Day 277: Relaxing Morning at Lodge — Afternoon at Fish Market — “Halloo Beh-Beeee!”
Last night I slept from 8 pm to 6 am straight!! Despite this being a very rustic spot, the little AC unit gets the job done when you keep the bedroom doors closed, and all the big boy geckos appeared to be outside the building. Snooze Fest 2019 for me.
Morning here at Sea World is very quiet and casual. The sea is glassy and there are maybe 1-2 other guest rooms occupied? We had breakfast in the indoor-outdoor “restaurant.” The buffet includes a modest spread of some cut fruit, sliced bread and jams. There’s coffee and eggs if you want them.
This place is rickety and old and charming.
We spent the morning doing some very peaceful school, then had lunch by the water.
At 3:30 Marino and Yopi picked us up for an afternoon excursion to a local fishing village and fish market about 30 minutes away from Maumare.
The village itself is a Muslim community of about 900 people whose houses are constructed on stilts over the water.
Honestly our first impression of the place was: Holy shit look at all the trash. The houses weren’t built over water, they were built over landfill. Even for us, who’ve seen insane trash-clogged habitats all over the world this year — especially in Asia — this was a shock. Just look at this house:
It was really overwhelming. “At least the goats have lots of snacks!” was Willa’s positive take.
Indeed, there were many goats (and rats) under each house munching away on bottles and boxes. No dogs, anywhere, though, as it’s a Muslim community and dogs are considered….filthy.
An ad for Indonesian cigarettes we’ve seen everywhere. “Never quit!!”
The walk through town was lively and fun, though. We watched kids play by the water and once again noted the stark difference between the west’s helicopter hoverer parents and the developing world’s, um, “hands off” approach. Solo toddlers peering over concrete ledges into rocky waters below, no parents in sight. Barefoot soccer. Everyone eating some kind of popsicle or junk food. Babies carrying babies. Our nerds were, once again, very envious of this total freedom.
There was also a heavy dose of celebrity happening during this visit — with Willa being the celebrity. James was popular as always, but swarms of moms and little girls followed Willa and waved — giggling and ooh and aahing at her hair.
“They’re saying her golden hair and blue eyes look like a babydoll,” Marino translated for us. At one point an older girl (13?) was bold enough to pursue us for a photo on her smartphone, and all the girls in her group crowded around for a smiling selfie and some more pics. At one point Willa removed her big sun hat and I’m not kidding, everyone in the little circle shrieked loudly with giddy delight at the sight of her hair.
James is not into this kind of attention — he prefers dudes who want to kick the ball and wrestle with him, not cheek-pinching ladies. Willa, on the other hand, was eating. this. up.
We always ask her if she actually wants to be in these pics and make sure she’s on board. We keep reminding her that she can always say no if she feels uncomfortable (as James does).
Her very pleased response: “I feel like I’m famous!” (Oh lord)
This went on and on as we strolled through the village streets. I’ll never forget the smiling calls and waves of “Hallo beh-beeee” to Willa and James from moms and grandmas everywhere. I’ve started saying it myself and it’s stuck.
At one point there was a big crew of kids playing soccer by the waterfront mosque. Most were barefoot and playing aggressively on top of rock piles on scalding concrete. My pansy city feet hurt just watching. After a while, a group of kids stopped playing and came closer to check us out.
There was some teasing and shoving among the kids until one boy about 8 — with a streak of dyed blue in the front of his hair — stepped forward to Willa, put his chin up, stretched out his hand and said “Hello!”
When she shook it, all his little friends clapped him on the back and cheered.
Marino translated that it had been a dare and the bravest boy had stepped up to accept the challenge. I’ll come back to this.
Eventually we made our way to the fish market next to the village. Stall after stall of red snapper, tuna, sardine-like fish and squid lined up on plywood counters in the golden hour sun. Locals were coming to buy their dinner. No westerners.
It wasn’t particularly smelly because all of these fish had literally just been netted and hadn’t been gutted yet. But, for an ichthyophobe like me, it was still sensory overload.
Especially when I spotted THIS MONSTER FISH HEAD. Eeeeeeeeeek!!! Hahahahhahahha. Omggggg.
There was more kid cheek pinching and photos.
We decided to buy a small tuna because Pedro our Indonesia travel agent said his favorite thing to do is buy one at the market and have the cook back at Sea World make fresh sashimi out of it. Ok!
Marino helped us decide on a fresh one.
We also bought a bunch of mangos and a pineapple.
AND we got two balls — a small one for the nerds and a bigger one for the kids we saw playing soccer.
As we walked back to the car and to Yopi, we saw a group of kids playing, including the one with the dyed blue hair! James and Willa handed him the ball — and we told Marino to translate that it was his reward for being the bravest kid. He was thrilled! Ha!
We also spotted a mama goat with three week-old babies. She was nervously protecting them with her back against a wall as another group of small kids was having a blast…throwing plastic trash at her. Eventually they upped the ante and started throwing…a rooster at her. Over and over.
Throw the Rooster at the Nervous Mama Goat was our cue to leave town.
On the ride home, with our tuna in a cooler in the trunk, Yopi stopped at a roadside stand for some pisang goreng, or fried bananas. Marino explained that he’d been talking about this particular stand all week, dreaming of finally getting to stop for what he believes are the best fried bananas in town.
They were delicious and we had to prevent James from eating the whole bag.
Back at the hotel we convinced Marino and Yopi to stay for the tuna sashimi, which the kitchen was slicing up and preparing with lime and salt and pepper (more like ceviche?).
While we waiting, Marino and Yopi played money in the middle and keep away with Willa and James. Once again, for the millionth time, dudes jumping in to play pickup sports games with kids in a way we have not seen a woman do ONCE on this trip. So fascinating.
Yopi hadn’t had raw fish before — and while he believes the giant fish eyeball is the best part of a fish, he was pretty grossed out by the sashimi concept. Marino explained he had to have a few nervous cigarettes before trying it…ha! Poor Yopi.
The sashimi was delicious. Props to Pedro for conceiving of this idea.
Over dinner and a few Bintangs, Marino regaled us with awful tales of Bali tourism.
Example: Told us about the Russian guy he took to a snake farm to drink cobra blood. It’s apparently a “thing” with Russian and Chinese bros. He described how the guy picked a cobra from a tank, the owner chopped of his head and poured cobra blood into a glass, mixed it with arak (local schnapps made from palm trees) and took it down in one gulp.
Supposed to promote virility. Costs $100. So fucking gross on so many levels. But good to know what’s (still) going on out here.
In other news, Willa and James LOVED the raw tuna. Bodes well for Japan in December!!
MISC
This article had a line in it that jumped out at me: “A movement to be ‘post-digital’ will emerge in 2020…We will start to realize that being chained to your mobile phone is a low-status behavior, similar to smoking.”
Totally.
I can confirm that people all over the developing world — and their kids — are out here staring at their screens 24/7. “Rich” countries do this too, obviously, but these days there’s at least some shame associated with the behavior and a movement away from it (eg, a friend recently joked that she was scrolling Instagram but hid her phone inside a big paperback novel so her kids wouldn’t see her).
Awareness is leading to a crackdown/backlash in the developed world. But as I’ve written before, out here in most of the world there’s no shame re: screens. The message hasn’t arrived — and even when it does, who knows if it’ll matter. People have bigger problems. Litter, smoking, animal conservation, etc. are precious rich people concerns. I’ve seen our world’s zombie future.
