the sumba

the sumba


i didn't even know if i would write this blog.

i thought about it.

it was too exhausting to think about again, after having just gone through it... but now there are sheets of rain... more like quilts of rain coming down and i am in the driftwood bungalow and liz is studying for her exam and the light coming out of the lamps made from japanese fishing buoys is so beautiful... it feels like its melting across the room... and the echo of the rain pounding on the roof is like a song to me... like a lullaby.

when i was younger i was a ballet dancer.
and not like i took ballet class at the local studio and bought a pair of pointe shoes one time to wobble around on.
like... i mean... i danced roughly 30-40 hours and destroyed at least one pair of pointe shoes a week... fouette-ing them into soft pulpy wood and blood-stained satin...
i lived, breathed, and dreamed ballet as did the pre-professional level girls i spent every day of my life with.
we were sick.

i fell asleep every night to the nutcracker, dancing it in my head... like a mad composer, i knew every note, every crescendo, every pause. i had performed in about 8 productions of the nutcracker when my career as a ballet dancer ended.
2 seasons i danced with the Joffrey Ballet at the LA Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and had no intention of ever doing anything else but dancing ballet.

I didn't quite know which way was up when i wasn't dancing and i ended up spiraling out into destructive, chaotic behavior and essentially dancing on my grave into my later teen years.
I couldn't listen to the Nutcracker.
It was like staring at a picture of a dead friend.
I couldn't sleep without it and i couldn't stand the sound of it.
I needed a sleep mix.
(i still do... always falling asleep to a certain music choice.)

My sister came to my rescue, as she has done so many times in my life i have lost count.

She presented me with "Big Sur"
it was just 2 hours of a thunder storm in Big Sur, California where i was born.
It was simply the sound of rain and thunder recorded.
My new sleep mix.

I have always loved the sound of the rain. I think it may have come from when i was only 3 months old and we moved to Germany, followed by a few years in Switzerland... i spent my toddler years in the Alps and most likely fell asleep listening to the rain, hence my comfort from the sound.

i feel the warm, cozy, sleep vibes even now as i sit here on this island and the rain parades down on the sagu palm rooftops like soldiers marching in the battle scene of the nutcracker.
nevertheless... its a lullaby....

so i feel like i am calm enough to re-hash the last few days of my life.

rewind 2 days.

liz, birdie and i were in padang.
liz is my goddess girlfriend who lives out here. her boyfriend bevo is the surf guide on the bugidari. bevo had to go back to sydney for a few weeks to look after his ill father, so liz decided to come hang with us on the island.
birdie is of course my island/roommate. our surf guide and my fave.

we missed the ferry we were planning to take, so we had to go come back to the mentwais on the sumba rezeki.

everyone out here says "the sumba" with a look on their face of "whoa... yikes. that's rough."
but i thought well shit.
i am so rugged at this point. i can handle anything.
bring it on.
liz and i had marched through the padang market like it aint no thing and come out on the other side.
we could manage a ferry.

we went and had a gado-gado with some friends near the river before we left and just as we were finishing up a huge flash flood erupted from the sky. we were sitting underneath a tin roof that made the storm even more dramatic. (and it was already pretty dramatic)

we looked out across the river and towards the ocean and all swallowed a little harder.
just then, a big dead, bloated rat floated out next to us and down the river to the where the sumba was being loaded up.
we followed the dead rat, avoiding huge puddles and the giant trucks that were recklessly barreling down the streets and through the puddles splashing padang filth out to the odd unlucky standerby...

finally, we were at the ferry.

a midsized wooden boat with paint chipping off the sides. absolutely would not pass one single safety test in america. there were millions of bananas being loaded on to the bow as we stepped in to the boat. bodies were everywhere, draped on top of boxes and bags of rice and crates upon crates upon crates of little tiny baby yellow chicks all chirping away, pleading with anyone that would listen.

we crunched our way up a wooden stairwell with bodies and bags and food and piping all being passed up and down among us, until we found room "H"
our cabin was one among 5 or 6 rooms.
the door you slammed with your arm to pop open, but next to the door were screens, so you could just see in anyways. there were four tiny half-twin size beds. two bunks side by side with a wooden pole in the middle and two porthole windows that popped open with the same force you used to open the door.
there was just enough room to put our bags on the floor and each lie down on the bug ridden mattresses.

liz and i played zen zone master home maker and draped sarongs and towels across everything so at least we could lie down and not get really sick.


we sat on our top bunks, talking about life and energy and love and vampires and such as we watched the lights on the land disappear in the distance out the little round windows.

we lay down to sleep and the rest is a blur.

i know there was a huge storm which made for an incredibly rough crossing.
there was a point when i woke up being heaved back and forth across the bunk with the tipping of the boat.
the door that takes all the force to open was swinging open and closed on its own just by the force of the boat rocking and when it was flung open i saw bodies in the hallways in one direction and looked out the porthole windows the other way to see the waves going higher then the boat.
it didn't actually make any sense whatsoever...
i couldn't understand what was happening.
liz was terrified and woke up every hour with dreams that we were up on the reef.
birdie kept thinking we were tipping over.
the roof above my head split open in two places and the rain pounded down on me, soaking every inch of fabric, every sarong and towel and scarf.

i WAS that bloated drown rat i had seen earlier.

there was nowhere to go and nothing to do.
and again, i didn't know which way was up... like the mind of a destructive 16 year old, we swayed back and forth with the deafeningly loud sounds of creaking wood and indos being sick by the motion.

the light of morning started to shine after about 14 hours on that ferry and a few hours later we landed in siobahn (another mentawai port town). we hobbled off the boat that felt like it was sick itself... heaving in pain after the crossing it had just done.

with swollen eyes and throbbing heads, we sat in a cafe and drank coffee then walked up a road to get some blood flowing in our legs... meeting some sweet 16 year old muslim girls that took pictures with us and then walked us back down the road to sit in another cafe and drink orange juice.

after 5 hours killed in siobahn, we loaded back onto the ferry and immediately i fell sick.
i felt my knees get wobbly and everything started sounding like it was underwater.
i knew i was about to faint, so i made it back to my cabin and managed to grab some dry clothes from my bed, sprinkle them across the bed and then crawl back up and close my eyes.
i definitely spiked a fever and got the chills as i lay there and sweated for about two hours, shivering and shaking and all the while talking to myself and visualizing clear white light.
a little old ibu came in the room with a box of crackers she was defending with her life and i didn't have the energy to tell her to get out, so i just lay back down and she just lay down below me...
i seriously think she might have been an angel that came in to make me better, because when i woke up and knew i was fine, she sat up and smiled.

i walked out and found birdie and liz half asleep on the back of the boat getting a breeze as we charged it up the east coast of sipura towards tua pajet.

when we finally arrived we almost kissed the ground and immediately went to my new friend yuli's warung to eat some spicy soup and peanuts, although we still had to unload all the shopping off the ferry and onto the sampan and get ourselves back to the island... at least another 4 hours before we were back

As we were untying the ropes to cast off from the side of the sumba, and head home Birdie grabbed a little yellow chick off the ferry.
we deserved it
and the little chick deserved to be free.
our new little baby!
Sam Ayam (ayam is the word for chicken and is pronounced "i am") and Sam Ayam doesn't like green eggs and ham cuz Muslim's don't eat ham.

As we headed out from tua pajet and back to the island another storm (or maybe the same spiteful one from the night before) came after us in the little sampan.
Liz and I ended up in hysterics as we guarded the little chocky chick with our sopping wet sarongs.
I kept putting my hand up like it would make a difference in blocking the wind and rain and water from the ferocious ocean.

We literally laughed the whole way home but seriously collapsed as soon as we landed and unloaded and got out of the rain and into a shower and got Sam Ayam some warm towels and a little nest to hang out in.
Ainsley's granola never tasted so good (even Sam got down on it) and the bed in the bungalow with the princess mosquito net was like climbing into the ultimate royal sleep chamber.

We woke up this morning so grateful to be alive and to be here! in paradise.

We practiced yoga in the driftwood castle and then all feeling energized and alive, we went for a run (a first time thing out here for me)... we ran through the jungle across the coral and vines with our rugged feet and then across the soft white sand of the island, high fiving each other as we passed one another doing laps on the beach.

Liz and I collapsed in the ocean, rubbing the sand on our bodies to exfoliate our skin and wash off the sumba adventure, before returning to the house for some gardening and smoothies and a massage.

And now here we are.

She is studying and has no idea that i just relived that adventure, writing it out.

Sam Ayam is chirping away and the rain is still cascading down from the sky.

I realized on the boat that its all about how you look at things.
There is always something worse just as there is always something better.

3 weeks ago i took the Ambu Ambu Ferry and thought i was SO rugged.
As i sat on the Sumba i realized that i had mipronounced the word "rugged" before... because the ambu was Rugged (rugd) as in "with a rug"... a carpeted, easy adventure...
the sumba was actually rugged (rug-gid), in the ferrel, earthy, bearette grills kind of way...

and i couldn't see until further down the road looking back in hindsight that i was just mispronouncing the word all along.