dear family:::
We've just come back into Malang after a morning at East Java's Taman Safari (sister to the one I visited in Bogor last . . . November? Really? My word.), which I would go on and on and on and on about because there were white Siberian tigers and racing cheetahs and blonde zebras and TRAINED DOMESTIC CATS in the Baby Zoo show but . . . well. Maybe I've already reached my limit on the whole Animal Kingdom thing. To the point where I was singing Adam-Ondi-Ahman; the earth was once a garden place, with all her glories common . . . Suffice it to say, we are excited for the Millennial days of Lamb and Lion.
What I will tell you about is the Getting There, which was not just half the fun but most of it.
It began normally enough; the usual angkot with a switch to the bus about twenty minutes in. The bus then dropped us off along the main road just outside the side lane to Taman Safari, which was lined with ojek. The motorcycle drivers that take on pillion passengers for sepuluh ribu. The motorcycles that, as missionaries, we are not allowed to ride. And there was no other way up the mountain.
So, like any good missionaries, we decided to walk? What's two kilo, anyway? Because that's what the bus driver told us as we got off: two kilometers. Which we believed until we got to the sign that said 5 kilometers, and even that was okay. Until residents along the way (who were racing out to their front porches to watch those crazy bule, btw) insisted it was more like 7. Or 8. Or 10. And that was also uphill.
We were maybe one kilo in when the pick-up stopped, and it didn't take us half a second to take them up on the offer. Long story short: we hitch-hiked our way to the Safari entrance, spent a happy few hours among the animals, and then hitched our way home, too. Pick-up, '76 Mercedes, bus, angkot, angkot. The only thing better than riding in such style was to watch other people's reaction to us riding in such style. The ticket-takers at the gate? Priceless. So I'd like to say here and now, Thank you Indonesia. For your beautiful people. Your beautiful country. This beautiful day. SisLily: "I am exhausted from happiness."
Photos to follow [make that above]. In the meantime, More News:
A sister in our branch passed away this week; she was not sick but old and so her death was not unexpected, but still sad. We all attended the funeral last Thursday, which was an interesting cultural experience for me that I haven't quite been able to process onto paper. It was very dust-to-dust . . . almost . . . primitive, and I'm afraid I didn't like it----which then led to some serious E Evaluation and thinking on the effects of ethnocentrism (word?) and what it means to be right or wrong in the cultural sense of things and am I just crazy? But maybe that is a (personal) essay for another time.
One really interesting thing about funerals in the Javanese tradition is that they last for years----the actual ceremony and burial is performed within 24 hours of their death, and then seven days later a sort of commemorative gathering is held, and then 40 days later is yet another remembrance event, followed by the hundred day mark, then the year's passing, and finally a thousand days' benediction. On our way to the Seven Day gathering Marno explained to me that they believe within the first 40 days the deceased's spirit is still near (if not in) the house, close to family and friends to observe the comings and goings and commit to memory their earthly sphere. As every celebratory milemark passes, however, that spirit is traveling further and further from this Life and into the Next----to a place that Marno couldn't quite clarify, but I suppose must be the Javanese version of Heaven. So it was all quite fascinating. And the food, prepared by member-chef-extraordinaire Sister Eni, was fantastic. Oh, nasi goreng. Yes, please.
Elder Greenwell was transferred to Medan, the first of our 52B to leave this island. And yeah, we knew it would happen---and, if anyone, that it would be him---but we were strangely upset by the development. (Selfishly; this means we won't see him next Zone Conference, and I'm beginning to think I won't see him the rest of my mission. It's funny. We're family.) In another round of somewhat sad news, I was struck with a really stupendously-sniffly case of some sort of sinus infection. I was okay for a minute, but then it put me in bed for a few days with the whole heavy/puffy/throbbing head thing. I learned two things during this time of confinement:
The first: being sick is not fun. I think we all know this, but you'd have to agree that sometimes, just sometimes maybe being sick is kind of fun. You get to rest. Stop a minute. Breathe (at least through one nostril, or your mouth). And yes, that is nice. But not for three days. And not in Indonesia. On your mission. When you are sick on your mission in Indonesia for three days there are no books to read or movies to watch or family members to pester into pointless conversations. There are scriptures (which are good, but a bit much 24/7), and there are chicken nugget sandwiches, and there is SisLily. But it is not the same. Walking outside yesterday was quite literally new life and I fell in love all over again with this place. The women driving motorcycles in stilettos! The banana market set up on cardboard boxes before you reach the station! The babies snug all rag-doll-style from their mothers' batik wraps, asleep amidst the chaos.
The next thing I learned, or rather thought about, was a line from an article sent to me in the happiest of red envelopes from Martha. This article about the latest trends in Doggie Mansions was mostly just gobsmacked sort of hilarity (" . . . a vineyard owner on the East Coast hired an artisan to hand-paint each brick of her doggy's digs to match those on her own mansion . . . ") and would have stayed that way if it weren't for the very last sentence, attributed to another mutt's mom commenting on how she felt about outside criticism for such flagrant excess (we'll just skip over the glaring juxtaposition given current economic situations, shall we?). I don't have the exact article with me, but the sentence went something like this:
"Of course there will be criticism. But everyone has their own standards. There is no right and wrong."
Pause. Rewind. Excuse me?
"There is no right and wrong." Since when did the World adopt this motto and why did I only ever seem to see it so starkly since becoming a missionary? I have come to thinking that I was actually quite naive all of only eleven months ago. I mean, I didn't think so (but is that part of the innocence?); I read, I watch, I listen. The Times, BBC, NPR. So yeah, maybe I could keep up with current events and throw in a few cents when it came to people and places and things. But psychologically? I was not prepared for what the World really is.
Because that quote kind of encapsulates just about everything I've had to learn this last little while on my mission. To a lot of people, there is no clear-cut right-and-wrong. There is no strictly good or explicitly bad. There is no black, there is no white, and who is God, anyway? seems to be a lot of what I've been hearing---or more correctly, seeing. Because you can, you can see it. In the consequences. In the blessings. And, actually, is it not completely obvious? The World is so flagrantly deceptive, so blatantly . . . base.
Moral Relativism scares me.
A thought that will have to be completed next week, as time is up. Sorry to jump off at such a critical moment---but maybe you already have all this figured out, anyway, in which case you can easily fill in the blanks. I love you immensely and miss you especially---there are no shades of grey here: you are Good. Great. The most best and brightest thing in my life. Sampai nanti, kan?
xoxo,
E.
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