Saturday, December 26, 2015

My get-together with the students was okay. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. At first, I didn’t think they were going to show up. I had sent the main organizer, Rismah, a message the day before to just touch base and let her know that I was still willing and able to do the project and that I’d be in the lobby of the hotel at 1 p.m. as we discussed, etc. However, she never replied to that message, and she didn’t contact me through the dozen other apps and systems either. And I sat in the lobby for quite a while waiting for them. I started to hope that they wouldn’t show up at all. But at about 1:40, they got there.

Right from the start, things were weird. The second most important person in the group – the only man – approached me and asked me what I wanted to do and if I wanted to eat. I could only look at him in puzzlement. This was their project. They’d contacted me and asked me to help them do some English interviews, so it was up to them to decide what to do. Why ask me? And, like last time, they didn’t seem to know where to go to do the interview. I guess they hadn’t discussed it before or made any arrangements. That was eventually settled, and we drove around the corner to a modernish cafe. They had all come on scooters and we made quite an interesting group – another motorcycle English club.

By pure luck, they weren’t busy at the cafe, and there was a long table that we could sit at. For my money, it wasn’t ideal. The place was too noisy and too public. And the one long table made it difficult to interact with the students. I wanted to give good value as the foreigner and talk to everyone, but I was trapped against the wall in the middle of a long table, and I could only talk to the people right around me. I felt bad for the students at the far ends of the table, because they had no chance to interact with me.

We got menus, and they encouraged me to order food. I stood my ground this time and ordered just a drink. They got drinks as well, and then there was a vague kind of lost atmosphere as no one seemed to know how to officially begin the interviews. They were looking at me, and I was looking at them. I have no trouble taking charge and organizing an event. But to do so, I need information. And I had zero information about this project. To be honest, no one had even told me what we were going to be doing yet. I assumed we were doing interviews like before, but no matter how many questions I had asked, no one told me what was going on.

But after a long while, something began to happen. One end of the long table was designated as the interview spot. I sat at a chair there, and three students would sit around me and ask their questions. There were four groups, if I remember right. It was all a bit of a blur. These students weren’t as organized as the other groups I’d met, and it was all a bit chaotic and rushed. I tried to slow it down, but my efforts didn’t help much. The interviews would end rather abruptly, and I’d feel like I’d hardly answered any questions. And they ended each interview with long rambles thanking me for helping them and apologizing profusely for taking up so much of my time. They did the usual thing where they apologized so much that they ended up making me feel really bad.

The questions themselves were also not very interesting. And I don’t think my particular style came across. For example, one group asked me what jumped out at me about Tanjungbalai. What did I find interesting? I’m sure they expected me to talk about some traditional and boring thing. I was supposed to say that the food was delicious and the people were really friendly. But, honestly, the one thing that keeps surprising me is the cat population. There are so many cats here. And they are friendly. That’s very unusual because in most countries, boys throw rocks at cats and people kick them and torment them. You don’t see that many cats, and when you do see them, they are hiding. They are scared of people. Here in Tanjungbalai, you see cats everywhere. And they are not scared of people. They are very friendly. Even the street cats will come up to me to be petted. It’s kind of cool. I tried to tell them about this, but I think I just confused them. I thought they would understand and be able to relate, because it’s well-known that Muslims love cats. It’s part of their tradition and their history. But they didn’t seem to know why I was babbling about cats when I could be talking about how delicious the food was.

All too soon, the interviews were over and we were packing up to leave. We took some pictures together. Then there was some awkwardness about what happened next. I was more than willing to do something else, but they seemed to want to get rid of me. Normally, I’d just say goodbye and walk away. After all, we had literally driven right around the corner from my hotel. We were right across the street from one of my regular juice stands. So driving back by scooter was kind of silly. But when I suggested that, everyone seemed horrified. So I gave in, and I got on the back of the scooter with the man, and he drove me for fifteen seconds back to my hotel. All the students came along on their scooters, and they all parked in the alleyway.

Later on, I saw some pictures they posted on Facebook, and it looks like after they dropped me off, they all went to the local riverfront to hang out. I would have liked to have gone with them, but I wasn’t invited. That’s one of the difficult aspects of these cross-cultural relationships. You can never be sure of your ground. It is analogous to a host and a guest relationship. If you have a visitor staying at your house in Canada, you have to use all sorts of subtle cues to figure out what is appropriate behavior. As a host, you might offer all kinds of things. But as a guest, you know that you can’t accept all of them. Some are better than others. As a host, you might be polite and ask your visitor what they want for dinner. Maybe the visitor loves lobster, but the visitor isn’t going to say he or she wants lobster. It’s too expensive and too weird. The visitor is going to try to figure out what won’t be a burden on their hosts. Conversely, if the visitor stated a preference that would cause great inconvenience to the host, the host would have no trouble saying no and explaining why. Anyway, you do this little dance of polite social behavior to figure out how to get along. But with me and these students, there are no guidelines. I wanted to spend more time with them, but I was worried about saying anything. Perhaps they all needed to go home right away or needed to go to work. But if I, the honored guest, said “Hey, let’s go to Medan!” they’d probably all get on their scooters and drive five hours to Medan just to be polite. They’d do anything I said even if it caused them a huge amount of trouble. So I hardly dared suggest anything. And I think they were looking at me the same way. They had all apologized so much about taking up so much of my time. I think they assumed I just wanted this thing to be over so I could go back to my hotel. So they rushed through the interview and then rushed me back to the hotel. And I ended up feeling kind of dissatisfied. I didn’t get a real chance to talk to them or relax. You’d think after years of being in Asia, I’d have figured this out, but I still haven’t.

In terms of my health, things worked out better than could be expected. I was feeling better, but I was worried that we’d get to some place for the interview and then I’d have a desperate need for a bathroom. However, that didn’t happen. I felt fine during the interviews, though a bit weak and lightheaded. I wasn’t thinking clearly, as happens after a four-day self-imposed fast. After the interviews were over and the students had left, I decided it was time to have a meal – the true test of whether I’ve recovered or not. I had a full meal of rice and a bunch of vegetable dishes and chicken. It is the next morning now, and things seem to be okay. I was fine during the night. The verdict is not completely in, though. This new food hasn’t had a chance to make it through all of my intestines yet. It takes a while. I might find myself hit with a savage case of diarrhea. If that is the case, then I will get a course of antibiotics.

Tags: Sumatra Part 01