We spent two-and-a-half days at Cibogo, about 2 hours outside of Jakarta, in the Sunda region. In the foothills of the Javanese mountain country, Cibogo was described to us as a village, but turned out to be more like the outskirts of a country town – I mean, what kind of village has an amusement park and 50 restaurants? The lush, green farming country of the hills turned out to be heavenly after the madness of Jakarta – cool breezes, the gentle rushing of mountain springs and the river, and all manner of animals. Mostly mosquitoes. Mosquitoes about the size of Sherman tanks. Seriously, you could hear these fuckers coming like the 1st Armoured. BBBBBLLLLARRRRRTTTTT. The Cibogo house which Teatre Populer has use of is a spacious split-level, with the kind of mountain view you only see in travel brochures. Fresh coconut from the trees, cassava from the vegetable patch (boiled and covered with shaved fresh coconut), and glorious fat yellow-striped fish from a fish farm at the bottom of the garden. Who needs fairies when you can fish for lunch?
Of course, I had a rotten case of Bellyus Baliensis by this point (which now seems to have been a side effect of my typhus vaccination – FUCK YOU, WESTERN MEDICINE) so it somewhat diminished my enjoyment of this magical place. I still managed to find time to boggle at the butterflies, the plump geckos snatching insects in the rafters, the tiny bats rocketing about the place. My personal favourite creature was a fat, grumpy-looking yellow frog who appeared on our last day to glower at us from the long grass as we left.
At Cibogo we ate (more!) and began preliminary work for next week’s workshop, with discussions of Western and Indonesian mythology, films of Indonesian traditional and ritual performance (including a Balinese cockfight) and an incredible cross-cultural dance improvisation by firelight on the concrete banks of the fishponds. We learned Bahasa, Javanese and Sundanese songs; ate at a suang restaurant (a suang is a traditional bamboo shelter) where a tiny street kitten just hopped over the side to say hello, and ended up trying to suckle Draf’s toes.
In that great roadtrip tradition, we snacked heartily in the car on the way to and from the ‘village’, talking about politics, music, religion. It may come as a surprise to some readers that my new Indonesian friends are utterly bemused by Islamic fundamentalism. It neither speaks to or for them. Admittedly, religion is a significant thing here – when our hosts meander their way around to the topic ‘Are you Christian?’ they seem slightly taken aback by the answer ‘I am an atheist’. A complex amalgam of cultures is at work here – ancient animist tradition absorbed ancient Hindu religion, which formed a strange but fertile ground for Islam to thrive and Catholicism to graft onto. The particular, everyday kind of Islam practiced here is not as conservative as you would think from Western TV images. There’s a thriving youth culture – tight jeans, sneaker freaks and all – and massive shopping malls all over Jakarta. Indonesia is officially a secular country. It’s true that many of the nation’s defining characteristics come from Islamic tradition, but there is a significant element of other Eastern influence as well, from the nations of the Asian region. We’d do well to remember that.