Before once again asking if I was feeling up for it, Zach gave me a rough idea of where we were headed, and I followed him as he snaked his way through streets, alleys, dirt roads, mud puddles, creaky bridges, and eventually to a remote village that seemed so far out I wondered why people even wanted to live there. Nevertheless, the scenery was beautiful with its lush green fields and tall palm trees straddling a straight dirt road terminating at the village. The community itself, with its dozens of bamboo houses on thick hardwood stilts, seemed to be a throwback in time. I spotted an ancient man plowing in a field, trying to keep the water buffalo from veering off course. We approached a tiny building that resembled a toll booth rather than a variety store. The young woman behind the counter shot me a cool smile and I stopped to buy a few bottles of water, handing one to Zach. We pressed on a little further and parked our bikes on the edge of a flat open courtyard that served as the village’s main square.
I rested on my bike, swigging the water and waiting with a stitch of nervousness as Zach dismounted and said hello to three older women who approached him with broad grins. He moved as a carefree spirit, a man comfortable in his body and radiating warmth, a man who knew the world and how to treat people. While I watched him, it began to dawn on me that underneath my stiff militancy and occasional lapses of kindness, perhaps the latter was my authentic self-trying to slip past old, decaying barriers and show itself.
Zach waved me over and I swung my leg around and walked over to him. I still felt a lingering fever flashing through me as I walked over to him and the three women, but it could have been the heat. With their proud, strong faces, I found them intimidating at first, especially the oldest-looking one who scrutinized me up and down as though I’d come to collect taxes. A few more approached and encircled us. Zach had a quick interchange with one of them and then pointed to his bike, and she nodded. He moved over to his bike and removed the metal box, bringing it back to her. Another woman approached us with a smaller wooden box that looked to be on its last leg. It was then that I noticed that both the wooden box and the larger metal one had small padlocks on three of the sides.
Before I had a chance to ask about the boxes, the old woman turned and shouted something to the group. It must have been a call to assemble as they now began to form a small circle, covering the flat ground with tiny colorful mats. A few other women joined until they were about fifteen strong. The old woman bowed her head to me and said something in Javanese, which Zach translated as a request to join them. We then all sat down on the overlapping mats, a young woman bringing out a large pot of tea and pouring it out into little metal cups, passing them around.
The old woman muttered something, and soon three women sitting in different parts of the circle produced keys, which were given to another woman in the center kneeling beside the wooden box. She slipped a key into each of the three padlocks, unlocked them, and set the opened locks to the side, pulling the lid open. It was then that I realized one of the reasons for the larger metal one: the wooden box was way too small for the pile of Rupiah notes that tumbled out of it. The box also contained a notebook, pen, and solar calculator, which the woman lifted out and placed next to her. All her movements were slow and methodical, as though she were handling plutonium.
I sat beside Zach, and he did his best to interpret what was happening, though much of it needed little of that. The box was used for collecting and storing the savings, with the group of sixteen women meeting weekly for a year and agreeing to put ten thousand Rupiah each into the box every week–around a dollar. Anyone who didn’t chip in that amount was fined a thousand, which would have to be paid the next week. That seemed to be enough incentive for most of them to find a way to scrounge up the money each week. One woman fell short and we heard a rumbling wave of playful jeering in the circle. It was enough to cause her to lower her head in shame, like a child who’d just struck out at bat and cost the team a win. Sensing her anxiety, the woman next to her poked an elbow into her ribs and said something that made her laugh and leave the shame behind.
These transactions were captured in little notebooks each woman brought with her. Once they’d contributed their ten thousand, the group’s secretary would stamp her book with an ornate blue flower. I could see blue flowers all over the pages of the open books. One person even threw in thirty thousand and received a commensurate three stamps. As Zach explained, members could contribute up to fifty thousand per meeting. When I asked why there was a limit, he pointed out that without a limit these groups could be at risk of what’s called elite capture, whereby a wealthier person might seek to control the group or use it for their own financial or political advantage. This was because members could borrow from the group savings at abnormally high interest rates, which encouraged saving and discouraged borrowing. At the end of the year, members received a portion of the accumulated interest based on how many stamps were in their books. So, members who saved and never borrowed, and who also saved a lot, had the potential to earn a lot of money. The group also needed to be protected from any one person trying to dilute that through large savings contributions. Zach said this was uncommon, but the system included limits on savings based on past experiences where it had happened.
The treasurer would record all these transactions, including loans to the members into a ledger book kept inside the box. Each member reconciled their own book with the ledger at every meeting. This all seemed like a lot of work, but the members didn’t seem to mind the time it took since it gave them an opportunity to chit-chat with one another. Given all the laughing and side conversations going on, I sensed the members looked forward to this social hour as opposed to the type of resentful anguish I saw on the faces of people back home forced to sit through regular staff meetings.
Zach said he attended the first few meetings to teach the process and shepherd the group. He came around periodically to check up on them and find out if the original process was still being followed. He also performed other tasks like arranging for guest speakers on relevant topics like addressing domestic violence or proper sanitation, or even just logistical things like swapping out the wooden box for a metal one. He explained that after a year of using the wooden boxes, he was finding that the humidity was causing them to warp and fail, so he was transitioning groups over to steel ones. One of Fr. Jack’s vocational school workshops produced the boxes using scrap metal from a merchant ship retired earlier in the year. Since steel could rust, he primed and painted the boxes a bright yellow, almost gold color. From the admiring glances and the way the women touched it, they were thrilled with the new box: bigger, sturdier and the color of gold.
I asked Zach the typical amount the groups raised in a year, and his response shocked me. It seemed that in some groups most members earned double what they put in, generating enough to pay for their kids’ school fees and still have enough left over for household needs. Sometimes these groups, either part or whole, would pool together the amassed savings and build a community hall or buy commodities in bulk and resell them at a profit. As he put it, once these women realized the power of their collective savings, there was no stopping them from realizing and even overshooting their dreams. It was a system based on homegrown savings clubs that have been around for over half a century, springing up all over the world. So, the whole thing was nothing new to Zach as he’d spent the past decade traveling around the world spreading it to new communities. For me, having just learned of it, it was revolutionary.
As I watched these women passing money around and placing it all in the box, locking it up, and giving the keys to three random members to secure the box from prying fingers, I felt my whole world shift into sharper focus. Small loans to poor people were great, but this was phenomenal. These women didn’t need money from outside investors or to be told that an entrepreneur living deep inside them was struggling to climb out. Even the box and materials they manage to pay for out of their collective savings once it reached critical mass. All they required was some upfront
help and a little guidance. Zach mentioned that half his week was spent training locals in the model, so they could go out and replicate it in other communities. So, one day he might no longer be needed. As he put it, that’s the beauty of these groups–they are self-managing, self-regulating, and self-reliant. Moreover, by design they modify behavior away from taking on debt and reward those who choose to save their money. If only we had something like that in America! Zach reminded me that many credit unions in the western world were initially set up to help people in a similar way.
We left for another community after wrapping up the hour-long meeting. By the time we were on our bikes, I had a few women who’d warmed up to me, though I hadn’t spoken a word. They surrounded me, asking questions as Zach did his best to translate their words. Most of their questions were about my marital status, where I came from, etc. I laughed them off. Just before I brought my moto to a rumbling start, he said that the old woman, the one with the stern face, had asked me why I’d come to their village. She fixed me with her gaze and I turned to her, unsure how to respond. Was I there out of curiosity? Was it a better way to spend my day than hurling myself off a nine-story building? Or was it that I had no idea, but was doing my best to put one foot in front of the other and this is where it led me? I took a deep breath and felt her penetrating my mask with an advanced bullshit detector.
“Not sure. Suppose I came here to meet you,” I said with a cheery tone. Once Zach translated it to her, I saw her face turn into a deep smile–the first time I’d seen one on her face, disrupting her physiology. She was tickled by my cheekiness, though I detected more amusement than being won over. I waved goodbye to her and she nodded back like a magnanimous chieftain, her face having drifted back to normal.
Zach and I rode away and I followed him over a few bridges and into an area that seemed different than the others, more remote. He told me his home wasn’t far, and we could stop there for lunch. I was feeling tired and sweating more than normal–feeling the fever trying to come back. I started to grow angry at Zach as he should have known I was not feeling up to the trek. Yet, I had a blossoming thought, which I didn’t acknowledge until days later. He knew what he was doing. There was something guileless about him, but underneath a spirit at work who hovered just over him and used that knowledge to drive his internal ship. I’d seen flashes of this phenomenon over the course of my life, times when the world just clicked, and a responsible figure stood in the center. Often, these were just subtle displays of power, such as the man who’d grabbed my shoulder on Market Street just as I was thinking of stepping off the curb into oncoming traffic. I never saw his face or who he was, perhaps a phantom, but whoever or whatever it was, it read my thoughts, and sensing an unconscious one leading me off my path, took decisive and appropriate action without fanfare. No ego waiting around for a pat on the back. Just one mind looking down on thousands of others, and seeing one of them out of tune, reaching down for a gentle twist to bring it back into harmony.
He slowed his moto down and turned left down a dirt path no wider than a car’s wheels. We followed this for a few hundred feet, where it ended onto a large circular drive in front of a small house nestled behind a grove of palm trees. I stopped my moto, took off my helmet, and collapsed.
CHAPTER 8 | ratu the dukun
When I came to I was lying on a thin bamboo mat, looking up. A bright fabric tarpaulin hung over me, and turning my head I noticed it was suspended between a few trees, the sun doing its best to burn through it. I was outside. An old Javanese lady knelt next to me, old as dirt. She looked deep into my eyes. I turned my head to avoid her stare and noticed Zach sitting on a small stool in the corner. He didn’t see me looking at him at first, but then his face brightened and he sprung to my side. The woman placed protective arms around my shoulders, preventing me from sitting up. She then slid a damp washcloth from my forehead and moistened it in a bucket, wrapping and laying it back on my head. I wore nothing but my boxer shorts. They must have stripped me before lying me down.
“You gave us quite a scare, Harry.”
I didn’t say anything, disoriented as I had snapped awake during the climax of a dream.
“I’m really sorry. I should have known better that the trip was too much for you. Listen, this is Ratu, my wife’s grandmother. She lives with us. She’s a dukun. It’s kind of like a shaman. She’s able to heal people. I told her you are just getting over dengue, but she’s saying that’s not why you passed out earlier.” As he told me, I sensed he was neither comfortable sharing this nor was he sure I would receive it well, much less believe him.
“What do you mean?” I managed to squeak out.
“Nandhang sangsara kien!” she belted out, nodding with an intense gaze burning into my eyes the way I suppose witch doctors do–though she was my first.
“What’s she saying?”
She repeated the phrase several times, continuing to nod, her look darkening. Zach gave a sheepish smile, his head bobbing back and forth, and I could tell he was trying to put a diplomatic slant on her words.
“Don’t worry. At this point I can handle the news.”
“Well, she says you are suffering from… money.”
“Money?” He shrugged at my question.
She stroked my hair with a pitiful look, then lifted my head so I could sip water from the corner of a small plastic bag she pricked open. A tiny stream flowed into my mouth and the coolness filled my throat, giving me temporary relief from a throat made sore from thirst.
“Dhuwit iku master,” she said in a hushed tone.
“Now what did she say?”
“Only that money is your master.”
“Well, maybe it used to be. Now I have nothing. So, tell her it’s a waste of time.”
He spoke to her in Javanese, and she glanced at me and then held up a dirty old coin, whispering “Kerokan….” Zach pursed his lips and gave me a more serious look.
“Listen, Harry. She wants to do something. It may seem strange, but she says it will help you. It’s an alternative treatment. She says there are spirits inside your body, and she wants to send in a wind to cast them away.”
“With that coin? What’s she going to do with it, stick it up my ass?”
He laughed. “Kerokan is a common practice for people who are sick. Mothers here do it for their children. Many people swear by it, but she does everything a bit differently. Chanting and stuff. Listen, I’ve seen some crazy shit in my life, but trust me, she’s legit.”
I hesitated, and the old woman gave me a pathetic smile. “They already try kill you this morning, Dimas,” she said in tattered English I struggled to understand. At first, I thought I heard her wrong until I caught her grave face. Indeed, she had unmasked me, and I felt my eyeballs tilt down to her bosom, catching sight of an intricate necklace dangling from her neck. She was as big as a ten-year-old back home, but I felt her power take me in and I let out a long slow breath. Nowhere else to hide. I nodded to her and without catching anyone’s eyes, I closed my own, tired beyond belief.
“If it will help. I’m already dead, though,” I heard myself mumble, shuddering at the delirious resignation in my own voice. “She called me Dimas. What does that mean?”
“Indonesian has many forms of address based on age and gender. It means ‘golden younger brother’,” he said as if it were a meaningless form of address. Nevertheless, I was touched by it. “We need to turn you over on your stomach. It’s going to feel a bit painful at first. Some people say it kind of feels good. Though maybe those are just masochists.”
I was useless to help them, chortling under my breath as they pulled my arms over my head and worked my sweaty body into a roll. After years of indulging in massages, I knew the position quite well, and lay there not sure what to expect, my cheek resting on a floral print pillow hard as a rock. She went about the small area under the tarpaulin, lighting little candles and something on a large gold platter that began to smoke. I kept my eyes fixed on the smoking log, wit
h Zach’s hazy image sitting back down on the stool behind it. The smoke gave off a pleasant scent that made me think of the massage in my room several days earlier. She began to chant, though it sounded more like a song. I asked Zach what she was singing, but he said it was in a dialect from another part of Java. Something the older folks managed to keep alive.
After a few quick wipes of my back, she went to work on it with the coin. She scraped the same short path from spine outwards until the sensation changed from a relieving scratch to mounting pain. The opposite hand stroked my shoulder blade, and I felt hot energy coursing through my insides. I began to dread each swipe as I would footfalls aggravating an exposed blister on my heel. I recalled an eerie little Kafka story about a sadistic man who’d invented a torture machine that would slowly etch the words of a crime on a prisoner’s back with a needle until he was dead. After what seemed like hundreds of swipes, she started in on another area with the same sideways motion. Her chanting followed the rhythm of each scrape, and with the pronounced upturn at the end of a motion, it sometimes felt as if she was indeed singing out spirits or demons. I was delusional, so anything seemed possible.
At one point I even laughed, remembering that a year earlier I was sitting in a plush leather chair gazing out the window of my office overlooking the roof of the Pacific Stock Exchange–a majestic building shuttered after online trading rendered it useless–relishing how comfortable I felt, in life and in form. I wanted to regret how far down the drain I had gone, but even in that moment of anguish I felt freer than ever. Although, at the time I didn’t notice it. I felt good even though it all seemed so bad. In fact, I began to berate myself for believing that my life had improved. There I was, hot, sweaty, tired, racked with pain. I was in the presence of two people caring for me even though I had nothing to give them in return. The people in the hotel, the woman with the coconuts, they had shown the face of altruism–something I had long dismissed as a quaint philosophical belief impossible to prove and perhaps rooted in concealed self-interest. I wondered if I’d been wrong all those years. Face down and vulnerable to the scrapings of an old woman, I felt more connected to her than I had to most people throughout my life.
Crossing Allenby Bridge Page 20