Mud and sweat in Surabaya

I’m still trying to understand Surabaya. It’s the second largest city in Indonesia. To put that in a little more context, Indonesia is the fourth largest country on earth. Jakarta is the capital and largest city, and Surabaya sits at the opposite end of Java island. Java is the size of New York State and is the most populous island in the world. I flew into Surabaya on Thursday evening, where I was met by Kasihani and traffic. Kasihani is the professor I am writing the book with. She spent a semester in Pittsburgh and now I am here to finish the book and do some English teacher training activities in Indonesia with her.

So back to Surabaya. I read that it was sprawling and crazy. I saw that immediately as the motorbikes zigzagged around me and every street was stuffed with vendors. I really never truly understood the meaning of sprawl until now. Nothing about this place feels urban; it just feels dense. It also became clear that Surabaya is a place with drastic differences in wealth. When we went grocery shopping, small children as young as seven tried to sell us newspapers. Young boys walk up to cars with little guitars and offer to sing and play for the drivers. Kasihani says there are many families who cannot find work and never have enough money, so they send their children out to beg or sell things.

Grand Mosque in Surabaya, Indonesia

Contrast that with the life that Kasihani and her family lives. Her husband is a doctor, and his practice is inside of their home. They live on one of those streets that looks like an alley, but when you open up one of the gates you realize there is a big house back there. They have air conditioning and purified water and multiple bedrooms. Kasihani’s daugher and her family live further outside of Surabaya, and they have wifi and send their children to private school. I know that I have seen wealth disparities like this before in places like Cambodia and the UAE, but staying with a family on the higher end of the scale made it much more real to me in Indonesia.

One of the things that makes the wealth gap very palpable is the presence of a maid and a driver. The maid is a woman, either fairly old or fairly young. The driver is a man, usually young. The maid lives in the house while the driver has his own residence. The driver is a funny concept to me because there is nothing about being rich that makes one unable to drive. The driver sits outside of the car and waits for us if we go to eat or enjoy something. If I had a driver, I would always make him come along. The maid is even more surprising for me. She cooks and cleans and manages the house. They make very little money, but the chance to live in a nice house and eat nice food makes up for it I guess. I just have a very hard time accepting that someone lives in my house and is not treated as a member of my family. I am sure if you grow up with this situation, it seems like second nature. Of course there are Americans who have live-in maids. But this being my first experience, it catches me off guard.

So what did I actually do in Surabaya? Sweat. A lot. And I went to the Grand Mosque, went to the zoo, and had lunch at a big fish restaurant. The mosque was huge and lovely. Kasihani’s grandson, who goes to a bilingual school, guided me around the mosque, telling me “Take off your shoes here.” Kasihani’s granddaughter, a bit too young to be confident in her English, asked him what religion I was. She must have been very curious as to why I requested to see the biggest mosque in Surabaya! There are many mosques all over Surabaya, most of them very modest. This one is very new and sparkling.

with Kasihani's grandchildren in front of the mosque doors

The zoo was a sad sight. Kasihani and her daughter said that it used to be very good, but now they don’t have any money so things are falling apart and it is full of trash. There are signs up on the cages that say “do not feed the animals,” of course, but that doesn’t stop anyone. When you walk by them, they all run toward you expecting food. I only saw a few people actually working at the zoo, and they were busy feeding the camels. It is always interesting to visit zoos in other countries, but this visit showed me how there really is no way a city can take care of its animals if it is not even able to take care of its people.

the entrance to the Surabaya Zoo

The most interesting thing we did in Surabaya was actually just outside the city in Sidoarjo district, once a very wealthy area. Four years ago, mud and gas started spewing from the earth, covering three villages and forcing the residents to move. The mud kept going, bringing the destruction to five villages. Today, sixteen villages have been sucked into the giant mud pit. They call it Lapindo. The people who lived in these sixteen villages have no homes and no work, because the factory they worked for has also collapsed under the mud. The cause of all this was a gas pipeline explosion. The company responsible for the pipeline has not done anything for the victims, and the government is still trying to make them pay for the destruction. I am sad to say I had not heard about this disaster until now. Maybe it had flashed before me on the news years before when it began. It’s really a sad place to see. Those unemployed residents now make all their money giving tours around the mud pit on their motorbikes and selling DVDs about the tragedy, which I bought. They are the only ones allowed to make any profit from the mud flow.

that is mud as far as the eye can see. the smoke is the sulphur gas coming out.

Kasihani’s husband lives in Surabaya, while she spends most of her time in the university city of Malang. Our time in Surabaya was kind of a stop over before heading to Bali, where she has an education conference. My trip to Bali is mostly paid for, so I am feeling extremely fortunate. I have a feeling Bali will be very different from Surabaya.

Kasihani and I in front of Lapindo mud flow