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.
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