Extended sentence, no remission

Old Smokey Merapi again from the village and local 'Morris' type folk dancers at the village rice festival

2 April 2007

Inevitably we have not completed any new houses, let alone the five that were promised by the end of March – partly due my not getting accommodation in the village for the first seven weeks and partly the relaxed “elastic time” which is intrinsic to the local culture. So we are given another month to finish the job or lose the grants offered. Yours truly is persuaded, without a great deal of difficulty to stay on in the heat with my camera and m’bike.

The village itself is alive with seminars, conferences and celebrating rice growing and organic farming in Southeast Asia with delegates from Malaya, Thailand the Philippines and NGOs around the planet. Karaoke tonight and with ethnic music and dancing tomorrow. Bapak T.O., my ‘employer’ is in his element – organising, lecturing, acting as master of ceremonies – all done effortlessly and with the authority of an old professional.

Opening events here apparently have to be called “soft openings” and require a religious blessing if possible and so it was with the new Hazel Laundry of Thomas and Alice on Saturday night. The priest was not available (given only two hours notice) but Alice had spent the day cooking in the kitchen borrowed from the next door café and helped by Anthea with some Philippine dishes. The “joiner” had been working for two days with some sub-standard materials and his tools, one rusty saw and one hammer to build an ironing table and desk, all held together with nails, no glue or jointing. He nevertheless achieved much more than the equally rough stuff you can buy on the streets at twice his price. Sawdust swept aside, vinyl sheet laid over the bare concrete entrance area and with tables and stools from the café things are rapidly transformed to a party setting ready for the first guests. VSO friends, Tito and old Papuan friends of Thomas along with the ethnic Chinese landlady who lives in the other half of the building and oyher new neighbours – a bloke from the telecom business opposite, a retired air force man and a Harley Davidson leather jacketed antique dealer. Apologies from the local ‘dukuh’- community leader who is working evenings but a handful of students from local hostels. Everybody seems to get on well together and enjoy the feast with the beer hidden away till later in the evening when the grownups have left – I’ll see if I can post some photos of the occasion. Tito is still having to work on my laptop’s picture capabilities and my photo editing suite has been lost to the virus attack and will have to wait for my return to the uk for reinstallation. The young female students are keen to try out their English language on me but are more interested in my unmarried offspring than in me – such is life! I stay the night with Alice and Thomas insisting I use their bed while they bunk down an a small borrowed mattress in the shop area.