WHAT EXPATS CAN DO

…. to bring hope to the world

Empathy across borders: the war in Ukraine seen from Romania

In these days of great sadness for what is happening in Ukraine, hope shines through the strength of empathy and solidarity, which crosses borders and reaches right into the heart of war. Romania, where I currently live, is the main gateway for refugees from Ukraine to Europe, as is Poland. From this observation point I went in search of touches of humanity and found many. I am convinced that as expats we have a duty to recount what is happening in the countries where we live. Interpreting reality from a new perspective can be very helpful.

 

For those born and raised in Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, war has always felt distant. Distant in time, fought between the pages of history books or in the stories of grandparents, or distant in space, even if, in fact, it was not. Just think of the example of Yugoslavia. But we liked to think about war this way: unfair, cruel, terrible, but “belonging to others”.

Perhaps it was a kind of defence mechanism, a way of not being overwhelmed by horror.  Maybe we should be a little indulgent to ourselves for every time we were not emotionally involved in other wars. Now I realize how superficial we were, and how bitter the awakening is today.

During my years in Bucharest, I often heard sirens, but was only afraid the first time. I often saw fighter planes pass over my house, but they didn’t worry me: Oh yes, there are NATO bases, I said to myself.

Today, however, war is close and is invisibly but tenaciously creeping into everyone’s daily lives. In recent days Italy has sent more planes the Mihail Kogalniceanu military base, near Constanța. Yet Constanța always evoked sea rather than war for Romanians, and for me, until a week ago.

A friend sends me a message: you can donate blood for wounded Ukrainians at the blood transfusion center at the Central Military Emergency University Hospital. I am overcome by anxiety and hearing my children in the next room going on with their life does not make me feel better. I need to go out. Passing near the Ukrainian Embassy is painful: flowers, candles, signs in many languages. A group of a dozen people are out there, maybe waiting to enter, maybe waiting for news. I dare not ask; I dare not get close to those harrowed eyes.

I need to find some humanity in these cold days, to get, if not relief, at least a moment of respite in my thoughts. I want to listen and talk about the solidarity that runs along those 600 kilometers of border with Ukraine, and that from there engulfs the whole of Romania. After all, Halso made up of the many gestures of ordinary people and organizations, and this, too, must be told.

My friend Alexandra Paucescu shows me the photos of the Caradja Cantacuzino Association, one of the many organisations receiving aid in Bucharest: the number of volunteers and the amount of essential goods is impressive. Meanwhile, within a few hours, the entrepreneur Alexandru Panait created the refugees.ro platform, to connect Ukrainian refugees, who can specify their needs, with those who want to help them with housing, lifts, meals, and basic needs. And the number of those who help out continues to grow, as well as the list of restaurants and hotels that offer meals and accommodation to Ukrainian passport holders.

Empathy across borders

Refugees form Ukraine arriving at Isaccea (Romania). Photo © Mugur Varzariu

As I scroll through the endless offers of help online, with hundreds of Romanians opening the doors of their homes, welcoming people to their table, or giving lifts, I get a message from Simona Carobene, an Italian social worker in Romania, who has travelled to the border with Ukraine.

She tells me about the cold, the snow and the many, many people who arrive having covered miles on foot. On her journey, she was left speechless when she received a call from a desperate woman in tears who asked for bulletproof jackets, helmets, gloves and boots for the soldiers.

Roman, a Ukrainian who managed to enter Romania with his wife and five children, could have moved on elsewhere. He has a network of contacts in other European countries, but he decided to stay there, at the border: he speaks English and Romanian; he can help his people. He lives in a shelter with 57 others, many of them children. And he knows that what they need is not only blankets or food, but also not to feel alone. They need a smile, a hug. ‘What hope do you have for your country, for your people?’ asks Simona. Roman shrugs: ‘Eternal life, perhaps’.

Right after this I get a call from Don Valeriano, a priest friend. He’s 50 kilometres from Budapest, on his way back from Italy. Two nights ago, he received a phone call from Lviv: You have to rescue disabled people, it is difficult to keep them in the improvised bunker in the building where they live. Valeriano and a colleague take a car and a bus and leave.

They arrive in the middle of the night at a secondary custom, hoping it will be easier for them to pass. And so it is: only three hours of waiting and a dozen people, including two in wheelchairs, cross into Romania. They drive through Italy. . As I write, Valeriano is making another journey, this time to rescue 44 people, mothers and children. Not all minors have documents, but he is confident that also this time there won’t be any problem.

Meanwhile, at the border, Romanians do what they can, bringing food, blankets, toys, offering car rides, a bed, a meal in their own home.

I scroll through the photos of a photographer friend, Mugur Varzariu. As I thought, he is there, at the border, too. I ask him to tell me about a moment, a face, a situation that struck him, that helped him to keep hope and trust in humanity alive.

He tells me about Anastasiia, who arrived with her mother and her child from Odessa at the border checkpoint of Isaccea, carrying a trolley and nothing else. Exhausted, she burst into tears when she realized she didn’t have her biometric passport with her. The frontier commander, a big man in a dark uniform, offered her a rose, which had somehow ended up there in the confusion, and then he let her through. From Isaccea, Anastasiia found a lift to Bucharest, where she is now hosted by the mother of a Romanian gendarme. .

Faced with so much violence, so much pain, when despair seems to overwhelm us, we must take a moment to think about the example of so many people, women and men, who in the cold of the long night our continent is going through, open the doors of their homes and keep burning a flame of hope, as small as it is precious.

This article was adapted from the original published in Italian on March 4, 2022 in the online magazine Mentinfuga.

 

All pictures ©Mugur Varzariu

Giuliana Arena
Bucharest, Romania
March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What expats can do in time of quarantine

I’ve been thinking about how to write this article for a while. I felt a surge of inspiration from the first day that emergency was declared in my city; I witnessed first-hand how quickly the community came together to adapt to this new unusual chapter of life. However, at the time I could not properly focus on how to link the overall expat experience to what we are still going through right now.

Today, after some reflecting on what is happening around me as well as in different societies and social communities, I realized that the answer is right in front of me…

These are some thoughts that came to my mind:

photocredit LEEROY Agency - Pixabay

photocredit LEEROY Agency – Pixabay

1. Many expats are not new to home isolation

It is a common experience for the first part of every move to a new country. The first few weeks have striking similarities to what we are all going through now – especially for expats’ spouses: confined at home, maybe with small children to entertain, trying to get a new house organized, trying to set up spaces so that everyone in the family can find their own spot. There are also many expats who have experienced this kind of total lockdown (sometimes in even more dramatic and pronounced ways) in some difficult countries: local wars, riots, dangerous strikes, political instability, and even other serious epidemics like Ebola.

2. Expats are used to experiencing social distancing

It takes time to build meaningful human relationships with locals in a new and unfamiliar country, especially if the local culture is very different from one’s own one. From the Middle East to Northern Europe, from Africa to Australia – I learned on the go that the “safe” and polite physical space you need to keep between two people in a social contest is a variable concept (and it is not an easy task for an Italian who grew up used to spontaneous hugs and kisses!).

photocredit - Ansgar Scheffold - Unsplash

photocredit – Ansgar Scheffold – Unsplash

3. Expats are used to geographical distance

We are familiar with the feeling of having our family and dear friends miles away from us, sometimes oceans away from us. Many expat families are divided at this moment: children are stuck in other countries for their studies, old parents are confined in their home country. I want to pay particular tribute here to all the Italians who have aging parents at home, who are terribly worried for them, and who cannot even provide a simple comfort like making food or shopping for them.

4. Expats are used to stocking foods for long period of time

Well, not all expats, but I know for sure there are many that have experimented with this before. I noticed how easy was for me to go shopping last week: the shopping list formed itself in my mind while I was lost amongst the shelves of the supermarket. Instinctively, I sought out the same items I did when I was preparing for lockdown in Africa, or before the war in Kuwait, though there are some differences in the quality and variety of food I can buy here.

photocredit Ryan McGuire – Pixabay

5. Expats are used to building and nurture human relationships online

Not necessarily out of choice, but out of necessity: without this skillset, you’d hardly be able to survive expat life! Many of an expat’s interpersonal relationships are mainly nurtured over distance.

6. Expats are aware of the importance of community and the interconnections between us

They know what it means to be alone – or maybe even sick – in a country where you don’t know anybody. They have learned how to build essential and vital connections with the people around them in their new local community.

So many expats have the knowledge and memory of the feelings we are all experiencing right now: the sense of isolation, anxiety, and concern for families and friends far from them; the concern for what is happening outside our front door;  uncertainty about the future and the feeling of being suspended from your normal life.

None of what I listed above are pleasant or easy situations. Many people aren’t able to bare it longterm. But many expats have gained the resilience to deal with these trials.

And so, what can expats do in this difficult moment?

Exactly what we are doing.

I’ve noticed many social communities are inventing and organizing social gatherings on the internet. Check to see who is behind the first proposal to take a coffee break together online, to have a yoga class online, to get children on virtual playdates through their iPads, to organize any kind of social gathering online… often times the catalyst is an expat.

We are all online those days. The Internet is at the maximum glory of its existence so far!

Expat are experts in building and maintaining relationships over distance. We can help those who are not used to this, we can share our knowledge, both technical and emotional. Let’s help others who are discovering the web as a resource for building connection and invite them to join us.

photocredit Ron Smith - Unsplash

photocredit Ron Smith – Unsplash

In the kind of lifestyle this pandemic is forcing us into, it is important to engage with our neighbors and pay attention to what the people around us may need – especially if they are sick, weak, or simply feeling terribly alone in their homes. Pay attention to what is happening around you: maybe your neighbor is living through difficult moment, maybe they are old and can’t be reached by their children. Offer them help like you would do if your parents were living close to you.

Help single parents deal with children at home: they are not used to it, but we can surely recall some tricks and games we used in similar situations.

Offer compassion and understand to people who may struggle with staying at home, with possible family tensions and other challenges that easily arise.

And while we’re at home we can better flex across different time zones that work may have previously been inconvenient during working times. It is a good time to refresh a friendship left on the other side of the world: maybe they would be happy to hear from us!

Smile and be positive: be a light for others.

This situation will pass and we will be stronger than before.

Despite the fact that this pandemic has created a very dramatic situation, my heart is warmed when I see people experiencing physical distance and yet getting together and being closer than ever in many other ways.

People are moved by news from countries far away: it is fear, but it is also our humanity that is coming back. We are rediscovering how interconnected we are, and how what happens somewhere else in the world will ultimately impact us where we are.

The physical borders are closing, but the virtual ones are opening up like never before.

 

Cristina Baldan
March 2020

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Empathy in…a bottle

 

An 8-year-old child in Gaza has lived through three rounds of conflict. A year after the summer 2014 hostilities, the children of Gaza are still recovering from the nightmare. They are growing up in bleak conditions, surrounded by poverty and violence. But they still have dreams… (UNRWA #SOSGAZA )

 

I received this bottle as a gift from a friend who wanted to support the UNRWA #SOSGAZA project for children’s education in Gaza (don’t miss their beautiful video). I kept it closed for a long time because I was looking for a special occasion to open it. This occasion came when I discovered Diala Brisly, a Syrian artist who fled her war-torn country, and whose work with Syrian refugee children touched my heart. Using her talents, empathy and lots of love, Diala helps children overcome the trauma of war, and keep their hope alive. I invite you to discover Diala’s work and story through:

When I asked Diala to be with me when I opened the bottle, she did not hesitate.

When I saw the drawing, I was utterly moved. I had expected bombs, war airplanes and blood to fill the page, and instead we saw this:

 

 

The sharp contrast between the peacefulness of the drawing and what children in Gaza go through hit me in a way I can hardly describe.

Later Diala translated what is written on it: the name of the kid, Arij, her age (14), her school name (Al-ma’mounieh), and the title of the drawing: I WISH I COULD BE.  I believe it says it all.

Diala was so touched by yet another sign of how deep and desperate the desire for normality in children living in conflict zones is, that she decided to send us a gift: an image she illustrated for a children’s magazine that used to be distributed in Syria, but that stopped a few months ago, because of lack of funding.

She accompanied it with a reflection on Arij’s drawing:

 

Arij said: I wish I could be, and we try to encourage Syrian kids to keep on dreaming, we remind them of normality while a lot of killing is happening  around, we provoke them to build their imaginary world since we can’t build them a better one.

As Jean-Jacques Rousseau said:
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
Kids are the best in using their imagination.
Kids like Arij are struggling in many conflict zones to keep some of their childhood, and while we should tell them how truly hard life is, we should also help them manipulate this life so they can be ready when the grow up.

 

 

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What I saw today – Not Just A Number, International Friends Play&Share

I don’t know if what I saw today matches our current Challenge, but for sure curiosity was what pushed me to jump into my car and go to “International Friends Play&Share” event. I already knew about the project and its importance, but I had never visited them. Curiosity is what you need to go out of your comfort zone and create connections in real life.

 

I joined them at their usual weekly meeting.
There was a medium-sized community hall.
There were carpets and toys on the floor.
There were hot drinks, cakes and snacks.
There were women, of different ages.
And there were their toddlers.
There was also a grandma accompanying her daughter, and there was me, a middle-age woman, whose children are definitively too old to participate.
A diversified group of women.
A young one, who clearly knew how to handle toddler educational activities, was leading the games.
And then, more toys, interactive games with children, music, singing in three or four different languages, dancing, and even a singing exercise for the adults.
A very pleasant and enjoyable hour.

children paintingIt could have been an ordinary well organized expat playgroup, like many I used to go to with my children in the past and in other countries.
In this group there were 2 people from Finland, 1 from Australia, 1 from Italy, 1 from Syria, 1 from Georgia, 1 from South Africa.
Two of them were refugees, but to anybody entering the room while we were playing with the children, it would have been difficult to understand who was coming from where.
All barriers were left outside the door: you don’t need cultural norms or a specific language to play with a toddler… just a carpet, some toys, materials to touch and manipulate, music, dance. That’s it.

The magic is done!

What I saw today was a group of women enjoying an hour of their time with their children, leaving their complicated lives outside the door for a while, relaxing and connecting with other women, most of them never met before.

Empathy is possible, it is real, it happens.
It happened this morning at “Not Just a Number”, it happens every Thursday morning there.
We can make it happen every day in our lives.
And it is not so difficult.

Cristina Baldan, November 2016


 

International Friends Play & Share
www.notjustanumber.org
Emma and Poyer, both expats, are the souls behind this project and I asked them introduce it to you.

As newly arrived expats, we met in September 2015 at the Maastricht International Playgroup along with another dear friend, Christa Somers. This weekly gathering gave each of us a firm grounding and social outlet as internationals in this new environment. It allowed us to feel welcome, supported, and comfortable as we began to find our way in this new town.

We discovered we shared concern about the welfare of newly arrived refugees and together we envisioned welcoming refugee families into the fold of the international community using the playgroup concept. Our idea was supported by comments from a very active local social entrepreneur and Syrian refugee, Nour Khatib, who is a board member of the local refugee support NGO called Not Just a Number. He told us that while there were several local NGOs supporting refugees, none had managed to facilitate connection between local Maastricht community and a particular subgroup of the refugees living at the local shelter – namely mothers with young children.

what-i-saw-today2These women continued to be socially isolated and had little reason to leave the refugee shelter except to shop for food and clothing. Most of their time is spent indoors, caring for their young children without the aid of their own toys or care items, such as pushchairs/buggies and highchairs. We believed the playgroup concept would be a good way to reach out to these women and children. It also held promise of a way to pass on things like clothes, toys and baby-care items – things that are readily available from international families in our networks who are often on the move.

With the help of a large group of supporters — mostly parents of students attending the United World College Maastricht — we set ourselves up in the football clubhouse next door to the Maastricht Asiel Zoekers Centrum and began running weekly playgroup mornings from December 1stGrowth of the playgroup was rapid and it wasn’t long before people waiting to access the donated items overtook our comfortable play space. Our solution was to separate the arms of the project, thus creating International Friends Play and International Friends Share. We scheduled separate days and recruited a new team of volunteers.

International Ffriends Play is now a calm environment where mothers can enjoy a hot drink, snacks and a chat while our children play. The inclusion of music classes has injected high energy and fun, and serves as the perfect ice-breaker for new visitors. Professional musician Jana Debusk has brought great enthusiasm and a wealth of knowledge, sharing songs and rhythms from around the world through her collaboration with the Funikijam music program in New York.

International Friends Share attracts an average of 50 visitors every Monday within a 3-hour ‘shopping’ period and we pass on about 600 donated items within that time. About 12 volunteers help to run this event and collectively they work over 70 hours in that single day. Re-sorting the messy aftermath occurs on Tuesdays, with another team of about 6 collectively working 20 hours.

The wealth of wisdom, skill, and diversity on our volunteer teams has ensured the success of these projects and ongoing support of refugees in Maastricht.  Our shared commitment to serve community holds us firmly together and it is the broad skill set we can call on that ensures results. Our expat members have purchased supplies, shared freighting resources, provided multiple language translations for flyers and posters, given clothing and household donations, rejuvenated old discarded bicycles, fetched, carried, sorted and re-sorted many tons of clothing and most importantly they have given greatly of their time.

Our expat community is now an integral part of the cultural experience that is shaping the social integration of hundreds of refugees seeking a new life in the Netherlands.  In turn, our lives have been enriched as we each discover that we are all cut from the same cloth and by working together we can flourish.

 

Emma Bendall and Poyer Conforte
Co-founders – International Friends Play & Share
Not Just a Number
www.notjustanumber.org

 

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The empathic civilization

Francesca sends us this recommendation for the book The Empathic Civilization, interesting food for thought from sociologist and economist Jeremy Rifkin. Human beings have many things in common, including a deep-rooted instinct for social relationships and the ability to form a new consciousness, both global and collective. Simply the act of reading an account of this kind means testing our preconceptions about human beings and trying to consider events and phenomena from another perspective: one that views our fundamental nature as human beings in a different way. Here’s what Francesca has to say.

 

empathic-civilizationThis book takes us on a fascinating journey through human evolution, a journey covering ground that our collective sentiment, for the most part, has not yet explored. The discovery of mirror neurons – so-called empathy neurons – during the 1990s offers a completely different interpretation and is leading scientists from a wide range of disciplines to rethink the theories that characterized the age of reason. Today the cognitive sciences seem to recognize that the most profound human instinct is not the anticipation of pleasure, nor even the struggle for survival or the selfish fulfillment of our own needs, but rather the creation of social ties.

Rifkin takes us back through the biological, economic, cultural and social history of humankind, which is being rewritten by the scientific community of the present day. Our modern, technologically advanced civilizations have led to an unprecedented mixing of peoples and expansion of consciousness, but not without consequences. The path of this new ‘homo empaticus’ is, in particular, characterized by the empathy/entropy paradox – the gradual deterioration of a system to the point where it is no longer possible to replenish the energy it uses. Our huge consumption of natural resources is leading to the depletion of these same resources.

Never before have we been as aware of what we are, never have we been as clear about our potential for developing a new consciousness, both individual and global, as we are today. Yet all this is made possible by our greater and greater consumption of the planet’s energy and natural resources.

Will what Rifkin describes as humanity’s ‘biosphere consciousness’, an awareness of ourselves as part of the earth’s system, be able to guide us towards the solution to this paradox? Will we manage to reach the level of global empathy needed to save ourselves and the earth that is our home in time? The human race is facing the most important challenge of its existence.

This book has affected me deeply. In practice, it’s science telling us we’re better than we had always thought. This can only fill me with faith and hope that things can improve for us and for this world of ours. It won’t be easy, but it’s certainly possible. And this can come about not by denying who we are, but instead by following and listening to what, it turns out, is our true nature. For some cultures this has always been clear; we Westerners are finally getting it!

 

Francesca Passini
Italy
October 2016

 

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Your voice with the voice of others

Claudia interviewed Nicoletta Zannoni, flautist and teacher, who studied music in Italy and presently lives and works in Ramallah, Palestine. Nicoletta participates in our monthly challenge with…music!

 

Some time ago, you shared these words in an interview

What in music has always fascinated, attracted and pushed me to study, is the possibility of playing ‘together’, to put my voice with the voices of others who are completely different from me. The resulting combination is beautiful…very beautiful! The richness of this togetherness is made possible thanks to the cooperation and the coming together of differences, of things sometimes opposed, contrary one to another, that can, however, live together and create something new and beautiful

I find that wonderful and a perfect example of the power of music. In your experience, is playing together influenced by the cultures that participate in the work? Will the result be different if a piece is played by people that come from the same national culture or by people who come from ten different cultures?

nicoletta-mainI am talking about people in a group, let’s say as in chamber music, where there is no conductor, but where music is created by the members of the group relating one to the other.

In playing together, as in any form of teamwork, the background of the participants certainly plays an important role. During rehearsal, different ways of thinking, different styles and techniques will emerge. The same passage will be interpreted in contrasting ways that will have to be harmonized. This allows us to learn new things while offering what we know, acquiring insights that may be very different from our usual way of making music – and this is why it is so good to discover these new ways: you would never otherwise have thought about them!

In my experience, playing with people of different nationalities is very enriching; each one brings a personal and cultural contribution that is new to the other, and it is fascinating to put them together while yet not losing the richness each one expresses when playing or talking about the music of his culture or nation. I remember a concert with a Japanese colleague, and the preparation of some Japanese traditional songs…I still get tears in my eyes!

It’s clear that the one who plays – the artist – directly enjoys this privileged means of mingling with other cultures, learning about them, taking thought, and absorbing something new. On the other hand, how can those who, like me, do not play, use music to be “touched” by its power? I am talking from the point of view of approaching different cultures, of understanding diversity…

Music works in many ways, and before “making” it, there is of course the listening. Letting oneself be touched by the music of a country – whether one is a musician or not – means going to concerts, turning on the local radio when one is driving, maybe listening to the music played in the gym, in the machine hall…I believe all this is the quickest and simplest way through which music opens a door on another culture. The first reaction will probably be of not being comfortable with what one listens to (I think in particular of the strong differences in musical systems, like moving from Western to Arab music for instance) and of feeling estranged… These sounds, however, will quickly become familiar and part of the landscape.

nicoletta5I so much appreciate these comments because they are perfectly in line with the aims of our project, ‘What Expats Can Do’. The idea is to find ways to get closer to the cultures that host us, so that the unknown becomes more and more familiar and does not frighten us. We are convinced that music is a wonderful way to do it. In some situations it is also a great way to break down barriers and “universalize” feelings. You have played (and have led others to play) with people from many walks of life – would you say that music is a language that contributes to minimize conflicts?

Music is certainly a language that helps different people and cultures to get close; sometimes it is more direct than a thousand speeches and declarations, because it touches a deep part in each one of us. However, it must be said that music alone is not enough: if two people with a conflict sit down and play together, and thanks to music can collaborate, this does not mean that the conflict between them is solved. It remains. But a work together has been done; one had to relate to the other: this could be the first step towards knowing the other and his story. So, it is true that music is very powerful in putting people in relationship one to another, but it is only the first of a series of steps that may in the end allow the breaking down of walls.

 

 

Nicoletta Zannoni
Ramallah, Palestine

October 2016

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Life from a motorbike

Motherhood is something that always makes me feel close to women, no matter where they come from. Distance disappears when mothers talk about their children. In Jakarta, where I presently live, there is a habit of travelling with the whole family on a motorbike – children included – often without helm, and this is something that makes me feel unease because I know I would never share a motorbike with more than one person, and certainly never put my small child on it without a helmet. But this is my way. I know there’s a wider picture. I wrote the story below in an attempt to identify myself in the feelings that go beyond the danger, and that are common to all families – love, warmth, sense of unity and belonging.

 

Life from a Motorbike

‘Open it!’ My mom’s eyes are glowing. I lift the upper part of the cardboard box and there it is, a bright new motorbike helmet, exactly like my father’s, orange with a black tiger on it, but smaller.

“Happy birthday.” My dad grins. He knows how much I wanted it. Children’s helmets have appeared recently in Jakarta, and they are expensive. Still, we spend a lot of time on my dad’s motorbike, and we hold every object and rituals linked to it in high consideration.

life-on-a-motorbike2My family is not rich. My mom works as a maid and my dad moves from one casual job to another. The motorbike is essential for my mom to reach work every day, for my dad to job-hunt, and for us to go to school. Every morning, when it’s time to leave the house, my sister and I argue:

“Angun, today it’s my turn to sit in front.”

“No way,” I reply.

“Mom said I could ride in front the whole week if I helped her clean the room.”

The roar of the engine interrupts the discussion, and my father heaves us onto the motorbike. He is the one who usually drives it, though my mom is not a bad driver at all, and occasionally takes the handlebars.

We take our seats, trying all combinations: me and my sister sandwiched between Mom and Dad; Dad, me, Mom and my sister in the back; me in front, then Dad, sister and Mom. My dad is not keen on having me sitting in front. I don’t think he worries for my well-being, though. He probably wants to have a bit of free space to play with his phone at traffic lights.

life-on-a-motorbike4The trip is long. We leave early from our neighbourhood in the suburbs of Jakarta, a depressed area packed with makeshift homes where sewage flows in the open, and rats share space with humans. Hanging laundry and piles of garbage dot the area, until the first shops appear, taking a bit of the squalor away.

We take a shortcut under a big grey bridge, which takes us straight to the first skyscrapers. Huge buildings with shining panes are surrounded by one-storey wooden houses where everything is done outside: Women wash their laundry, children play, men chat and smoke.

I have a lot of time to absorb all the details. Some of the traffic lights in and around Jakarta last forever. Lots of bikers crowd under them and patiently wait for their turn to go. You can feel the stress mounting after a couple of minutes. In the heat it’s made even worse by the revving engines: drivers pump the gas, bikes inch forward, engaging in a tense battle to conquer a meter.

I spend my time at traffic lights looking around. I love to see the patterns on the helmets – some are plain black or white, others have colourful designs that entertain my eyes for a while. I enjoy observing what other families on motorbikes do to kill time during the long wait. Children mostly sleep. Adults check their phones, chat with the neighbouring biker, smoke a cigarette or clean their nose and ears. All around engines fume and roar. Cars are kept behind.

You see, motorbikes are like water in Jakarta, they naturally occupy all free space and adapt to the surroundings. So it is always an army of two wheels in front of and around cars. Cars are less interesting anyway. Most of them have darkened windows, which makes it difficult to see what goes on inside.

life-on-a-motorbikeSome traffic lights are more interesting than others because of the hawkers. It is fun to see new things coming up all the time – colourful feather dusters are my favourite, they come in bright blue, pink, yellow and green, and I would give an arm and a leg to be able to touch them and feel the softness of the feathers. At the beginning of the year, huge calendars are on sale, and after elections, the portrait of the president and vice president are at all traffic lights.

I particularly love a junction where a little girl with a tiny blue guitar entertains drivers for a coin. Her mother moves from one car to another selling tissues, and the girl approaches the cars, barely reaching the windows, and plays an off-key tune. I can’t say if I am more envious of the sense of freedom she exudes, or of her bright blue guitar: I would do anything to have it.

But I always look forward to the traffic light where we sometimes meet the foreign woman. The first morning I saw her I was strangely tired. I leaned against my mom’s back, and was not interested in what was going on around me. I could barely keep my eyes open. Through the mist of fumes I suddenly saw a woman in a nearby car watching me. Unlike like the other cars, hers had open windows. What struck me most though, was that she was different from anyone I knew. She was fair-haired and her eyes were blue. I shuddered and turned away.

life-on-a-motorbike3A few days later, at the same traffic light, her car was close to our motorbike again, her window open. She flashed me a huge smile and spoke to me. She was using my language, but I could not understand what she was saying. She said: “Saya dari Italia.” I had never heard that word, Italia, before. Plus, I was intimidated by how strange she looked, with her hair cut short and many different necklaces around her neck.

One day, a full week after I had last seen her, her car was at our side. She was holding a little black box. I was scared. My mom must have felt my tension on her back, and turned to check. The woman talked to her in a different language, but my mom could not understand her either. Other bikers joined the conversation. In a mixture of English, Bahasa Indonesia and lots of gestures, she explained that she was writing a piece to describe life on motorbikes in Jakarta, and needed to have a picture of a family on a motorbike. The box was called a camera and it was a machine that made pictures. She took one. My parents smiled and everybody around applauded.

She’s not scary any more: I smile and wave every time I see her now. It makes going to school easier. I don’t like leaving my parents in the morning. My mom says that school can teach me a lot, but I know that nothing compares to what I learn when I travel through Jakarta on my dad’s motorbike.

 

Claudia Landini
Jakarta, Indonesia
October 2016

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