My trip to Madura

By Saarah Jappie s21
University of New South Wales

So I have returned from a 12-day stay on the island of Puteran, which is part of the eastern-most province of Madura, which is off Java. If I had to describe my stay in one word, it would be 'INTENSE' (to the max). I was actually really nervous and worried about going there because I'd never been to Madura before, I didn't know where I was going to stay, whether or not I'd be safe, and all the Javanese pre-scared me about the Madurese and, among other things, their 'coarseness'. So I was basically freaking out the whole seven hours that it took to get there. I was driven there by one the lecturers at my uni, Pak Habib, and he kept me entertained with random stories about Chinese people and prostitution (among his fields of research).

For those of you who don't know, I went to Madura because I'm doing a field research project on a historical/religious figure, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Maqassari (all of my South African posse should know him!). He has like five graves in the world, including one (apparently) in Madura. There's never been much explanation or even mention of the grave in Madura, so, for some reason I now can't think of, I thought it would be good to be adventurous and find out what the deal was. I was particularly looking at oral history and therefore had to talk to a lot of people and hear lots of weird stories, which I also was keen to do.

To cut the long story short, I got there fine and by the wonders of Indonesian 'everyone knows everyone'ness, I scored a top pad with the family of an ex-student of Pak Habib's, who we bumped into at the grave. I was imagining living in like a village shack, but ended up in a big room with my own bathroom (western toilet and everything) and a house decorated with Balinese furniture. Nice one!

Anyway, so I was living with the family who looked after the grave and so my life BECAME the grave. I was constantly talking to people about the origins of the grave, of the man himself, of why people visit graves and random things about the island and Madurese people and Islam... I was so absorbed in it all I even DREAMT about my interviews and random pilgrims. People I interviewed told their friends about me who then wanted to talk to me and tell me their stories and it just went on and on.

Through my work I was given insight into a lot of Madurese people's views about Islam, in particular religious leaders, and the world in general. Almost everyone I met was like mad about Arabia and Arabs and the 'Ulama' (religious leaders), and even had pictures of these random Arab men in their houses. They all loved to blare Arab music and threw random Arab words into their speech. Almost everyone I met also had a different story about the grave and Sheikh Yusuf and now I don't even know if it's even one of his graves or some other random.
Anyway, I'll work that out later...

The word about my presence quickly spread and before I knew it people knew more about my project and my personal identity than I did. Long, complicated narratives about my heritage developed and before long I was of Arab-Indonesian descent and related to the guy in the grave. I would walk down the street and hear people I'd never even MET give a short spiel about who I was and what I was doing, but of course those people never stopped to say hello. Now that was only some people, but most were lovely and always smiled and yelled 'where are you going?' at me in Madurese.

I was taken in by a lot of people. They really went out of their way to be nice and make me stay at their houses and feed me and speak loudly at me and give me cultural and religious advice, especially when they found out I was Muslim. I was totally hip and cool being the Muslim Bule (foreigner) and so it was all good, but some people decided they needed to teach me about the religion and my duties and so forth. Here's one really bizarre instance you might enjoy: I was wearing a headscarf yesterday at someone's house and we had the following exchange: (translated, of course)

Now I'm SURE she meant well. This is only one example and from the more 'intense' families in the village - they weren't all that tactful. hehe

Moving along, some of the highlights of my stay there included going on a 2 hr trip on a little wooden boat (perahu) to an island called 'Gili Lawak'. It was AMAZINGLY beautiful and only had about 150 inhabitants. I went swimming (in shorts and a t-shirt) in the crystal-clear water (which later on the rest of the village found out about) and ate barbecue tuna straight from the sea (I always thought it just came in a can) and fell asleep on the boat on the way home...

Another highlight was being invited to (read: pressured into) speaking on the mic, in English, at the local volleyball tournament.
Volleyball is huge on the island, so everyone was there. I can't even remember what I said and no one understood, because it was English, but they screamed and cheered like I'd saved their lives from ultimate doom.

Otherwise just meeting lots of people and making friends was good. I now have like 15 little sisters and brothers and two mums and a grandma. No one spoke English, so I was interacting in with them in Indonesian all day, everyday and it did wonders for my language, but not so much for my sanity.

In the end I got a lot of interesting, yet complicated, data and I actually had a really good time, because I was put in this environment so amazingly far from anything I'd ever known. The people, the physical environment, the culture and life in general was so different that it was, at times, a challenge to just be there, but I managed to keep it together in the end (after having a nervous breakdown on the phone to my Mum). I thought Yogya and Malang were challenging and different, and they are, but Madura was just something else! Also, because I was completely alone there (no other foreigners, or any of my friends, not even Pak Habib), I had to just deal with everyone myself... no Marianne and Kate to 'debrief' with.
Oh yes, my reunion with Kate and Marianne at Surabaya harbour last night was hilarious... so many squeals and shrieks...

Okay, now I don't know if you all really wanted to read all of that (or if you even did), but that's my 20min spiel about my weird and wonderful experiences in Madura. I hope my English still makes sense... The island really was another world and I did do a lot of reflecting while I was there... And now my journey in Indonesia continues...