The roof is almost finished with the exception of some work on the railings, my bedroom on the third floor is almost back to normal although I have to re-varnish all the closet doors as they are speckled with paint. Even though the roof is supposed to be just the roof and not a hang-out place, it looks like it is going to be a popular hang-out place with the immediate family and other relatives in the neighborhood.
Besides having the roof almost done, moving back to the third floor has been the highlight of the past six weeks. Indonesians have a great tolerance for noise; they love making noise and they can put up with an amazingly diverse array of pops, bangs, shouts, screams, roars, and tinny calls to prayer. As an old Westerner, I’m happy with a relatively quiet environment. During my six weeks in exile from the third floor, I lived in the family room on the second floor. I found that sitting out on the second floor balcony having a cigarette was almost the same as sitting out in front of the house in terms of noise pollution. I became familiar with life on the street. This kampung is full of kids of all ages. Now that mine are almost all teens and wired, they spend a lot of their time online with friends, but when they were younger they lived on the street in front of the house playing with friends until I’d call them in for bed. Not unlike my behavior many decades earlier in Chicago. They learned to be able to tolerate loud noises for long periods of time. My kids, just like every other Indonesian that I know, can fall asleep in the noisiest of places: at family gatherings, in the middle of crowded ferries, sitting in airport departure lounges. For them, as for my wife, they have a difficult time understanding my need for quiet. So now that I am back on the third floor, there is enough distance between me and the street to dampen a lot of the noise, and the fourth floor is positively peaceful.
The issue of noise and foreigners arose partly because of my temporary life above the street but also because this is the month of Ramadan and prayer calls, Qur’an readings and kids messing around blast out of the loudspeakers of mosques around the archipelago. One of the latest stories on this issue is the saga surrounding an old foreigner living in Lombok who has been accused of entering a mosque and turning off the loudspeakers. He denies this action and the police and allegedly the villagers claim that he did this and is thus responsible for the bedlam that followed when the villagers went on a rampage and destroyed the contents of his house. This story will continue to play out for a while, but things don’t look good for the American regardless of his guilt or innocence.
This incident has brought out the usual idiotic remarks by some foreigners and Indonesians. Foreigners love parading their fantasies of shooting out mosque loudspeakers and complaining bitterly about the intolerance of Muslims, Indonesians or Islam. Indonesians love using the “if you don’t like it go home, this is our country” card. As far as I’m concerned the five prayer calls a day and the use of the mosque loudspeakers for community announcements is fine (I’d like the mosque elders to turn down the volume, but the uselessness of that goes back to Indonesian’s love of noise), but the protracted readings of the Qur’an and the use of the loudspeakers by kids is far beyond reasonable. As far as going home, that’s just such a lame argument that no one with any sense pays attention to it anymore.
The result most likely to come out of all this fuss is a continuation of the status quo. The American will either have some cash and buy his way back into grace or he will be deported. The mosques will continue to blast prayers and messages throughout the day and foreigners will continue to whine and complain. That’s Indonesia.
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