Atlas Shrugged

Im not refering to the work of my favourite author Ayn Rand (actually my favourite all time book is her novel, The Fountainhead) but rather to a euphamism for an earthquake. One week after the last earthquake and luckily no second earthquake. Atlas hasn't shrugged even though Atlas wasn't actually carrying the world on his shoulders but the Heavens. Zeus condemmed Atlas to carry the heavens on his shoulders after the Titans revolted against the Olympians. The Flemish cartographer Mercator famously showed an illustration of Atlas holding up what looked like the globe of the earth on the cover of collection of maps he published, but this was in fact a globe of the heavens. Mercator had actually named his collection of maps after the mythical King Atlas of Mauretania (after whom the Atlas mountains are named) who was said to have produced the first celestial globe (as opposed to terrestrial globe). The collection became known as Mercator's Atlas and after that any collection of maps was known as an atlas. Mercator was the most influential Belgium of all time, his projection of 1592 of the world being the first to show accurate latitude and longitude lines enabling accurate navigation for the first time. In 1989 US cartographic societies called for Mercator's projection to be eliminated because of its distortions and now it hardly gets usedat all. This didn't however stop NASA using it  to map that butterscotch coloured planet, Mars! Yes I know, I know! Mars looks red to us when we look at in the night sky but this is because of the red dust in the atmosphere of Mars, which is not the color of the surface. The pictures that were taken in 1976 by the cameras on board the two Viking rovers that reached Mars were actually in grey-scale. This then got put thru three colour filters and adjusted according to the artistc preference of the operators. It turns out these were slightly over-pinked and the real colour is probs closer to butterscotch. Actually the most recent photos that have been taken in situ in colour show a greeny-brown landscape interspersed with a salmon -coloured sand strewn with grey-blue rocks. As a matter of fact I been to Mars, not the planet though, but that infamous city called Cairo, which is in fact Arabic (al-Qāhirah) for Mars! Actually, getting back to Atlas shrugging, it was only because of that famous earthquake with its resulting Tsunami back in 2004 that we were able to visit my mother here in Aceh in 2007! Although she had been living here since 1998, R wouldn't let us stage an expedition to visit her due to the civil war. Aceh as a Provence wanted independence from the rest of Indonesia. It an area completely Muslim and rich in both gold and oil. Most if it's resources gets rerouted to Jakarta (Indonesia's capital) and after redistribution approximately 1% of the income generated from the region is returned to it. A heavy military presence in Aceh saw frequent fighting between the Indonesian army and GAM (pronounced GUM) the Acehnese freedom fighters. Tanks would regularly roll down the main highway in front of Lise's house and soldiers would often call sin for a coffee and to watch some television, depositing their rifles by the front door. Faridah and Lise would stand on the balcony and wave to the passing tanks, best to appear friendly to everyone, but once the soldiers began firing at the house, thinking resistance fighters were hiding in it. Lise has footage of shooting as she is running into the bathroom, the only room in the house which is concrete and therefore slightly more bullet-proof than the timber structure of the rest of the house. When she emerged after the shooting stopped she shows where the bullets have pierced the walls and ceiling. Despite being the only white woman allowed to stay in the area during the conflict, her and Faridah did go for one year when the fighting got particularly hairy and live in Lake Toba, North Sumatra.  Once the tsunami happened GAM wanted to come down (out of its mountain hiding caches) and help its people in the cleanup, so they initiated a truce with the Indonesian military in which there was to be no reprisals. The peace that ensued meant that R then allowed us to visit my mother for the first time. Lucky for her, Lise had chosen the place to build her house with Faridah well. Air Dingin sits at 3.21N & 97.07E. As it I turned out it was completely unaffected by the tsunami! The towns to both the north and south of Air Dingin had been wiped out but due to a very deep trench out in the ocean which had absorbed most of the wave from the tsunami, Air Dingin was unaffected. They did experience an unusually low and high tide with fish left on the shore, but apart from that nothing! It was three days before they had the first inkling something was amiss. As there is only one road running along the west coast of Aceh, trucks carrying supplies and goods are a daily occurrence. For three days there had been a notable absence of trucks. Finally someone got through on a mobile phone and they heard of the destruction caused by the tsunami to the north and south of them! Faridah had family up in the capital of Aceh, Bandar Aceh, so she chartered a fishing boat with some other people up the coast to see if she could find them. The road up the coast to Bandar Aceh was impassable, having been too badly damaged in many places. As the boat pulled into the Harbour of Bandar Aceh, it had to dock, the river being completely impassable due to the fact that it was choked full of bloated dead bodies. Faridah and the other passengers on the fishing boats used bra cups as masks for the intolerable stench. Most of the bodies were for some strange reason naked. The water that had surged in from the tsunami had been black and boiling, cooking the bodies! Sadly Faridahs brother and his family had been killed. Later one son, Romy, was actually found and taken back to Air Dingin to live with his grandmother, Faridahs mother. There was hardly a family in Aceh that hadn't suffered the loss of family members.

Magic Man of Sama Dua

Due to the fact that there are no proper steps going up the incredibly steep hill to Lise and Faridahs house and one has to almost claw ones way up the sliding dirt, scarbbling for a foothold (I have no idea how the kids managed all on their own to get the the suitcases up it), Faridahs motorbike is kept outside the café down below and the helmets kept on top of the glass food display cabinet, these of course being merely a suggestion. Although it is the law to wear a helmet hardly anyone does. I impressed upon the kids that they must wear a helmet when they go on the back of Faridahs bike and regaled them with the story that occured a few weeks ago of two twelve year olds who were riding down the road outside Lise's place and got squashed between a truck and a car - it was said that their eyes had popped out when their skulls had been crushed. This proved to be enough to put the wind up the kids. Doning said optional helmet, I slipped behind the helmetless Faridah and we rode off to Samadua, Faridah honking her horn every two seconds, not to warn people on the road of our approach behind them, but rather to gather an audience of interested onlookers from the houses lining the road to witness her passing with a white person on board. The fact that Lise's family has come to visit considerably elevates both Faridahs and Lise's status in the community, so conscious of this I'm careful to smile at everyone, even a becak tray full of kids who call out 'Bulai' meaning 'albino' a derogatory term for white people that I had so far not heard in Aceh but had heard plenty of in North Sumatra. I let them know from my facial expression that I've understood what they've said and they immediately look contrite. Riding up a back street, a novelty because most houses are along the roadside so people can set up little stalls in their houses to make some extra money, and also see what's going on in the neighborhood better, we came to a stop at the magic or psychic mans house. The elderly Bapak wearing a sarong and peci (the traditional Indonesian hat) took us outside to a raised, white pavilion. The magic mans daughter brought bettle nuts, Siri (the special green leaves accompanying the chewing of the beetle nuts) and lime, which made the inside of Faridahs mouth a brilliant scarlet color once she'd finished chewing. The magic man listened to his packet of cigarettes (I'm not joking) then asked Faridah to purchase two bottles of water that he blessed. One was for Torsten who had diarrhea (we had forgotten to take our Betaine Hydrochloride tablets, increasing our stomach acid levels to kill any bugs with each meal) and the other was for me and R so we wouldn't have confusing thoughts. Although I hadnt asked anything of him, this was ostensibly Faridahs visit, he then asked for me to take the sapphire off my finger and mumbled a blessing into and told me to wear it always so R would remember he had a wife and wouldn't be tempted to look at other women! Although this all sounds bizarre, the whole village holds him in great esteem and everything he has has ever said has been accurate. On the way home we rode a back road through the  hills and forest before emerging back onto the main road. Small huts on stilts sat in the middle of rice padis and Faridah pointed out where her buffalo were kept. The more buffalo one has the wealthier one is.  Female buffalo are more valuable because they can of course give birth to more buffalo thereby increasing ones stock. Faridah and Lise have four buffalo, three females and one male. The males are generally sold or kept for ceremonial occasions, to be sacrificially slaughtered. Last time we were here in 2007 there had been an old buffalo grandmother, an old lady who looked after three buffalo. Every afternoon we would see her walking her buffalo from where they'd been grazing during the day across the beach and home. Lise had done a semi-cubist painting of her tending her buffalos that had been exhibited in Melbourne for an International Women's Art Exhibition (Her Presence in Colours) showcasing art work from women of 40 different countries - Lise was representing Indonesia. We were sad to here that though old grandmother buffalo still lived, two of her buffalos had been stolen (probably by non-muslim people from Medan with trucks in the night) andthe third one had been killed and partially eaten by a tiger ( the endangered Sumatran tiger they have here).

Defaecated Coffee Anyone?

You read right - I didn't mean to write decaffeinated coffee. This is a picture of the Civet cat (or palm civet) that lives in Sumatra. Up in Aceh where mother lives these little critters, just slightly bigger than a house cat roam the jungle and occasionally wonder into peoples homes. One night mother had gotten up in the middle of the night to get a drink and passing thru the hallway saw what she thought was a wire hanging down out of the corner of her eye. She brushed it aside and realised the wire was rather furry. Looking up at the overhanging rafter she saw the furry wire was in fact a civet cats tail and the civet cat was sitting there quite calmly eating a mango it had procured for itself from the kitchen! Mother woke Faridah up, who I might tell you is more inclined to shooing away cats of any size and shape including tigers with a broom. The civet cat took a look at Faridahs broom and casual as you like climbed down from there after and walked, or rather strolled at a leisurely pace, down the front stairs back into the jungle.

Aceh is a large coffee growing area so the lovely red coffee berries pictured above are plentiful. That's right, coffee is actually a fruit, a berry, not a bean as we so ignoramously call it. This means that between the coffee berries and the civet cat some smart arse  once upon a time discovered that making coffee from the 'beans' that had passed thru the gut of the civet cat actually tastes wonderful. It's called Kopi Luwak - cat-poo coffee - and is highly prized, exacting exorbitantly high prices ($600/kg) which makes it about $30 for a cup of cat poo scented coffee. 

Supposedly the civet is a discerning gourmand and eats only the most perfectly matured, choicest beans which it then later excretes partially digested. Lucky workers - oh to have their job! - then collect said poo, exhibit C above, and roast the shit. This produces a coffee with an aroma that is rich and strong, incredibly full bodied and almost syrupy. It's said to be thick with a hint of chocolate that lingers on the palette long after. This would be because as the coveted poo passes out of the arse of the civet cat anal scent glands secrete a fluid with a musky odor. I'm heading up to Aceh in January and I know you'll all be jealously thinking of me as I'm sipping a steamy cup  of  anal scented cat poo coffee.