Rainy Season

Water both gives and takes life. On a regular day, water is used for thirst, cleaning, bathing, before praying, flushing, so much is reliant upon water. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone wash their face from a faucet or wash their feet immediately after travelling or before entering a room or house, as well as 5 times a day when Muslims wash their hands, feet and faces before praying. Water surrounds and dictates life. But just as something so strong gives life and sustains livelihoods in my village and many others throughout Indonesia, it just as easily is able to suffocate.

During the regular rainy season, there will be sunshine and then maybe one or two hours of raining a day. This rainy season, my village has experienced for the first time rainstorms which left most areas damaged, because it was the first time the rain was not only heavy but accompanied with strong winds that blew doors open and broke small houses. I was visiting a friend when the typhoon hit, glass hit the floor, the ceilings were leaking, the outside living areas were flooding, children were crying and my friend was cuddling her 1-week old infant. Hurriedly rushing the infant and others from their house to one more sturdy, we waited out the storm. I didn't know how to react but calmly because storms seemed normal to me. Everyone spoke about this storm for the next week.

More recently, we've had days of ceaseless raining. Over a week, where the clouds don’t cease to have an opening, where they are nothing but grey and your world is seen in dim lighting. This rainy season, I've seen how rain gives life to what was the hottest and driest dry season to then take away the green of the rice paddies again and drown it in a sea of brown. The same rice paddies I would pass now that were filled with farmers have become waves of brown water reaching out into the distance. Once the rivers, the trenches, the rice paddies and all other infrastructure for rain has overflown with water the next area is the streets and from the streets into homes. Today, I walked knee deep in streets where flooding had been so bad the flooding entered homes and children swam in the streets of their enclosed communities. It seemed like some strange dream. Earlier this rainy season, I only felt sadness for the farmers who had to re-sow the rice paddies every time after it flooded. How much of one’s own livelihood can you continue to give towards sowing a crop over and over again before the seed is actually able to grow? Once the paddies are green they are just as quickly flooded again when the rains begin to hit hard and often.

Every time the rice paddies are full, lush and green I’m reminded of the resilience of the farmers and of everyone in my community. That even when rice paddies are overflowing and their houses have flooded, everyone comes together. Children are still laughing, people are still in high spirits and they move on with their daily life and do what they can to continue living. Although this is not an ideal situation but often a possibility for many villages in Indonesia during the rainy season, Indonesians still remain strong and unchanged. Flooding to this extent is not a normal occurrence in America, so we would automatically mourn our valuables and material possessions. We would still be a community, still help one another because that is our common factor throughout the world. Humanity binds us together and we lend a hand when our neighbor is in trouble. What astounds me though is the relapse of bouncing back, my friends in Indonesia would also mourn their material possessions, but soon afterwards would gather hope and a smile would be upon their face, someone would make a joke and laughs would be shared as they continue to mend the damage done by mother nature. This same resilience I see in my Indonesian community is one I want to resemble; one, I want to support; because I believe in my community and because this is my home too.

Every day I am further humbled by my experiences in Indonesia and it only took me living here for almost ten months to remember why it was I joined Peace Corps in the first place.