Note: The aforementioned funeral was previously discussed, so it is not included in this article. Okay, let’s start!
After a little more than a month in Indonesia, I apparently knew people well enough to be invited to a wedding. It was not the ones getting married that I knew, though, but a relative of theirs. From what I gathered in Indonesia weddings are more open and it is much easier to go even if you know barely anyone participating, which was confirmed later as well, when I went to another one just like that. We started our trip midday after our class. I had prepare a small bag with the things I though I would need and hopped into my friends car. The wedding was happening in another city and would last for around 3 days, with a different part of the ritual happening each day. The three hour ride was short of torturous. The street were as if we were constantly riding a roller coaster with some many sheer ups and downs and oh, we had casualties. Many succumbed to their nauseousness and the rest is better not described in much detail.
When we arrived we were dirty, tired, hungry and probably smelly, but definitely not appropriately dressed, but alas the first part of the wedding had already started so instead of going to the home we would be staying at, we went to the bride’s home. Inside it was hot, very very hot, we were even sweatier the minute we entered. I don’t know how the bride hadn’t melted away with her heavy clothing, but she was looking impeccable. Except for the temperature and our overall decay, our banter comparing wedding rituals from our country and the graciousness of the hosts offering us food was in general fun and interesting.
The house we went to sleep at was big and mostly empty with many carpets, like most houses there. We were all desperate for a bath, but unfortunately the bathroom was a little bit more than a whole in the wall, so that would have been difficult. Fortunately I got to sleep in the women’s bedroom, which was the only one with a AC, although I actually got cold midway through the night. Everyone was up very very early, but of course as I was not used to that and since I realized everyone was up hours ago and I was still sleeping, I though I overslept, looking at the phone I saw it was actually only 7 in the morning. I ended up walking up around 8 or 9, so of course I was tired and I was looking for every opportunity and floor to sleep on. The rest of the wedding doesn’t have much to discuss upon. We were going from the groom’s home to the bride’s home or vice versa, there was some kind of ritual and then we were eating. After we were done eating, as in every wedding ever, I was bored out of my mind and I was spending all of my GB (since there was no Wi-Fi) trying not to die from boredom, or at least not to fall asleep in my chair. So the rest of the wedding was not much of significance.
What was, however, was the second house we moved to. In the evening of the second day, they decided that it would be a better idea to move to another house, to some of their relatives, which home was right next to the bride’s. Of course the hosts were very kind, welcoming and nice, but unfortunately what I had seen in the house, cannot be left unsaid. There was not a lot of space inside so we were all ended up barely fitting in a carpet in the living room with a fan to sleep. That was not so bad however, the bathroom was the story I am still haunted by. It would be difficult to properly convey the situation properly but try to imagine this: the house was elevated by wooden pillars, so anyone could pass underneath, but in the bathroom the wooden planks were not placed close to each other, giving you a perfect view of the grass underneath and anyone underneath, a perfect view of you. The wooden walls were only reaching half way through, again leaving you exposed and there was no door separating the bathroom from the kitchen, again erasing any hope for privacy. The toilet was a classic squatting one, very common for there, but without any water nearby to help flash or clean, you had to take that form the «shower» part. The shower part was more deep inside giving you some privacy, but it was dark with little light. It was just a cement room, with a something like a big bathtub used to collect water. The tap was easily detachable, as both me and my roommate detached it, panicking as the water was coming in with force, thankfully it was fixed. Because of all that the bathroom was always wet allover. And yes I am privileged enough to not be used to that and I know that this is an every day reality for people living there but all the others guests were also visiting the bathroom as little as possible.
So, what is the moral of the story? I would say wedding all over are just boring and the only thing worth it is the food. Yeah, that’s what I got from this experience.
The Indonesian Chronicles 