Warning, this email is not for the faint hearted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This will be probably my longest email because it really deserves the length...... It is worth the read
Parental advisory warning!
So we are in Sulawesi and it has been one of the craziest and I mean craziest experiences of my life!!!!! So here is the story....
We fly into Makassar where we have to take an 8 hour bus trip to get to the area of Tana Toraja. No problem right, well the adventure started the moment we stepped off the plane. We get out of the airport and there are dozens of men trying to get us to buy packages to take us where we supposedly want to go. It is a hagglers dream.. one white girl who apparently looks alone. Every single person in Indonesia thinks that mykie is one of them! I am a tough cookie and I put my foot down and say no thanks I want to find it on my own. But A for effort because these guys try hard to sell yo the moon. The taxi to the bus station was a prepaid ticket, thank god. We hop in and the driver knows where we are going but doesn't understand a word of English. All i see around us in the dark since it is 9pm are slums, everywhere. i am thinking only crazy things at this point.
we arrive to the bus station in one piece, no worries. as soon as we get out of the taxi, 8 men jump out to help us with our bags. once they touch your bag they want money. I had to almost flight this one dude to leg go of my stuff. They knew I meant business and backed off. I am a hot commodity hear.
We sat in the bus station with every single person looking at me as if i was the only white person in the whole wide world. I am thinking two things, either they don't normally see too many of my skin colour or I am the richest woman to have a personal guide with me, mykie, LOL hahahahahahahh.
The bus had these sleeper seats which would be really comfortable if you were driving on the 401 but not through the jungle up a mountain. I have never experienced such a ride. I look out the window and all I see is jungle shinning through the lights from the bus. Green is everywhere. we are on a one way road with two way traffic. There seems to be a turn on the road every second, I am flying out of my seat. The sleepers are not really made for my height anyway. On the bright side it was so beautiful even in the dark. It felt like a world so far from our own. I have never been surrounded by so much green and in the darkness surrounded by the glow of the bus lights, it felt like a dream. An off road adventure!
they dropped us off at our hotel, which was recommended and we booked our tours! NOw this is where the warnings come in. I have played this story in my head a thousand times as to how I will tell it, but any way I do it it will not do it justice. Just note as you read on that it will be graphic and not for weak hearts. But the people here believe in certain things and never waste anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The lure of this place is their burial ceremonies which include buffalo sacrifices.... read on if you dare....
When a person dies, the family keeps them in their home until they can afford to hold a burial ceremony which takes 4 days to complete. The more money and status you have the easier and quicker it will be. most tourists that come here see the first two parts out of four, but we were lucky enough to see the last two out of four.
Step 3..... so we get picked up at 730 in the morning and take trip to the community/ village where a 90 year old man is being honored for his life. we get dropped off on the road and walk up with our guide a treacherous hike up muddy slopes, no shoes are worn because i makes it harder to climb. I have never gotten so dirty before. It was kinda nice. we arrive at the top of the mountain to be greeted by inquiring eyes. a white woman with two Indonesia guides( one is Mykie). Every one there is a local from a small village in the mountains. Most people are afraid of me but it is not uncommon to have tourists be present here at these ceremonies, this is why we come. We giving the grieving family our gift( a carton of cigarettes). They are really pleasant to us and now we sit down in a special place and wait for the ceremony to start. I knew what I was getting myself into but everything is different in reality.
Next thing you know, 6 buffalo are paraded around us. When i send the pictures once we return to Melbourne i will post this again so you can really understand what this looks like. Everyone is sitting in these little room things and the dead person is in the center in a special house like structure and the bulls are in the center as well. And then the ceremony starts!......
There is a huge bamboo shaft placed in the centre where the buffalo gets his hind leg tided to the post. There are special skilled men who have machetes that stand infront of the buffalo and with one swift wave of the knife to the buffalos throat......all you see is a struggling buffalo that has had his throat slashed and blood is pouring so hard from its throat. his head is pointed up because the throat is slashed so hard the only way it can keep its head up is by having it back. The buffalo is scared and dying! Writing this part makes my stomach turn. It is a gross event but there is something about it that was not only haunting but spiritual in a way. If that makes any sense. THere were 6 buffalo in total and at one point there was so much blood everywhere that i thought i was going to be sick. I kinda stayed in the back and not really watched but Mykie got it all on tape.
Imagine experiencing something like this 6 times. It was beyond anything that i can verbally express,anything that video can explain any nothing that photos can tell. This is a once in a life time experience and for a animal lover such as myself it was more than a lifetime can and should see.
I thought i could go into more detail but the memory of the experience is too much to explain. It does have a happy ending though. After all the buffalos are dead, they skin them right there. I forgot to mention one thing, the ground is 100% mud and urine from the animals ( and poo). So they skin them, all of them. Right infront of everyone right where they died. The skin is then dried and sent to Java to make things of leather product. After the skinning is finished they cut up the entire buffalo into little pieces, the head separate. Then each family who brought the buffalo distributes all the pieces of the entire buffalo (every piece) to people pf their community that have joined them that day. Every piece of the animal gets eaten. Every piece!!!!!!! THis is where asian food gets interesting!
This part was really messy and sloppy, remember the blood mixed with mud etc.... well they cut it there, on it. There is a special smell in the air. I think you can imagine what it was like but for those who cannot....dead meat and poo. Exactly like that.
A total of 10 tourists stayed to watch the sayings/sacrifices but they all left when done except for us. We were the only tourists that have every stayed to experience everything. We were there from the offering the gift to the family to after lunch which was around 12. 8-12 is a long day of sitting and looking at raw meat. And to add there were wild dogs everywhere as well.
I know i mentioned lunch, yes there is a lunch and guess what it was? Buffalo.... so lovely!!!!! NOT! it was a real honour for us to stay that long and have lunch with the locals that is why we did. They loved ME! They could not get enough of me. Especially the kids, and i had candy. They loved it. I would have been ok if the meat was muscle or something but it was lung and tripe. There was rice and meat that smelled like its environment. To say this nicely, i ate half a small bowl of rice and pretended to eat a small piece of meat which i threw to the dogs. It was so nasty that Mykie was gaging. If you saw the environment and smelled it, that was enough to turn you off. They had palm wine which we drank happily. Mykie was so funny because he would not talk to me while eating because he was so grossed out! lol
The rest is for another email, this story and the images that we captured will last us a life time. It was one of the best experiences i have ever had. Being in such a small village I really understood what it felt like to be different. And, really different. But the difference from oppression is that i was different but welcomed!!!!!!!!! I want to emphasize that.
This might seem nasty and cruel to most from our culture but normal and real to those here. And though I scrubbed so hard in the shower after 8 hours at the ceremony, I appreciated my life more and respected theirs even more. I am so blessed to have what i have and be able to see and do what I can. My life is so big and I am so happy because of it.
When we get back, i will show pics and video if you dare and explain more because the story is not finished there is a lot more to tell. but, this keyboard sucks and i have already worte too much for one email.
