...and I was totally right.
On the drive up, Pak Yoko told me that he had lived in a village at the base of the mountain until 2010, when he evacuated ahead of a serious eruption and met his wife. After a winding drive through narrow village roads, we arrived in this village.
Pak Yoko took us on a short hike to the river and the waterfall that supplies his village with food.
The foreground of the scene and its beautiful backdrop provides a silent commentary on the rock and sand mining industries. I suppose I could provide an unsilent commentary, but I suspect that Pak Yoko could articulate that one better than I can. It's his home.
There was also a small waterfall. I thought that even with the manmade works surrounding it, the waterfall scene was entirely attractive.
We stayed in this area a while, exchanging stories. Pak Puguh, the sports teacher at the school, was seeing how far he could throw rocks to the other side of the river, and I decided I couldn't resist trying. We kept besting each other, though I won out in the end, in a triumph of sheer unsophisticated bulk over skill and practice. Suffice it to say that I will not be adapting this particular tale into a children's story to use in my teaching.
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| They will learn about letting the Wookiee win soon enough. |
Eventually, we made our way back to the village, in time to see some of the men performing a traditional dance.
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| Pictured: Good dancers, passable fake mustaches |
From what I could tell, this dance was less about the aesthetics of the movements and more about using the costumes to play rhythms. It's possible I'm wrong about this.
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| With the dance concluded and the stage clear, you can see the traditional musicians as well. |
After this dance, there was a long scheduled break before different dancers would perform different dancers in a hall area. In the meantime, we visited some food vendors, where I tried a traditional junk food (a sort of meatball) and ate some Indonesian peanuts, with which I am already familiar, but which I have yet to describe on this blog. Indonesians do not eat their peanuts as dry as Americans do. Indonesian peanuts are not as salty, but they have more flavor.
From the street vendors, we made our way to a couple different houses of village elders. I learned that these visits are an important part of the festival. I also learned that the festivals have been happening since the village was founded in 1937, that they feel it is their duty to perform the traditional rites even though the villagers follow Islam, and I learned a couple of words in the Javanese language, which is different from the Indonesian language. I also tried some Indonesian desserts made from sticky rice. My first night in Magelang, I tried a soup with sticky rice, which I did not enjoy, but I liked the desserts.
After this, we went to the hall to watch some students perform traditional dances. First up were four girls.
The hand movements in this dance suggested an Indian influence to me, although I could be wrong about that.
In this photo of the traditional dance, you can see a man wearing an Arsenal jacket in the foreground. I thought it was an interesting microcosm of what I have seen in Indonesia so far: a mixing of the old and the new, of Eastern and Western influences.
After the girls danced, four boy students performed a dance based on an Indonesian story of a monkey god who wants to become a human. I seem to recall having read a story similar to this in a book called American Born Chinese, although in that story, I think it was a monkey king who wanted to be a god.
During this dance, people came up to the area in front of the stage to play some traditional percussion instruments. You might or might not barely be able to make those people out in the above photo.
In addition to the percussion orchestra, this dance also featured spoken and chanted elements. There definitely seemed to be more storytelling in this dance than in the previous two, although, as always, I could be wrong about that.
I wouldn't have minded staying to see more dances---the festival lasts until around midnight---but we all had to get up early Tuesday to come to school and teach, so we left after the boys finished their dance. After that, it was the same drive back, but in the dark now. It made Pak Habib and Pak Puguh a little nervous. I guess growing up in Montana desensitized me to steep, narrow, winding roads. Pak Yoko didn't seem nervous to drive them, which makes sense given that he grew up there.
Next time: The Little Things
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