My Indonesian adventure: Chapter 1, in which my plans are thwarted by Allah
This is my first morning in Soroako, a small town on the edge of a large, deep lake in the hills of central Sulawesi. I'm here with a colleague for two weeks to start work on a year-and-a-half-long agronomic project that we've been planning for months. My journey began four days ago in Washington, D.C., which is now thirteen time zones behind me. My sleep pattern has been disrupted and I've been waking at 3 to 4 a.m. every morning. This morning while I lay on my bed in the dark, thinking, I heard, over a distant loudspeaker, the muezzin's song calling the faithful to prayer, accompanied by fainter, garbled music. I got up and turned on the light so I could check the time. It was a quarter after 4. An hour later the first cock crowed.
My room in our host company's (they provide a raw material to China's booming manufacturing sector) dormitory is like a small hotel room. There is an air conditioner, a small refrigerator, and a TV (which brings me, via CNN World News and the cover of the Washington Post, glimpses of further humiliation of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib), but as yet no hot water. I showered and shaved this morning without it--the cool water was not unpleasant.
After my shower, I go upstairs to our local contact's room to call my daughter (there's no phone in my room), then Clark and I go back down to look at my water heater.
We find my front door wide open and a group of Indonesian men sitting outside. I go in and see painting equipment--roller, tray, a brush--on the bed's headboard. Evidently a higher power has decreed that my room is in dire need of a new coat of paint. I pack up my stuff and move it into my colleague's room. (Later in the day I'm assigned another room.)
We visit our field sites. Driving back in the afternoon, we find our way blocked by a three-foot-long lizard that is holding its body above the road on four sinewy legs. As we get closer, it waddles lithely off into the jungle.
At 6 we go to dinner at the company canteen. The parking lot outside is full, and a woman coming out tells us that a meeting is going on about the "evacuation," pursuant to the "increased security" level that had been instituted three days previously. In the lobby of the building stands a soldier in fatigues holding a submachine gun. Clark goes into the crowded meeting room while Dr. Chang and I proceed to dinner. Several minutes later a grave-faced Clark appears and asks us to step into an adjoining room, as he wants to speak to us privately. He tells us that the company's president has received death threats, and that the company has "credible intelligence" that as-yet-unknown elements in the area are plotting to kill westerners. Wives and children of expat employees are going to be evacuated in the morning, and it is likely that "nonessential personnel" (that would be me) will also be evacuated in the next day or two.
I go to bed before 10 and doze fitfully. Sounds in the night: a gecko's crisp chirping...the loud, rhythmic breathing of an upstairs neighbor...voices of two men walking past the back window. I am awoken by knocking at my front door. I lie in the dark, wondering what to do. Three more knocks. I get up, turn on the light. It's just after 11. I call out, "Who's there?"
"It's Clark."
I pull on some shorts and open the door.
"We have to leave tomorrow at 3. They'll come to get us at 2. Stay in the dormitory till then."
Farewell Soroako! Farewell to your hot green hills, your giant lizards, your sapphire-and-smoke lake. I'll see you again, perhaps, during a Kerry administration.
My room in our host company's (they provide a raw material to China's booming manufacturing sector) dormitory is like a small hotel room. There is an air conditioner, a small refrigerator, and a TV (which brings me, via CNN World News and the cover of the Washington Post, glimpses of further humiliation of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib), but as yet no hot water. I showered and shaved this morning without it--the cool water was not unpleasant.
After my shower, I go upstairs to our local contact's room to call my daughter (there's no phone in my room), then Clark and I go back down to look at my water heater.
We find my front door wide open and a group of Indonesian men sitting outside. I go in and see painting equipment--roller, tray, a brush--on the bed's headboard. Evidently a higher power has decreed that my room is in dire need of a new coat of paint. I pack up my stuff and move it into my colleague's room. (Later in the day I'm assigned another room.)
We visit our field sites. Driving back in the afternoon, we find our way blocked by a three-foot-long lizard that is holding its body above the road on four sinewy legs. As we get closer, it waddles lithely off into the jungle.
At 6 we go to dinner at the company canteen. The parking lot outside is full, and a woman coming out tells us that a meeting is going on about the "evacuation," pursuant to the "increased security" level that had been instituted three days previously. In the lobby of the building stands a soldier in fatigues holding a submachine gun. Clark goes into the crowded meeting room while Dr. Chang and I proceed to dinner. Several minutes later a grave-faced Clark appears and asks us to step into an adjoining room, as he wants to speak to us privately. He tells us that the company's president has received death threats, and that the company has "credible intelligence" that as-yet-unknown elements in the area are plotting to kill westerners. Wives and children of expat employees are going to be evacuated in the morning, and it is likely that "nonessential personnel" (that would be me) will also be evacuated in the next day or two.
I go to bed before 10 and doze fitfully. Sounds in the night: a gecko's crisp chirping...the loud, rhythmic breathing of an upstairs neighbor...voices of two men walking past the back window. I am awoken by knocking at my front door. I lie in the dark, wondering what to do. Three more knocks. I get up, turn on the light. It's just after 11. I call out, "Who's there?"
"It's Clark."
I pull on some shorts and open the door.
"We have to leave tomorrow at 3. They'll come to get us at 2. Stay in the dormitory till then."
Farewell Soroako! Farewell to your hot green hills, your giant lizards, your sapphire-and-smoke lake. I'll see you again, perhaps, during a Kerry administration.
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