Days are passing quickly here. The roosters begin their yodels at 3:00 am and continue with the shrieks of pigs and the clucks of hens through the call to prayer around 5:00 am, and people stir. And if I rise for a run around 5:30, which has occurred twice now, there will already be people up and active, sweeping their porches and preparing for the day. The sun rises and, after evening thunderstorms, days warm quickly, wet things dry, and the air is thick with moisture. At the TNC office (Nature Conservancy), where the students and instructors meet, Mamma David serves up a nutritious breakfast of white rice and beans and greens or eggs and fishy things, and the students of the ethno-ecological study gather around the kitchen that looks out to the Wehea river, and we say “salamat pagi”, good morning, and those with more refined knowledge of Bahasa Indonesian exchange a few more words. Coffee is eagerly consumed, a fine powder that is stirred into hot water with white sugar.
The biodiversity students left yesterday with Brent for the Wehea forest, leaving behind the ethno-ecological (anthropology) students to remain in the village.
The home where I am staying sees Letdje Tag, the elementary school principal and the Adat (customary law) leader of the region, smoking cigarettes before work at his desk near the kitchen table, and if I see him before he departs, he offers me a drink of Teh or Kopi. The house has no ceiling and the roof rafters rise to 18 feet or so, and the Ulin wood floor is dense darkwood, is not slippery in the rain, and dries quickly. In Wehean, a local dialect distinct from Bahasa Indonesian that is spoken generally throughout Indonesia, Ulin wood is “Welen” wood, I learned today.
There is nothing in the Tag living room, save for framed photos of the the Kepela Adat (Ledje Tag) shaking hands with important-looking white men and others who appear perhaps to be more local, evidence of his illustrious reputation as an esteemed Adat leader. There is little need for living room furniture here, where people are comfortable sitting on the floors, which are pristine. Shoes are not permitted on the floors. Some people do have chairs and couches, but apparently they are rarely used.
As I write, I see a heat rash developing on my hands, and the ants - many no bigger than a pencil dot and some like fire ants, the diameter of a dime – seem to like my feet, which are now peppered with red dots. Aside from that I am healthy, and the plantar facsiitis of my right foot seems to be faring well in the heat, and I am optimistic that I can continue to run, and that when I depart from Borneo, all that ails me will be cured. Granted, my own plumbing system was plugged for a few days, but I gladly report that things have been working regularly for two days now.
Later, near the ceremonial square and the football field, I joined a game of volleyball, while Paul and Mick joined in a football (soccer) game. Given the tenuous state of my foot, volleyball seemed a safer selection. Before that,as I attempted to study a little on the Ulin steps of the town ceremony building, replete with its intricately carved massive wooden pillars, a group of 10ish year old boys playing football came to sit with me and recounted their names with a famous footballer's name as their second name, and taught me how to say "this is my book" in Indonesian.
At the going down of the sun, after dinner, we joined at the Shaman's house; encircled his kitchen floor for palm wine and beetlenut. In the dim fluorescent light and the old woman near with earlobes opened by circlets and dropping to her clavicles, I found myself eager to try beetlenut, after having been told that it enhances endurance and opens the air passages. I have saved a little beetlenut to test on my run tomorrow morning :-) Indeed, days are passing quickly here.
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On a historical note, today staff from the TNC recounted the history of Wehea forest, beginning in the 1965, when there were no logging regulations to limit massive deforestation that occurred through the 70s in Borneo; through to the granting of logging concessions in the 80s that empowered logging companies to log in Borneo without consideration for land tenure among indigenous communities; through to trans-migration 1993-1998 of people from Java to Borneo to alleviate overcrowding, many of whom came to the Wehea region and established new communities; to Suharto’s “cronyism” in granting no-interest loans to parties willing to invest in logging concessions; to the fall of Suharto, in 1998; to post-Suharto laws that allowed people the right to claim 100 Ha of land, but many of which rights were sold to logging companies; to 2003/4 when the government divided land in Wehea for industrial uses for which claims could be made, when many tribes made claims over the land; to the 2004 Adat meeting at which many diverse interests sought permits to use Wehea forest, the result of which was Adat and regional protection of Wehea forest, and logging concessions were revoked; to the present status in which national protection status is still being sought, disputes remain about border areas, and other administrative issues are stalling national protection status for the Wehea forest (my notes are not necessarily accurate).
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