Residents of the Indonesian village of Pelangan
Sasak (Sasak) – an ethnic group on the island of Lombok (Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia)
In the Lombok backwoods, in the village of Pelangan, something happened that could never have happened. A married woman with a child fell in love with a young unmarried man from another area, ran away from her husband and parents, and happily married for the second time. Unheard-of audacity! Here, only men could divorce. In the sense, they were not forbidden to take the initiative. When dividing property, the woman got the children, the man – everything else.
The Sasak talked about the runaway for a week, but quickly calmed down. The runaway was apparently from a Balinese village, 'not one of us'. Hindus have their own morals, and our Sasak women do not allow themselves such liberties! Of course, our women are jealous, but to leave a husband – that is not possible. Children, home, and market – that's all their concern. It's all the influence of youth. They started going to school, watching television, and dressing in pink T-shirts with the word Playboy on them, and from there it's a short step to free thoughts about divorce. The older locals watch television, but are rarely literate.
The government did something three years ago – opened an adult school; fortunately, a proper teacher turned up. They didn't get to reading, but they learned to distinguish colors. Now they don't confuse green and blue. Not like before – a green motorcycle drives by, and they say it's blue. And vice versa.
The favorite color of the inhabitants of Lombok is pink. It cannot be confused with anything else. That's why pink is so often used in advertising. But purple is not last on the list either; Indonesians generally love everything bright, colorful. You can paint a new house purple, the window frames brown, the roof with red tiles. You can make the house yellow, then on a yellow background it will be nice to stamp with blue flowers, paint the frames green, and put a fashionable door made of light brown wood. But the best house is what color? Right, pink. Our neighbor Su built a new house. He said he chose the pink color himself. But everyone knows it's his wife's influence.
The houses here are small. There is not much money, and a big house is not needed. People store things in it, watch television, and sleep at night on mattresses on the floor. One large common space and a kitchen, separate rooms are a recent trend. They cook outside, eat on the porch, sitting on the tiled floor. Family life takes place in front of the house, in a covered bamboo gazebo, in the shade of which you can hide from the heat and sun. 35 degrees is the normal temperature.
In the wet season, rain is expected, but in the Lombok backwoods, it only falls when the wind blows from the east. Usually the wind is from the west, and the rain reaches Gili Gede island, but no further. In the rainy season, rice needs to be planted, but now who will do rice farming? Everyone spends time at the gold mines. Money is very loved in the backwoods, so the gold rush is a drug for the locals. A skilled construction worker, who had a half-year waiting list to 'build a house', quit construction and went to seek gold. He is not particularly lucky, now earning many times less, but he does not give up. 'I believe,' he says, 'that my gold nugget is somewhere close.'
It cannot be said that people on the island live by gold alone. If you have a small initial capital, you can open a store or buy a car for private transport. If the husband has a store and the wife is not from a poor family, such a family's income can be five hundred or even a thousand dollars, which is not bad money for Indonesia. However, there are few such families.
The dream of the rest – if not to get rich on gold, then to find work abroad. Not in Malaysia for coconut picking, but in real countries. In Germany, for example, or Australia. Dreams remain dreams. To realize them, you first need to get a passport for 750,000 rupiah. Most people don't have an identity card, which also costs money, and you need to present a birth certificate, but where do Lombok people have a birth certificate? They were born, and that's fine. If you later want to get a driver's license or get married, you can negotiate, pay a little, and they will give you a certificate. The date of birth will be set to January 1 of the year you choose. Now, to legitimize children from birth, a regulation was adopted that registration within the first thirty days from the date of birth is free, and then it costs money.
A few years ago, the new government abolished school fees. Previously, you had to pay 8,000 rupiah per month (a little less than a dollar), which was permissible for a child from a well-off family by village standards. But if you are the eighth son of a fisherman? Be glad if dad and mom fished and sold enough to teach you to read and add numbers. Learning to multiply and write without mistakes – sorry, that won't happen. There is no requirement for compulsory school attendance, nor is there any control over the quality of teaching.
Andreas's children, the owner of a hotel, used to go to school in Pelangan. One rainy morning, he noticed that his eldest son was not getting ready for school. He asked what was the matter? It's raining, the boy replied, there will be no classes: the teacher might get wet on the way. Andreas did not believe it, dragged his son to school. Of course, no one was there: neither the teacher nor the children.
But if an inspection is coming to the school, they are notified in advance. On that day, you need to arrive on time, behave properly during the lesson, not get distracted by ice cream vendors at the windows, not put geckos in classmates' bags, and the day before, parents must wash and carefully iron the school uniform. If there is no inspection, and there is no rain, as luck would have it, the teacher may ask them to be quiet, not to make noise, and she herself may take a nap for an hour at the teacher's desk. She is human too, she needs rest.
The monthly school fee was abolished for everyone, but only the poorest, those lucky enough to have a "poor person's card," are exempt from the entrance fee for a desk and chair. Indonesia's "poor person's card" was conceived to help the needy. A good idea, but far from the capital it does not work 100 percent. Rice at a tenth of the cost can be obtained through the mosque. But you won't see the monthly 100,000 rupiahs or free medical care. To get the benefit, you have to go to the district center, pay for transport or spend on motorcycle fuel. You arrive, and they feed you promises and send you back. Free medical care in public hospitals is not gladly provided.
At school, students are educated in medical matters. They teach math, Indonesian and English, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, economics, sociology, religion, arts and sports. Literature is not studied, there is no habit of reading books, but they write essays: "How I Spent My Summer" or "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up." Full school education is thirteen years, after which you can enter university or finish your education earlier and learn a profession. But to find a good job, you need not only knowledge but also connections.
Read the continuation of the article:
LOMBOK: LIFE IN PINK TONES