Update: cultural colonization begins

It's nice and good that I got educated in the oriental-studies (!) department in Canada, and learn all there is to know about cultural-sensitivity... which I then dump into the drain as soon as I get here.

I have been whinning and moaning about the mistreatment of dogs and cats in here for long enough, so let me give some specific details. First of all, I assure you I am no PETA member, I even eat cute little bunnies with big black blameless eyes. Even so, I am hitting my limit for "cultural tolerance."

The teenage boy next door bought home one fine morning two very tiny kittens from the street. They are very tiny, miserable, and mangy. The little boy has bald spots on his back and is losing more hair everyday. Both of hte kittens have fleas crawling around visibly.

Even I was taken aback by their state of health at first. I picked the little boy-kitten up, he cried for his life. I have raised enough kittens from birth that I know how to soothe a tiny kitten, so I set him on my lap and start petting him in ways similar to a mother cat would lick her kittens. Instantly, I got him tamed. He start purring with his eyes closed. And from that moment on, I have became the kitten's surrogated mother.

My neighbout find it very ridiculous that I spend so much money on cat kibbles, which is ridiculous enough, it's over twice the price for the same brand of Kibble in Canada; I guess only foreigner buy cat food in lombok. This has to be done; at first I bought milk and baby food for the kittens, which was quickly robbed and consumed by the toddler. I kid you not. The almost-2-yr-old kid actually ate the whole bowl of cat food as soon as I turn my back, and her brother/ parents seem to find it funny.

I don't blame a kid if she is hungry and takes the kitten's food, but... that evening, the four year old little girl was sitting on the top of a flight of stairs when one of the two kittens happily runs up to her, and the innocent little girl agilely give the tiny kitten a kick so that it tumbles all the way back down, and as the kitten is tumbling, she looks at me and gave me a very innocent, sincerely happy laugh as if to say, "look what I did to it, isn't it so funny?" I yelled "jangan," then I said to her, with an angry face, "that was REALLY nasty!" Of course she doesn't understand English, but she understands enough that I am angry, and that's good enough.

Then comes meal time for the toddler, the kitten walks up to the toddler, and to my horror, the toddler raises the big metal spoon up above her head and hammers down on the very tiny kitten repeatedly.

When I shoult "jangan" (don't!), the parents would look at see what's going on. If the kids are ruining my books or pens, the parents will tell the kids it's bad. But if the kids are abusing the kitten, the parents will do nothing about it. In fact, I have caught the adults kicking the kittens around a few times.

Sorry for not being more "culturally sensitive" but as far as I know, this is plain and raw cruelty. For a moment, I thought about grabbing the spoon and show that kid what it feels like to be hammered, or to push the girl down the stairs to show her it's not that funny afterall. But instead, I told them it's not good, it hurts the kitten, and they give me a puzzled look.

I was getting pretty desperate, I thought it's not getting through to them, and I am ready to serve "justice the american way" (i.e. withdrawing all medical and financial aids until they treat the kittens the way I want them to). But a few night later, the kids were watching me pet the kittens and the four year old says something about the kitten likes it. Then both of the kids imitated. The toddler petted the kitten gently then looks at me for approval, I was so happy! (mission-successful!)

This morning, I fed the kitten wet food from a can, little Raisa (4 yr old little girl) even took the spoon to spoon feed them, I am pretty happy about it. I suddenly have so much more empathy for all the missionaries; to hell with cultural sensitivity.

These kittens are very affection by now, they don't have much fear for human anymore, which, I don't know whether it's good or bad for them. In 2 months, I will be on the road again, and chances are, they will be mistreated (by my standard of course) by every human they run into. Maybe I am harming them by imposing my western way of interacting with animals; but I can't just sit around and do nothing when I see these two very affectionate, waif kittens being abused.

But I am learning about their culture too... for example, I can now sing all of Radja's songs by heart(!), and I can even cook some of the local dishes.

If there is one thing I absolutely hate, and that would be being told what to do, especially by a man, and especially if he is telling me to go work in the kitchen. Ogi has the gut to tell me to go help out in the kitchen when I first arrived here, and for that reason alone, I avoided going into the kitchen for a good long time. But I also love cooking, so I have finally got over my resentment for domestication and started learning to cook lombok dish. Grinding chili peppers and garlic with stones makes me feel like I am in the "stone age" already... kiss the food processor good bye! (and I am trying hard to remember not to rub my eyes.) I have also learn to make some sort of sticky-rice dessert, you wrap them with banana leave and boil till the rice is tender, then you put shredded coconut and caramel on it... mmmmMMmm. On the other hand, I still haven't got used to the saltiness of the food. Dedy told his friends that if the food has "sedikit sedikit asin" (just a little bit of salt) and "dia tidak suka," (she won't like it), well, his idea of "little bit of salt" is not my idea of "little bit." I thought Canadian eat REALLY salty food, but Sasak food is even more salty.

I also made the mistake of falling in love with Jakarta rock music, which means I suddenly have a very large set of vocabulary on gaudy love and break up and heart breaks and "get lost" etc. I can't seem to find *one* song without some conjugation of the word "cinta" (the fishy, "koi" kind of love) in it >_< However, I still enjoy playing guitar and singing with my neighbour's teenage son.

I have to wait now, Dedy is waiting for me outside (jamput ^_^;;). I hope to have time to write about Raisa a bit more next time... stay tuned!

-C