Suntuk

Suntuk
:// to be overcome by circumstance
02.07

“Suntuk” is an one of those perculiar Malay words without a particularly good English cognate. Its meaning hovers uncertainly between “stressed” and “dopey”and makes me think of the hand motion that sometimes accompanies it. Thumb tucked under palm. Four fingers pointed and pulsing at one’s forehead,
“Don’t be surprised to see us Acehnese sitting here drinking coffee and smoking in the middle of the day. Sometimes its better to just get out of the office and drink coffee than anything else”. I heartly agree. It is a motto that I have chosen to live much of life by, something vaguely resembling the Hippocratic oath of “First do no harm.” If you’re not with it, best leave well alone and have a coffee, read the paper, and then come back and do what little rearranging of material objects that you really need to when you’re feeling more with it.

Banda Aceh has a feeling of impermanence which is fair enough given most of it was wiped into the sea less than 3 years ago. But it’s not just the ramshackle buildings, the cheap paint jobs, there is something in the architecture that is functional but no more. It is an aesthetic born of wanting to go lie back down as quickly as possible.

I saw two guys today squatting on their haunches chipping away at a concrete storm drain, casual as you like. They were still at when I passed by hour later. Casual as you like. Santai. “Its hot” says the Padang restarant owner. I don’t know where he finds the time to comment on the weather. Or the energy. Best stay in doors. In Lampung my host family stayed in doors for two weeks becaue it was raining. In these small things, an attitude of concession to the forces of nature of a magnitude that i had forgotten existed.

Flying into BA last week I was sat next to ‘Mike’ a Kiwi building contractor, with an expertise in logistics. I gauged that Mike was a man of bricks and mortar, of permanence. You would expect a logistics man to be good at moving material objects through timespace. He clearly dealt in things you could drop on your foot. Presently he was occupied with the challenge of sourcing reliable-quality cement from China. Having done his homework it seems that this option will prove cheaper and less hassle than sourcing it from domestic suppliers. “I can order the stuff from suppliers in Jakarta, but none of it is palletised. It just gets dumped into the hold. By the time it reaches port in BA half of it is water damaged. And they'll try on anything. Double invoicing, under supplying, diluting the product...

“The corruption is built into the very walls."

There is an Indonesian saying or 'peribahasa' that runs “Cari Kesempatan dalam Kesempitan”. It translates figuratively as an imperative to“look for opportunity in crisis.” In Indonesian it plays on the phonetic similarity between the root words ‘sempat’meaning ‘chance’ and ‘sempit’ meaning’ ‘narrow’. A more literal translation of the proverb would be “to seek opportunity in a tight squeeze”. (K. reckons I should get that tattooed over the fissure of my arse but I have reservations about turning my flesh into a giant ass-rape joke). In the spirit of the proverb, locals in BA have rushed to get their portion of the $4 billion wave of post-tsnumai aid money that has washed into the province and may well wash right out again as quick as it came.

They should never have promised houses, says D. It was all wrong, the NGOs are out of there depth. 50,000 were supposed to be built last year and they plan another 50-100,000 this year. They've got themselves into a snarled mess of lost documents and salt-watered title deeds. A hundred and fifty thousand people clammering for houses and more coming up across the border from Medan. Suntuk man.

Meanwhile the NGO’s have buised themselves scrambling for the currencies of ‘visiability’and mediaspace. The tussle is as much about hoarding the precious capital of ‘profile’ as it is about recognition for current work. They have (to surrender to contemporary management speak) identified their ‘core capacitivy’ and decided that it’s fundraising. They are now competing in the West’s crowded marketplace of image. When you're selling a homogenous commodity like pity, differentiation on the basis of brand image is all you’ve got.

Seems it has to be the right kind of visability though. No one wants to be visible when the question arises as to why, three years after the event, people are still waiting for houses.