What About the Rooster? – Sailing Buru

come rain or shine

Three days, two nights through calms and countless squalls we sailed from Wakatobi to Buru.
We can never be too practiced in our reefing and sail-trimming. So, thank you NW Monsoon for these valuable lessons.

One thing we have learned during our latest passages is that our rain jackets are, in fact, rain catchers. The hood works like a funnel to the sky, leading the rain directly to the chest and down the whole front side. Five minutes in the rain and we must change both shirt and underwear.
‘Should have built a dodger,’ Riley keeps saying. But no, we decided to endure, come rain or shine. So here we sit in the cockpit, one shriveled from the sunburn and the other shriveled from the rain, making big plans for big hats and umbrellas. You must make do with what you have.

We were initially heading for Ambon, but when the wind turned east, we changed course and headed north to Buru. The thought of another day without sailing was enough to trigger the annoyance with which we tend to motor. We can get exceptionally grumpy when the sails hang slack and the fumes reek. We took Australia for granted.

But no matter how dull you think a passage might be, something unexpected always happens.

The second night from Wakatobi, Riley woke me up during his watch. There was something I had to see. Watch here to find out what it was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcIV2MwgN5Q

a realm of beauty and mystery

Buru island is big but has no reputation among sailors. And we had no expectations other than to find a decent place to drop the pick and wait for wind to take us east. But we were in for a surprise, for Buru turned out to be a Narnia. A realm of beauty and mystery.

We entered the bay at Leksula, passing between a reef and a small lime-stone rock, which with its overhang looked as if it was hovering above the water. The mountains bursting with the lushest rainforest, towered high into the sky behind a little colourful village on the beach.

Rare Company

We met Arafin, a 26-year-old English student, with over-the-top manners and an articulation like a college professor, at a Food House in town. He and his old schoolteacher Roni, a smaller man with a scholarly air about him, showed us around town, pointing out special sights.

The historical government building where the Japanese kept office during the war. Now, a dilapidated house with a group of young boys hanging out on the front step. The enormous hundred-year-old protestant church with the shiny rooster on top.
And at the front of the church, the Jesus statue with his fruit bowl and an arm stretched out in front of him so that it looked like he was hailing.

a real passion for foreign culture

We also swung by Roni’s house, which lay hidden among the erupting green on the edge of town. Here, he showed us his proud collection of Photographs of himself taken with foreigners, hanging on his living room wall like trophies. “Norwigia, Ingriss, Spanyol, Australi,” he recited as he pointed out the people in the photos, looking overly dignified to have been in such rare company. Then he coerced his family into taking a picture with us, in which they left us to smile alone.

(Two days later, in a village 20nm along the coast in Namrole, we ran into Roni again. He had gone to visit his uncle. He showed us a picture which he was carrying in his bag. It was a picture of the three of us and written above was Roni with Miss Klara from Denmark).

In a situation like this, I try to remind myself, that had I like Roni, Studied the world my whole life through books and television without ever being able to go see it, I might too have jumped at the sight of a foreigner and latched myself to them, pleading for them to be my best friend.
For there is no doubt that Roni has a real passion for foreign culture and a dream to one day visit them. And it is exactly with that passion that we ourselves travel around. I hope that Roni’s dream comes true, and that he will one day get to go to Europe. And I hope that when he does, he will meet someone as enthusiastic to show him around.

Who passes in the rain

As Arafin and Roni accompanied us back to the dinghy, it started raining. And we sought shelter in a small shop with fried bananas and Bakwans.

It rained heavily, and over an hour had passed before it stopped. The mountains were gone in a grey cloud, and the streets of the town were underwater. But it was a great view sitting in the shop, watching the rain and how it affected people who passed by.

Across the streets a group of kids were playing football in ankle-deep water, as if the rain had called for a special kind of game. While another group sat under shelter by the road, watching us watch them.

the monuments we see are of the present

I tried to ask Roni about the local history. I had read that Buru has quite a nuanced past, having seen both Dutch Colonization, and Japanese occupation, and has more recently been used as a prison site for political prisoners during the mass killings of 1965-1966, during which 500,000 to 1.5 million people were massacred. A historical tragedy that seems to have been completely suppressed in Indonesian history. And despite his claim that he, as a teacher, knew a lot about history, no stories to follow.

In that way Indonesia, at least the rural parts, is very different from most other places I have traveled. In most places I have been, it is common to walk about and look at the age of things and analyze how things have become to be the way they are. At home, we cherish ruins and anything that classifies as ancient because it allows us to time travel as well as travel physically. And it gives us great insight into the making of a culture. But here, where no tourists come with questions, the past seems to fade like an old photograph. Though there no doubt exists a history full of matter and detail, most of the monuments we see are of the present or at least not very old.

Unfortunately, I never learned why there is a rooster on top of the church. So I guess I must be content with the pastor’s explanation; “It wakes us up in the morning”
In the end, it is as good a reason as any.

Timeline

• 1658-1942 Buru was Colonized by the Dutch East India Company and then by Crown of the Netherlands.
• 1942-1945 Buru was occupied by the Japanese Army.
• 1950 Buru joined the Independent Indonesia.
• 1965-1966 somewhere between 500,000 to 1.5 communists and alledged communists were killed
• 1969-1979 Following the repression of the Indonesian far left, approximately 12,000 political prisoners were sent to a prison camp on Buru, where they suffered forced labor and torture. The prisoners were placed there without proper trial.

Thank you Leksula!