an entry somewhere else

Last Friday I was the guest of Pesantren Bukit Hidayat in Malino, South Sulawesi. The pesantren also hosted roughly 100 students who were participating in an English camp there also, not to mention the students enrolled there also.

Malino is the equivalent to a what the British called a hill station in India. It gets all of one paragraph in my guidebook. There are two main attractions to Malino: a couple quite scenic waterfalls and the cool weather. The town was also the site of a couple rounds of peace talks for the factions in Eastern Indonesia.

After about two hours on somewhat potholed roads, we arrived for the hazy sunset. I , snapped a few shots to the shouts of “Hello, Mister!” This is one of my least favorites sayings as so many teachers have learned and taught this form of address as the only form of address, to both male and females. I’m not sure why I abhor the tens of, ‘Hello, Mister’, I get everyday. Prescriptively, one should only use ‘Mister’ with a name, as in Mr Zak or Mr Tony. Addressing someone who you do not already know would be done using, Sir. Descriptively, as I see it, one can use Mister to grab an unknown man’s attention. The same could be said of Miss or Madam. From usage from the native’s perception, ‘Hello Mister’ would be appropriate, but only if you are attempting to get that person’s attention for a greater reason, not merely to say, hello, as most of the students are wont to do. I am now ending my linguistic rant.

After a typical Indonesian dinner, I was given the task on speaking to all of the students at the pesantren. I was told to introduce myself and conduct a few activities. Once again, I was unprepared for this; no one had spoken of this to me. I was prepared for a few activities with the college students; however, those materials were in my bag and safely locked in the car. Doh! I performed what I call my stand-up routine. As long as the kids are laughing, I call it good. I performed the old, familiar tune of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,’ with a few guest stars from the student body. Did I mention that anyone can sing better than I can? After about an hour of moving about and making a fool of myself, I retired for the evening.

The night was chilly and I did wake up a bit cold. Everyone else woke up with the call to prayer and started getting ready for breakfast. I slept a little longer. The morning program was to walk to the nearby waterfalls. After breakfast, I walked and talked with the students. The pesantren kids were very nice. I had plenty of photo ops all morning! The waterfalls were lovely. The first one was called ketemu jojod, I think. It was about 50m tall and probably very small in comparison to the wet season. It’s the end of the dry season now. The next one was at least 150m high and a great pond at the bottom. The students jumped in–even a few brave female students, fully clothed. After everyone had their fun, we started back. After all the morning activity, three female students were struck with some sort of exhaustion. One was carried in, stretcher-like, by other students and two were aided into the rest house, a bit wobbly. They all ended up just fine.

Then, my counterpart and I headed back to Makassar–Makassar, sweet Makassar.