tahun 2019 saya ikutan london book fair, setelah beberapa bulan sebelumnya ke norwich buat ikutan program mentorship buat penerjemah. sudah lama sebenarnya saya pengen nulis tentang pengalaman waktu itu yang menunjukkan betapa busuknya orang2 yang selama ini pura2 kelihatan begitu murah hati mempromosikan sastra indonesia, betapa para penulisnya juga lebih mementingkan mempromosikan diri sendiri daripada bersolidaritas bersama buat sastra indonesia yang lebih asoy and, as they say nowadays, inklusif, dan juga betapa nol-nya pengetahuan orang asing tentang sastra indonesia and yet betapa privilese yang sering mereka tidak sadari memberi kebebasan buat mereka untuk menjadi so sotoy! i met some very good people when i was there, tapi kebanyakan dari mereka adalah orang2 dalam kedudukan biasa2 aja, admin people, liaison officers, new friends (fellow translators and writers/poets, termasuk olivia mccannon di bawah) i met randomly and not-so-randomly. those in power, though, give em a miss.
ternyata pengalaman tahun lalu itu cukup nyebelin sehingga membuat saya males mikirin tentang sastra indonesia, bahkan sering saya jadi merasa ga peduli lagi. ngapain juga ribet2 mikirin orang ga ada yang peduli juga lol. tapi saya juga diganggu dengan perasaan bersalah kalau tidak berbagi tentang pengalaman saya karena banyak hal yang dilakukan diam2 oleh those in power tadi, di sini dan di luar indonesia, yang publik, terutama publik sastra indonesia harus tahu.
misalnya soal cerpen yang dipilih untuk diterjemahkan buat acara translation slam yang mengundang saya jadi salah satu penerjemahnya. saya masih males menuliskan kisah lengkapnya jadi satu cerita yang runut jadi ikuti saja email2an di antara saya dan orang2 yang terlibat secara langsung di program ini (ada juga tangan2 tersembunyi yang terlibat, nanti lihat saja sendiri). rangkuman email yang di dalam anne carsonesque lacunae [] udah redacted biar gak melanggar privacy.
bayangin, cerpen tentang orang papua ditulis orang jawa (our true great colonizers) dipilih oleh orang amerika trus dipamerin di london! ini london book fair apa world’s fair? wakakak. imagine the hundreds of years of colonial pain reflected and repeated in that process! gross!
korespondensi di bawah dimulai tanggal 10 januari (acara translation slamnya sendiri tanggal 2 maret) namun cerpen yang harus diterjemahkan baru diterima/diputuskan tanggal 20 februari, 10 hari sebelum acara!
email2an dimulai:
[British Council mengundang ikut Translation Slam di London Book Fair 2019. Acaranya “mengadu” saya dan satu lagi penerjemah dari Inggris, Laura Noszlopy, menerjemahkan karya prosa Indonesia. Terjemahannya dipersiapkan lebih dahulu, bukan freestyling seperti dalam poetry slam.]
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Hi R,
Glad we finally get in touch. First of all, let me say thank you very much for sponsoring my LBF visit, I’m sure it’s gonna be very useful and fun!
And thank you for arranging this interesting session, of course I’d be up for translating prose as well.
If you need input on young writers to translate, let me know. I run an open mic night in Jakarta (mostly poetry but also prose) and I’ve met quite a few very promosing up-and-coming authors.
I’m aware I might not actually have a say on who we have to translate (which makes it interesting!) but here’s one short story I really like, just for your enjoyment. The writer’s name is Ratri Ninditya, she’s written another short story (speculative sci-fi!) for Vice Indonesia, writes essays on pop culture, and has a book of prose poems coming out next year. Check it out: https://wp.me/p2nAHE-7J
That’s it for now. Speak to you again soon. Really look forward to do this! 
Best wishes,
Mikael.
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[British Council mengabarkan belum ada kepastian karya apa/siapa yang akan diterjemahkan]
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[Email British Council tentang masalah-masalah admin dan pemberitahuan bahwa KBN sebagai organising committee kehadiran Indonesia di LBF belum menentukan karya yang akan diterjemahkan]
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Hi R,
Thanks for checking in! Was just about to email you about the piece to be translated.
Contracts & Payment Details – have received the GBPxxxx BC grant and hence have booked my flights and Airbnb. Thank you. I haven’t notified S yet, but I would prefer to get the xxx + xxx pounds from the NCW in cash when I’m in London since I’ll need it for my stay there. Will email her asap.
Speaker Registration – done. Have already received my pass.
Event details – no worries. Will follow instructions on D-day. Re: translation piece, just in case you’re undecided with a prose piece, might you consider some poems? Especially since Olivia MacCannon [the moderator] is a poet and also translates poetry.
I do like the idea of translating an untranslated piece, and would be even more excited if we can translate someone fresh and young and not one of the 12 writers officially selected by KBN. For diversity’s sake. I do realize it’s out of my hands, but here’s hoping.
Thanks very much, R. I’ll see you soon!
Best wishes,
Mikael.
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[British Council mengabarkan mereka ingin menerjemahkan pengarang muda yang belum pernah diterjemahkan]
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Hi again,
Just in case you haven’t decided on the piece to translate for the slam, I know that Indonesia is producing some chapbooks for LBF and that one of them contains short stories from Cyntha Hariadi’s Manifesto Flora, translated by Pam Allen, who happens to be my mentor in the Emerging Translator program. It’s a great book, representative of a new wave of young women writers in the country (though Cyntha has a very distinctive, inimitable droll, ironic style), and the themes—urban women, personal lives of ethnic Chinese minority, motherhood, family, third-culturism and combo of all these—are very now and interesting. If you want, we can translate “Rose”, one of the stories in the book, which is about a nouveau riche woman trying to buy a luxury apartment in a mall booth in Jakarta. The story is both sardonic to the sociological, economic, political milieu of Jakarta and sympathetic towards this tragic figure of Rose, the protagonist in the story, a young woman from a poor family married to an extremely rich man and now trapped in all the rich trimmings of her new life. Rich damsel-in-distress with agency taken away from her by Indonesia’s 1%! It’s a great tragicomedy. It also has puns and Jakarta-specific references that will test the resolve of a translator. I believe the story has been translated by Pam already, so if you want to do this, we can then actually have three versions of the story to compare for the slam, which would be interesting. Or, we can also do a new story from the book, in which case I would recommend “Apa yang Kau Tunggu, Ny. Liem?” (What Are You Waiting For, Mrs. Liem?—a 98-year-old Chinese matriarch in a long-running family feud with her children, also tragic and funny) or “Dokter Agnes” (Dr. Agnes—a beautiful plastic surgeon with a deformed child, good example of the way the author handles irony. From my description can sound heavy-handed, but in reality, very subtle). There is also “Setengah Perempuan II” (Half a Woman II) that has a series of codeswitching puns which would be hard but exciting to translate as well.
Some info about the book and the author: Manifesto Flora was in the shortlist for the Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa Award (Indonesia’s Booker I suppose) last year, and the author’s poetry book “Ibu Mendulang Anak Berlari” won third place in the Jakarta Arts Council’s poetry competition in 2015.
That’s about it for now (too long already! :)). Just in case you need some ideas. If you want to ask questions, pick my brain, anything, just give me a buzz.
Thank you, R.
Best wishes,
Mikael.
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[Nggak penting]
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[British Council mengumumkan cerpen yang akan diterjemahkan, dipilih oleh KBN, “Ikan Kaleng” oleh Eko Triono, yang dideskripsikan sebagai “a new voice in the Indonesian literary scene”.]
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[Basa-basi]
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[Basa-basi]
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hi all! good to get acquainted finally. thanks r!
btw, i’ve noticed that the text given to us could be an earlier, more typos version of the story, not the one published in kompas (the newspaper) eventually? there are discrepancies that result in changes in meaning, eg, “pendaftaran pertama” (first enrolment) in fifth paragraph of the version we have vs. “pendaftar pertama” (first person to enrol) in online versions that seem to have been copied from the paper (though this may also result in more discrepancies). the copy on this one seems to be quite clean: https://lakonhidup.com/2011/05/15/ikan-kaleng/
i would think, if it can be produced, it would be better to use the og kompas version (15 may 2011) as our canonical text.
cheers,
m.
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[Acknowledgement of problem with the source text]
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[Basa-basi]
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[Basa-basi]
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[Basa-basi]
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[Penerjemah UK, Laura, mengeluh tentang “bahasa Papua” di dalam source text, menjadi ragu apakah mampu menerjemahkan.]
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[British Council bilang menunggu pendapat Mikael]
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[Laura bilang bahasa Papua kebanyakan dijumpai di dalam dialog di cerpen Eko]
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[British Council bilang akan complain ke John (McGlynn)]
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[British Council menjelaskan menurut KBN yang ada di dalam cerpen Eko bukan bahasa Papua tapi “a dialect of Indonesian with Papuan influences”]
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[Laura khawatir terjemahannya bakal tidak akurat kalau tidak tahu dialek tadi]
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hi all, it’s already a bit late here so i’m gonna write something longer tomorrow.
but just quickly, i’ve already done the translation and i’m not sure i’ll have the time to do another one by friday.
that said, i do find the story very problematic, not just because it appropriates papua patois (very badly i might say), but also because it does so in order to paint an orientalistic, condescending and frankly in some parts racist representation of papuans as noble savages. (on the surface it’s trying to be sympathetic to the papuans being dragged into modernity.)
i was gonna say something about this but i know we’re pressed for time and i thought maybe it could be interesting to talk about the travails of translating something as ideologically problematic as this piece.
also another thing, eko is already quite an established writer, published in major newspapers and by major publishers, so i would take the recommendation of him as a new voice with a grain of salt.
so maybe there are two choices, we can still do this piece (i can help provide a simple lexicon for all the papuan/eastern indonesian words), and at the event as i said we can talk about the difficulties of translating the piece. or if it comes to translating a new piece in such a short time, i think i would only do something that is both a good representation of contemporary indonesian literature, something young and fresh, and also something that both L and i feel comfortable of doing. which means that i think both L and i should be consulted about the new piece before we agree to it, if it comes to this (i hope not). it wouldn’t be fair to both of us if kbn or whoever is advising you chooses another piece as problematic as this.
i know this must create extra hassles for you, R, i totally understand and i obviously don’t blame you for the choice of story to translate. i hope we can find a good compromise.
thank you,
mikael.
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[British Council bilang ini pertama kalinya mengalami persoalan seperti ini dalam Translation Slam. Menginfokan mereka sempat menolak 2 cerpen pilihan KBN sebelum menerima cerpen Eko.]
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[Laura setuju meneruskan menerjemahkan cerpen Eko, dan mengakui adanya “an interesting prospect to discuss the way the writing is steeped in assumptions and politics”]
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[Basa-basi]
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[British Council memutuskan tetap memakai cerpen Eko, bilang mungkin “the more complicated and ideological issues of appropriation and voice” akan jadi bahan diskusi yang menarik]
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thank you very much for this, R. sounds like a very workable solution. agreeing with u that this whole exercise should be less a competition and more working together (translators, together, strong! 
) to canvass different possibilities of translating the piece and making transparent the often dark arts of translation.
i’m more than happy to provide a simple lexicon (see below) and actually think it would be useful to have further discussions in this email thread on other aspects of the story that might help us not just in translating it but also in peeling away its meanings and (problematic) ideological underpinnings (as you outlined above).
one of the things that rankles most about this story is its stereotypical depiction of jayapura, the capital of papua, as a virginal backwater. so mooi indië! said would have a field day with this story! when actually it’s one of the bigger cities in eastern indonesia and as modern as any of them. rather than describing it, i’ll let this video of a pretty famous jayapura hiphop crew take you thru the streets of jayapura:
in the story it was also described how the tribal chief was shocked by seeing canned sardines in the market. jayapura is on the coast and most people still prefer fresh fish but canned sardines are almost as ubiquitous as indomie (instant noodle, our true national food 
) in the supermarkets and they have big hypermarkets just like in java. see this woman (an immigrant from java, there’s a lot of them, don’t worry teacher sam, you’re not alone in this heart of darkness!) shop for groceries at a hypermart:
and another thing, modernized teacher/big businessman/civil servant/soldier from the cities being transplanted in a “pastoral village” is actually a pretty common trope in indonesian stories (books, films). critical discourses around it have pointed out that a lot of these stories, including this one, succumb to describing a stereotypical pit fight between between “cities bad, but strong” vs. “kampung/villages good, but weak”, when the reality as you can see in the hip hop video, say, is much more complex than that. here’s an example of a mainstream movie with a plot revolving around a female muslim teacher in hijab being sent to teach in a village in timor, near the indonesian border with east timor. (terrible title, but i actually kinda like this movie, the dialogues are funny, it uses local actors and non-actors, and it mucks around with issues of identity in subtle ways):
and here’s the lexicon. feel free to ask me questions, L.
dah = short for “sudah” = already
dong = short for “dia orang” = used in the story as “dia” = he/him but afaik dong = they/them. he/him should be “de”.
kitorang = short for “kita orang” = we/our/us
ko = “kau” = you
mari = short for “kemari” = (to) here
pu = short for “punya” = have
sa = short for “saya” = i
torang = short for “kita orang” = we/us
trada = “tidak/tidak ada” = no
gotta go now, but later i’ll write more about the (my) difficulties in finding the correct translation strategy for this story (by that i mean, yes, the dia/monologues).
thank you again, R. good luck, L!
cheers,
mikael.
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[Laura setuju cerpen Eko banyak memakai “tired tropes”]
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[Moderator menjelaskan susunan acara Translation Slam]
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[Laura setuju dengan “Mikael’s critique of the sociopolitical assumptions underpinning the story and the writing style”]
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[Admin stuff]
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hi all,
ya sure, i can read the og story.
and yes i’m happy with the discussion flow. one thing if possible, is there a way to play 10-15 seconds of one of the videos i sent in this thread? (probably the papua hip hop crew video, with sound). just need a laptop, projector, and some speakers (portables are fine). i won’t have my laptop with me, so will need to use someone else’s.
i think that’s about it from me so far. will write if i think of something else.
cheers,
mikael.
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[Admin stuff]
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Cool, thanks R!
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hi O, here’s my bio:
Mikael Johani is a poet, critic, and translator from Jakarta, Indonesia. His works have been published in Asymptote, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Ajar (Hanoi), Vice Indonesia, Kerja Tangan (Kuala Lumpur), Murmur, Selatan, Popteori, Vita Traductiva (Montréal), What’s Poetry?, Bung!, and others. His poetry book, “We Are Nowhere And It’s Wow”, was published by Post Press in 2017. He’s working on “mongrelz”, his second poetry collection, which will feature mostly codeswitching poems. He’s also working on a translation of Gratiagusti Chananya Rompas’s poetry collection, “Non-Spesifik.” His English version of “one by one the bodies died”, a poem from Non-Spesifik, won an Honourable Mention from the 2018 Hawker Prize for Southeast Asian Poetry. He is one of the winners of the 2018-19 Emerging Translator Mentorships Programme from the UK’s National Centre for Writing. He organizes Paviliun Puisi, a monthly open mic gig in Jakarta.
cheers!
m.
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[Basa-basi]
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dear O,
thank you!
re: which sections to read, maybe obvious ones would be the chief’s motivational speech , mostly so we can talk about the difficulty of rendering a patois which in the original (indonesian) was included to further exoticize the papuans (auto-ethnography!), but then again the patois is badly done, bowdlerized (auto-erasure!). what to do?:
“Ko pasti bisa! Ko dilahir atas laut, makan ikan laut, garam laut, ko anak laut! Laut ibu torang. Kitorang cintai, dayungi, dan ciumi angin asin ini. Laut tempat ko makan, laut tempat ko besar nanti, ko paham sa pu nasehat? Ini tujuan ko sekolah di Lat, ko belajar hidup. Bukan cuma omong kosong dan menggambar. Ko dititipi laut Bapa Kitorang.”
“Karn boyz, yu got dis! Yu waz born in da see, yu eet fizz farm da see, yu mek salt farm da see, yu ah boyz of da see! Da see iz ahwer muthah. Wi luv dis salti win, wi rahw tru dis salti win, wi kizza dis salti win. Da see iz wir yu fine yer food, wir yu is grahwn up, yu si dis wizdom ah tellin yu? Dis is da rison yu go tae Lat skhul, yu learnin haw tae live, nat drawin, nat bullsit. Ahwer Fathah, e gave us dis see.”
also maybe some mise-en-scene bits that show the mooi indië-ness of the piece, maybe this?:
Mereka kemudian menjauh, menurun di bukit-bukit kecil bercadas, berkelok, samar dan hilang bersama suara angin dan pemandangan hijau hutan juga beberapa rumah penduduk dan sekali dua waktu minibus berlalu dengan muatan penuh.
The boys made themselves scarce down small rocky hills along a winding dirt road. Their voices grew distant and then disappeared with the wind and into the green of the forest, dotted with houses and, every now and then, a taxi bus stuffed with passengers and their belongings.
or maybe the ending that sort of gives away the real developmentalist ideology of the piece (but in a weird way, the tone is so strange in the original, so deadpan that it sounds like a news report (like it really happens) but the scene/action described is so fantastic (is it gonna turn into life of pi?) that it also sounds like a moral lesson at the end of a fable. and that martial arts-y war cry at the end! what was that?
Sam terbengong. Dan ia akan makin kaget, jika tahu bahwa lima hari mendatang akan ada rombongan kecil dengan perahu berlayar sedang, berbekal peta yang ia berikan sewaktu bertanya, beduyun mengarungi Samudra Hindia, menuju Jawa Timur buat belajar cara mengalengkan ikan agar tidak rugi dalam menangkap demikian banyak ikan, agar anak-anak kelak sejahtera, agar listrik penuh, televisi seperti di kota, mobil, motor…. Tidak ada yang ragu; mereka anak-anak sekolah Lat; terlatih membelah ombak dengan dayung, membaca angin, gemintang, dan asin air laut dan jejak-jejak ikan di antara buih dan gelombang. Jiah! Khiaak!
Sam was aghast. And that was before he knew that five days later a group of children would sail on a small boat, carrying a map that he had given them, traversing the Indian Ocean towards East Java to learn how to can fish so they would not have to catch so many fishes, so that all the children would lead a better life, with electricity that would never cut out, TV sets just like people had in the city, cars, motorbikes…. No doubt about it: these were the Lat school children, experts at beating the waves with their oars, who could read the wind, the stars, the salt brines, and the movement of fish between the sea foam and the waves.
Wa-taaaahhhh! Wooo-waaaaahhh!
maybe. would like to know what bits you find interesting/want to read out/talk about.
thank you O!
best,
mikael.
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[Bio Laura:
Dr Laura Noszlopy runs a research and editorial services consultancy. Trained in anthropology and comparative religion, she mostly works in academic research and project management. Her work on cultural politics and ethnography/biography has been published internationally in academic and other books, journals and magazines. Laura is assistant editor of the Taylor & Francis journal Indonesia and the Malay World, and a contributing editor at Inside Indonesia.
She first became besotted with Indonesia as a student and spent many years doing research in Bali. She became involved with the literary scene as an editor of Denpasar-based Latitudes Magazine in 2004 and later worked as a freelance translator, writer and editor for the Lontar Foundation and other Indonesian publishers. For several years, she edited translations in preparation for publication.
She is currently network facilitator for a criminal law reform centre at University of Birmingham and will soon join a University of London research project on wayang, climate change and environmental education.
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[Konfirmasi bagian cerpen yang akan dibacakan]
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hi,
here’s my translation. re: dialogues/monologues in melayu papua (malay papua, the semi-official name for the papuan patois), i’ve checked with papuan and eastern indonesian friends (some of them writers, including my wife who is from manado in north sulawesi :)) and they’ve confirmed that apart from elementary mistakes in eko’s version (eg, as indicated in my lexicon, dong = he/him instead of the correct they/them), some of the sentence structures are also a bit odd, eg, last sentence in the chief’s monologue to his students, eko has it as “ko dititipi laut bapa kitorang”. apparently (according to people i’ve spoken to) the word “dititipi” (passive of lend, so the sea being “lent” to the kids by “our father” aka god) would not be commonly used in this context. it would more likely be expressed in the active as “bapa kitorang titip laut buat ko” or “kitorang pu bapa titip laut buat ko” (literally “our father = god lends you the sea” (difference in the possessive for “our” father)).
that’s a circuitous way of saying that eko in his story (in my opinion out of carelessness borne out of lack of respect/orientalist entitlement) had created a fantasy melayu papua creole of his own imagination for the papuans’ speech that’s not very realistic and kinda gimmicky.
i thought long and hard about this, and the translation strategy i’ve finally come up with for the lines in melayu papua is to, mimicking the original author but doing it consciously, create a fantasy creole which may (if i do it well enough) reflect in a better way how (strange/unfamiliar) the papuans’ speech might sound to sam the teacher, without claiming that’s how they really speak in real life (in a way, this could be easier for me, since i’m putting english words into their mouth, no pressure to stick to irl accuracy!). (in the original btw, the papuans’ speech still sounds very indonesian the way eko does it that most people, both sam the character and readers of this story, would instantly understand it.)
i’ve mashed up my creole from bits of lkj, trainspotting, urayoán noel’s translation of wingston gonzález’ “no budu please”, and internet forum lingo. my sincere hope is to reclaim at least a little bit of (linguistic and political) agency for the papuans in this story. to me in the original story the papuans have been left voiceless (perhaps not deliberately and more out of carelessness/javanese sense of entitlement that they can speak for the papuans, but still ironic in a story that purports to be sympathetic to their cause) and/or have their voice replaced with an entitled javanese author’s voice (hundreds of years of history on this one).
had i been able to talk to eko for this translation, i would definitely try to challenge him on at least a couple of points and try to get him to rethink aspects of the story. as you know, sometimes a translation can offer a chance of redemption.
going back re: dia/monologues again, i tried simple codeswitching and it ended up too foreignizing. rendering the lines as straight english with an explainer in the narration (eg, “the chief said in the local dialect”) i think bowdlerized eko’s attempt to foreignize the papuans’ speech (not that this was a great project in the first place, but i feel the translation should indicate that the original had attempted it).
there are of course other things to be talked about the story but i’ll leave that for the event. if i have time, i might bounce some ideas with you both (and L) before it, but if not, see you in the green room!
cheers!
best wishes,
mikael.
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[Basa-basi]
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[Pertanyaan dari moderator tentang “markers that tell you this story is definitely located present day i.e. circa 2011 (year of publication)?”]
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hi O, thanks for this!
re: yr query, indeed the government primary education program can be used as a time marker in this story. if the story is set and/or written in the 70s or 80s, maybe even early 90s, sam’s school would most likely have been called “sd inpres”, which stands for “sekolah dasar instruksi presiden” aka primary school built by order of the president. the president in question is suharto, who was, as you might know, our self-proclaimed “bapak pembangunan” = big daddy of development. sd inpres was a common butt of jokes/target of criticism when it was still around and since this story can be read/has been read as a critique of the indo education system (i read quite a few reviews in this vein), the lack of “inpres” is quite telling, eko is likely to be writing of a time apres-inpres. there are other time markers as well, the mention of micro teaching, quick google search turns up quite a few discussions of the concept from late 2000s, and the fact that in the very few times sam was given a direct speech, he speaks like a modern, urbanised indonesian. also, even though he is from jawa, he wasn’t given a javanese-ish speech pattern. (why not i hear u say hehehe.) i think tho that the ambiguity in the time setting is part of the auto-erasuring tendencies of this type of stories (seriously there is a lot of stories like this), which often fix the backward, primitive societies (as seen from the vantage point of the javanese) in a sort of “time immemorial” from which they will never get out. the lack of details is also a function of this genre of story, something we call “sastra koran” = newspaper literature, because they’re published on the back pages of the sunday paper. hence, limited space, so the stories have to be short and authors sacrifice details (apart from lack of time markers, where in jawa is eko from?) for emphasis on “moral of the story” (which is why this story, like many others, can read like a simplistic fable). the weird, abrupt ending can also be explained by this lack of space, eko probably simply ran out of it! have i gone off on another tangent? of course i have! xD but seriously, in sastra koran, instead of giving vague clues, authors are often forced to be obvious as regards time-setting (or other details), so if eko intended this to be set in, say, 1973 (the beginning of sd inpres program) he would’ve just said so.
that’s my 2 rupiahs.
m.
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[Basa-basi]
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apologies, sam appears to be from, or at least went to uni in jogja, which is quintessential jawa, also where the author is from/based in.
m.
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found another time marker! can’t believe i missed it, “pesan pendek” in first para section 3 is the (formal) indonesian word for SMS (full version “layanan pesan pendek”, literal translation of SMS). i did translate it as “text messages” but totally forgot about it. this should place the story at the very latest to very late 90s. i remember getting my first mobile phone in indonesia in 1999.
m.
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[Laura merevisi beberapa bagian dari terjemahannya]
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[Admin stuff]
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[Basa-basi]
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[Tukeran nomor telpon]
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these are my numbers: whatsapp number is +628xxxxxxxxx and my uk number will be 07xxxxxxxxx.
see ya guys soon! m.
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[Tukeran nomor telpon]
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[Follow up email dari British Council tentang “choice of words (mine) for the title, ‘Fish in a Can’”]
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hi h!
this is what i wrote in my notes:
there are bigger problems in papua than a can of sardines. a good story about the place should rather open a can of worms, re: indonesian genocide of papuans, massive environmental damage from more than 50 years of the biggest gold and copper mine in the world, freeport (us-owned), boring a gigantic hole in the heart of papua (google earth it), repeatedly crushed papua independence movement (by collusion of us and indonesian interests). in the end, this story functions like a smoke screen, a RED HERRING to the real problems of papua, presenting a slightly modified mooi indie pic of the place and its people to put wool over everyone’s eyes so the exploitation can go on and on.
so in the talk iirc i said that i wanted to put the emphasis in the title on the fish (small fry!) rather than the canning of it.
hope that helps!
best,
mikael.
Indonesia Market Focus Indonesian Translation Slam: Mikael Johani, Laura Noszlopy, Olivia MacCannon – Literary Translation Centre Tuesday 2 March 2019
Cerpen asli:
IKAN KALENG
Eko Triono
/1/
Sam tiga hari di Jayapura; dia guru ikatan dinas dari Jawa. Dan tak mengira, saat pembukaan penerimaan siswa baru buat SD Batu Tua 1 yang terletak sejurus aspal hitam dengan taksi (sebenarnya minibus), ada yang menggelikan sekaligus, mungkin, menyadarkannya diam-diam. Ia tersenyum mengingat ini.
Ketika seorang lelaki bertubuh besar, dengan tubuh legam dan rambut bergelung seperti ujung-ujung pakis lembut teratur menenteng dua anak lelakinya, sambil bertanya, “Ko pu ilmu buat ajar torang (kami) pu anak pandai melaut? Torang trada pu waktu. Ini anak lagi semua nakal. Sa pusing”
Sam memahami penggal dua penggal. Dia, seperti yang diajarkan saat micro teaching, mulai mengulai senyum lalu berkata, “Bapak yang baik, kurikulum untuk pendidikan dasar itu keterampilan dasar, matematika, bahasa indonesia, olahraga dan beberapa kerajinan…”
“Ah, omong ko sama dengan dong (dia) di bukit atas! Ayo pulang!”
Kaget. Sam tersentak, belum lagi dia selesai. Dan ini tak pernah diajarkan di pengajaran mikro. Juga di buku diktum bab penerimaan siswa baru. Dia pucat; diraihnya segelas air putih.
Pendaftaran pertama memantik rasa sabar dan sesuatu yang asing dalam dirinya. Ia bersabar menunggu detik berikutnya dari lepas pukul sembilan. Ia mengelap lagi wajahnya. Di meja pendaftaran samping, kosong, Tati belum datang. Cuma ada Markus, Waenuri dan Tirto—teman sekelasnya yang sedang betugas masing-masing di ruang lain; mulai dari siap berkas, mencatat kebutuhan anggaran dan menyiapkan papan tulis. Bismillah, ia mengharap, tepat ketika sebarisan orang-orang legam bertelanjang kaki menjejaki halaman yang setengah becek bertanah merah, dilatari sisa-sisa alat berat dan bekas pengadukan material bangunan itu.
Dan syukurlah, meski dengan penjelasan yang tak kalah berat; setidaknya, tak ada yang seperti orang pertama. Begitu seterusnya sampai Tati tiba membantu. Tapi ia masih penasaran , siapa sebenarnya orang itu. Ia mencoba mencari tahu, hasilnya, ternyata lelaki pertama tadi adalah kepala suku Lat, berada di sekitar pantai sebelah kanan, menembus seratusan rengkuh dayung untuk sampai di kampungnya yang ada di laut. Kira-kira begitu kata orang-orang yang juga ada berasal dari sana.
“Trada perlu risau, dong itu memang keras kepala,” kata di penjelas itu sambil bisik bisik takut ada yang melaporkan omongannya.
/2/
Hari tadi tercatat dua puluh satu siswa terdaftar jadi angkatan baru sekaligus kelas baru buat sekolah itu. Usia mereka beragam. Hari berjalan, minggu silih berganti dan bulan menumpang tindih. Tepat memasuki bulan Agustus, keganjilan itu muncul kembali. Meski sebelumnya pernah terjadi, tapi kali ini semakin sering.
Dua anak itu sering muncul di halaman. Mereka nampak memandangi sesuatu yang mungkin aneh baginya. Teman-teman yang lain menghadapi sebuah tiang dengan bendera dua warna. Berbaris lalu menyanyi-nyanyi. Dari sini Sam merasa iba. Ia dekati. Dan tahu betul mereka itu yang tempo hari dibawa oleh kepala suku Lat.
“Kenapa kalian, ingin seperti mereka?”
“He-eh…” yang satu mengangguk. Ia menatap teman-temannya yang menyanyi-nyayi bersama itu dari sana terbalas, dua tiga melambai ke mereka yang ada di dekat jalan depan sekolah itu.
“Apa ko ini Do! Trada boleh!! Bapa ade bisa marah”
Mereka kemudian menjauh, menurun di bukit-bukit kecil bercadas, berkelok, samar dan hilang bersama suara angin dan pemandangan hijau hutan juga beberapa rumah penduduk dan sekali dua waktu minibus berlalu dengan muatan penuh.
Sam memutuskan sore nanti ia akan mengunjungi rumah anak-anak itu dan memberikan semacam penjelasan.
Dengan dibantu salah seorang wali murid, sampailah dia di rumah lelaki itu. Sam kemudian menyampaikan maksud dan sejumlah penjelasan terutama perihal anak mereka yang sering datang ke sekolah.
“Ko trada perlu ajari torang. Torang dah pu sekolah sendiri. Lihat mari! Justru murid ko yang mari”
Sam, dengan setengah tak percaya mengikuti lelaki itu. Turun dari rumah besar, lalu menuju perahu di antara barisan rumah-rumah, aroma laut menebar, hidungnya disesaki asin dan matanya dipenuhi tatapan aneh dari penduduk sekitar. Dia menuju sebuah rumah yang sama di atas laut dan di sana nampak sudah dua anak lelaki yang menyambanginya siang tadi. Dan, beberapa muridnya yang ia kira sakit, ternyata mereka ada di sana.
Di tempat ini terlihat: barusan dayang-dayung tergantung, tombak bermata tajam, sebuah perahu di tengah ruangan, jala, pisau, sebuah titik-titik dengan cangkang karang yang kemudian Sam tau itu rasi bintang di langit. Lelaki Lat menjelaskan lagi dengan bahasa alihkode semi kacau, bahwa disinilah seklah yang ia dirikan. Sekolah yang diberinama Lat: Sesuai nama suku.
Sebenarnya lelaki tadi tidaklah bodoh terlalu. Ayahnya dulu pernah menyekolahkannya ke “sekolah pemerintah” meski hanya dikelas satu—demikian mereka menyebutnya, namun suatu hal mengganjal.
Ketika kakaknya yang sudah kelas enam di SD Jayapura 2 tak bisa apa-apa ketika harus nenemani kakak mereka yang lebih tua pergi melaut menggantikan ayahnya yang sakit keras. Dia, kakaknya yang SD tersebut, hanya bisa omong dan menyanyi-nyayi, lalu pamer angka-angka tak jelas dalam kertas, tapi tak becus membaca rasi bintang, arah angin, membelah ombak, mengarah tombak, apa lagi mencecap asin air dan jernih gelombang untuk menerka di mana ikan-ikan berkumpul. Dari situ ia benci sekolah—ia benci menghabiskan waktu dengan menyayi dan menggambar tidak jelas. Dan, pelak, ketika ada pembukaan sekolah baru ia selalu mencari sekolah yang mengajarkan anaknya melaut, membelah ombak, mendayung, membaca rasi bintang, menombak ikan paus dan seterusnya. Dan itu tak pernah ada, atau mungkin tak akan pernah ada!
Sam terdiam. Ia paku bagi kelana: semua diktum terkulum gelombang di kaki pancang: berpias-pias.
Dan juga sorenya, sam melihat bahwa cahaya senja senantiasa keemasan sebelum muram menjadi gelap, lelaki itu mengajar dua anaknya dan tiga dari muridnya yang belakangan absen. Dia mengajari cara memegang dayung, menggerakkannya kanan kiri di atas perahu di tengah kelas itu. Dan, tak sekalipun lelaki itu membentak atau bahkan memukul bila salah. Dia selalu berkata,
“Ko pasti bisa! Ko dilahir atas laut, makan ikan laut, garam laut, ko anak laut! Laut ibu torang. Kitorang cintai dayungi dan ciumi angin asin ini. Laut tempat ko makan, laut tempat ko besar nanti, ko paham sa pu nasehat? Ini tujuan ko sekolah di Lat, ko belajar hidup bukan cuma omong kosong menggambar. Ko dititipi laut bapa kitorang”
/3/
Peristiwa dua tahun silam terngiang makin dalam, di meja kelas ketika kini dia mengadapi pesan pendek berisi keluh dari sejumlah kawan di Jogja yang belum juga mendapat kerja. Dia menarik nafas. Untung dia dapat ikatan dinas; meski jauh seperti ini, terpisah dari keluarga.
Dia sedang mengabsen, saat tiba-tiba lelaki kepala suku Lat itu datang mengetuk pintu kelas. Dia izin sebentar pada murid-muridnya yang kini tinggal setengah—sisanya “sekolah” di Lat: memilih belajar membelah ombak dengan benar, membaca rasi bintang dengan sket cangkang dan seterusnya.
“Maaf ada yang bisa sayang bantu Pak?” Sam bertanya, dalam hati ia mengira lelaki itu, yang kini membawa kedua anaknya beserta anak lain, ingin menyekolahkan di tahun ajaran baru yang sebentar lagi tiba.
“Ko orang Jawa, bisa ajar torang buat ini?”
Sam mundur sedikit. Ia kaget. Lelaki itu menunjukan ikan kalengan bermerek sarden.
Usut punya usut, setelah bercakap kemudian, sekolah Lat mengalami masalah. Murid-muridnya bertambah banyak, orang-orang Batu Tua lebih memilih menyekolahkan anaknya di sana, yang dalam waktu tak lebih dari setahun dapat membantu menangkap ikan. Yang mengajar juga dari orang mereka sendiri yang berpengalaman. Nah dari sana penghasilan menangkap ikan naik deras. Ketika kepala suku Lat itu pergi ke Jayapura untuk memasarkan ikan, ia melihat ikan kaleng yang ternyata harga sebuahnya setara dengan harga satu kilogram ikan mentah. Dia terkejut. Padahal, menurut si kepala suku Lat itu satu kaleng hanya berisi dua tiga potong. Dari ini dia ingin menemui sekolah yang bisa mengajarkan “murid”-nya membuat ikan kaleng.
Dan sekali lagi Sam menggeleng. Ia menjelaskan kembali tentang standar pengajaran di sekolah, kurikulum, evaluasi, ijasah, menghitung, menghafal nama menteri, Pancasila, Undang-Undang Dasar…
“Ah baiklah. Ko tau tempat buat ini?” kepala suku menegas. Matanya resah. Anak-anak di belakangnya tengah membaur bersama anak-anak dalam kelas. Sam membaca pabrik produksinya yang ternyata itu ada di Banyuwangi Jawa Timur.
“Sa mau ke sana! Ko kasih tau..”
Sam terbengong. Dan ia akan makin kaget, jika tahu bahwa lima hari mendatang akan ada rombongan kecil dengan perahu berlayar sedang, berbekal peta yang ia berikan sewaktu bertanya beduyun megarungi Samudra Hindia menuju Jawa Timur buat belajar cara mengalengkan ikan agar tidak rugi dalam menangkap demikian banyak ikan, agar anak-anak kelak sejahtera, agar listrik penuh, televisi seperti kota, mobil, motor… Tidak ada yang ragu; mereka anak-anak sekolah Lat; yang, membaca angin, gemintang dan asin air laut dan jejak-jejak ikan diantara buih dan gelombang. Jiah! Khiaaak!
2010
Terjemahan:
FISH IN A CAN
Eko Triono translated by Mikael Johani
/1/
A peculiar thing happened to Sam in Jayapura, three days after he arrived in town as a teacher on a government contract from Java. He never expected that on his first day at Old Rock Primary School No. 1, a taxi bus ride away from his new home on a stretch of black bitumen, he would encounter something so shocking that only much later turned into a revelation to him. He smiled as he remembered the moment.
A towering man with dark skin and dreadlocked hair that looked like the rolled fronds of a fern, came to the school dragging two boys with him. He asked Sam, “Yu hav skillz tae teech mah kidz haw tae fizz? Ah gat no time. Dis boyz dem aktin up. Dey giv mah headakhe.”
Sam understood only half the words. He remembered what he was taught in his micro teaching class, let out a smile and said, “My good man, the curriculum for our primary school teaches basic skills, and that means mathematics, Indonesian, sports and some craft…”
“Akkkh, yu say same same stuff as dem meng on hill top! Karn, boyz, lezza git awt af hiyah!” Sam was petrified, he hadn’t even finished his sentence. They did not teach this in the micro teaching class, he thought. Or in the student enrolment guide. His face had lost some colour. He quickly downed a glass of water.
The man had tested Sam’s patience and also triggered a strange feeling in him. He steeled himself as he watched the clock ticked to nine o’clock. He wiped his face clean. The enrolment table next to him was empty. Tati was late. The other teachers, Markus, Waenuri and Tirto, were in the other classrooms. Sam prepared documents, jotted down the school budget, and cleaned the blackboard.
Bismillah, he said to himself, just as a group of dark- skinned people in barefoot stepped into the red mud of the school ground. They walked right past a mess of heavy equipment and half-poured concrete.
Sam thanked his lucky stars that even though he was left with a lot more explaining to do, he met no one else as incorrigible as that first man he saw. Sam ploughed on with his tasks until Tati came to help. But he was curious to find out who the man was. He asked around, and someone told him the imposing man was the chief of the Lat tribe. Another man who claimed he was also Lat told Sam: to go to the chief’s place, you need to go to the beach on the right, and then hop on a boat. Our tribe lives on an island in the middle of the sea, and it takes one hundred strokes of the oars to get there from the beach.
“Worry nat meng, e jez a hard head,” said the man in whispers, as if he was afraid someone was going to catch his words.
/2/
A total of 21 new students enrolled in the school that day—Old Rock Primary School No. 1’s first. They were all of different ages. Days, weeks, months passed and in August, another peculiar thing happened. Sam had seen it all before, but now it was happening more and more.
Two familiar-looking boys started appearing in the school yard. One day, they were staring dumbstruck at the new students standing in neat files in front of a flag pole. A two-coloured flag flew at the top of its mast. The students marched and sang in front of the flag. Sam felt sorry for the two boys and walked over to them. He could see they were the boys the Lat chief dragged to the school on enrolment day.
“What’s up boys, do you want to be like them?”
“Uh huh…,” one of them nodded. He was staring at the singing students, and was getting some response.
Two, and then three of the students waved their hand at the boys, who were standing on the road in front of the school.
“Wot yu doin! No meng! Dont do it! Fathah e be mahd at us!”
The boys made themselves scarce down small rocky hills along a winding dirt road. Their voices grew distant and then disappeared with the wind and into the green of the forest, dotted with houses and, every now and then, a taxi bus stuffed with passengers and their belongings. Sam decided he would visit the boys and their parents that afternoon and explain everything to them.
With one of his students’ parents as a guide, Sam reached the home of the Lat chief. He told him that he had seen his boys come to his school and that he would like to explain some things to him.
“Yu hav nat skillz tae teech uz. We hav ahwer ahn skhul. Karn, look. Yu taek yer students hiyah!”
Sam could not believe his ears, but he followed the chief down from the big house to a boat nestled between two rows of houses. The smell of the sea was all around him, his nose was filled with salty brine and he could see people were staring at him with distrustful eyes. He climbed into a house perched on stilts above the water and he found the two boys there. There were also a few students of his, who he had thought were sick since they had been missing from class.
Sam also saw these in the house: oars hung on the wall, sharp-tipped spears, a wooden boat installed in the middle of a room, fishing nets, knives, and tiny dots arranged in patterns on the floor, made up of seashells. Later on Sam found out the dots represented star constellations. The Lat chief explained everything to him, in semi-garbled codeswitch: this was the school that he had built himself. The school was called Lat, the same name as the tribe’s.
The man was not stupid. His father had sent him to a “government school”—that was what they called it—even though he only lasted until first grade. One thing had really irked him while he was there:
His older brother had gone to the Jayapura Primary School No. 2 and never missed a class until Year 6, but he was left totally helpless when their father had fallen ill, and he and his big brother had to sail on their own to catch fish. His brother, this primary school graduate, was all talk—he even sang songs on the boat—and kept showing off a bunch of numbers that he had written on a piece of paper. But he had no idea how to read the constellations, the directions of the wind, how to beat the waves, aim the spears, let alone taste the crystal clear water to work out where shoals of fish were to be found. From that moment on, the Lat chief hated school. He hated wasting his time just singing and drawing. Since then, whenever there was a new school being opened, he would visit it to see if the school would teach his children how to fish, beat waves, row a boat, read star constellations, spear a whale, and so on. And there was never a school like that, and maybe, he thought, it was impossible to find one!
Sam was silenced. He was dumbfounded. In his head, all the textbooks he had ever read were being monstered by the waves hitting the stilts, destroying his own reflection in the water.
And later that afternoon, in the golden sunset just before it got dark, Sam watched as the Lat chief taught his two boys and three of his own students who had been missing from their class how to hold an oar, how to manoeuvre it left and right while sitting in the stationary boat in the middle of their classroom. And not once did the chief snap at the boys or hit them. Whenever they made a mistake, he would say:
“Karn boyz, yu got dis! Yu waz born in da see, yu eet fizz farm da see, yu mek salt farm da see, yu ah boyz of da see! Da see iz ahwer muthah. Wi luv dis salti win, wi rahw tru dis salti win, wi kizza dis salti win. Da see iz wir yu fine yer food, wir yu is grahwn up, yu si dis wizdom ah tellin yu? Dis is da rison yu go tae Lat skhul, yu learnin haw tae live, nat drawin, nat bullsit. Ahwer Fathah, e gave us dis see.”
/3/
Sam still remembered vividly what happened two years ago as he, sitting behind his teacher’s desk in his classroom, browsed through text messages filled with complaints from his college friends in Jogja who had been unable to find work. He breathed a sigh of relief. Lucky he found this teaching job, even this far away, thousands of kilometres from his family.
He was calling his students’ names for the roll call, when the Lat chief knocked on the door. Sam excused himself from his half-empty classroom; half of his students had quit Old Rock to go to the Lat school. They preferred to learn how to beat waves, read constellations with help from seashell patterns, and so on.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Sam asked the chief. He had thought maybe the man, with his two boys and some other boys in tow, had wanted to enrol the children in the new school year.
“Yu ah farm Java, yu know how tae mek dis? Teech us.”
Sam retreated a few steps. He was taken aback. The chief thrusted a can of sardines in his face.
The chief then told him that problem was brewing at the Lat school. He had to accept many more students now, since parents at Old Rock now prefer to send their children to Lat. After a year with the chief, the children were ready to help their parents catch fish in the open sea. The teachers were all Lat people, and they were experienced fishermen. They were earning more money from fishing. One day the Lat chief went to Jayapura to sell fish, and he found canned fish that cost as much as one kilogram of raw fish. He was flabbergasted. He couldn’t believe each can only contained two or three pieces of fish. So now he wanted to find a school who could teach his students how to make canned fish.
Sam, not for the first time, shook his head. He explained to him, again, the standard teaching method in a government primary school, the curriculum, the exam, the degree, arithmetic, memorizing ministers’ names, Pancasila, the Constitution…
“Okok. Yu know wir dey mek dis?” the chief cut short Sam’s explanation. His eyes looked worried. His boys were playing with the students behind him. Sam read the label on the can and it said the factory was located in Banyuwangi in East Java.
“Ah want tae go tae dem place! Yu taek mee…”
Sam was aghast. And that was before he knew that five days later a group of children would sail on a small boat, carrying a map that he had given them, traversing the Indian Ocean towards East Java to learn how to can fish so they would not have to catch so many fishes, so that all the children would lead a better life, with electricity that would never cut out, TV sets just like people had in the city, cars, motorbikes…. No doubt about it: these were the Lat school children, experts at beating the waves with their oars, who could read the wind, the stars, the salt brines, and the movement of fish between the sea foam and the waves.
Wa-taaaahhhh! Wooo-waaaaahhh!
Canned Fish Eko Triono Translated by Laura Noszlopy
SAM had been just three days in Jayapura; he was a government contract teacher from Java. And he’d been surprised to see the group that arrived on the black asphalt in a taxi (or a minibus, to be exact) as student enrollment opened at Batu Tua 1 Elementary School. They were messing around yet trying to keep a low profile. The memory made him smile.
A dark, burly man, with neatly coiled hair like fern tips and his two sons in tow, had a query: “Can you teach these kids to go to sea? We don’t have the time. These kids are all naughty. They’re stressing me out.”
Sam put two and two together. Following what he’d learned during teacher training, he smiled and said, “Dear sir, the curriculum for elementary education includes basic skills, mathematics, language, physical education, and a range of crafts…”
“Ah, you sound just like him up the hill! Right; let’s head home!”
Taken aback, Sam caught his breath; he hadn’t even finished speaking. And this sort of thing hadn’t been taught in teacher training. And it wasn’t in the chapter on enrolling new students. He paled; and reached for a glass of water.
This first encounter had ignited a strange sense of calm within him. He patiently watched the seconds tick past nine o’clock. He wiped his face again. The neighbouring enrollment desk was empty; Tati hadn’t arrived yet. There was only Markus, Waenuri and Tirto – his former classmates all getting on with stuff in another room. They were readying their files, drafting their budgets, and preparing the blackboards.
Bismillah, he prayed – just as a line of black, bare-footed people traipsed across the school yard, which was half covered in red mud and littered with the remnants of heavy construction equipment and discarded building materials.
Thankfully, with some relatively straightforward explanation, at least none of these others were like the first. And the enrollment proceeded like this until Tati arrived to help. But he was still curious about that man. He asked around and it turned out that the man was the headman of the local Lat tribe, whose village was near the beach to the right of the school and could only be reached by paddling out into the sea. That’s more or less how the locals explained it.
“Don’t worry about it; he’s a dogged one,” whispered his informant in tones hushed lest he be reported for gossip.
/2/
Earlier that day, twenty-one new students were enrolled, making a new class for the school. The new students were all of an age. The days passed, along with the interchangable weeks and blur of months. And then, the start of August marked another strange occurance. Although it had happened once before, now it happened with increasing frequency.
The two boys would often appear in the school yard. They seemed to find what they saw alien. Other friends could see a pole flying a two-tone flag. They could see lines of children, singing. From that moment, Sam’s heart softened. He approached them. And then he knew for sure, these were the children that the headman of Lat had brought in.
“What’s up, you two? Do you want to join the others?”
“He-eh…” One of them was annoyed. He could see his friends singing together and they could see him; two or three of the other children waved across to them as they stood on the road at the front of the school.
“What are you saying, Do! We can’t! Father might be angry.”
Then they went away, meandering down the little hills, swaying along until they dimmed and disappeared into the sound of the wind and the vista of green forest, with its smattering of dwellings and the occassional tightly packed minibus passing through.
Sam decided that he would visit the boys’ house later that afternoon, and give them some kind of explanation.
With the help of one the student helpers, he eventually reached the headman’s house. Sam then explained the situation at some length, primarily the matter of their children turning up so often at the school.
“You don’t need to lecture us. We’ve got our own school. Look around! It’s your students that should be here.”
Sam, hardly believing it, followed the man. He climbed down from the big house and they manoeuvred the boat between the rows of houses. The scent of the ocean filled the air and his nostrils stung with salt as he surveyed the local inhabitants who stared unnervingly back at him. They approached another house atop the water and there he saw the two boys from earlier that day. And it transpired that several of his students who he’d assumed were off sick were there too.
In this place hung rows of paddles and sharply-barbed spears; part of a boat lay in the middle of the room, along with nets, knives and intricately pock-marked coral shells, which Sam later learned mapped the starry constellations of the night-sky. The Lat headman explained, in his broken Indonesian, that this was the school he had built. It was called Lat School, named after the tribe.
To be frank, the man wasn’t all that ignorant. His father had once sent him to the government school though he only completed the first year before something got in the way.
When his middle brother, who was already in Year 6 at Jayapura 2 Elementary School, wasn’t good for much when he was sent out to sea with their eldest brother to take over from their father who was seriously ill. All this middle brother could do was chat, sing songs and show off the barely legible marks he’d made in his books. He couldn’t read the stars or the direction of the wind, he didn’t know how to ride the waves or throw a spear, let alone taste the salt water or read the translucence of the waves to ascertain where the fish were shoaling. From then on he hated school – he hated wasting time with the songs and the wonky drawings. And whenever a new school opened, he awkwardly sought out a place that would teach his sons the ways of the sea – about the waves, and how to row, read the stars and hunt whales, and all the rest of it. And nothing like that existed, and perhaps it never would.
Sam was silent. He was like a spike to a wanderer: all the formal rules swelled and choked like a peg leg: it was just fancy dress.
And that evening, under the light of the setting sun, which glowed golden before receding into darkness, Sam watched as the headman taught his two boys, along with three of the pupils he’d marked absent that morning. He watched as they learned how to hold the paddles and to pull them left and right as they straddled the boat in the middle of the classroom. More than once, the headman snapped or smacked the children if they made a mistake. He said:
“You can do this. You were born on the sea, you eat the fish of the sea and the salt of the sea – you’re children of the sea! The sea is our mother. We love, embrace and kiss this briny wind. The sea is where you eat, where you’ll grow big. Do you understand what I’m telling you? This is why you’re schooled at Lat; you’re learning to live. Not just chatting rubbish and drawing. Our Father has entrusted you to the sea.”
/3/
The events of two years ago felt more immediate than ever as he sat at his desk, reading a short note from some old friends in Jogja who were still looking work. He inhaled. He was fortunate to get a government contract, even one this remote, far from his family.
He was present when the headman of Lat suddenly knocked again on the classroom door. He excused himself from his remaining students – only half of the orginal class were here; the rest were being ‘educated’ in Lat, having chosen instead to learn how to ride the waves and navigate from constellations etched into coral shells.
“Sorry, how can I help you, sir?” asked Sam. In his heart, he supposed that the headman of Lat, who had brought along both his sons and a number of other children, wanted the children to enroll for the start of the new school year.
“You’re Javanese. Can you teach us about this?”
Sam took a small step back. He was startled. The headman was gesturing towards a can of sardines.
After some detailed examination and discussion, it turned out that the school at Lat was facing some difficulties. The number of students had risen sharply. The people of Batu Tua prefered to send their children to Lat, where in under a year they’d be fit to help out with the fish haul. The teachers were also local people, the most experienced among them. And so the community’s fishing success improved massively. When the headman of Lat went to sell their catch in Jayapura market, he noticed that the price of canned fish was on a par with a kilo of fresh. He was shocked, especially since each can contained only two or three fish. That was when he decided he wanted to find a school that could teach its students how to can fish.
Sam shook his head. He explained once more about the teaching standards in the school, about the curriculum, evaluations, qualifications, and about the basic skills of counting, language, memorising the names of government ministers, Pancasila,* laws and regulations…
“Ah, fine” said the headman of Lat. “Do you know a place that can?” His eyes looked vexed. The children behind him were starting to mingle with the students in the class. Sam read from the label that the can was produced in a factory in Bangiwangi, East Java.
“I want to go there. You tell me how…”
Sam was stunned. And he’d have been even more shocked if he’d known that five days later a small group would set sail in smallish sail boats across the Indian Ocean, guided by a map that he had provided, towards East Java – to learn how to can fish. They made this journey so that their children would prosper, with full electricity, and televisions like they have in the city, cars, motorbikes… Nobody had any doubts; these were the students of Lat School, trained to paddle through the waves, to read the wind, the stars and the brine, and to track the shoals between the foam and the waves. Jiah! Khiaak!
*Pancasila is Indonesia’s foundational philosophy. The five national principles are: 1) belief in the One and Only God; 2) just and civilised humanity; 3) a unified Indonesia; 4) Democracy; and 5) social justice for all Indonesians.
*rekaman audio lengkap sesi “Translation Slam” tersebut bisa didengarkan di channel YouTube saya.
*featured image foto oleh @cantsaynotohope, diambil di sebuah reruntuhan bangunan di daerah Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jawakarta Utara.
Divagyrations 