Magetan, my home town

The ride by taxi from Madiun, past Iswayudi, and on to Magetan has really changed since '82-'83.  By the way, of all things, in Madiun we saw a Terminix truck.  Hard to imagine the effectiveness since I've never seen anyone use window screens.  Madiun kept going and going, and the buildings on both sides of the river obscured it.  I missed it all together; Pat saw it looking out the side window, and asked if it was the same, where I took a photo of a man defecating.  Yup.

Then at Iswayudi Air Force base, where I worked, the housing for officers and contractors has really grown.  And trees grew up at the runway touchdown zone; saw only a rack of landing lights.  All along the route to Magetan where structures were only one deep, now they are 4 and 5 deep.  I call them structures because it's very difficult, if not impossible, to discriminate between residences and businesses.  The architecture gives us no clues.  So, if the population of Java is still 90M, as it was, then all this new building is for business and residences for folks that used to live in the kampong (extended family neighborhood).  I even see American style single family home neighborhoods popping up - the burbs.  Magetan which was probably population 5000, now on one website shows 500,000, and is it ever bustling.  Wow.  No sleepy town here.

On the way here, to Magetan, I attempted to determine the point where the city began.  I guessed wrong at least three times, and only when we crossed the old major intersection did I have my bearings.

Entering Magetan

And here's a little weird one.  Checking into our hotel in Magetan we are informed that later in the day we will be interviewed by the police to ensure that we are not violating the purpose of our visa.  I look forward to it.  22:48 and no Polisi.  We call is rubber-time.  No problem.  Actually they never did interview us.

We strolled up the main drag west, uphill through Magetan toward my old house, or at least the same location.  Everything is newer, bigger, more modern, and 10 times more of it.  Stopped in a 7-11 clone and picked up a few domestic items, TP, bottle opener, wash cloth (not SOP in hotels).  Checked out the beer.  This store's got it; maybe the only one in town and only a half block from our hotel, the best in town, 25/night.  Actually the only hotel in town, that looked like a hotel anyway.

Nearing the site of my old house we passed by one that looked kind of like it.  Nope, not that one.  Onward, it can't be too far, it was about 100 yards from the intersection with the road to Sarangan, and we're about there.  But all these two story places on both sides of the road really confuse things.

New neighbors of the old house

My house was the primo house in town, back when.  If it's still here it's got a lot of competition.

Now here's a bunch of guys and maybe one is the right age to remember the house, or me for that matter.  I've got a laptop full of hundreds of photos of people in Java and maybe they're in one, or their father.  They are hanging out next to a house under construction where my house once stood.  Pat took a few pix of me in front of the construction.  So me and the guys go through all my old photos, the light is bad and they're hard to see.  We got a few hits though and I've promised to get a print made for one.  We spent about a half hour, maybe an hour doing that.  It was a lot of fun, everybody got a big yuk, particularly when a photo of one my local girl friend was happened upon.  I felt the need to explain that I was then not yet married at that time.  Still, too funny for these guys.

The boys and Me lookin' at old photos

As Pat and I make our leave and head back to our hotel we bump into a young girl (who turns out to be forty with two kids) who tells us she knows where my old house is, she remembers when a guy from Holland lived there.  But that's not me I tell her, I'm from America.  We discuss the time frame as she leads us back toward the corner and determine that she only thought I was dutch, and the house?  I take a closer look, and this one, the one I thought was kind of like, really is the one where I lived.  Wow!  Unbelievable!  Still there!  We take a few pictures in front of the house with Anik.

Anik and I in front of my old house

And then, get this, the highschool age girl behind the gate, wearing a white headscarf, invites us in to see the place.  We take some photos.  The furniture is the same!  Beautifully hand carved Java stuff, hardwood, no AC to maintain a constant environment, yet it's in near perfect shape, some not even reupholstered.  Risky is her name, she wakes her parents from their afternoon nap to show us around a bit.  Water is served.  Oh-Oh you say. Nope, this is purified water sold in cups the plastic cover penetrable with a sharp ended straw, like some juice drinks, and packaged by Nestle, by the way, the largest seller of bottled water in the world. Check out the water you buy, it's probably Nestle in the fine print. 

You know, these people invite some old white guy with a pony tail, and his wife with no scarf,  into their home...Open arms and open heart - that's the default position for Indonesians.  Tough to imagine, huh.

Suwandi and family owner of my old house

Risky, her mother, and Pat

On the way back I am overwhelmed and I am not sure why.  It really wasn't that we had found the place, rather I think, It's that I have now more Indonesian friends (virtually strangers) who I can never repay for their kindness.  Remember a time when you could hitch-hike without thinking you'll get your throat slit by some nut, or when you'd give a ride to or help a poor sole on the side of the road, without a thought of possible dangers, some kind of trap or scam?  It's like that here.  As I write I wonder how long till it gets killed.

We've got a big day ahead, I've promised photo showing to some old ladies in the neighborhood.

Anik was not in the location we found here the other day.  I ask about Anik with A 35ish woman in headdress and she directs us down what was 28 years ago a dirt alley, homes with made of grass mats, bamboo, and cly tile roofs (now stucco brick and mortar), that I would never have entered, not for fear but for respect for privacy. These kampongs as I mentioned are lifelong extended families.  I always felt that to enter there would be like walking into everyone's livingroom.  We get to a hair salon and it's name sounds like the name I heard Anik calling herself the other day and that explained why the spelling she wrote did not make sense to me.  A youngster (in headdress) comes along and with some back and forth she says Anik will be back later.  As we leave the kampong Anik and family arrive on a motor bike.  We return to her place and it's not her.  Bummer.  Wrong place, and this woman explains the address we have is back on the main drag just a bit further, and so we go.

Yup, when we arrive Anik is there.  We start right in, in the stall that sells sim cards, it's about 4 x 8 with a sales counter, and we've got a crowd around from 20 to 80 years all looking at the pix on my laptop.  We go through perhaps a hundred. Anik lets us know with each photo whether anyone in the crowd knows anyone in the photo.  Two hits. Now we'll need to find a place to make prints.

Can you imagine Pat on a motorcycle? We duck into a stall that does photocopies, on a long shot maybe they can do photo prints.  I might mention that the main drag here is lined with little stalls selling all sorts of stuff.  He says back up where we came from is a guy that does make prints, and one of the guys hanging out offers to take me back on his motorcycle.  After our ride, to everyone's surprise, he leaves me and returns with Pat.  First bike ride in two millennia.

The following day we run into an employee at our hotel and he remembers me from when I lived in Madiun at another hotel in '82, but we're in Magetan now.  We have some real trouble communicating, and I'm kind of politely blowing him off, but he's a bit insistent on getting his point across.  Oh, I finally get it.  He saw my name in the hotel register at this hotel, he was telling me about the old jeep I drove, an French guy that I was buddies with, and other details, so I finally got the picture.  He's Rakimin (pronounced rockymin).  Now he's married with two kids, working at this much newer hotel.  I think he said his wife works at the old Hotel Indah in Madiun but I can't be sure.  So we take a picture, he and Me and the laptop showing him 28 years ago.  So I need to get another print.

Rakimin (3rd from left in '83) and 2012

 We're on our way to show my laptop photo album to some more likely suspects.  The first of the suspects is not home, and next speaks only Javanese and her neighbor isn't home to translate. We take a street I think is the location of a family that once posed for me, three generations.  We find a possible neighbor and are invited inside where the light is better to run through the album.  They recognize the crazy guy, and the guy with one eye, and the other guy that's an "idiot", they call him.  It seems these guys are recognized by anyone who lived in town.  No other hits.  OK, it's back to the photo shop again to get the print made for Rakimin.

Oh, by the way, while we're here maybe Okti would like to run through the album while her husband Sonny (that's Sony to English speakers) works on the prints.  Okti likes looking through them, taking her time.  I let her drive, so at her own pace.  I demonstrate that the pix can be expanded like an Ipad.  Her son, about 10, hears that an right away wants to show us how to do it.  Okti has to nudge him periodically to keep him from fiddling.  Okti recognizes the same as everyone else.  Wait! That's my school, my elementary school! (I'm translating here for you).  But the teacher, I don't remember his name.  And later on, she finds an old woman, likely not alive today.  Okti looks very closely to be sure.  "That's my grandmother" (I'm not translating here). 

Nenek Okti - '83

Okti found her nenek

I get choked up again writing about it.  This is partly why we are here, and definitely why we're boring people with hundreds of old pictures.  I told Pat that in one respect this relieves me of a certain level of guilt.  I lived with these people for two years and what did I do.  I took as many photos as I could (most often surreptitiously), I bought stuff from them, I  worked, and then finally I left.  Really, what a jerk!  Now I can, at the very least, hand to a few souls some old photos that they otherwise may never have had the chance to have.  That might a bit sound odd, but in the '80's cameras were a not common, and I was using slide film which could not be processed in East Java, so I had no way of giving prints to them then.

I'd say mission accomplished, but it might have another connotation to some.  Anyway, Okti's husband had a 5GB flash stick so I dumped the whole album on him, and maybe they'll run across some other soul who'll recognize someone else in the album.


The second day in Magetan our walking is around the town square and the southern edge of town where the leather tanning businesses are located.  Almost as soon as we get to the square is a guy speaking English quite well with us.  An English teacher, and he'd like to bring his students to our hotel to have a live experience with native English speakers.  We all, Jamaludin Malik along with his students have a bit of meet and greet, and what our lives are like.  The students are all quite shy, and Pat, Jamal and I do most of the talking.  We prompt the students, what do you do after school, what are your plans after you graduate?  They are in their first and second year of high school.  Jamal is probably offended because I don't take him up on his offer to show us all around. Jamal, please accept my apology.  it's just that we prefer to explore on our own.

Jamal and class, without the picture taker