Indonesia: Life In The Islands

Reflections on Religion (so far)

Indonesia is 90% Muslim—in fact, it’s the largest Muslim country in the world. Like I wrote before, there are five calls to prayer everyday, and followers must wash themselves before every time they pray. It really is a lifestyle, more so than most religions I’ve been exposed to in the United States. The other day in Bu Moerdiati’s class, she was going around the room asking the students what they liked to do after school. I would say that over half of the class said they preferred to study Islam over sports, clubs, or hanging out. It was something they were proud of, guys and girls alike, and perfectly normal. I can only imagaine what would have happened in my high school if someone had declared they liked to read the Bible and go to Church more than anything else. And I went to a Catholic high school!

Today I was reading essays that Suharyadi’s class of year 10’s had written. The topic was “My Daily Activities.” Every single essay I read was focused around prayer. Examples:

“In the morning I wake up at 4:30 am to pray Fjar, then I go back to sleep.”

"In school I stay with my friends so we can pray Zuhr together.”

“I go home and pray Asr, then I work on my homework.”

“I take a nap and wait excitedly until it is time to prayer Mahgrib.”

“I pray Isha and ask for blessings, then I go to sleep at 7:30.”

It’s really very admirable and humbling to see the respect and reverence people have for their religion. The students and teachers at the school know that I’m not Muslim, but they have never forced anything on me. They understand my questions and answer them very patiently. I think they’re happy that I’m so interested. Like today, Pak Tedy told me he was fasting. I asked if it was a Muslim holiday, and he said no, he just chose to fast on Mondays and Thursdays because it took the toxins out of his system. Not every Muslim had to; it was a personal choice he made to feel closer to God. Whenever the male teachers are with me and leave to go pray, they explain where they are going, why they are going to pray, and tell me not to be uncomfortable. Of course I’m not uncomfortable at all, but I really appreciate how open they are about their religion and their willingness to educate me about it.

While I’ve been very favorably impressed with the morals and behavior of followers of Islam, I have had some weird experiences with Christians. Two of the teachers (that I know so far) are Christian. Since one of the first questions I was asked last week was my religion, word has gotten around that I’m Catholic. Yesterday in the teacher’s room, Pak Bambang (a very popular name here, it is NOT pronounced bangbang as I thought haha) sat down next to me and asked if I was Catholic, so I said yes. Then, in front of all the other teachers of different faiths, he exclaimed, “Ah! I knew you believed in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!” I can’t really portray his tone, but the way he said it he sounded validated—like he had just looked at me and known instantly I wasn’t Muslim. What if I had been? He started asking me if I wanted to go to church with him (I’ve noticed that people don’t distinguish much between different branches of Christianity), but I promptly shot that down by saying I only went to Church on Christmas and then he changed the subject.

I did go to another teacher’s church yesterday night to watch Bataknese dancing. It was reminiscent of Balinese dancing to my untrained eye (although I’m sure they’re very different!) with intricate hand movements and beautiful costumes. It also reminded me of Hawaiian dancing because there was a lot of emphasis on the movement of the hips. I met a lot of people who again, were very nice. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the teacher who invited me (!) but she told me I was her third daughter which I found touching. I was late because I couldn’t find the church, so she left the dance and came up the street on a motorcycle to make sure I was OK. I met her son, Ariel, and he invited Layne and I to come speak at his university about being ‘cultural ambassadors’ between the US and Indonesia. It’s funny because Layne and I don’t consider ourselves ambassadors, but we keep getting referred to that way.

Ibu walked me back to the top of Jalan Bromo so I could catch a mikolet home. She started warning me about giving talks—even though her son had just asked me to do one. It turns out that she didn’t think I should give talks at Muslim universities, like Mohamadiyah University near Johanna’s house. She was saying a lot of things about how it would become a political statement if I were to speak to Muslim audiences. Now my (and her) entire audience each day (students) is Muslim. I really don’t see the difference between talking to a Muslim group about teaching English or a Christian group about teaching English. She made Islam sound like more of a political group than a religion. Some of what she was saying was pretty paranoid and made me a little upset—she said that over the last 10 years, Muslims in Indonesia have been burning Christian churches down and killing people. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but the fact that she was trying to turn me against the religion and those who followed it was not appreciated. I told her I would keep my political views out of any talks I gave and that seemed to satisfy her.

posted by Caitlin @ 9:36 PM