The Good of Small Things
Before the flood became everyone’s primary concern, I asked our guides which national issues most concerned Indonesians these days. The most common answer: the plane crash.
Over New Years, an Adam Air flight went down somewhere in the ocean with 102 people lost. The plane broke apart, however, & Indonesian authorities did not have the technology to recover the pieces. They couldn’t find the black box. The tragedy, people said, had become a national disgrace.
The US came to help. I don’t know if this appears in stateside papers. We sent in ships & technology that helped Indonesia search for this plane & for what happened. The awareness of this aid & gratitude for it was palpable to me just talking to people on the street. Also, the embarrassment that their country could not muster the resources for this by itself. Same goes for flood relief. Such small efforts do great work in the world. I think it makes a much bigger difference than we realize.
The Train
A couple weeks ago we took the train to old Batavia. The train is a gritty experience & only something we could manage--I mean to get somewhere on purpose, on time-- because E speaks Indonesian. The guidebooks don’t even mention it as a transportation option.
The number of women in hijab was strikingly higher in the station, seeming 90% or more, leading me to think again about the correlation of such choices with poverty. Some trains are packed to bursting. People ride on the roof. The doors stay open to provide ventilation. Inside the red floor is slick with mud.
We board & stand to the side, the only bules (BOO-lay = gringo) they’ve seen all day. It’s not crowded, but all the seats are taken. A wizened woman flocked with family gives up her seat for us, insisting despite our fervent protests that we take it. Everyone on the car takes note of this exchange while studiously ignoring us in the universal etiquette of subways. But then the guy selling oranges from a bucket & chips from a rack can’t suppress his curiosity. Breaking character, he looks us in the eye & asks, “Where are you from?”
No one moves, but everyone in earshot is actively listening now. We tell him & can almost hear the mental exchanging of bet money all around us. A subtle tension breaks. Traveling Americans often believe America is the most loaded word in the whole world. Sometimes I think this, too. Then an older woman at E’s elbow stands & with inscrutable emotion says in English, “American? God BLESS you. Yes, yes. God bless you,” and takes my hand with great feeling.
I don’t know why she said this to us. Is it because we helped them find the plane? Is she moved by some Hollywood image of Americans? Or is it personal: an American she once knew & loved? My frame of reference is useless: all I think of is our footprint on the world & feel that so-common relief of American travelers when we’re greeted with kindness instead of rage. Is she old enough to have felt it when the US—a superpower unsullied by obvious colonies—brokered the 1949 UN deal that ejected the Dutch & handed Indonesia its sovereignty? Or is she, like many older village women, simply exorbitantly polite to visitors? Does she say “God Bless” because that’s what it’s expected Americans like to hear (to listen to our news anchors & politicians, we do say “God Bless us” an awful lot)? Or because she is a Christian & believes we have that in common on this mostly Muslim train?
We can’t know what she was thinking, only smile & offer blessings back, keenly aware that our response to this now has an ambassadorial quality. It staggers me to think on it: how casually a single person can represent The United States. How can any one person possibly do that? Especially in the Muslim world where Americans are so fraught about our public image. But such things are effortless, constant, & decided in the blink of an eye: everyone will leave the train car with some impression of ‘Americans’.
Over New Years, an Adam Air flight went down somewhere in the ocean with 102 people lost. The plane broke apart, however, & Indonesian authorities did not have the technology to recover the pieces. They couldn’t find the black box. The tragedy, people said, had become a national disgrace.
The US came to help. I don’t know if this appears in stateside papers. We sent in ships & technology that helped Indonesia search for this plane & for what happened. The awareness of this aid & gratitude for it was palpable to me just talking to people on the street. Also, the embarrassment that their country could not muster the resources for this by itself. Same goes for flood relief. Such small efforts do great work in the world. I think it makes a much bigger difference than we realize.
The Train
A couple weeks ago we took the train to old Batavia. The train is a gritty experience & only something we could manage--I mean to get somewhere on purpose, on time-- because E speaks Indonesian. The guidebooks don’t even mention it as a transportation option.
The number of women in hijab was strikingly higher in the station, seeming 90% or more, leading me to think again about the correlation of such choices with poverty. Some trains are packed to bursting. People ride on the roof. The doors stay open to provide ventilation. Inside the red floor is slick with mud.
We board & stand to the side, the only bules (BOO-lay = gringo) they’ve seen all day. It’s not crowded, but all the seats are taken. A wizened woman flocked with family gives up her seat for us, insisting despite our fervent protests that we take it. Everyone on the car takes note of this exchange while studiously ignoring us in the universal etiquette of subways. But then the guy selling oranges from a bucket & chips from a rack can’t suppress his curiosity. Breaking character, he looks us in the eye & asks, “Where are you from?”
No one moves, but everyone in earshot is actively listening now. We tell him & can almost hear the mental exchanging of bet money all around us. A subtle tension breaks. Traveling Americans often believe America is the most loaded word in the whole world. Sometimes I think this, too. Then an older woman at E’s elbow stands & with inscrutable emotion says in English, “American? God BLESS you. Yes, yes. God bless you,” and takes my hand with great feeling.
I don’t know why she said this to us. Is it because we helped them find the plane? Is she moved by some Hollywood image of Americans? Or is it personal: an American she once knew & loved? My frame of reference is useless: all I think of is our footprint on the world & feel that so-common relief of American travelers when we’re greeted with kindness instead of rage. Is she old enough to have felt it when the US—a superpower unsullied by obvious colonies—brokered the 1949 UN deal that ejected the Dutch & handed Indonesia its sovereignty? Or is she, like many older village women, simply exorbitantly polite to visitors? Does she say “God Bless” because that’s what it’s expected Americans like to hear (to listen to our news anchors & politicians, we do say “God Bless us” an awful lot)? Or because she is a Christian & believes we have that in common on this mostly Muslim train?
We can’t know what she was thinking, only smile & offer blessings back, keenly aware that our response to this now has an ambassadorial quality. It staggers me to think on it: how casually a single person can represent The United States. How can any one person possibly do that? Especially in the Muslim world where Americans are so fraught about our public image. But such things are effortless, constant, & decided in the blink of an eye: everyone will leave the train car with some impression of ‘Americans’.
posted by Anne E. Campisi at 10:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home