Entry from my journal earlier today

KETE KESU', Typical Toraja Village
*Pintu Gerbang
Gunung Nona
Pare Paru
Restoran KUPA
Pak Chris

29 March2009
That's directions from our guide for the way back fro Toraja to Makassar. Pintu Gerbang - the entrance to the region (a gateway wtih a trad torajan house over it). Gunung(mountain) Nona (young woman) - the mountain that looks like a vagina. Kupa - the restaurant that we did not stop at after Pare Paru village. Terus to Chris and Samson's house, in Yohanis' shorthand, "Pak Chris", who sends all his friends to Yohanis. And Yohanis sends him coffee. Indeed a bromance.

On the plane with Rohan Ujung Pandang --> Timika on Merpati airlines. Last night we got into Pak Chris' at 8 or so. Pak Chris was at an English conference elsewhere on his island for the weekend and Samson was at the airport picking up his sister from the States lewat Jakarta.
Tra, Rohan and I mandi'd (showered up) and went out to Sports Cafe, also known as the Scottish Bar because it's owned by a Scott and his Indo wifey.
Iindo techno low light cafe setup,but with big screen TVs showing the world cup qualifying gams, pool tables at both ends and sports decorations. Never have badminton raquets and birdies been so artistically arranged on a hanging overaseat net. Lame nachos (sad); we miss home! Drinks lumayan saja but when tara asked, they started playing hip hop, cutting off the house right in the middle of a remix of some song i've never heard with bird calls. real bird calls.
i think i won one of the games of pool. i don't really remember because earlier that afternoon I drank half an Aqua besar (that's the big bottle) of fermenting palm wine to win an irreisistable bet. Sometimes i regret that I didn't use these talents of mine earlier since this kind of trick is no longer impresive at parties.
We had been driving from Tana Toraja to Makassar and it was late afternoon. That morning Tara and I had bought the palm wine in the town market (pasar) for Samsom but then we found out that it sours by nightfall so we pacted to drink it, the three of us, on our ride that day. let no good thing go to waste. There's incentive to keep it flowing because the longer you leave it, the harder and nastier it gets. Eight hours of hot car later, we'd drank almost half of the bottle early on and then we all started feeling it with the winding road a little too much. Cold Sprites and a stop in the shade eating crackers later, we were feeling better and back on the road and Rohan bet me sejuta Rp that I couldn't chug it.
The driver pulled over and he even got out with us. He wanted to see how this would go down and by this point in the fourth (and last) day together, he was pretty convinced we were bule gila and had therefore decided to become friends afterall. An old Pak in a sarung came up to the side of the ride. Skinny little man peeking over at us. we set the rules. No stopping. No breathing. 1 2 3 go
I came back to the car sickly victorious. Rohan was shocked and later when I develop my film, i'll show you the awesome look on his face. Tara was kind of impressed. I think she was about to take the dare if I hadn't. For sejuta, totally worth it.
So by the time we got to the rumah in makassar, I'd had.. enough
2:30 am we left the bar with Samson and Summer, his much jetlagged but still incredibly keeping up sister. We had bubur ayam (rice porridge with chicken), the only food left open, and something reminds me of being sick and passing out in the hospital on papua- that was the smell that did it to me. You wouldn't believe how good it taste at 3AM, especially when you're sitting with a gang of wiscracking Bugis boys calling you mister and a table of glamorous Banci who inspired me to be a better woman and dress fabulously once in awhile. if they can pull it off.... .....can they pull it off?
I think i slept an hour last night. Ro Samson and SUmmer langsung'd ke sleep when we got home and I stayed up talking with tara till it was light. Were going with Rashi to India in less than two weeks. Hard to believe.

Ro is sleeping next to me on the plane back to Papua, and i"m looking out over this sky and the clouds over water, waiting to see Papua and finally be home. Check email. Meet with my student who's going to the national words competition. And sleep. Oh yea, and maybe blog this. Sleep so I can teach tomorrow!
I feel like I've let out so much. Toraja is more than Palm wine and a road trip tot a scottish sports bar. We were only there, in Toraja, for two full days, but we managed to see a lot. This wonderful place is in South Sulawesi (also known for pirates) and known among other things for its funeral tradition, houses, cacao and coffee. First with what's easy to describe. Everywhere w hiked there were coffee and cacao trees all along the perimeter of the terraced wet rice farms and up in the hills and mountains as well. Toraja coffee is some of the best in the world. Two lkinds of beans, Arabica and the milder more locally popular Robusta - both with incredible flavors. I brought home some Robusta.
And warung or streetside restos in Toraja will have excellent, excellent coffee, much like Flores.
it's a cooler region becuase of the altitude and most incredibly, Toraja seems to be a place of people who cling to their roots and take Torajan heritage seriously without failing to embrace modern education. Torajans are in general very well educated, many through university, but there is a certain loyalty to heritage and culture even among those who are educated or move to other parts of Indonesia.
The center of Torajan culture is the funeral. People live simply and ave their whole lives in order to have a proper funeral. The ceremony includes slaughtering buffalos , each of which can cost thousands of USD $$$$
After a funeral the family hangs all the horns from the buffalo on the front of the house. We walked through very small villages of famers with houses holding something like twenty sets of buffalo horns on the front, all from the most recent family funeral. These houses are shaped like shipsin a way that recalls their ancestors who floated over.
The houses are on stilts with the animals living underneath the people in the open space. The walls of the house are entirely made of beautifully carved panels of wood painted in the four elemental colors: black (death) whit (Purity) red (blood) yellow (life/soul)
The inside is simple. When we attended a funeral our first day there, some of the family invited us in to eat with them. Rice ( course), also Buffalo or pork cooked with bamboo shoots and other vegs for hours in a bamboo ( Pa'Piong Kerbau, Pa'Piong Babi). The inside is simple, gets the job done, but the outside are stunning and look something like red, white black and yellow patchwork quilts. Back in the day (and sometimes still) the roofs were thatched, but now usually made of tin. Even large establishment in town, like the bank, are still Torajan. The bank is a large imposing, building made of bricks and mortar painted white, but it has the front of a Torajan house sticking out the front, buffalo head/horns and all. Beat that Fulton Savings. a free backpack or nonstick cookware for signing up for checking?
Sometimes it's hard not to compare, especially when it's one small town to the next