Kalimantan, December 2002

Long Ears and New Year

Those same words,'Hello Mister', often the prelude to friendly but extremely repetitive, tiring conversation in my elementary Indonesian. I walked over to where he sat upon his motorbike and found that his English was exceptional. He was afraid however that I wouldn't trust him and assured me that he wasn't a terrorist. This made me laugh and I instantly took a liking to him. His name was Andre. We headed off on his motorbike to the tourism office to find out more about the Dayak tribe.

Suddenly it was almost midday, the big Friday prayer time. Andre was concerned about leaving me alone, and was surprised and amused by my suggestion to go with him. I'd been in Indonesia for nearly a year and I was quite inquisitive about what goes on inside the mosque. Of course you have to be a Muslim to go to prayer time but Andre was prepared to cover for me. We dashed to his house where he lent me a sarong. I was to just copy everything that he did and try to blend in, which was unlikely seeing as I was to be the only westerner there.

When we first arrived, during prayers, a man at the front was wailing in Arabic. I was constantly about three seconds behind Andre; bowing, kissing the floor and doing all manner of ritual movements. Then we had to sit on the hard floor and listen to a sermon. Before long I had pins & needles in my feet as I hadn't sat cross-legged on a hard floor since primary school, but I didn't dare stretch out. I had to just grin and bear it until eventually my whole right leg went completely dead. Eventually I was able to struggle to my feet, but then we had to suddenly throw ourselves onto the floor and get up again repeatedly and quickly; on one leg! Afterwards many people approached me, and I politely, in a seemingly suitable solemn demeanor tried to answer. I realised, perhaps too late, that as you shake hands you have to grip your right fore-arm with your left hand. 'Are you a Moslem?', a young guy asked. 'Yes', I lied. 'Oh, that's wonderful – ummm'. It was just about to get tricky when Andre arrived just in time to save me, said something to the guy in Indonesian, and we sped off.

In the afternoon André's friend, Shirley, already with six children to look after, took me to a restaurant, and then swimming at a nice hotel. She was extra-ordinarily generous; every time I tried to pay for something she grimaced, as though in pain. She offered to take me the next day to Tenggarong, the old capital of the region. I could hardly believe the kindness of these people; I'd only just arrived in Samarinda and already I had people driving me around.

Saturday in Tenggarong started with a visit to a bizarre museum of which the highlight was a large picture of the sultan who looked like a member of an Indonesian ZZ Top, but with a gun instead of a guitar. Tenggarong, although quiet, was mysteriously, as if in preparation for a phantom Olympics, building new hotels in the hills, and a whole park was being created on an island in the middle of the river. We got a boat across and went up in a circular cabin which glided up and down a new nifty electric tower structure, affording a fine view over the town and river. Andre and I then joined in a game of football with the locals before making the journey back to Samarinda.

Sunday morning, after an hour on Andre's motorbike to get to Pampang, we went directly to his friend Daud's house which was a little like a living museum with half woven baskets upstairs, a dead bird in the kitchen from which they were extracting the feathers, and some traditional Dayak knifes lying around.

After lunch we went to the longhouse to see the traditional Dayak dancing. Before the dancing commenced, the old women with 'long ears' appeared. I took a photo of one old woman who had forty three large ear-rings hanging from her ears, stretching her ear lobes down to her chest. She had been adding one ring a year since starting at the age of seventeen.

After the young girls dancing in their fantastically bright, ornately coloured costumes we walked to Daud's grandparents' crowded house, where with Andre translating from English to Indonesian, and Daud from Indonesian to their Dayak language, I spoke to Daud's grandparents. I sat with them, asking questions about Dayak life, past and present, while we drank directly from village coconuts. In Dayak culture, the longer the ear lobes, the more beautiful a person had been considered to be. Much of the family had had their ear lobes cut as they feel self conscious now in mainstream Indonesian society. Daud's grandfather still had long ear lobes, but his wife, who had had them removed, showed me all her rings that she had once worn, now tied onto a piece of rope, and we laughed as they took a photograph of me wearing these.

Five days later after my trip up river I arrived back in Samarinda and I rang Andre who collected me from the town centre on his motorbike. In the evening all of Andre's family went out for a meeting at the mosque, leaving me alone in their house with an open back door, leading onto a floodlit badminton court, where people were gathering for a competition. Andre returned and I watched him play badminton to a small crowd. His little neighbourhood was like one large family; going to the mosque, playing badminton together, and leaving their houses open for each other to walk into unannounced.

The next day I said goodbye to these new found friends and got on the bus to Balikpapan, never to see them again.