I’ve always been a little sheepish to take tourist oriented photos in a vague attempt to not overly annoy people by my touristy presence. Also, I just figure people don’t want their photos taken while they’re doing every day activities, much like myself. Was I ever wrong.
The village I’m living in WANTS me to take their photos. If I could only record every breath they took, they might be satisfied. To add to it, I’m pretty certain that they are unaware of how different their lives are from that of whomever you are that is reading this.
The pictures I have are only a slight representation of everyday life in the village.
Often we have a fruit feast in the kitchen. The glorious thing about the tropics is that fruit grows everywhere, no matter the season. There will always be something to eat. Last night we got to eat watermelon (not ripe yet, but still a treat as it turns out), coconuts, and jambu (the fruit that chashews grow from). It was so much for that I hardly had room for dinner …. not that that’s a bad thing. As I can only eat so many cassava leaves before requiring fruit for dinner.
There is a coconut tree right outside the kitchen and every other day or so we request a young man climb the tree and throw us down some coconuts. Then mom, dad, child, whomever has a knife in hand, hacks them open and offers up a coconut cup of delicious liquid. Then you get to chop it in half and eat the meat. Everybody in the village likes young coconuts but I prefer the old ones. This works in my favor because there are lots of old ones that get rejected. More for me. The liquid in older coconuts is almost fizzy as it starts fermenting and the meat isn’t slimy like it is in young coconuts. When they’re too old to eat, we grate them and make coconut milk to cook vegetables in. Then when we’re finished eating, we put the shells in the sun to dry out. Later they make a great fire starter. The magical coconut has so much to offer.
There are also Jambu trees all over the yard. There are at least 6 surrounding my pondok (my rice hut/house). I spend sometime every day picking up cashews that fell from the tree. But when there aren’t any on the ground my little child army crawls up the trees and picks them and throws them at me to catch. Then ‘dad’ yells at us to get out of there because; snakes. So we scatter. Then we separate the cashews from the fruit to dry in the sun so they can sell them later at the market. Then we get to eat the fruit. This fruit is a weird one. It has lots of tannins and is VERY juicy. It is very sweet and satisfying to eat. But the tannins are so much that it makes your mouth dry up with every bite.
Everybody has watermelon in their garden right now as it’s the ‘season’ for them. They won’t be fully ripe for another 3 weeks, but people are eating them now anyway. I have never eaten a white watermelon before……but hey, it’s not so bad. It has the same texture and flavor, just less sweet. I haven’t quite figured out yet why they keep saying that the watermelon hasn’t been cooked yet when they give it to me. My options are either A. They cook their watermelon. OR B. They think Americans cook watermelon. Whatever the reason, I’m just pretending like I can’t understand what they’re saying to avoid facing the truth. Sometimes a little mystery in your fruit is ok.
Along with all the fruit in everybodies yards, there is also corn. Lots and lots of corn. If it weren’t so humid I would think I was in the midwest. The village has a weird microclimate and can’t grow a lot of things the surrounding villages can. It’s hot and dry here. A lot like the climate in Northern Australia. We have rocky, red dirt, little rain, less humidity, coastal winds, and hot days. So, corn grows fairly well and is their staple crop.
Due to the lack of crops able to grow here, most farmers rely on raising livestock. This includes pig, goat, chicken, cow, and water buffalo. The largest collection being that of water buffalo or kerbau. Most of the time the kerbau are not tied up and can be free to roam. When they are tied up they get led to water or food by their owner throughout the day. Night time is a different story. They are mostly free roaming at night. Because of this and the never-ending corn supply, there is a night watch.
The kerbau night watch is a startling event to those that have not experienced it. My first acknowledgement of this was my second night in the village. There I lay, asleep in my pondok when I awoke to pounding hooves, flashlights shining everywhere, and men yelling incomprehensible words. I was fairly certain satan was here to gather me from this earth. But it turns out that the kerbau had gotten into the garden I’m living in and were eating the corn. So the night watch was chasing them around and screaming at them to try and make them go out the tiny opening in the fence. And this is how you protect one of your crops from your other crop, you yell at it.
Everyday I’m learning more and more about small scale agriculture than I never knew possible. Wether it’s applicable outside of this village is a topic for another time.