This one’s for you.

I’ve been committing serious blog neglect this past couple of weeks. In all honesty, I’ve just been working and not doing much else. I’m trying to organise a fundraiser for the DEC and have completed my first translating job on top of working full-time, so blogging slipped down the priority list. Getting back to business after a long holiday was never going to be easy.

What I always miss the most when I come home from Jakarta is my family. Over here, most of my cousins are grown up (or getting there) but over there, it’s like being a kid all over again. My Indonesian cousins have a certain innocence about them despite their ages (12-16) so it’s fun to kick back with them and forget the troubles of the world just for a little while. I know they read this blog, so this post is for them! Quite a few of them are avid bloggers themselves, so although this isn’t something I would normally do, I think this is something they’ll appreciate.

Inda reminds me a lot of me when I was 15. Big-cheeked, frizzy-haired and fiercely opinionated(/stubborn).

Arif, his friend Arif (I know, haha) and I went to a cute little bar a few nights before I came home and sat and listened to a band play covers (really well!) for a couple of hours.

Bunking school (sshhhhh) to go to a water park and hang out at the mall.

Nabila is like the little sister I’ve always wished for. Every time I see her I’m just amazed at how much she has matured and how beautiful she is. She’s going to do great things and do the women of Padang proud.

Icha and I decided that jambu fruit looks like a nose. She and I had an awesome time listening to rock ‘n’ roll songs on her iPod and singing (well…howling) them together.

Zaki, the ultimate joker and self-proclaimed English translator.

I completely forgot about this photo until just now. Just for fun, here’s what I look like in a headscarf. Although obviously without all my hair sticking out of the bottom, wild and unruly mane that it is. These quick and easy headscarves have been the fashion over in Indonesia for a few years. There’s no faffing with pins or wrapping around required; these just slip on like a hat. This one is plain, but the sparkly, sequin- and bead-covered scarves are quite something to behold.

On a separate note, now that I’ve graduated, I really need to apply myself and make sure I’m still up to date with current affairs and political discussions. I need to be one of those impractical people who reads books on the packed train to Waterloo during rush hour. I’m considering starting up a new blog for political discussion, as the combination with everyday posts is pretty awkward. I’ll see how it goes.

Kita Anak Padang

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Never has a natural disaster struck closer to home. After the 7.6-magnitude quake hit west Sumatra on Wednesday, Facebook was aflood with messages from my family all asking if we had heard from those of us living in Padang. My grandmother’s side of the family are from Padang and although many have moved to Jakarta, many are still living there.

Padang is a beautiful part of the world and my grandmother and her siblings have always been fiercely proud to call it their home. I am constantly reminded that I am ‘anak Padang’ (a child of Padang), most importantly because I am a daughter of a daughter of a daughter. Padang is a matrilineal society and my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and I are ‘anak Ratu’ (daughters of the queen). With that side of my family, I feel less of an outsider as many Padang women are quite pale. My great aunt (especially in her old age) often starts speaking to me in Minang, forgetting that I don’t speak it. Coming from a Padang family is an aspect of my identity that is unquestioned – what is important is that I am my mother’s daughter, not my first language, the colour of my skin or the shape of my nose. I suppose it’s a part of my life that has been mostly dormant and untested but now I feel a huge sense of responsibility to my family. I feel as though I should be doing something. The past couple of nights I’ve not been able to sleep thinking about it all and replaying the images from the news in my mind. But what can I do from thousands of miles away?

My family is devastated by what has happened, with my two great aunts taking on the burden of leading the fundraising effort for the recovery of our rumah gadang (literally ‘big house’ – family house), despite their frailty in old age. No-one can really believe what they’re seeing on the news. Over 1000 people dead. I feel really helpless. Seeing my family so crushed is hard to bear, especially from so far away. My great aunt Ida has treated me as her own granddaughter since my nana passed away 10 years ago, instilling in me a strong sense of what it is to be a Padang woman: strong, determined, focused. If I’m going to do my family credit, I have to be all of those things and avoid feeling helpless. Our town, Pariaman, is the worst hit, and feeling helpless will do nothing to help. I suppose it’s difficult not to feel powerless when so many disasters have occurred across the Pacific – the Philippines, Indonesia, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga – in such a short space of time. I just hope we can all step up and do our part.

Wah, wah, wah.

One of the things that becomes more and more obvious the longer I’m here is that no matter how well I speak the language, I’ll never really fit in. It’s like I chose to be half and half and to grow up in another country on the other side of the world. But I didn’t choose to be what I am; I just am. I’ve only been here ten days or so and already I’m tired of being referred to as ‘bule’ (white foreigner). While my family and immediate neighbours may get used to having me around (this hasn’t happened yet, but it could happen I suppose), people in shops, restaurants and anywhere outside my immediate bubble will always gawp, especially when I open my mouth and speak Indonesian. Whenever I’m convinced to go along to events with extended family and friends, the talking point when I’m introduced is always ‘So where is she really from?’, that is, I’m clearly not from here and my party trick of speaking Indonesian isn’t convincing anyone.

Some stupid man told my aunt (note: not me, I wasn’t worth talking to directly) that I look Dutch yesterday. I was so offended. Just because I’m pale, it doesn’t mean I look like I’m from the former colonising country of Indonesia. In fact, my ‘bule’ father was from a former colony anyway. I don’t have the motivation or energy to argue when people are so rude. Trying to change the opinion of one person when there’ll just be countless others who think the same feels pretty pointless. But then, when it comes to other things I do try to change individual opinions – on poverty, for example. I guess it just feels pointless when the only person these opinions affects is me.