Manda village was not big. There were only twenty stilt houses scattered quite far from each other. All the houses were made of gedek (bamboo) and were quite large.
By
Agustinus Wibowo
·4 minutes read
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Children in Manda Village, Papua New Guinea.
My arrival in Manda village, Papua New Guinea, was greeted with high suspicion by local residents. The location of the village, which is near the Indonesian border and OPM (Free Papua Organization) camps along the Fly River, made the people of Manda suspicious of my arrival.
I was alone in this village, in front of village men who refused to answer my questions. They continued to stare at me with unfriendly looks and continued muttering in their own language.
I suddenly remembered the letter inside my backpack. The letter was issued by the Indonesian Embassy in and stated that I was an “Indonesian photographer who wants to capture the natural and cultural beauty of Papua New Guinea”.
To the Manda men, I showed the letter, complete with my passport. They looked closely at my documents. The tension subsided. Smiles began to flash on their faces.
"We thought you were a spy. Because you asked about the OPM. We have to be careful,” one man said.
Now there was no more mutual suspicion. They took me for a walk around the village.
***
Manda village was not big. There were only twenty stilt houses scattered quite far from each other. All the houses were made of gedek (bamboo) and were quite large. The largest house was inhabited by two families of 23 people. It took eight years to build, and it had 250 support poles. The owner, Benny Gradus, was arguably the richest man in Manda, and his house was like a palace in the poor village. He\'s a crocodile hunter, and owns a generator plus a gallon of gasoline.
All the clothes were in shabby condition and full of holes.
Almost all of their clothes come from Indonesia, generally with symbols of political parties, photos of regional head candidates or product advertisements. These are t-shirts that are usually distributed for free in Indonesia. All the clothes were in shabby condition and full of holes.
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Even though their village is very poor, the people of Manda are proud that they are more “civilized” than other PNG people. This is because of their closer position to Indonesia.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Village atmosphere in Manda, Papua New Guinea.
In Manda, many men can speak Indonesian quite well, although their vocabulary is limited. When they speak their language, Buazi, Indonesian words are often heard, such as parang (machete), pisau (knife), belanja (shopping), piring (plate), sendok (spoon) and kapak (axe). They did not refer to the language as "Indonesian", but "Bahasa" or "Malay".
“How can you speak Bahasa?” I asked.
"Because we are border people," said a young man named Johny Atabakai.
Johny\'s first time to Indonesia was in 1993. Before that, he was too scared to even imagine Indonesian soldiers. "Many refugees tell us that the Indonesian Army is very cruel," he said. By refugees he means people who came from the Indonesian side of Papua and were mostly supporters of the OPM movement. "But after I saw Indonesia for myself, it turned out that the soldiers were OK," continued Johny.
From them, he learned the Indonesian lifestyle, which for him is a symbol of modernity.
Recently, Johny has being going to Indonesia almost every month. He said he had made friends with “white people”, namely Javanese and Chinese who lived in Papua. From them, he learned the Indonesian lifestyle, which for him is a symbol of modernity.
The most obvious example is the food. His family now fries mujair (freshwater tilapia) and removes the scales first, while most PNG people in the area only boil and grill the fish without seasoning and without removing the scales. Johny also eats chili and makes chili sauce.
"When we were little we ate [fish] without flavor. Now I know how delicious Indonesian food is, so I don\'t want to eat anymore if there is no flavor," he said. Johny served me a dinner of fried gourami in exactly the Javanese style. In PNG, the food was enough to thrill me and made me miss Indonesia and the delicious food of my hometown. While we were eating, a relative of Johny’s came who spoke Indonesian as fluently as an Indonesian. The woman\'s name was Sule. She said she had lived and worked in Merauke for two years.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
In Manda, you can often find people wearing clothes from Indonesia.
Learning I was from Java, Sule\'s face immediately brightened. “In Indonesia, I only want to live with Javanese people. Javanese people often share their knowledge. It makes me smart," she said.
While in the Indonesian portion of the island, Sule lived in a transmigration camp. At that place, she said, there were only Javanese, absolutely no Papuans.
"Which Javanese person do you like the most?" I asked her.
Sule didn\'t need time to think. She screamed, “Jokowi!”
(This article was translated byKurniawan Siswoko).
