Last Sunday, I left the expat orbit behind and daytripped to a tennis match with a little team I’ve joined. In the early morning hours, two dozen Indonesian men in the their 40s and 50s, well-heeled, driving SUVs, struck out for Sigli, a farming hub two hours north.

I jumped in with two young lecturers from the local university, Johhni, a jovial engineer and Rahman, a quiet law specialist. We sped out across the rice paddies in Rahman’s vinyl-interior Toyota minivan, cheese pop circa 1985 blasting from the tape deck. Celine Dion made an appearance, as did Whitney Houston. In the paddies, stooped workers in straw hats sliced at the rice plants with handheld scythes. Behind them to the southwest was a massive forested ridge, maybe 2,500 meters tall. The cone of volcano loomed directly ahead, silhouetted in morning mist. I dozed in the back while the other two gabbed (I assume) about internal academy politics up front.

Banana plantations gave way to hardwood and softwood groves as we climbed up around the side of the volcano. Some of the forests had been freshly cut. A sign by the side of the road said “Stop illegal logging!” in English and Indonesian. We passed a small collection of wooden barracks where tsunami refugees were being housed, and also a huge police base.

Three years ago, this two-lane road was offlimits to tourists and both sides of stormy Acehnese conflict — rebels and Indonesian military — had alternating roadblocks. On this day, Rahman merely had to avoid enormous potholes, construction crews hiding behind blind curves, swaying buses and trucks, and leathery, old men in sarongs riding their bicycles against the traffic.

When we reached Sigli around 9am, the sun was already beating down on the two smooth hardcourts, just a stones’ throw from the main downtown mosque. The Sigli group looked younger, fitter, better equipped and, due to that simple math, just plain better. Sportingly, they did offer up plenty of little plastic water containers, sweet breakfast cakes, mandarins, bananas and peanuts.

But by 10 am, it was clear that all the peanuts in Sigli weren’t going to rescue us. They methodically took down our first several doubles groups (nobody plays singles in this heat, so hot that nobody bothers to measure). And the temperature only continued to rise. To combat it, players waiting on the sideline in a tiny, open cement clubhouse sparked up cigarettes. In the shade, they rapped dominos down on a wooden board. A pack of boys watching patiently started to play tag. And I just sweated it out on the sidelines, sucking down as much water as I could: I was the sixth and final group scheduled to play before lunch.

One of the Banda guys wanted to talk politics while blowing smoke at me. “Who do you like, George Bush? Clinton? Obama?” “George Bush bad, he just make War. Obama,” a big thumbs up. “Obama, Indonesia.” Apparently, his time in Jakarta as a grade schooler is scoring points.

Towards 11, the girl in a white head scarf behind the food table was getting antsy like me. “Mister, you don’t play?” I think the kids half expected Pete Sampras himself to lope onto the court, and this wait was only building the anticipation.

But thanks to the oppressive heat, I was a poor imitation. Through four games we hung tough, me and middle-aged, scrappy Mr. Hamza, and we kept the score tied. Then I started to feel drunk. After we switched sides halfway through, the sun was directly in our face. They threw up lobs and my legs wobbled every time I tried to get in position to hit an overhead smash. I dumped a bunch in the net and I think we lost 7-4.

But the loss was a small pain compared to sitting down. I thought I was going to pass out cold. I couldn’t focus my hands to grasp the water cups fast enough. One young player kindly offered up his pack of cigarettes. Another man handed me a cup of coffee. I passed them both up but after watching people throughout the day I see these are gentle coping mechanisms.

“Panas?” everyone kept saying when they saw my red face. “Panas.” Hot. Thankfully Johhni, the next youngest guy from Banda was also struggling. “Panas,” he said shaking his head after his match. Granted, he was wearing sweatpants like most of the older guys (I was in shorts). But he’d also lived here his whole life.

After noon, when the gang had downed a hot lunch of fish and greens on rice, the courts emptied out for prayer. Johhni and Rahman changed into slacks and cleaned up a bit and walked over to the mosque. I lay down on a bench in the shade and tried to relax. The muazin called over the loudspeaker. When he’d finished, a couple of boys in flip flops took over one of the courts. One twelve year old whalloped big looping topspin forehands with my racket, which he’d grabbed off the bench.

A couple of them came over and sat with me after playing. “Mister, Dari Mana?” They all wanted to know. Where are you from? Then we listed off players. “Rafeal Nadal,” they said. “Andy Roddick,” I said. “Roger Federer….James Blake…,” they said.

I got three of them to join me at dominos and we just barely finished one game before the men came back from the mosque, surrounded the table and booted the kids out. I stepped away as well.

In my second match, with a wily old guy, Isa, who has half his teeth, we stole seven games from an older Sigli pair. Sitting down after that one, I noticed a player from Sigli had taken off his shirt. In Banda, none of our group shows even a knee. I thought about it a while. My t-shirt was spongy. I looked at the shirtless guy a couple more times. Finally, I shed mine. And it’s never felt so good to take off my shirt.

Johhni and an older dude lost another match to a 50-year-old man in a stiff, green Che Gueverra hat and his teenage partner who could have been his son. Both the Sigli guys attacked the net like pros. Immediately afterwards, Che hat looked at me and said. “My friend, we play you.”

I rounded up a Banda guy with a massive forehand but we could not get to the Sigli pair. The more the heat wilted me, the stronger Che hat got. Everytime they needed to hit a strong return or big serve they did. The old man aced me up the middle in the final game and served out the match for a 7-4 win.

Four-o’clock approached. “We go to pray, be right back,” Rahman said. A match was going on between some younger locals and they halted and leaned against the fence for two minutes right at 4. When the muazin’s voice stopped, they picked up where they’d left off.

I’d had enough of the sweltering tennis life for one day and I asked Rahman if we could leave. “This is the last match; we wait till the end.” I went to the store for three more bottles of water and Pacari Sweat sports drink.

When I came back, the match had ended and everyone from both teams was in a circle. Two captains from Sigli and our organizer, Muhammad, each spoke; they started off with a “Assalamu Alaikum,” to which everybody responded the same, heartily. Then they launched into winding, 5-minute monologues, which Rahman later said were thanks yous and more detailed appreciations. During one speech, my teammate Mr. Aswa, grabbed a drink bottle wordlessly out of my hand. The gathering finished with a giant handshake between both teams. A couple of the Sigli guys, including the kid who I’d played last, gave me warm “Thanks yous.” “See you next time,” I offered.

The wind through the windows felt awesome on the trip back. An hour into the journey, we pulled into the town of Saare, on the back of the volcano. The markets and food stalls and coffee drinkers crept into the road here and traffic slowed to a crawl. We stopped with two other team cars and took over a table at a crowded café. They all ordered coffee and I tracked down some spicy mie noodles at a stall down the row.

There wasn’t a parking spot to be had and buses were emptying out: it was nearing 7 and people were flowing to a newly built, unpainted concrete mosque with a Turkish dome. My crew left me to finish my noodles and walked across the street to pray.

When the muazin’s voice stopped just after seven, the entire feverish village fell hush. I looked out on the road and the traffic had cleared. People seemed to freeze for a moment. On the hillside, a dusky, marine mist floated. Sittin in my shirt, now stiff with the day’s sweat, I drank deeply from the pause.

It grew dark as we descended into Banda. Johhni fell asleep at shotgun. Rahman and I rapped a little in English as he dodged motorcycles. He wanted to know if it was rude when he asked whether I was married with children, in, maybe, the first five minutes I knew him. My response there in the car was to go on and on about the dissolution of the American family and only 30% of kids in nuclear families and husbands doing the cooking. “So is it a problem, if I ask you?” he said again. “No, I said.” Then I asked: “What do you think of Sharia law?” “We need to have limits,” he said. “So you favor it?” I said inching closer. “It’s a good thing.” I thought about pressing him, about how Hayley is chaffing under the clothes restrictions and the paternalism that seems to come with it. But Rahman quickly turned up the radio. It was Bob Marley, singing ‘Could you be loved?’ And, after a long day, it was hard to argue with Bob.

Take care until next time,
Oakley

Last night, I was having déjà vu all over again — gasping about real estate with a couple of other folks around a living room. Apparently, you can’t escape the parlor game of the ‘00s, no matter where you are.

We are looking for a place to rent, and until very recently, that’s been a pricey exercise in Banda. The rental market has been hot here since the tsunami response drew droves of foreigners here looking for houses to both set up shop and bed down in. Local opportunists learned they had a captive market and the prices skyrocketed. One Spaniard sitting around the room last night said that in late 2005, when he began looking around for a solid, long-term rental with a couple of fellow aid workers the going rate was $30,000. “At first I asked, ‘Is that to own?’” he remembers. “And they said ‘No, it’s to rent for one year.’”

The street where we’re currently staying hosts many aid offices, expat residences and now two massive villas just being finished. They’re no doubt the fruits of local landowners’ labor in the rental market. One is a Dwell house on steroids – cool, sharp angles and grey and black hues with funky smallish windows, all weighing in at about 10,000 square feet. The other palace is Deep South meets the Middle East, complete with a 15-feet-wide coronating dome over the columned entryway.

With craigslist still holding out on a new Banda site, we’d been told the only way to find a rental house was to knock on people’s doors and ask them if they’re willing to move out for a year. If this smacks of passive colonialism to you, you’re not alone. On my first trip around town, I had a driver from Hayley’s agency to do the initial asking for me. (While I sheepishly waited in the car). We stopped at maybe five houses and got only one invitation in for a look.

But I did get an extensive tour of some of the neighborhoods, which have a charming jumbled quality. These palatial villas give way to a bumpy dirt track with a row of one-floor stucco houses, coups of squawking chickens, packs of cats, potted orchids and children running around the front yard. Then you’re in a palm grove all of the sudden, with a traditional Achenese rattan house up on stilts and a cooking fire smouldering in front, and then bang back out on the hustling main road.

Emboldened by the car trip, I set out solo this week on my moto, bound for a neighborhood nestled up against lush hills West of downtown. There’s a hotel there called the Green Paradise, where the walls are washed verdant and many expats have camped out long term. I stopped nearby at a rickety wooden coffee shop to grab a tea, and a bleary-eyed man with quick English began chatting me up. When he heard I was looking for a house, he paid for my tea and took me down the street to see a home near a whining sawmill. “You want?” he said. “Nah,” I said, pointing to the saw.

I told him I had another house in the area in mind – one with a rare “Rumah di Menyewa” sign out front. “That’s my brother’s house,” he said. A real estate market like this can create plenty of kinship.

We finally did get a look at the “brother’s” house. Apparently, it’d been used by a medical NGO. After a cozy entry room with some couches, it opened to a huge dining and living area with a gigantic 10-foot-by-10-foot photo mural of the Hajj at night. The back bedrooms were all still numbered; I stopped noticing at “5”. Certain that we weren’t looking to house a football team, I said to my new friend. “Tell your brother we’ll call him if we’re interested.” Some lines do work all over.

Hayley and I ventured out again yesterday in an expat-heavy enclave near the World Food Programme HQ. But the most promising lead was a WFP security guard-cum-real estate agent who insisted he’d keep an ear out for us: “I already have lots of foreign friends — you know Rob, Ceci…” and he rattled off a bunch more Western names.

That leaves us, at the end of this week, with one solid option: a medium-sized home at the end of a quiet street about half a mile from where we’re staying. It’s got an ample stoned driveway that’s prime turf for a potted plant garden, and an interior patio area with a fountain. It also comes with a kind, young landlord whose negotiations hint the ex-pat driven bubble here may be deflating.

He had planned to fix up the house — a former aid-worker pad — and live in it himself. Indeed, the first time we saw it, there was a drop cloth and scaffolding in one room where a leaky roof was being fixed; Another room was piled with old clothes and household flotsam.

But the landlord’s restaurant, a heavy favorite among the humanitarians, has hit the doldrums. “In 2005, you needed a reservation to get in every night,” he said. When we went there on a recent Thursday, there was one other table occupied.

In the house, he offered to throw in amenities— air conditioners, furniture, internet — if we moved in. And he was flexible on price, as well.

So the terms of the market are changing. It has a familiar ring to it. But somehow, the stakes feel higher here.

Take care until next time,
Oakley

To live here is to live with, maybe even embrace, a lot of low-grade disorder. Litter crawls all over open spaces — roadsides, store entryways, parks, soccer fields — led by the irrepressible plastic water bottle. The trash combines with mud to create a kind of thin layer of sludge that gathers in cracks and corners of the open air bistros and shops.

There are the roadways: It’s a Baja rally out there everyday. The center line and what you and I might call traffic rules are afterthoughts. On my morning scooter commute, about two miles to a little office near Hayley’s where I squat and commune with the ‘Net, I can count on the following: large potholes taken at high speed, grandma coming in from driveway on the left without looking, junior screaming by down the center on his souped-up dirtbike (no helmet), an SUV – probably an NGO driver — surfing my back tire, becak motorcyle taxis doing Ueys whenever a customer hails, dude with his cart stacked with bread cycling along on flat tires. That’s all before the first and only stoplight (most people do stop) the commercial strip (add delivery trucks and shoppers and stir) and busy T-intersection where it’s every man for himself (if you slow down you might never make it, if you take it too fast a car might help you stop).

Nature also constantly lurks — you’ve heard of the earthquakes but this week we also had some afternoon downpours that sprung up quickly out of 90-degree mornings and pounded the tin roofs around here.

And finally there’s also the wildness of living off raw foods. This is a bit more negotiable. Banda has outposts of the Pante Pirak supermarket chain all over town. They have some frozen meats and fruit and rows upon neat rows of every imaginable canned and packaged thing. But we are living in the tropics and we’re perched on the sea and so I figured I needed to give the fresh fish market a try.

It’s in Peunayong, the historical Chinatown I’m told and neighborhood that today crackles with commerce. On this Monday morning, the blocks were lined with becaks and motorcycles and the shopfronts pulsed with a hefty bunch of buyers and merchants and coffee sippers; at the center of it all was the market, a two-story cement structure that smelled of low tide. (A shiny sign out front designated which international agencies had helped rebuild it.) The fray and the whiff intimidated a little, but there was an open space to park my scooter at the end of the block so I was all out of excuses.

I went up the stairs to the first level and waded into the rows through an inch of gut sludge and melted icewater. Everyone quickly wanted a piece of my wallet. “Mister!” “Sir!”, pointing at their catch. Mounds of squid and prawns and bony fish the size of perch. Some mongers had big, beefy tunas. I was after a white fish to go with an American chef’s recipe we’d looked up the night before. Everything was whole — anybody seen a whitefish? I was quickly lost. After passing a whole row of goods, I paused to regroup.

“Hello,” said a merchant nearby. He was an outsized Indonesian carving up a small tuna and for a minute it seemed like he wasn’t trying to sell me anything. “I’m looking for a white fish.” He looked at me puzzled. I pointed to a white stripe on my shirt. “This color.” He split open the tongol to show me the redish flesh. I shook my head. He called over a friend. And they figured it out. “We don’t have putih,” he said finally. Then, laughing, “No school for me. I don’t learn English.” He tapped his chest: “ GAM, we fight,” and fired off an imaginary round from a pantomine AK. “That one there,” he said pointing to his friend, was also a former seperatist: “GAM.”

When he heard I was from Amerikaaa he lit up. “Hasan Di Tiro,” he said and rattled off a few Indonesian sentences. Di Tiro, one of the GAM leaders, lived in New York as an exile for a long time. “New York,” I said. “Hasan di Tiro,” he said. Lots of nodding.

He took hold of fresh, silvery five-pound tuna with a round belly. “You want his one?” he asked. Why not? He had led me out of the wilderness of this place. I’m willing to fasten on to a semblance of a guide.

He macheted open a slit along the fish’s belly, pulled out the intestines and threw them in a pile behind his table. He dipped his hand in a bucket of burgundy water and then laid the fish on some banana leaves and sliced off the scales and fins. He cut two big steaks on either side of the spine and ribcage. Then he looked at me and said in Indonesian “How big?” I showed maybe two inches with my thumb and forefinger. He diced the steaks, the head and the spine pieces and threw them all in a plastic bag.

As I parted with my whole, bloody fish, he said his name. I don’t remember it just now. But I do remember what happened next: I asked where, in the sea of prawn dealers, were some good ones. He motioned to a place down the row. I went right there.

Take care until next time,
Oakley

The mostly leafy, beach series. Some shots in Banda Aceh. More street life to come. Click to enlarge.

Hiking to the beach near Lampuuk…

In Banda Aceh…

Another trip to the beach. This area was hit hard by tsunami. Friends say there wasn’t a crowd like this last year.

Near the village of Lampuuk, where the mosque withstood the onslaught. The fishing boats are beached for the windy season.

If you’re like me when you travel abroad, you find yourself working hard to earn the approval of local folks. It’s sort of like the first day of school with a bunch of people you don’t understand. I try not to talk too loud; I smile way more than I do at home; I’m constantly doing this gracious nodding motion; I strive not to be too competitive on the soccer field; I fumble with local words and goofy sign language.

Also, I don’t want to feed the myth that Americans are this brash, loud, trampling lot. I have a strong sense that I want us to be liked, as much as I want to be liked. And here in the early 2000s, the stakes for the collective us being liked seem to be even higher.

The free-spirited Acehnese have been mostly warm, showing me around this twisty city, teaching me snippets of the local dialect and even courteously asking what kind of things I liked to drink and smoke in the evening hours. Along the roadside, kids inevitably smile and call out “Hello, Mister,” the rough translation of the Indonesian familiar title “Bapak”. I’ve walked into regular tennis and volleyball groups and always been quickly ushered onto the court, as if they were expecting me. And even though I skip out on the national pastime here — smoking — the groups have always insisted I come back.

Not everyone is best buddy to the “bulek”. Some teenagers scream fiercely out of their car windows at me as they go whizzing by and at least one dude swerved towards me when I was running along the side of the road last week. Several ex-pat women have had their breasts grabbed by passing motorcyclists.

But in the face of an onslaught by Westerners with all the aid agencies (the streets are crawling with UN and NGO vehicles), the Acehenese seem to be quite accepting. They have never had a beef with the West; their independence movement even had sort of Western overtones — self-determination, economic prosperity — and they chased off the Indonesian Islamic radicalists when they once sought an alliance.

At times, this place can even feel like a bubble removed from Iraq, the adventures of W-ville and ugly Americanism. It’s refreshing to know that we haven’t completely blown our reputation everywhere.

Then I went to buy a tennis racket yesterday, at a small sports shop down the road that I have passed a dozen times but which took a local to help me find it. Inside, I honed in on a “Wilson” racket that they admitted was a knock-off made in Taiwan. An Indonesian guy hanging out there heard my English, and, finding out I was from the States, said, “I used to live in Kentucky. I can translate if you want to offer a lower price.” With his help, I managed to get it down $10 to $60. (They also agreed to string the racket but only to 58 pounds because they’re afraid the knock-off will break otherwise.)

Afterward the guy translating said, “I jumped ship in Miami and went up to work at a Chinese restaurant in Kentucky. I had a friend there. I took some orders you know. Then the WTC happened. I got really scared. People didn’t like Muslims and they were doing these sweeps you know. Immigration.”

“I got scared! I got out of there. My friend stayed and they came around and checked all the workers. He’s Ok. But I was scared! People don’t like Muslims and I look Asian…”

“Not everyone is like that,” I said.

“I know,” he said, smiling.

We agreed to play tennis sometime. I hope we can play a lot of tennis. After a while, I think he’ll like us.

Take care until next time,
Oakley