{"id":317,"date":"2025-10-22T03:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalwanderer.net\/bdlfam\/?p=317"},"modified":"2025-10-23T21:37:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T21:37:55","slug":"interior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalwanderer.net\/bdlfam\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"Interior"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This past weekend I joined various members of our team for two nights in the “interior” of Kalimantan, a small village about 60 miles from the nearest port\/road hub (which itself is pretty small town also). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a certain allure\/mystique, maybe even some sense of “rite of passage” idea associated with staying interior, I gathered, from how people talked about it. Also, for first-time visitors to another country, I think the experience is quite eye-opening. Interestingly, I think locals in the village are somewhat aware of this mystique, aware of their “marginality” and somewhat proud of it. At least in this village… I learned briefly about a visiting Italian anthropologist who worked in the village for a decade or so, helping them strengthen their local agricultural sector and also “capitalize” on the natural resources that make their village so special. Its jungles and wild areas, and also its traditional methods of sustainable agriculture and hunting. Surprisingly to me, this mystique and allure is not just felt, but also externalized and verbalized by leaders in the community. A representation of one of my favorite realizations of late: that places made lovable and livable will not be so leavable. This is often the impression visitors to the “interior” get. But in this case, it seemed more than just an outside impression but also an internal, localized value system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One person said in an interview (paraphrased) – I feel like we are forgotten out here. We (and our forests) are the lungs of the world, pumping out clean air and life into the rest of the fragile ecosystems. And we are neglected and alone and forgotten. (By everyone but… MAF, the missionaries, etc…., probably any visitor and lover of their way of life, who comes to appreciate, value, and sustain it rather than chop it up and extract life and resources from it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like the Kalimantan designation of “interior”. There are so many versions of this dichotomy that I have come to find helpful designations: urban\/rural. Central\/periphery. Marginalized, outlying, “jungle”, bush, desert, isolated, remote, inaccessible, roadless. Wild. The idea of Wilderness, somewhat similar but so different in different parts of the world. My visiting teammates were made up of seasoned missionaries of decades plus, and fresh visitors where this was their first time in places like these. The veteran missionary commented: this is one of my better stays “interior”, I’ve had much worse. Which was generally my own impression. We were dry, well-fed, had mattresses and an indoor toilet and electricity. Newer visitors focused more on the fact that electricity was only available at night, when the generator was on, or that indoor running water was so different (from pipes and spigots, and the bathroom was a water-filled basin and a cramped squat toilet up on a stand). If anyone has reason to complain, it’s my 6-foot-plus coworker, but he’s the veteran missionary and so he executes his toilet visits without complaining, and with greater difficulty probably than any of the rest of us. Also, uncharacteristically for a veteran missionary, he explains kindly and patiently to the short-term visitors how to cleanly and efficiently do their thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is always interesting to visit locations like this with first-time visitors. They are also are concerned about levels of hygiene more closely designed for areas of high population density and pollution. Out here more of what we have contact with is good, clean dirt. Some of it, anyway. Either way, they aren’t too keen on seeing their meals slaughtered and prepared in utilitarian elegance, rendering the freshest meals they’ve probably ever been served, largely in their rawest, uncultivated forms. What the food lacks in gaudy garnishes and attention-diverting flourishes, it more than makes up for in freshness and nutrition content. We are fed like kings, and this sort of freshness is not possible everywhere. And to my untrained eye… everyone in the village got fed. This is probably my naivet\u00e9, but is it possible it’s true? I’ve seen weirder things. Surely everyone got in on some of it, it was quite the feast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instructive to me, also, is seeing how village and community life revolve around public meeting areas. The school. The church. The community center. The airport runway. How these places are used by kids and families for so many enriching activities. They truly are an important part of village life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike most other places I’ve been in Indonesia so far, we are not woken up by the Muslim call to prayer at 4am here. Instead, announcements, prayer, and Christian music is broadcast from the village speaker at 5am. And the village begins coming to life in their homes at that hour of morning prayer. I am a morning person; I naturally wake up and can’t fall back asleep around 5 or 6am. But I kind of aim to save those dark hours for my self, alone in solitude. I’m not sure how I feel about them being soaked in whatever’s blaring over the loudspeakers. It’s like the pastors broadcasting morning prayer and worship at 5am in Maratua. I guess it’s just the nature of life here in Indonesia, that the early predawn morning hours are filled with prayer – prayer broadcast, prayer sung, prayer chanted… prayer that publicly stitches together with private prayer and also the rest of God’s creatures: roosters crowing, dogs howling, and birds singing. It feels more like the daily offices of prayer I’ve experienced on visits to monasteries. They also, in my recollection, began at 4am. Which, incidentally, is around the time when I compose parts of this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is it about places “interior” that I believe are worth preserving, worth lifting up as examples to learn from? And what is it that we as outsiders think they “lack” coming in? As I write my reflections I’m hoping these things become clearer with time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.polarsteps.com\/YielopukiBDL\/21471316-indonesia?s=f78b029b-293c-499d-9bdd-0ed71413c092<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links:<\/p>\n\n\n\n