Palm Oil Wisdom From Pa

by Kayla Blau (United States of America)

Making a local connection Indonesia

I was hangry, sweaty, and cramped in the back of a local bus in West Sumatra, exhausted from the morning’s jungle trek on little sleep. An older local man (which are all referred to as “pa” in Indonesia) started inching closer to me. “Hello! Where are you from?” He asked cheerily. I was expecting the usual exchange, which ends in asking me for a selfie (white people are a rare sight in West Sumatra, and due to white-washed beauty ideals, many locals ask for selfies with white tourists to show their friends they have a white-person-acquaintance.) Anyway, this was not the case with this Pa. He kept asking questions, wanting to ensure my time in Indonesia had been enjoyable, despite my short responses and moodiness. I was in full introvert mode and am ashamed of how curt I likely was responding, but that didn’t seem to faze him. “I’m curious, what was the visa process like for you to come here? What paperwork did you have to prepare? Did you have to show how much money you have in your bank account?” He asked. “Um, it was easy. I didn’t have to prepare any paperwork, I just had to buy a ticket really,” I replied. “To come to America, we have to give a lot of paperwork to apply for a visa, very expensive, and it usually gets declined. It’s very, very hard for us to get to America. Very easy for you to get here,” he points out. “It’s unfair,” I offer bluntly. I want to offer more, anything to offset the inequality of passport colors and global politics, but come up short. He fills the void and offers a smile. “Yes, unfair,” he nods. “What do you do in America?” “I’m a social worker. I work in a domestic violence shelter,”I reply. “Ah, bless you, that’s good work. You know, my English is so good because I’m an irrigation engineer. I taught myself English to be able to read articles about my craft, to improve my work. We’re in a crisis, have you heard? A drought.” I turn towards him, finally offering my full attention. I recoil at my initial judgment of him, how I sized up his attire and priced out what he wanted from me. I was blindsided by the wisdom he was about to offer me. My Western-programmed brain only gave him merit when he gave me his employment credentials. I recoil at this truth too. “Not just a drought, but fires too. Big companies come and burn our forests for palm oil. They lie to us and push us to sell our land to them, but locals don’t get a cent from the palm oil they get from our land. Have you heard?” I had heard rumblings about the fires, but thought it was from climate change, not from companies coming in and burning them purposely. Chicken and the egg, really – climate change is being fueled by emissions from the mass fires. Later, I read that multi-millionaire dollar grossing companies are bulldozing entire indigenous villages, leaving hundreds of people and endangered species like orangutans homeless. I learn palm oil is present in household staples like toothpaste, soap, dog food, cooking oil, shampoo, and even infant formula. Since 2001, Indonesia has lost 26 million hectares of forest in the name of the $44 billion palm oil industry. He faces me head on, and his right eye lights up at me, America the Lost Hope. “You’re a social worker, right? That means you care about things, about people, maybe about this. Maybe if Americans knew about the burning of our forests, they’d stop buying all the products with palm oil in them. And that’d make the companies go away, supply and demand, you know? Can you…can you tell everyone back home about the fires? Will you do that for me?” You got it, Pa. So this is my plea, my vow and my feeble attempt at spreading awareness. Don’t doubt the power of your consumerism. Check labels, do research, and, as much as possible, buy products that are palm-oil free. Here’s a list of palm oil free products to get started.