Something out of the corner of my eye caused me to look up from the book I was reading. Less than a half a mile ahead was a trampy looking Indonesian fishing craft. She was steaming a course to take her across our bows. I was unhappy to see her slow to a near stop, seeming to wait for us to come her way as we would naturally over the next five minutes if we continued our current course.
In this heavily fished part of the world, Indonesian fishing boats steam about day and night in search of an ever diminishing catch. During the day there are usually one or two fishing boats in sight, but at night, with their lights, their numbers seem to treble. Some are vastly lit squid boats, with booms and racks of fishing lights visible over the horizon for more than 20 miles. Others are lit with whatever flash lights or candles come to hand. And some, of course, are unlit. Fishing boats are the main reason to keep watch on this passage over the Java Sea. It was late afternoon and we were approaching Jakarta on the coast of Java after a fast and reasonably comfortable 3 day, 400 hundred nautical mile passage from Borneo. On board with Irena and I was, Ali, a young Indonesian crew. Both were asleep below, leaving me alone on deck.
I was on edge to begin with. In the best of circumstances I am tense arriving in a city of 8 million people, but when it is a place of 7,999,900 poor people scratching a living from dirt and steaming garbage, my gut tightens in defence of my shame for their poverty - and in defence of my precious possessions. I had flown into Jakarta several times before, but then to see business clients. I had felt protected from the poverty by my suit and tie. Passing down the back streets ofJakarta, peering from the back seat of luxury cab the, the distance between me and their lives was far greater than the thickness of a single pane of tinted auto glass. And this time, it was different: I was on their ground. I was just a another sailor, at sea in a small boat, making landfall.
On we sailed till we were within shouting distance of the wooden fish boat. She was about 40 feet in length, with an open deck forward and deck house aft constructed so haphazardly of scrap lumber, it wasn’t clear why it didn’t simply collapse and fall overboard. Thumping away in the background was an old single cylinder diesel blowing smoke rings out a pipe exhaust stack. Lines and nets lay about on deck everywhere, but though mostly unpainted, she had the strong sea worthy look of a working boat. I counted a crew of five small brown men on deck, all shirtless, looking at us approach with great interest. I could sense again how we are a curiosity to them in this part of the world with our smooth fibreglass hull and clean white sails. I wondered, How do they regard our apparent wealth and freedom to go about simply for our entertainment and delight?
As we came abeam, one of them held up what must have been the largest of their catch, maybe a 10 pound fish of what kind I had no idea, gesturing, smiling and calling out in Bahas what I guessed too be an invitation to come alongside and buy. I had been approached like this several times before, but in Malaysia. Once I had allowed myself to be persuaded by my own crew to come alongside, and we had ended up paying a big price for a long eel-ish looking fish that I found barely edible, though to local tastes it must have been at least fine. Not today I decided. “No thanks” I shook my head, and smiled as broadly as I could. As I waved and sailed past, as is so often the way with Indonesians, the crew broke forth with all the English they knew “Hello, where are you going?”, “Where are you from?” and “How much?” Great questions.
Over the coming days in Jakarta, my anxiety eased, but my shame did not. Many times walking and driving amongst the crowds, exhaust and dirt of Jakarta, Irena and I were called to reflect on the poverty and the apparent gap between what we have and what they do not have. How can we, as the developed world, hoard our wealth and deny the majority of people in world basic civilized comforts? How can we cruelly and hypocritically tempt developing worlds into debt, and then take so much and give so little? How can the minority rich and powerful of Indonesia do so little to reverse the spiral into poverty of the majority? In Jakarta, poverty is in our face.
Thoughtful post, Cress. It has always seemed to me that sailing into a country is like coming in through its back door. You see the less glamorous parts of the home; not the stately front room, but the grimy mud room at the back. Yet while the yachtie has a bank account about *this* thin, that must be considerably more than most of the locals would see in many years. Speaking of incongruities, it must feel odd being back in S, but staying in a hotel! A visitor in your own land. Lastly, I see you included a rather flattering self-portrait; I'd recognize your orangy-red hair anywhere. What has got me flummoxed, however, is how much hair you've gained since I saw you last. You must be swabbing the Rogaine on by the bucketful!
ReplyDelete