creature's last moments were upstaged by someone who garnered attention only because of her (not very) different skin color.
When I went home I kept washing my hands compulsively and ended up cleaning the entire fish pond because I felt like I needed to help some kind of animal after not raising a hand to protect the cow from slaughter.
The next day my family and I went ke desa (to the village) where I refused to watch a second time.  Instead I went for a run in the sawah (rice paddy) and had my first authentic conversation with an Indonesian stranger in Bahasa Indonesia, explaining who I was, who I was staying with, and that I was not lost, I just "lebih suka alam" (prefer nature).  My Ibu later told me that the orang desa (country people) were much cleaner and more efficient at slaughter and I probably should've watched that sacrifice instead.  One other man in desa doesn't eat meat and couldn't watch as well so after running we went and picked mangos.

The evening of Eid Al-Adha the extended family visited a a teh (tea) plantation that was on the top of a (volcanic?) mountain and had been founded by a reclusive dutch man "lama dahulu" (long ago).  The views were stunning and I swam with the sepupu (cousins-my favorite word-pronounce seh-poo-poo) in a mountain spring-fed swimming pool.  The first naturally safe air that I have encountered in Indonesia.  The whole time I was on the mountain I felt extremely antisocial and angry so I went for a walk in the woods to try to change my mood.  At the time I chalked it up to homesickness or just tiredness.  But later Ibu told me a story from when she was in high school and camped out at that same teh plantation with a group of around fifty students.  Apparently sixteen kids (including herself) were possessed and began to speak in Bahasa Belanda (Dutch) and the village elders had to be summoned to preform an exorcism.  I've concluded that there is either a malevolent spirit or a gas leak on that mountainside.

The next day we visited an old dutch fort named Vanden Bosch that was built inside a hill so it couldn't be seen from all around.  The fort was crumbling and full of vines, trees, ayam-ayam (chickens) and there were even a few families that live in the ruins.  There were no other tourists, but it was obviously a local hangout spot.  I love that Indonesia has so many amazing places and rich history that people can just hangout at these sites without being swarmed by tourists.  I don't view myself as a tourist and feel offended when people call me a pelancong on the street.  I'm not here to take pictures and buy souvenirs.  I'm here to become a legitimate member of budaya Indonesia (Indonesian culture) and sometimes just want to yell this at the people who call me pelancong but know my broken Bahasa Indonesia and still strong accent will kind of defeat the purpose.
Within the ruins we found a well preserved grave in which lies an Indonesian rebel.  He fought the Dutch all his life and apparently every way they tried to kill him failed.  So they buried him alive.

The next trip was to an archeological dig site on the Bengawan Solo River called Trinil, where the "Java Man" (first humanoid to be found outside of Europe) was discovered by a Dutch man.  Bengawan Solo is the longest river on Java and lama dahulu the river served as a waterway between the ancient kingdoms of Java so there is still lots to be found in its banks.  Many people still sneak down to the river to illegally dig.  While I was there I saw an original mammoth's tusk.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful except for a nine hour traffic jam.  That was hell.