Expedition to the Banda Islands (Day 3)

On my third day in Bali, the plan was for me to join Bu Rili, CTC's executive director, and find some people to interview.  Banda is an incredibly unique place and part of protecting it requires understanding it.  One of our goals for the interviews is to capture some of the unique stories and legends of Banda and share it with the wider public to increase an appreciation for the Banda Islands and thus foster a desire to conserve it.

We spent most of the morning at the hotel working on a presentation for a fundraiser coming up.  The hotel sits right on the water looking out at Gunung Api.  The hotel was built by Des Alwi, an important Indonesian historical figure who died in 2010.  A random encounter with two exiled political leaders in Banda, Mohammad Hatta and Sutan Sjahrir, led Des on a path to play an important role in Indonesian independence and diplomacy.  He later built the hotel in Banda that hosted guests such as Princess Diana, Mick Jagger, and Sarah Ferguson.  In addition, an entire building was created for when Indonesian president SBY visited.  It was pretty neat looking at all of the historical photographs including a portrait of Princess Diana and a personal note written by her to Des.

A portrait of Princess Diana

Des Alwi's daughter meeting Barrack Obama

View of Gunung Api from the hotel

Next to the hotel is Banda Neira’s port.  Docked at the port were three boats.  The first had arrived with a large number of goods and resources that would be distributed throughout the islands.  Given Banda’s isolation, villagers receive their resources from shipments by these large, wooden boats.  For our fieldwork, our most important resource was gasoline for the boats.  The island only has a limited quantity of gasoline based on the weekly shipment that comes in.  Thus, resources need to be used sparingly and planned out ahead of time.  The other boat docked at port had come from Surabaya and was in Banda to collect dried nutmeg to be delivered back to Surabaya and then exported to China.  This is the modern day spice trade.  Centuries ago, nutmeg would sell for its weight in gold, making meager sailors rich men.  Today, nutmeg is just an ordinary spice commodity.  After soil and nutmeg trees were taken from Banda by the British and grown in places like Singapore, nutmeg has now become more widely available outside Banda.  However, Banda still produces large quantities of nutmeg, which is one of its greatest economic drivers.  While the boat collecting nutmeg wasn’t an 18^th century wooden tallship that had spent a year travelling through rough seas and spoiled by diseases while finding its way to Banda, it still was continuing the half-millennial long tradition of the spice trade. 

The last boat at the port was from LIPI, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.  The boat was making a quick port stop in Banda as it travelled around the Banda Sea studying the oceanographic features of the area.  I had not realized Indonesia had scientific boats like NOAA, but unfortunately it left before I had a chance to go on board.

LIPI

After lunch, Bimo, Jost (a Dutch architect helping design CTC’s field office), Bu Rili, and I took a boat to a village at Banda Basar where Bu Rili’s favorite nutmeg plantation is.  As we arrived, a few kids were fishing off the dock using a handheld fishing line.  Drying on the dock were some sliced fish.  The villagers here often make a special sauce from this dried fish that goes well with eggplant and cassava, and usually takes about 3 days in the sun to make.  As we left the dock, my eyes were immediately drawn to the first house on the street.  As if taken out of a rural American suburb, the house was surrounded with a wooden picket fence and green lawn.  With white columns and a painted wall to resemble brick, the house definitely stood out among the others.  Compared to most of my travels so far throughout Indonesia, the architecture of the houses in the Banda Islands is very unique.  Even though a lot of these houses are new, they adopted a lot of European elements in the architecture instead of sticking with traditional Indonesian.  In addition, given the condition of the houses it seems that the people here are pretty well off.

Local kids fishing

Fish drying on the dock

Painted bricks

We walked down the road towards the plantation.  As we walked I would hear squeaks coming from either the beach or the forest across the road yelling “hey mister!”  It almost turned into a game trying to locate the kids yelling out at me.  There are a lot of kids in the Banda Islands which makes me think that there is an impending population boom about to occur, and as we all know, with a population boom there are increased pressures on the environment.  I asked Lili who was joining us from the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) about what most of the kids do in Banda.  She said that most of the kids actually leave Banda to find work in Ambon or other islands because there is not enough work in Banda.  These kids then only return to Banda to visit there family.

A newly built wall connecting to an old door frame

The view never gets old

Along the road was a large, colonial white building.  An old man who seemingly came out of nowhere unlocked the door to let us in.  The building as he said was an old merchant’s office for the Dutch East Indies Company.  Next to the building was the pathway leading to the plantation.  Towering high above the pathway were monstrous kenari trees.  Kenari is an almond-like nut.  Nutmeg trees or “pohon pala,” normally grow in the shade of kenari trees, and surrounding the kenari tree were several nutmeg trees and a few cows chewing away at the grass.  Walking under the shade of the trees, the temperature dropped a little, providing a brief oasis from the scorching, sunburn-causing sun. 

Large door! 

Kenari trees

Nutmeg and a cow

We continued walking along the path surrounded by nutmeg trees to either side.  I felt like I had been transported back to a forest at home in Massachusetts with the quite rustling of the leaves and chirping birds.  I could see why this was one of Bu Rili’s favorite places on Banda.  The serenity was so relaxing that all I wanted to do was take a nap under one of the nutmeg trees.

Nutmeg

Beautiful and peaceful

Nutmeg and kenari trees

My co-worker Bimo

We grabbed a nutmeg to test to see if it was ripe and brought it back to the village for them to open it.  While walking through the village, mats on either side of the street contained nutmeg seeds and the separated red mace that normally covers the nut.  In a little ally was a group of women chopping kenari nuts.  With callused hands and a very ordered process of cutting open the kenari, it was clear that these women have been doing this for a long time.  Since the women weren’t using any advanced tools, I wondered if this is what many of the Dutch colonists saw as they scavenged the islands for nutmeg and mace.

Kids playing in front of Gunung Api

Nutmeg and mace laying on the ground

Mace

Nutmeg

Local women breaking open kenari seeds

Tools used to break open kenari

She didn't like me taking photos of her

The quaint streets of Banda Basar 

After buying a bundle of kenari to cook with back in Bali, we headed back to the boat.  A few minutes of engine fixing later and we were off to Lonthor, the oldest village in the Banda Islands.  We arrived at the pier for the village and climbed up the rickety ladder onto the dock.  One consistent view throughout the entire Banda Islands is Gunung Api, and from Lonthor, the lava flow from the 1988 eruption was visible.  We walked along the path and came across a monument for the village built by the Hatta-Sjahrir school.  Both Mohammad Hatta and Sutan Sjahrir were exiled to Banda in 1936 by the Dutch during the push for Independence.  Later, Hatta became Indonesia’s vice president and Sjahrir, Indonesia’s first prime minister.

Fixing the engine

View of Gunung Api and remnants of a lava flow

Beach at Lonthor

Hatta-Sjahrir monument

Continuing along the pathway was similar Dutch-influenced houses.  Along the road were some kids who as per Banda style, were as friendly as ever and asked for their photos to be taken.  We turned right off the road and walked up a long series of stairs that took us towards the top of the hill.  It slowly began to drizzle and we became concerned we might get caught in a downpour.  Up ahead was a large square with a well and an Indonesian man pulling water out of the well.  I put my right foot on the wall of the well to peer inside.  The inside of the well was filled with vines and plants that led to a cave-like bottom.  The man sharply yelled “awas!” (“watch out!”) as he pointed to my foot.  In addition to Indonesian’s view of shoes and feet as dirty, the man was worried I may contaminate their water source.  The well as I soon found out, serves as the village’s primary water source.  He said that it supposedly stays 7 meters deep throughout the year and despite several efforts, no one has been able to trace the source of the water.  With the well sitting towards the top of the hill, it was extremely odd that the water would maintain a constant depth despite continuous use, but that is a mystery to be solved another time.

Street in Lonthor

Kids wanting their photo taken

He really loved that backpack

Dutch inscription on the stairs

LOTS of stairs

The well that never runs out of water

Grabbing drinking water from the well

The 2 wells that provide Lonthor with most of their fresh water

As the rain began to pick up we rushed forward along the path and were met with the same children that wanted photos of them when we first arrived.  We found shelter under a large tree that marked the entrance to the village’s cemetery.  The rain began to come down harder and the kids stood there for a bit before nervously asking if they could go home.  We got a laugh out of that and how polite the kids were and told them to run on home and get dry.  Trying to find further shelter, we walked through the cemetery towards a larger tree that protected us from the rain.  The graves were all pretty old, and I noticed the tree we were standing under was a kenari tree.  Low and behold, as I looked around there were several nutmeg trees, a testament to nutmeg’s abundance on Banda Besar.

The kids patiently waiting to go home

Lonthor graveyard

Once it stopped raining we continued on to find the rumah adat (traditional house) that serves as the main office for the village.  Our goal was to find the orang adat who is in charge of the village in order to interview him about Banda.  We ended up waiting at the rumah adat for the village leader who was watching a local football match.  A woman had told us that this man was rather new and might not know too much about the legends and stories of Lonthor and Banda.  She suggested we talk to a much older village elder, but no one was able to find him at the time. 

Rumah adat

Lonthor's method of keeping a census

We ended up talking to the orang adat for a half hour.  I tried my best to follow the conversation between him and Bu Rili, but I probably only understood half of what he was talking about.  One interesting thing he mentioned was that Lonthor along with a few other desas (villages) in Banda operate through a collaborative system where any decision is consulted between the village, religious, and government leaders.  For example, decisions on fishing amounts and time periods are made by this council.  I asked if any data was used to support these decisions on fisheries, and he responded saying that most of the decisions are based on knowledge from the fishermen as well as what the council thinks is best.

Bu Rili talking with the head of Lonthor

Following our meeting, which ended up being more productive than we had first expected, we walked over to Fort Hollandia at the highest point in Lonthor.  From this vantage point I could see the desa below, Gunung Api in the background, Fort Belgica perched up on Banda Neira, and the turquoise rich waters between the islands that dot the Banda archipelago.  I imagined what this view must have been like hundreds of years ago with large wooden ships from the Dutch East Indies Company docked in the bays as tons and tons of nutmeg were loaded into every available space.   

Some more kids wanted their photo taken 

Village street at the top of Lonthor

Old Dutch wall made with stone and coral

The wall of Fort Hollandia

View of Lonthor from above

From the left (Bu Rili, Lili, me, and Bimo)

View of Banda Neira and Fort Belgica

Traditional Banda boat

It was almost time for dinner, so we rushed back to our boat and returned to the hotel on Banda Neira where a feast of freshly caught fish and mango juice awaited us.  I could sure get used to life on Banda.

Banda feast!