Reality

by Rosemary Plummer (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Indonesia

It’s not the kind of poverty you can see, It’s bellies fat full of rice, but of nothing else. It’s not the kind of poverty you can see, It’s Ibu never getting older than 60 and laki-laki smoking 40 a day, because they wont live long enough to feel the effect anyway. It’s not the kind of poverty you hear about, The children have shoes on their feet, but their mothers aren’t here because they’re working abroad. And papa doesn’t come around anymore. It’s not the kind of poverty you hear about, People aren’t ‘so grateful for the little that they have’, they’re desperately wanting more. And it’s greedy and it’s ugly and it’s covered in the plastic, which will soon litter the floor. It’s not the kind of poverty we even consider, Nowhere to throw away your rubbish but in the street, nowhere to wash but in the river. No clean water. It’s not the things I take pictures of. It’s not the kind of life I expect women to live, No one asks me for money, or instructions, or even directions, because that’s not what women are for. It’s not the kind of pain we can ever consider. No hospitals for hours and hours. No ambulances. No money to get there or to pay a Doctor anyway. Listen to the medicine man, listen to the snake man. Go to another funeral. 2003. Flood water 10 meters high in the night. Everyone you love gone in the blink of an eye. It’s fear like I’ve never known. Every time the river rises, every time that it’s matte lampu and the rain keeps pouring and the lighting won’t stop hitting all around and the thunder booms on and on. But they don’t speak of why they’re scared. Because here, Allah chooses who will live or die. And so Bukit Lawang lives on, a tourist haven. Come and see the Orangutans. Walk in the Jungle. Stay in a 5-star hotel with hot water and never venture to the slums behind the market. Don’t look around.