Indonesia: Life In The Islands

TIDAK NARKOBA

The word narkoba isn’t listed in my dictionary, but its cousins, narkotica and narkoses, mean narcotics. From what I gathered on Valentine’s Day, narkoba is a general term for all drugs, alcohol, and sexual activity that will ruin your life should you choose to engage in them. According to my students, not only can narkoba kill you, it can give you AIDS, make your head explode, and cause you to be so immoral that you will go to hell.

Ah, Valentine’s Day. I’d spent the previous week asking all my students to be my Valentines and telling them dramatically exaggerated stories about my Valentine’s Days, starting in middle school and working my way up. Inspired by a fellow Fulbrighter's blog, I invented a fake boyfriend named Biff who was both the love of my life and the bane of my existence for three years. The year 10s were especially appalled by the Valentine’s Day when Biff forgot to ask me on a date, made me pay for dinner, and then cheated on me. I must be a fantastic storyteller, because after each telling a few girls in the class would come up and hold my hands, like I was going to start crying.

**Inappropriateness alert**

After asking one of my classes to be my Valentines, one of the fifteen-year-old boys who sits in the back nodded and winked suggestively at me. I would like to say I reprimanded him, but I laughed instead. No wonder the men here grow up to be such terrrible sexual harassers! They start practicing young.

***

So this was the buildup for Valentine’s Day. I got up at 6 am, washed and dried my hair before school for the first time in several months, and got dressed in a pink and green outfit. I bought candy for my students and hopped on an angkot. On the way there, I noticed about 300 people wandering the streets by my school with huge signs. It was odd, but I’ve been conditioned to ignore things like that now.

I went into the school for third period and realized that no one was in class. Kids were racing motorbikes in the street, playing music, and there appeared to be a soccer tournament going on in the back. I walked into the front office.

Me: um, is there any class today?

School Employee: umm, maybe. There is maybe not.

Me: Today. Class? Yes or no?

School Employee: Nervously laughs.

Then some kind of bell went off. I went to the back of the school to see all the students lined up in the courtyard in military formations, all carrying posters and wearing t-shirts instead of their uniforms that said “Prestasi, Yes…Narkoba, No” which translates to. “Achievement, Yes…Drugs/Sex/Immoral Actions, No.” Everyone shrieked with joy when they saw me, and someone handed me a bull horn. The students looked at me expectantly. What the hell was going on?

Luckily, one of the other teachers took pity on me. “Say Prestasi in speaker, then Narkoba.” Alright.

“Prestasi.”

“YESSSSSSSS”

“Narkoba?”

“NOOOOOOO”

I led this cheer for about five minutes, then the students wanted me to take pictures with their various signs. My favorite one said, “Join With Drugs, Feel Happy In Hell,” which was poignant, I thought. There were also illustrations of bloody skulls, used syringes, and other narkoba paraphernalia. A few of my students remembered what day it was in my alternate universe and gave me some candy. One boy wished me a “very sexy day,” and although I don’t usually let them say sexy he seemed to be using it very innocently, so I just said thank you.

Someone else took over the bull horn and screamed “AYOOOOO,” which means, "let’s go." Suddenly all the students surged forward, shaking their signs and screaming “TIDAK NARKOBA.” Out of nowhere, the teachers all put on blue baseball hats with gold seals. This clearly was something that had been in the works for a while.

Why had no one told me?

We paraded to the center of town, Tugu Circle, where I had seen all the people that morning. Things started to fall into place. All of the elementary, junior high, and high schools from our district were gathering this morning to scream "TIDAK NARKOBA" together. There were about 3,000 people milling around, seemingly without any kind of organization or plan. There were no activities planned (except maybe a concert? No one seemed to know) and you could leave whenever you wanted. I walked around, heard a bunch of "Hello Misters" from the younger kids, and then bought my teachers some flowers. Typically, they were horrified that I had sent $4 on flowers for them. Finally I spewed some line about how money doesn't matter when it comes to those important in your life, and they accepted the flowers. They also made me pose with two Indonesian policemen and give them flowers while they took pictures. And I wonder why Indonesian men think Americans are prostitutes?

Finally I felt like I was suffering from heat stroke so I went back to the school. After they kept me there for another two hours insisting that classes were going to start again, I spotted the students leaving. I went home and fell asleep until my date with Johanna and Layne at Tugu that night. I wore a low-cut and inappropriate dress and Johanna and I spent the night drinking wine and fielding questions about why we were alone. At that point, I was too tired from TIDAK NARKOBA to expound on my Biff story. Someone took our picture for the newspaper--I can only imagine what the caption was.

SELAMAT VALENTINE'S!

posted by Caitlin @ 7:50 PM