Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Demo-crazy

For the second day, this chickenboat grumbles through the waters towards Padang. Locals are immensely friendly to me and whenever they take me into their homes, I feel as though I've been adopted by Indonesia, as if this is was family.

A group of boys pick me up as I come back to town from my run to Muntei. These are boys no older than me, and we look almost identical to the Western eye. They are construction workers from Palembang, and they take me to their worksite, a bridge over a swampy stream. There we chat as they lift gravel up from boats, their legs muddied, to fill the concrete embankment. Every heave is a flex of muscle, sinewy Indonesian arms and smiling adolescent faces, the pride of labour beaming through their teeth. Later, they invite me back to their hostel, where even more boys come out to shoot the breeze with me and where I am promptly offered teh manis. Would I like a shower, they ask, because I prolly stink to high heavens. I decline and say I should I get back to the boat because it's leaving soon. As I leave, I see them hitting the showers, wet brown skin against white briefs and shower silliness. I take a second glance of course, and then walk away from this boys whom I could very well have been, or who could be my brothers.

But, no, away, because our lives are too different, I am a visitor here. As we approach Padang, someone spits out his seed rambutan seed in my direction, and I am reminded that I do not belong in this demo-crazy, where that was all right.

Labels: ,