We checked in our luggage which consisted of quite a few boxes of materials and goodies that we had prepared for the kids over there. Darren had been our logistics man and the kids would have a fun pack of stationery in a really nice, sturdy, plastic folder. There were costumes, props, food, ‘rewards’ and even canned food to supplement the food supply at the house that we were staying in.
After that we went off for breakfast which consisted of peanut butter toast and half-boiled eggs. My last meal before departure. I wonder what each one of us were thinking. Maybe we weren’t really trying to think of what would occur in the next two weeks. We just took things as they came along. Our foresight of what to expect was limited especially since we had never been there before. But I think that there might have been a tinge of apprehension to go to an ulu place where we hear stories of electricity that comes and goes, possibility of earthquakes, 2 toilets for an estimated number of 70kids... and the list goes on. Even though it is not my first time to Nias, the information (more like, the lack of information) that we had gathered from the email correspondence and from hearsay, would stir a certain amount of 'fear-of-the-unexpected'. So a word of prayer after breakfast was appropriate, even though we were kind of running late. After passing through the glass doors and showing our passports, we rushed to the departure hall. Ours (C16) was right at the very end and we practically had to run there. We were the last ones to board the plane...and this was a trend we kept up throughout the entire trip haha.
Our plane took off at 6.45am and when we touched down in Medan, the time that was announced by the flight attendant was 7am. Due to the one hour time difference, we had gone back in time... and as I type this, I think that’s how we all felt in Nias. We had gone back in time. Where water doesn’t flow from taps but we collect rain water from a spring-well like thing. Where toilets aren’t flushable and water replaces toilet paper. Where showers do not exist and we have to scoop out cold water from tubs in order to bathe. Where washing machines are a far off idea and laptops are a luxury. Where keeping your feet clean is impossible and where mosquitos abound.
In Medan, we hung around for quite a while before Rev. Haposan arrived in his small maroon van. He had had a flat tyre which explained why he was a little late. He seemed to be a friendly and easygoing person, who could really navigate those streets of Medan. William and Lucy volunteered to wait at the airport while Rev. Haposan took us around before the connecting flight, since they had already been here before and gone with him as well. Traffic is wayyyy different in Medan. The cars communicate often, beeping all the time as they swerve in and out among traffic. It’s as if the vehicles are alive and have the ability to bump into different lanes. Sometimes I wondered whether they were fighting for the same lane or they were just in a sharing mood coz 3 cars could squeeze into a two lane road. I typed into my phone, “It’s like a war zone of hooting cars. Medan. 1pm.” I didn’t think any Singaporean driver would survive here.
We visited Rev. Haposan’s school called Yayasan Betania. The children were having exams so we just hung around and greeted some of the school staff. Right next to the school was a church still in construction. I think he mentioned that it had taken him 7 years and he was still continuing to build it. It had a stone staircase that led to the sanctuary and right at the front was a hole cut out of the wall in the shape of a cross. So that the light could enter in. At the back was bell tower that we got a chance to ring by pulling the string hard. It would be used to call people to come and worship on Sundays. I wonder how the church bell tradition started out. Well Uncle Gilbert informed us that the proper name of a bell tower was called a ‘BELFRY’. You learn something new everyday.
After a feast of delicious mangoes at Rev. Haposan’s house we went over to an eatery that seemed to have Chinese owners. This trip to Nias enlightened me on the fact that there are quite a number of Chinese people in Medan and even in Nias. While we ate our lunch of fried rice I then remembered how we were stopped at the airport. The security at Medan’s airport found our boxes highly suspicious and demanded that we open them up. Uncle Gilbert tried to explain to them that we were going to my father’s place and these were gifts for children. Well they opened every single box we had, digging through our canned foods, plastic folders, crayons etc. One of the boxes contained ‘The Prodigal Son’ tracts and I almost froze when the security guy took it out and flipped through it. I was thinking “Oh no! This is a muslim country! Oh No! What if we get arrested for trying to convert people”. I started praying silently in my heart. Well the man flipped through it in about 2 seconds and just put it back in. Then he took out the Alphabet book that we had prepared and suddenly everyone was all interested in this alphabet book. They were reciting aloud, ‘A! B!’. We just watched in silence. Anyway it was quite interesting how they spent so much time looking at the alphabet book instead of the tract and I was grateful to God that nothing bad had occurred. You never know...you know. After that episode we concluded that they were just curious to know what was in our luggage. You could see that they were just enjoying themselves looking at what was inside the boxes. Strange but true. Kaypoh. Well I guess I had nothing to worry about coz we found out later on that Medan had quite a high percentage of Christians...so it was ok.
In one hour we reached Gunungsitoli which is like a district in Nias. We were expecting a relative of mine called REFO to pick us up and I had no idea what he looked like. As we walked into the ‘airport’ (it looked more like a long shed) this man showed me a paper that had my name and telephone number, but he wasn’t my relative. He was an employee who was going to drive us back. I hardly knew what to do.. especially due to the fact that I couldn’t converse with him. My knowledge of the Indonesian language was dismal and let’s not even talk about the Nias dialect. As we waited for our luggage to come, we kind of stood in awkward silence and this man (I forgot his name) called Refo on his mobile phone, And then passed the phone to me. It was to confirm that I had found the right person..but I couldn’t even understand what he was saying in Indonesian. Furthermore, I had never even met this person before. A little frustrated I handed over the phone to Uncle Gilbert who knew more Indonesian than I did. I’ve never watched the movie ‘Lost In Translation’, but right at that very moment...i really felt lost. When our luggage came, this man and some other surfer dude (I think his name was Selamat) drove us to Teluk Dalam, where the Yayasan would be. Two vehicles and a 3-4 hour ride there.
Once we stopped for a toilet break at this shophouse kind of place. In the dim kitchen area, a cat was eating left over food off the ground and on the left of the kitchen was a wooden door that wouldn’t close shut. Someone had to hold this door to the toilet. When it was my turn to go in, I was a bit confused as to where I was supposed to go. There was no toilet bowl and there was no latrine that you could stand and squat on. Instead there was this little hole in the floor that led to the beach. I carefully searched the whole place for the ‘toilet’ and concluded that that little hole... that was it. The thought of people swimming in the beach was a little bit hard to swallow. However we were very grateful to these people who hospitably let us use their toilet.
It was late afternoon when we finally reached the Yayasan (Foundation) and I saw my father standing out in the front while my mom was coming out of the house. Once we got out I rushed over to them and gave them each a hug. I was wondering why the hug wasn’t really responsive and then I found out the horrid news that my parents had been in a motorcycle accident just about a week ago. My dad must have cringed when I gave him a hug and upon careful observation I saw the red scabs on his hand and the huge swollen bruise on his chin. It was a bittersweet moment.
The evening was spent walking around the place going to different houses and in my case I had to greet relatives. It was a method of publicity because we were clearly a bunch of foreigners and my dad reminded the neighbours to send their children in for registration in on the 17th of May. Sometimes there were piles of rocks along the road clearly meant for construction. Earlier on as we were driving on the way to Yayasan, we saw some ladies banging on the rocks to make them smaller. Rebuilding is a common sight here in Nias, I guess because of the earthquakes from the tsunami. There was a big hill a little further down the road that had clearly been dug out. My father informed me that a person had died in a sort of landslide. They dig out rocks for construction from the hill and this particular guy ended up having the earth above fall on top of him. Our lives are just like vapour which can just be gone in an instant.
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