Morning with the Sharia Police

Today was especially exciting.  Jeff, who was one of the Yale students that I met this weekend, invited me to go with him to interview the Sharia Police (more commonly referred to here as WH) and translate for him.  I got off to a bit of a shaky start since my becak driver dropped me off at the wrong office, but from there it went very smoothly. 

When I arrived at the office, it turned out that they were conducting a special operation called Socialisasi.  This is a similar concept to the more well-known Razia actions where WH officers pull people over and chastise them for wearing "inappropriate" clothing, going on dates with their boyfriends/girlfriends, and engaging in other "bad" activity that is not allowed within the laws of Sharia.  From what I've gathered, razia tends to be a little bit more severe and the people caught doing something that they're not supposed to results in more serious lecturing.  This socialisasi operation was more gentle, according to the officers we interviewed, and its main purpose was merely to remind offenders of the appropriate way to dress and conduct themselves according to Sharia law.  The first person who got pulled over was a young woman, college aged, who was wearing a tunic and leggings.

She was clearly upset about being pulled over - she looked so pissed off and refused to cooperate with them for a little while.  A couple of the female WH officers had to calm her down and convince her that all she had to do was sign her name, and that she wasn't in trouble - that they just wanted to talk to her.  

Basically what happens when someone is caught or pulled over is that they are taken to the side and have to show the WH officers their driver's licenses and give them their basic information - name, address, date of birth.  After that, one of the WH men gives them a lecture on appropriate conduct and religious fashion tips.  In Sharia, Muslim men and women are supposed to cover their aurat, which I like to refer to as "sexy parts".  A woman's aurat includes her hair, and from her neck to her feet.  Her forearms, however, are not included.  A man's aurat goes from his belly to his knees.  

There were a lot of women who got pulled over on motorbikes because their pants were deemed "too tight" by the WH officers.  It was interesting to see and hear their reactions, as there was some protest.  One woman said, 
"I don't understand why I am being pulled over.  I feel like I am dressed appropriately".
She wore a long shirt that went down to her thighs and blue jeans.  She tugged at her blue jeans, indicating that they were not tight at all and that they weren't clinging to her body as the jeans of some of the other offenders.  "Why are we being pulled over for wearing pants?  Even they are wearing pants", she continued, gesturing at the female WH officers.  
Another woman we interviewed, named Ipa, was equally as indignant.  

"I am very busy and have a lot of things to do.  I just got out of the shower and put on the clothes that I had so I could start my day sooner.  I am in a hurry and need to go to the market and buy food so I can cook for my children...I agree that as Muslim women ought to dress appropriately, but if they were really so concerned about us dressing inappropriately, they shouldn't sell inappropriate clothes in town.  How else will we know what is acceptable or not?  ...If they didn't sell clothes like these, we wouldn't buy them...we live in a modern world, Aceh is not like it was in the old days...You need to think progressively and not be stuck in the past...It's important to have an open mind, not a closed one."

Although there were a lot of women who were pulled over, there were a pretty decent amount of men that got stopped as well for dress code violations as this guy here.

 
 His knees are obviously covered in this picture, but maybe they were showing when he was on his motorbike.  Either way, the point that I wanted to make was that it's not just the women who are targeted.  However, I think that the majority of male offenders today were the public service officers who were skipping work.  Yes, WH also pulls over people who are skipping work.  Public servants wear khaki uniforms, and rest hours are from 12pm-2pm.  This operation was done between the hours of 9 and 11, so those people in uniforms who were out and about were pulled over, questioned, and lectured for leaving their job.

All of the lectures for dress code violators were pretty much the same.  I overheard them say,

"As Muslims, it is our duty to pray.  Likewise, it is also our duty to cover our aurat...men like it when you [women] wear tight clothes.  So, it is important to guard yourselves.  It is also important for you [men] to dress modestly as well."

 After being pulled over, everyone goes about their business as usual.  We asked a couple of people if this event today would encourage them to dress differently in the future.  One girl said that it was just "whatever", and that she probably wouldn't change her clothes.  Another offender wearing skinny jeans told us that she felt she was dressed "semi-appropriately", and that what she was wearing wasn't good but it also wasn't bad.  She said that in the future she would probably just wear longer shirts, since her butt was accentuated, but would keep on wearing the skinny jeans.  


The last two people we saw get pulled over were two young college-aged women.  One was not wearing a jilbab at all.  The other had on a jilbab, but a decent portion of her hair (a.k.a her bangs) were showing, and she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.  I felt especially sorry for these two.  We asked one of them how she felt after being pulled over, and she admitted that she was scared.  She said that in the future she would remember to wear more appropriate clothing.  The reason I felt so bad for these two is because there was a camera crew there that kind of got in their faces, when they clearly did not want their pictures taken.  The girls who did not have a jilbab on somehow got her hands on one and put it on, and both hid their faces from the camera.  A lot of WH men and other male onlookers crowded around them in a circle, and it kind of felt as though they were a spectacle at a zoo or something.  They finally were permitted to go home after being lectured by one of the senior officers.  


Overall, it was a very interesting experience.  I got to talk a lot with the WH officers, and asked them what prompted them to join WH.  One female officer said,

"I wanted to join WH because before, I saw a lot of women going around wearing tight, inappropriate clothing and didn't like it.  We operate under Sharia law, and I feel that it should be enforced.  I want to do this so I can remind others of the law we live under and make dawa."

Apparently all of the WH officers join because they really want to help enforce Sharia, and we were told that everybody volunteered themselves to do it when asked if they wanted to join or not.  Before going on the force, candidates have to take a four part test and go through a little bit of training (I'm not sure in what, they didn't specify) before actually becoming a WH officer.

I'm not sure what the future of WH will be - maybe they will progressively grow more strict and try to enforce Sharia on a bigger level.  I've spoken to many people how they feel about Sharia in Aceh and have gotten mixed responses.  Some say that Aceh is not yet ready for Sharia, but the majority of people I have communicated with seem to have no problem with it and see WH operations as a "good thing".   

So far, I feel indifferent about Sharia in Aceh.  Yes, it's much different than what I'm used to.  Sometimes there is nothing more I'd like to do than to just take off my jilbab and enjoy a nice breeze blowing through my hair.  But as a Muslim woman and an Indonesian, I feel a strong obligation to wear it and have no complaints whatsoever.  In my opinion, the most important thing is that the region is peaceful.  Aceh is undoubtedly a very peaceful place to live, and I feel that after 30 years of conflict, the Acehnese just want to do their own thing and not have to worry about their safety.  

This was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I'm so grateful to have been able to take part in it.   It was different, but it's just the way people operate over here.  Either way, it's one of the things that make Aceh a very interesting place.

Me and the female WH officers - I'm wearing an official hat given to me by one of the main guys heading the operation today!

Aceh NGOs

This Monday I was able to visit the FBA (Forum Bangun Aceh) office to meet with its directors and founder, Pak Azwar. They were all very nice and helpful, and I learned a lot about their organization. They were created in 2005 after the tsunami to help survivors, and has since grown into a leading NGO in this area. They provide educational services, microcredit, and enterprise development to tsunami survivors, victims of conflict, and the poor and disenfranchised. Their programs include education initiatives as well as a Microcredit program to benefit some of the poorest regions of Aceh – in fact, their work has reached about 5,000 people within 6 districts of Aceh. Their education initiatives include student placements, scholarships, training, and professional development. The microcredit program buys small businesses the assets or materials they need, and then the individual business owners repay the cost of the assets to FBA on a payment plan.

They’ve done a great deal for the Acehnese, and their organization keeps on growing and gaining momentum. So far they’ve assisted 900 micro businesses, completely rebuilt a school, reequipped 37 schools with furniture and books, coordinated an educational exchange program for a handful of Acehnese students, and supported the planting of 2,250 trees. It would be great to possibly work with them in the future. The work that they’ve done for their community is truly inspirational.

On Tuesday, my friends Dicky and Saiful showed me this organization called Ya Kita, which is a drug addiction treatment and recovery center. They have two offices in Aceh, one is the actual recovery center (for boys), and the main one is more of an education/youth center where they bring middle and high school students in and teach them about health, HIV/AIDS, and the consequences of drug use. Today was interesting because they were having an event with some middle and high school students, and I was able to see how they taught the youth about all of this.

The main facility is really cool looking. There are murals all over the wall that say things like “SAY NO TO DRUGS”, and “THEY’RE EASY TO USE, BUT DIFFICULT TO RECOVER FROM”. They’ve also got a wall where visitors can sign their names and write inspirational type messages.

Afterwards, we visited an organization called Pusat Ketrampilan Perempuan Sejahtera (PKPS), which translates to Skills Center for Happy Girls. It’s an NGO founded by this amazing lady who started this organization to help girls who had to discontinue their education or were victims of conflict, trafficking, abuse, etc. She teaches the girls how to sew, and then they sell their goods (clothes, purses, etc.) to the public. Her name is Cut Mutia, and she’s a charismatic Acehnese woman with a voice as big as her heart. She was very helpful and gave me a lot of information about what PKPS does and what she wants to do with it. She asked me if I could give the girls there English lessons, so I may start going there once a week as well to have a conversation group or something. When I left she gave me a couple of souvenirs – small purses that the girls at the center made, and jokingly told me that I should take her products back to America and fundraise for her.

Later, I went back to FBA (and got hopelessly lost along the way) to accompany one of the coordinators, Ira, to visit one of the businesses that they help. This trip’s purpose was mainly for conflict resolution, as there were a couple of small problems that this particular group was having. The business is a snack stand – there are a lot of those in Indonesia – and it’s run by a group of middle aged women. Apparently there was an issue with the group leadership that needed to be resolved. They all spoke in Acehnese, so I didn’t quite understand all of it, but I got the general gist of what they were talking about. The best part of this trip was seeing Ira handle the situation. She was phenomenal – very diplomatic and enthusiastic, offering all sorts of alternatives to handling the problem and encouraging the women to see it from different perspectives. The ladies were receptive to her advice, and according to Ira, there shouldn’t be another issue like this in the future for them.

Another good thing that happened today – I got to meet up with one of the researchers over at ARTI, Pak Dani. I had met him the first week I was here, but never got a chance afterwards to have a chat with him. He is a really great character – he’s sharp and very witty; he’s one of those people that can make fun of you and actually be funny about it. I told him about my advances in my research here concerning terrorism, and he put me in contact with a couple of people who promise to be very helpful in assisting me with collecting data. He’s also got a book launching this Saturday that he invited me to; he said that there would be a few people there who could help me. I want to be able to collect as much data as possible about my topic while I’m here and hope that, even despite the short frame of time I have left, that I can bring a lot of data back home to work with.

I love having full days like these. They make me feel so productive, and considering that I have to be back at the asrama so early, it’s good to get a lot of things done earlier in the day and pack as much into the daylight hours as possible.

Second Week

My second week here has been wonderful. I’m doing my best to make sure that I keep a busy schedule, because there’s nothing worse than being in a different country with nothing to do.

This past week I was able to sit in on Ibu Eka’s Sociology and Religion class, which was very interesting. The students were discussing laws in Sharia Islam, and even though some of the vocabulary they used was difficult for me to understand, I was still able to get the majority of it. They covered a lot of interesting stuff, my favorite was when they talked about the punishment for thieves – according to Sharia law, the punishment for theft is to cut the left hand off for the first offense, and then the right hand if they commit the crime again. Ibu Eka mentioned something interesting about this that I’d like to note here – she said that maybe instead of taking it literally, another interpretation could be to cut off their resources. She said that our hands are our biggest resource, since we do so much with them, and that cutting off a resource would be like cutting off someone’s hand.

This week was also the first week of the IAIN English discussion group. The turnout was pretty decent, there were about 5 students who came the first time, and we’re thinking that next week a few more will come. We’re planning on having different themes to talk about for each week. This week was just an introduction, but next Friday we’ll be talking about culture and the participants will prepare a 1 – 2 minute shpeel about anything they want that has to do with culture. It should be pretty fun. I didn’t get to actually lead a discussion group this week at Al-Kafi…Norman said that there were some planning issues that they needed to work out. But he gave me a few good resources for class ideas that I’ve been looking through, and next Friday we should have a class set up.

Ibu Eka also introduced me to Ibu Ina, a super sweet lady who has been studying in Malaysia. Her husband is actually a director at the Center for Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies here in Aceh, and she recommended that I get in touch with him to see what they’re all about. I still have yet to go over and set up a time to meet with him, but I’m hoping to get that done this week.

On Saturday, I went with Ibu Eka to another pesantren – Pesantren Ruhul Fatayat, otherwise known as Pesantren Seulimum. I enjoyed visiting here more than I did at Tanoh Abee. It was much more lively, as they have almost 1,000 students – about 600 girls and 400 boys. We met with the head of the girl’s section, Pak Husseini. I’m really glad that I met him; he was extremely charismatic and funny. He invited me to stay a night at the pesantren this week to see how they operate, and to meet the girls who live there. It should be a great experience. Pesantrens are normally pretty exclusive and aren’t too accepting of outsiders, but this one is very open and it will be interesting to see how the girls there live and go about their daily activities.

Later that evening, I went out with the girls from the asrama. Like I’ve mentioned before, they’re not allowed out past maghrib, but tonight was an exception because there was a theatre and music performance at the university that everyone wanted to go to. I had a great time – it was so much fun to see all of the performances. Some people sang and danced, and there were also some skits that were performed. My absolute favorite though, was when this one group played Acehnese percussion. They were so energetic, and they kept an intense beat. Whoever said that Asians couldn’t get down has clearly never met an Indonesian. I took a couple of videos of it, and will do my best to try and figure out how to put it up.

I also met some visiting students from Yale University who were here for research. They have this magazine that they publish called The Yale Globalist, and they go around to different countries and write about the various things that are going on there. The team that they have in Indonesia was split up between Aceh and Bali. They were all very nice and we ended up having dinner last night. It was great hearing about the experiences that they’ve had here; I’m sure that they’ll have a ton of crazy stuff to put in their magazine later on!

Yesterday there was a huge event called “Acai Cinta Damai – Death to Terrorism”, which was a free concert with a lot of big name Indonesian singers and bands. We got there a little bit late, but the governor of Aceh spoke about the importance of peace, and how averse the Acehnese are to terrorism.

I’ve been getting to know the girls at the asrama very well, and I thoroughly enjoy spending time with them. They are fun-loving and kind, and I always have a good time with them – they crack me up. They told me that they wanted me to cook American food for them one of these days, so on Sunday afternoon I made them fried Oreos. Because really, you can’t get any more American than that. But I did Indonesian-ify them a little bit by drizzling chocolate and vanilla sweetened condensed milk over them. The girls loved the fried Oreos, and I have been instructed to make more. We have also been bonding over this television show that they all watch called Cinta Fitri. It’s the craziest soap opera I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and I get way too emotionally involved in this show. More updates on this another time.

Later today I’m going with Ibu Eka to FBA, Forum Bangun Aceh. From what I know of it, it’s a volunteer organization that works with people in the kampung, or villages, to provide economic sustainability and whatever else their needs are. I can’t wait to see what all they do.

First Week

This summer I am the first undergraduate participant in a student exchange between Florida State University and Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ar-Reniry (IAIN) in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. I arrived in Aceh on May 9 and will stay until June 26. My first week here has been pretty busy to say the least, so I haven’t really gotten to write a detailed day-by-day account of what has happened so far. So right now I’ll do my best to write out what I can remember.

Sunday: I arrived in Banda Aceh from Jakarta this morning. Every island in Indonesia is unique in its own way, and this is especially true with Aceh – it is really the only place of its kind. It is also the only region in Indonesia that operates under Sharia law and was devastated by the 2004 tsunami. I’ve traveled around Indonesia before, and didn’t think it would differ too terribly from most of the other places I’ve been to, but boy was I wrong. It sort of hit me as soon as I was on the road to town from the airport and we had to stop every five minutes to wait for all of the cows and goats to get out of the way.

My friend Pak Khairil and his family were the ones who came to pick me up from the airport, and they showed me where IAIN’s campus was and where I would be studying. We had a delicious lunch of bakso and es kelapa muda, and then they took me to the wisma (hostel). I wasn’t too pleased with it, as it was really pricey at Rp.200,000 per night ($20). It was also very quiet. It seemed like I was the only person staying there aside from the staff. But aside from that, it was air conditioned and I did have my own bathroom, so it wasn’t horrible…but definitely not worth Rp.20,000 per night.

After Pak Khairil dropped me off at the wisma, I laid down for a nice nap. And then the bed started to shake. At that moment, I started to remember every scary movie I’ve ever seen where some ghost or monster was under the bed and waiting for the occupant to step down so that it could eat them, and thought of a story my cousin told me about how a friend of hers was sleeping and there was a ghost under her bed that kept on making it shake, and it wasn’t until she got up and ran away that it stopped. Needless to say, I was in shock. I jumped off the bed to see if it would stop or not, and it was then that I realized that it wasn’t just the bed that was shaking – it was the floor and walls as well. I hurriedly put on my jilbab and ran outside to see others holding on to the poles outside the wisma, looking just fine and dandy. One of the staff smiled at me and asked if I’ve ever experienced an earthquake. I said that I haven’t, and she said that that it happens frequently enough here that it’s not too big of a deal. I learned a few hours later that it was at a magnitude of 7.2, which has “tsunami potential”.

Another interesting fact: Aceh also has frequent power outages, which is especially frustrating considering that I have an old, barely functioning laptop that always needs to be plugged in if I need to use it. If the power goes out, or if the plug comes out, my lovely laptop shuts down.

Monday: I met with Ibu Eka, who is my supervisor during my time here. She is a phenomenal woman, and has received her degrees in the Netherlands and Australia. She now teaches at IAIN. I picked the classes that I will be taking while I’m here, which are Arabic and Ushul-Fiqh. Ushul-Fiqh should be very interesting; it’s basically the implementation and enforcement of discipline through Sharia law. She then invited me to go with her to an Acehnese wedding party, where we had lunch. I really enjoyed going, as weddings always promise to be festive and fun. It was very similar to a Javanese wedding party, with a few cultural quirks of its own. My favorite thing about it was seeing the family and friends cook for all of the guests. In Aceh, the tradition is to have male relatives and friends cook for the wedding party free of charge. There was a decent sized work space for them, and humongous cooking pans.

I was also able to visit the Aceh Research and Training Institute (ARTI) and meet some of the researchers there. They’re all really nice and interesting people. One of the researchers, Pak Dani, has been doing a youth peace project for a while now, which brings Indonesian teenagers together to promote and learn about the peace process. Conflict resolution studies in Aceh are a pretty big deal, considering that after 30 years of conflict Aceh was finally able to foster a peace agreement with the Republic of Indonesia after the tsunami.

Later on in the day, I was able to meet up with Jesse who is another ARTI researcher. He has been living in Aceh for a pretty long time now, and he has a research team out at a pesantren doing field work at the moment. They should be coming back in the next week or so, and it should be very interesting to see what they learned while they were there.

Tuesday: More meetings with people today trying to get my schedule sorted out. I was able to sit in on the Ushul-Fiqh class, and it was pretty intense. I guess my Bahasa Indonesia isn’t as good as I thought it was. I don’t know if it was because I was fasting or just going too fast, but I felt very overwhelmed that day. We decided that it might be a better idea for me to start classes next week instead of this week so that I have time to acclimate to this new lifestyle. I thought that I would be able to come in and start doing work right away, but I was very wrong. There is a lot to take in here and a lot to get used to. An adjustment period seems necessary.

After class, Ibu Nur (another IAIN faculty member), took me out to see some more of Banda Aceh. The first thing we did was drive out to a little village to see someone who specialized in “alternative medicine”. One of the men who accompanied us had some kind of stomach illness that he had been seeing an “alternative medicine” specialist for and needed to see her again. When I asked Ibu Nur what she meant by “alternative medicine”, she said “It’s like black magic. But not”.

It was interesting to visit the village. This particular one was near the coast and was hit badly by the 2004 tsunami, but most of the houses I saw were reconstructed. I also saw a few women out who weren’t veiled and didn’t have long sleeves on. Apparently Sharia is much more relaxed in villages because they’re further away from the eye of the government and police, who are based in town.

It was also interesting to visit the “alternative medicine specialist”. I’d like to call her a witch doctor, but I don’t think she was. I thought that she would speak in tongues and change her demeanor, but Ibu Nur told me that she did that the first time our friend went to visit her and wouldn’t be doing it again. All the specialist did was massage this guy’s neck a little bit and pray, and boom – he felt better. Needless to say, I was a little bit disappointed, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

After, we went to Mesjid Raya, which is a famous mosque in this area. I found it to be absolutely beautiful. There were groups of children there who were taking iqra lessons, and it felt very peaceful and serene. We then ventured on to the Aceh Tsunami Museum, which isn’t completely done yet. I believe it will be completed and open to the public on the anniversary of the tsunami. We were able to go inside and look around, it just wasn’t all finished yet. After this they took me to see LTO APUNG, which was a huge sea-based electric generator from Kalimantan that took 3 months to be brought to Aceh. But when the tsunami hit, it was brought to land in about 3 seconds.

Wednesday: I met up with Jesse to go to an English discussion group that he facilitates at a youth center called Al Kafi. He has this group every Wednesday afternoon and invited me to come and be a guest speaker for them. We talked a lot about Islam in the United States, and I asked them questions about how it was living under Sharia. It was a lot of fun, and it’s a great opportunity for students to come and practice their English speaking skills.

Later, I finally moved out of the wisma to an asrama, or dorm. I was kind of ticked off that I had to pay $60 for 3 nights there, but thankfully I’ll be able to stay in the asrama for free. It’s a charming place. It’s clean, which is the most important thing, and it’s lively. I think there are about 40 girls staying there right now. It’s got pretty basic accommodations – squat toilet, bucket shower, and no air conditioning. But it’s free, which is the next most important thing. To live in an asrama normally costs about Rp.400,000 ($40) for a semester, but the head of the building said that I could stay for free as long as I help the girls there with their English skills.

Living in the asrama is going to be a very interesting experience. Everyone is supposed to come back by maghrib (evening prayers), or risk getting locked out. No one is allowed out past then, so having dinner with a friend or going to an evening movie is out of the question. The girls don’t seem to mind this though, and from what I’ve gathered after talking with them, they don’t make plans in the evening or go out very often at all. They are however, permitted to spend the night away from the asrama three times a month, so they do have an opportunity to go out at night, they just can’t come back late. It looks bad, they say, for girls to be coming home in the evening. Neighbors may think less of them, and it’s just not the proper thing to do. I don’t think it would be a huge issue for me to come back at night, as Indonesians tend to make exceptions for foreigners, but I won’t ask for permission to do so. I would feel embarrassed to have them make this exception for me, and I fully intend to honor and abide by their rules. It’s definitely different from what I’m used to, but it’s an experience worth having and I don’t want to ruin it by being an imposing foreigner.

Maghrib and isha prayers are held together – all of the girls are supposed to be in attendance during these times so they can pray together. My first night there, I found it to be a beautiful bonding experience. I’m not used to praying back at home, but it was a nice moment. After maghrib, the girls had ngaji, or reading from the Qur’an. It was the first time I had ever done that after prayers, so it was a little bit of a surprise to me when after maghrib prayers everyone started singing verses from the Qur’an. Everyone participated and no voice was left out. It sounded absolutely beautiful, and I was enchanted and touched by the devotion they had for Islam and the power I felt behind their words.

After the ngaji, everyone had a lot of questions for me and I got to know them all a bit better. They’re all really sweet girls, and I think they’re absolutely hilarious. They’ve got a great sense of humor and are very kind. I can’t wait to get to know them on a deeper level – I’m sure I could learn a lot from them. They also made traditional Acehnese kolak later, which is a type of dessert consisting of a purple potato and green beans mixed and boiled together. It was pretty tasty, and very purple.

Thursday: Today was a public holiday, which was exciting. I kicked off the morning by meeting up with Norman, who runs a youth community center in Darussalam called Al Kafi; the concept is kind of like YMCA, and I believe that it’s one of the first in Aceh. This youth program offers classes in English, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesia, and it provides the youth with a safe place to come and learn. They also have a partnership with a school for the handicapped and do service projects for them as well as other communities around Aceh. It’s a great place for adolescents to come hang out and be productive. I would like to be involved in the activities they have and maybe have an English discussion group like Jesse does. Norman said that there was a high demand for volunteers, and that they didn’t have enough teachers or volunteers to accommodate everyone who wanted to join, so they had to limit the amount of people who came.

After talking with Norman, I went to a seminar that Ibu Eka invited me to that she was speaking in: Seminar Perempuan (Super) – “Tanamkan Semangat Siti Khadijah dan Cut Nyak Dhien Dalam Setiap Langkah Mu Menuju Aceh Yang Berjaya”. Translated, in means: (Super) Female Seminar – “Embedding the Sprit of Khadijah and Cut Nyak Dhien in Every Step to Progress Triumphant Aceh”. It was fantastic and very inspirational. They talked about the strength and moral character of Khadijah, who was the wife of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the bravery of Acehnese heroine Cut Nyak Dhien, who fought alongside her husband against the Dutch occupation in Indonesia. I got really pumped and excited, I love these kinds of seminars that empower women. I also thought it was great that they were having this here. From a western perspective, I’m sure that many would consider Sharia to be oppressive and unjust towards women. Yet, the women I’ve met here so far have been educated and progressive. This seminar was a great opportunity to see college educated women come together and talk about ways to empower themselves and muster the self confidence to be the best they can be.

When the seminar ended, I met up with some friends of my cousin Gia. He put me in contact with them when I got here so I wouldn’t be completely alone and would have friends. He met them through a Blackberry chat forum, which I thought was kind of weird, but apparently people meet up all the time from chat forums here, so I just went along with it. Their names were Azzim and Mina, and they’re both really awesome people. I think that Mina is quite possibly the only Muslim female in Aceh who doesn’t wear a veil, despite Sharia law. When I first saw her I asked Azzim if she was Christian. Nope. Buddhist? Hindu? Nope. It was really interesting to meet her. She runs her own catering business, and when she goes to work she said that she wears jilbab, but doing so serves more as a formality. They took me to a coffee place where we had lunch and she whipped out a cigarette and started smoking it – another shocking surprise. Although women aren’t banned from smoking in Aceh, it is very taboo to do so. She laughed when I asked her about not veiling and smoking.
“A lot of people think I’m a foreigner at first, but when they get to know me they know that it’s just me. I won’t wear jilbab unless the desire to do so comes from the bottom of my heart, and that hasn’t happened just yet.”

When we were done with lunch, we went to Cut Nyat Dienh’s house, which is a museum now. I found her to be fascinating, and after they talked about her at the seminar, I wanted to find out more about her. Her house was beautiful, but it wasn’t the original house. That one was burned down by the Dutch. The updated version also had to go through reconstruction after the tsunami. The house is built in the traditional Acehnese style, which resembles the houses that I saw when I was in Thailand last year. After touring her living quarters, I’ve decided that I want my future house to look just like it.

We went to the beach when we were done looking around the museum. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the beaches in Aceh, but when we got there it completely blew me away. The water was stunning and had a beautiful color that I could not capture on camera. The cliffs surrounding the beach were overgrown with vegetation and created such a pristine sight when the waves crashed onto their gray bases. Aceh has many kinds of beaches, but the one that I visited was more rocky and shelly instead of sandy. I saw enormous black and green crabs scuttling on the rocks and splashing into the water. What truly impressed me about being there was at how untouched it all seemed. Aside from the food stall that sold us es kelapa muda and the little huts that lined the shore, there were barely any people there and it had a serene atmosphere that made me feel almost one with nature.

I was a little sad when the day was over and I had to go home, but I’m looking forward to meeting up with Mina and Azzim again. I had a great time with them, and I’m looking forward to hanging out with them again soon.

Friday: Today, Ibu Eka invited me to go with her to a pesantren as she conducted some of her research. The pesantren we went to was Pesantren Darul Muta’allimin, or Tanoh Abee in Acehnese. It’s located about an hour outside of Darussalam in Aceh Besar. It’s the oldest pesantren in Aceh and used to have up to 1,000 students. But since the head of the pesantren passed away, its numbers have dwindled. It used to have a lot of old Arabic manuscripts and really valuable writings, but a lot of them have been stolen and sold. We spoke with the current head, Umi, who is the widow of the old one. They spoke entirely in Acehnese, which was a problem for me since I don’t speak it, but they decided to use Acehnese in order to let Umi speak more freely than she would be able to in Bahasa Indonesia. I was able to talk to Umi in Bahasa Indonesia, but it was difficult for me to understand her accent. She told me that now there are only 20 girls left, and about 50 boys. She also said that after the students leave, they all tend to teach religion at mosques. Ibu Eka told me that she was writing up a summary of her conversation with Umi anyways, and that she would send me a copy of it later when it’s written.

Going to the pesantren was definitely interesting, but since I was completely lost when Umi and Ibu Eka were speaking, I didn’t really get a lot out of it. Next week Ibu Eka plans on going to another pesantren, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to go with her again.