pacific rim
This anthology of little conversations leaves the commercial tenets of storytelling behind. You’ll find neither the rigidity or the rigour of journalism, nor will you find the spicy click bait or shocking oomph that sells daily papers and hourly updates.
Although we love those stories too, this quiet collection seeks no crowd. These voices await no recognition of their life struggle, earthquake or not.
Here we long only for an ear to listen in on our private whispers, one small truth to secretly share, a record that we were here.
earthquakes
In August 2018, a series of earthquakes violently shook the Indonesian island of Lombok and her neighbours. Lives and homes lost; histories lay in the rubble; futures desecrated in the ruin.
This precarious basin in the Pacific Ocean, known as the Ring of Fire fuels 90% of the world’s active volcanos and earthquakes. The official death toll is now recorded, but the numbers are still debated on the ground.
On the nearby islet of Gili Trawangan, many businesses and homes were also decimated in the quakes. The piles of their remains grow daily as locals add the rubble of their lives to the heap.
There are mosques without domes now and the Hindu Goddess Ganga, who is often portrayed with water, stands with her vessel empty. She is believed to wash away sins with her holy river water and liberate souls from the mortal cycle of life and death.
Precious Ganga is discarded with the mounds of debris collected in the long aftermath, she will be shipped off the island and dumped in an earthly abyss.
Murni is 33 years-old, her house in Pemenang, Kopang Village was flattened to the earth. Now with her mother and her 12-year-old daughter, Murni must live in a tent. The monsoon season came, and with it, the daily sinking of her tarpaulin home. Three months on and no government aid has arrived.
This disaster still affects thousands bound to a lifetime of recovery. But she won’t give up. Murni travels to the nearby island of Gili Trawangan to stay Monday - Friday selling rice in a small stall. On the weekends she returns to her daughter, taking what little she has earned back to her family.
She is calm and patient waiting for help. But Murni carries on with determination -as if no help will ever arrive- not leaving her family’s survival up to anyone else.
Countless families have been forced out of their ruined homes and into shared tent communities, with little access to sanitation, food, water, baby nappies, milk formula and other basic essentials. The children’s hand-painted creations outlast the crumbs that were once the walls of their local primary school.
rubber trees
Tropical heat and humidity, gentle consistent rain and protection from strong winds: Temanggung, Central Java has the ideal conditions for rubber plantations to flourish. Indonesia is one of the largest exporters of rubber in the world, alongside Thailand and Brazil.
Have you ever wondered where your rubber comes from? Or who processes it for you? Or how many objects in your life rely on it?
All over the world, great areas of rainforest are cut down to plant high-yielding crops for modern consumption. Like many of the products we depend on daily, rubber is no exception to this practice.
It is harvested by the hands of workers known as tappers, who may tap over 600 trees per day.
The tappers cut into the tree bark, usually with a small hatchet. These wounds allow latex to flow down the ducts and be collected in a small cup or coconut shell. Precision is required to ensure the cambium (interior layer of the bark) isn’t touched, for if it’s cut accidentally, the tree will cease to grow. After 7 years of immature growth, a rubber tree is economically productive for around 25 years. The tappers must be careful.
Have you ever splashed in a puddle in your gumboots; celebrated a birthday with balloons; or cleaned up a mess with gloves; what about worn runners or thongs; have you used a telephone or a radio; watered your garden with a hose? Have you ever been in a building made with cement, or been warmly wrapped inside an insulated blanket? Have you ever read a newspaper, or a book from a printing press? Perhaps we lucky ones have collected a suitcase from a conveyor belt at the airport; or gone diving on a tropical holiday. Have you ever been out to sea on a boat, ever been on a bike, or in a car, did the windshield wipers swoosh across the glass? Has a surgeon worn gloves to heal you, or connected you to a medical tube to help you breathe, or eat, or survive?
Chances are, we owe a little gratitude to the humble Rubber Tree.
Rubber latex was originally discovered in the Hevea tree by the Olmec civilisation. Mayans and Aztecs used it for an Indigenous Meso-American Ballgame. Although much modern rubber is produced synthetically, the story of rubber reminds us we have much to thank it for across time, nature and humanity.
aldi
Aldi is 13-years-old from Amed, a small fishing community on the northeast coast of Bali, Indonesia. Aldi is an only child and lives with his parents and grandparents. His grandmother sells bottled water and local fruit beside the family business, on the singular road that runs through his village.
In the past 10 years, a sleepy village surrounded by mountains and rice fields, reliant on fishing and agriculture, has transformed into a burgeoning dive community for tourists. Somewhere between poverty and prosperity, this township is developing rapidly.
What will the next 10 years bring? What will life in Amed be like for 23-year-old Aldi? His parent’s bungalow-style bed and breakfast, 'Pondok Aldi' is his namesake. For now, in the evenings, when the guests are dining out, Aldi sits here to play games whilst charging his phone, until he too is called by his mother for dinner.
