Some days, living here is so hard.
Most of the time, I’m happy here and enjoying my second time around. My students are sweet and I’m getting into the flow of things at my school. The schools days are long (I’m usually at school from 8-3) and hot (usually around 88 degrees with 80% humidity making it “feel like” according to the weather channel, a nice 95 degrees ~ at 8am). But once you get outside, heat is heat and sweat is sweat – you survive. Now that I’ve got the school routine down, I have more time in the evenings to chill. I generally nap every day. Yes, every day. I think the heat really takes it out of me and once I get home and get out of my sticky wet clothes, I often curl up on my bed under the AC and fall asleep for an hour and a half or two. I spend my evenings going for a long walk just before the sun goes down and there is a little respite from the heat, preparing lesson plans and materials, and/or meeting up with a friend to help them practice English or them teach me Bahasa. All in all – it’s a good routine.
After our lesson on “Compliments” – we passed around sticky notes with everyone’s name on one and wrote compliments to each other. At the end, we stuck them on a big poster and hung them in the classroom!
What makes a day hard is my foreignness: the constant “hey Mister!”, the motorcycle honks, the barrage of photos. I struggle so much with this this year. Maybe it’s because my honeymoon phase with Indonesia is over and trudging through the reality is just tough. Maybe it’s because Kendari feels like it’s so much worse in terms of “harassment of a foreigner”. Maybe it’s because the people around me allow it to happen, whereas last year I was in fewer situations for it and had a CP that deflected most of it. I’m sure it’s a combination of all of these things, but boy does it irk me.
This morning I was taken to a wedding (for the daughter of a fellow teacher at the school ~ but I honestly have no idea who this teacher is). As we pull up I brace myself for the next few hours. We start walking towards their house and all of the people assembled outside turn to stare. I can feel every eye on me as we enter the tent. I just want to run away and hide. Instead, I follow my ibus (ibu = mother, mrs ~ and collectively you can call them ibus ~ “i-boos”) as we pass in front of the 25 or so people assembled there and make our way to the front door of the home. We slip off our shoes and go inside. There is a long table set on the floor with food and tea – it looks like a cute little tea party. We sit with the other woman around the table and I try not to draw any extra attention to myself. Of the maybe 40 people here so far, I only recognize about 3 from my school – the others I’ve never met. Which means… the whispering, jittering, and excitement increases with my presence. “Cantik sekali,” (“Very beautiful”) they say as they pinch my cheeks and stroke my arm. “Thank you. Kalian juga” I reply (“You all too”), but it’s like they don’t even hear me. “Dia bisa bicara Bahasa Indonesia?!” (She can speak Indonesian?!) they gasp. And my bu takes over explaining that I am an English Teaching Assistant at MAN 1 but this is my second year, so yes, I can converse in Bahasa. I listen politely and then notice the cameras at the other end of the table. They are all pointed in my direction snapping away pictures of the bule (white person). I glance at them and they smile at me sheepishly and resume the photos across the long table. Here, I mind less. I am a guest in this home and this is an occasion – I’m sure they are taking photos of all sides of the table, I tell myself. 
After trying a few bites of all the different overly sweet cakes and puddings, it’s time to go back outside. But first, we must go see the photography set. We enter into the next room where the bride’s family is spilling out of an adjoining room into this room. I can just barely see the bride herself, getting pampered and her make up done by what must be 10 different female relatives. I sure wouldn’t want to be in her place right now. My bu wants to take a picture in front of the backdrop so we line up – I like my ibus so I don’t mind at all. The problem is that the other women in this room see the bule standing against the backdrop and they must have a picture too. They push their way next to me and the photos begin. First just two ibus, then a third, then we must change the pose. Then they must put the children in front. Then we have to switch the order so that the ones on the outside can touch me. They rest their heads against my arms and wrap their arms around me. My smile turns into a grimace and I just want to leave. They pinch my cheeks and keep telling me how beautiful I am and it’s all I can do to stand there and take more pictures. I look at my bu, pleading for help, and she nods and I duck out of the group. They are dismayed and want more but I tell them, “No, no – sudah!” (“Done or already!”). We slip outside and, back around my ibus, my smile returns.
L-R: Ibu I don’t know, child I don’t know, my coteacher Ibu Ernida, my other coteacher Ibu Sukma, and a child I don’t know.
After a little while, a police car comes up the road and behind it I see a whole procession of cars. This turns out to be the groom’s family and friends. We make an aisle for them to walk through and the whole procession of maybe 100 people passes through. As people pass me, they look at me in pure shock and delight. People reach out to shake my hand (not shaking anyone else’s mind you). My ibu gets up to help with something and suddenly her chair is vacant. Quickly enough, two ibus from this new party claim the seats and are ecstatic to be sitting next to the bule. They shove their phone at the nearest person, grab my shoulder, spin me around, and now we are taking a number of photos. Other ibus join in behind, placing their hands on my shoulders, heads on my shoulders, holding my hands… I don’t know these woman. They didn’t ask for my permission. Now they want individual pictures. I cringe and try to turn back to my ibus on my other side but they just want more. After the first individual picture, I tell them, no more. They are clearly disappointed and try to get me to take more but I turn to my ibus and say, “I don’t like this!” They laugh but I say, “Truly! I am nothing special! I am a foreigner, yes. I have white skin, yes. But I am no different than you. I am not President Obama or Angelina Jolie. I did nothing to earn this celebrity status. You want to take pictures of me because of my white skin, but I don’t like that. It makes me uncomfortable. With you, it’s okay because you are my friends. But with strangers, they only want to be able to show other people that they have a picture with a white person – and that makes me very uncomfortable.”
Retrospectively, this is what I wanted to say. It didn’t come out quite as forcefully and was mostly interrupted by them saying, “But you’re beautiful!” “You have white skin and we love that” “You are special because you are from America!” Regardless of what I did say, it stopped the pictures for the most part and my ibus got the hint that I don’t want to take a zillion pictures with people.
After the ceremony and lunch there, we got back in the car and drove to the groom’s house. There, we had to do the whole thing over again. We entered the house. Sat down at the little tea party table. I was the focus of attention, yet again. We moved into the room with the bride and groom and while I was able to stay in the shadows for a few minutes, pretty soon a number of the ibus from the families of the couple move to where I am and the photos start again. Group photos, individual photos, heads on my shoulders, arms wrapped around me – I’m about to lose it. Here we are, not 15 feet from the beautiful bride and groom and literally all eyes and cameras are on me. These women are like children hanging off of me. I’m stuck in a corner and I can’t get out. It’s ridiculously hot and stuffy in this room and I’m feeling a little carsick from the ride here and I feel like I could pass out. They are shoving more sweet jello-y food in front of me, and I can’t do it. “I’m full!” I cry. “I can’t eat more.” The pictures continue. I say, “one more” or “last one” but they just laugh and keep going. They stroke my arm, my hair and pinch my cheeks. Finally, I hear my ibu say, “okay, let’s go!” And I duck out from under them and run into the next room. I can’t escape without a few more photos but thank god, we are going home.
This is life here. Last weekend, it happened similarly, yet at a parade for the Islamic New Year. I can’t stand it. I hate that it’s due to my skin color. I hate what skin color does. I hate what is happening in America to people who have black skin and the injustice they face in all aspects of society, but especially the police shootings of black men. Why does the color of one’s skin matter?!
I hate being paraded around. I hate feeling like my worth here is in the color of my skin, not me, as a person. I hate the attention, the pinching cheeks, the touching. I want to be apart of these cultural events but it is so difficult when all of the attention turns to me. I hate that I can’t walk anywhere without drawing attention to myself and am harassed by the the honks and whistles of motorcyclists.
Last weekend, after the Islamic parade, I was really upset about all of this. I went home and had I not collapsed on my bed from exhaustion, I would have wept. It’s so wrong. The legacy of colonialism follows me everywhere I go. People here set me apart because I am white. Because I am from the race that enslaved your people and destroyed your cultures. But instead of hating me for that, you love me. You treat me like I am better than you. Like my white skin and my nationality make me better than you. And that is so, so, so false.
It makes my job as a cultural ambassador so much harder. I want to be involved in my community. I want to be invited to go to events and weddings and festivals. I want to have friends here and make this a home for the next eight months. But when I constantly feel uncomfortable and unhappy, it’s so hard.
After an afternoon with my sitemates last Sunday following the parade, eating Pizza Hut and studying Bahasa, I felt better. I resolved to make the upcoming week a good week. I made a list of all the things that were making me unhappy and set goals for how to turn things around. I resolved to be frank about taking pictures, to explain why it makes me uncomfortable, to take care of me and let myself nap every day if I need to nap everyday. To tell the kids who play on my street that a man is a “mister” and a woman is a “miss” so please stop calling me “mister” and please start calling me “miss.” I resolved to make more friends outside of school. To get a rice cooker so I can cook in my house and not have to eat out for every meal…
And let me tell you, this week was so much better. I haven’t accomplished everything that I set out to do but give me another week and I will. My classes went well, I enjoy my coteachers, and I made new friends to hang out with. I watched a movie and a few episodes of Game of Thrones, and read a little of my book every night. I walked most afternoons and was asleep by 10 every night.
Unfortunately, the wedding festivities today dampened my spirits a little. But I’m conflicted, because I was so pleased to be invited by my fellow coteachers and to spend time with them outside of school. I can’t give that up just because I don’t like taking pictures with strangers – and perhaps I just need to tell them, even more explicitly, that all these pictures are making me uncomfortable.
Well, we’ve got the wedding reception still to come this evening so wish me luck…
