Waktu untuk pulang

(Time to return home)

This was my my final journal entry in Indonesia, written in the plane as we took off.

Day 59. Ultimate. In some ways I wish it wasn't. I'm feeling very weak, like I should have been able to make it longer. I really think I would have gone mad if I'd stayed a year: but the realisation that I can speak ok Indonesian; the knowledge that my students and new friends actually care and will miss me; and the feeling that I would have in some way proven myself make me feel sad to leave. I feel a bit ashamed to be crawling home with my tail between my legs.

I keep telling myself that the circumstances were ridiculous: completely alone; crap house; crap working hours; feeling scared everytime I heard a noise at night; feeling both intensely grateful for any form of friendship, yet frustrated by the over-attention that comes from a relationship with Indonesians (they are INTENSE people, and have no idea about alone time, or privacy or anything). I can't but feel disappointed. I am sad both because I feel bad to have upset so many people, and because I just want a hug from someone I know!

I'm feeling more emotional than I have for most of my trip- barring the first week, of course! I know I'll miss more than my balcony! N.B. Early in my trip, I wrote a list of things I thought I'd miss in Indonesia. The main thing was the balcony near my room, which had an interesting view, and nice breezes.

I am going to most miss the relaxed atmosphere of Indonesia. It is a place where someone is always late, and time is truly elastic; where everything can be rixed by crossing the right person's palm with silver. I am going to miss the complexities of life, paradoxical, really for such a simple lifestyle. People are obsessed with technology, to the point where it was considered 'impossible' for me to not have a mobile; yet people live in squalor. They are fiercely proud of the natural beauty of their country, but destroy it daily, be it through littering or slash and burn farming. It's a country where people do not understand the need for 'alone time', but expect you to live sendiri (alone), and where the locals are both overwhelmingly welcoming and shockingly rude all at once. It's a weird, beautiful, terrible, amazing place. I am definitely coming back here.

So. Back home. Back to the grind, the familiarity, the anonymity on a crowded street, the certainty I am not being fleeced because of my skin colour, nor am I getting special treatment because of it! I actually really can't wait to travel... tapi aku juga senang sekalia untuk pulang! ('but I am very happy to return home'...)

The word 'pulang' means 'to return home', a concept for which we do not have a single word in English. I think this is because we don't regard home as an element central to our being. It's strange, being abroad made me so much more patriotic. I wasn't homesick, but I was so home-proud. At the zoo, the animals I spent most time with were the kangaroos and the cocky, because, you know, we had this deep Australian connection. Yeah...