The Known Unknowns

Every three months the Peace Corps sends out the infamously bureaucratic Volunteer Response Form (VRF). Essentially a survey to collect data on the activities, classes and projects each volunteer has been working on, the question that causes me the most angst is the following:

Question: Finish the sentence. “If I could share one thing about my host country with my friends and family back home it would be ____.”

Only one?

Last month I had the privilege of joining my family on a long and jolly jaunt around New Zealand. My first time out of Indonesia in 11 months, I fulfilled every self proclaimed prophesy of cheese gorging, hot shower reveling, and marveling at all the traffic law abiding citizens who fully stopped for pedestrians. What I hadn’t anticipated was how closely Indonesia would shadow me as I did my best to forget it for a while. It’s also hard to put such a multifaceted, multi emotional experience on the back burner of attention when it is what people most want to discuss at cocktail hour.

“Tell us about Indonesia.”
“Tell me about the Peace Corps.”
“What’s it like living out there?”

What IS all that like? Answering a few of those VRFs should have prepared me better. The truth is that I know both more and less about this amazing country since moving here one year ago. A conglomerate of cultures, languages and religions, I love Indonesia because it is still so unknowable to me. Certainly I have come to understand some of the customs and traditions my community is so deeply steeped in, but other aspects remain clouded to my sense of logic.

Now, I’d rather be sodomized by a plastic lawn flamingo than vote for a Republican, but as I consider that VRF question, I can’t help but quote the former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, who quite wisely said: “There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know that there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Let’s start with the known knowns.

1) I know I will wake up at 4:30 when the call to prayer goes off at mosque.
2) I know I will be plied with rice and hot, sugary tea multiple times a day.
3) I realize my students’ sweet smiles are the greatest gift.
4) I’m quite sure buying large quantities of exotic fruit for under a dollar will never get old.
5) I understand the freedom that is the muumuu dressing gown and I’m never going back.

Which brings us to the known unknowns.

1) Status nails.

Here on Java it is the custom (fashion?) for a man to grow out one or two of his fingernails to an extraordinary length. I have been told that a nail of such length indicates that the gentleman enjoys a certain amount of status and privilege. Perhaps he works in an office rather than a rice field and can afford to keep a fingernail long and manicured. I understand the general idea, but there’s something about witnessing a full grown man daintily cleaning his lovely french-tipped nails that bemuses me.

2) Karaoke power ballads.

I can barely get my students to raise their hands in class, or speak above a whisper when called on. I’ve come to understand that Indonesians are not fond of direct, personal attention (a characteristic that fits within a culture that values the communal over the individual). But hand any one of my kids a microphone and suddenly they are prancing around like Mick Jagger for all the world to see. “Timid karaoke belter” is an oxymoron in itself, which is why I’m always shocked when my students, fellow teachers and Indonesian friends select the saddest, most heart-breaking of power ballads to rock out to. I’m talking Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. There’s a lot of Bruno Mars and Eric Clapton as well once the vocal pipes grow weary.

A few months ago my amazing counterpart and I had to drive the six hours to Surabaya for a training. Renowned for his love of karaoke, he had prepped the car for a karaoke-singing-road-trip-marathon. With not one, but two flash discs full of background melodies and a compiled book of more than 50 song lyrics that car ride was one of the longest (and one of the best) road trips I’ve ever taken. Pak Zen and I will challenge you to a Sad Song Sing-Off any day.

3) Ghost culture and black magic.

Last night my house was broken into and a laptop and some jewelry were stolen from my Bapak’s desk. A theft inside my own home has been very unsettling, but it has been heartening to hear the outpouring concern and compassion from my fellow teachers and neighbors. I have been told multiple times today that naturally, the thief (like many thieves, of course) was practiced in the art of “sirep” which is the ability to charm people into a deep sleep while you sneak into their house and rob them. This is not the first time my community has insisted that magic and spirits are at work. There is a particular rice paddy in my neighborhood the kids will not bike past because that is where three ghosts reside. I have come to love the voodoo-esque spirituality of Java, even if I’m not fully convinced. Hey, I was sleeping deeply last night when my house was broken into so what do I know?

And finally, the unknown unknowns.

1) Because Peace Corps has forced me to face problems I didn’t even know existed, I can only imagine what the next 15 months have in store for me.
2) And yet,
3) And yet!
4) I love how unknowable it all can be.