What kind of Kindness?

What is kindness? Giving away things generously? Is there such thing as excessive kindness? Would such kindness be of help to empower others? Or would it instead work against empowerment?

Remember Fr Tromp? Some people, including other local priests (who come from other parts of Indonesia) are quite critical about the way he treats the locals. He is seen as being too generous and too kind to the people particularly the Papuans. It looks like he always gives almost anything they ask of him. And this gives the local priests a hard time for they can’t afford of being as generous as he is. Besides, that kind of generosity is considered a charity which often leads to dependency. Therefore, instead of empowering the Papuan, he pampers them. Many people see him as the foremost defender of Papuans. Apparently this is also the general attitudes of other Dutch-born missionaries. It is the reason why the native Papuans like them more than they like the local priests.

I somehow agree with the above-mentioned view about Fr Tromp. This reminds me of one Catholic priest in Java who has similar attitudes. I don’t understand how you could expect people to grow if you always grant anything they want with almost no efforts. Teach them how to get what they want. Teach them the how.

But it easier said than done. Honestly I have no clue on how it is to be done particularly with a civilization as young as the Papuans. To some of them (the people in Lembah Baliem in Wamena for instance) the encounter with other people outside their culture (read: modernity) occurred quite recently that was in 1957. How do you expect them to adjust their long-well preserved way of life in such a short period of time?

Fr Tromp thinks that the best you could do for them is “being there” for them without having pretension of turning them into modern men. But how possible is that? I wonder if perhaps the phenomenologist is being too optimistic to expect that one could really bracket his/her prevailing opinions or beliefs or whatever. Wouldn’t it be like climbing out of yourself?

And would it mean that we have to let them live the way they had been living their lives? The question is could some people seclude themselves from the rest of the world in a more integrated and open society like todays society? There have been some problems with the way Papuan who had been living a life as gatherers all their lives adjusting themselves with other culture or one may say ‘modernity’. We’ll talk more about this later.

Oh, Raja Ampat! - Part II

Compared to the nerve-wracking trip to Waigeo last September, the sea was quite calm this time. During that Waigeo trip, the sea got so rough that I was so certain it would eventually smash our small speedboat into pieces. With that terrifying prospect, I tried to pray (what else could one do in that kind of situation? ;-)). But, it was not easy. I was freaking out. The boat really looked like a tiny, powerless piece of wood being drifted harshly by the vast, wild, mighty ocean. Oh, ye of little faith! What was I so afraid to lose, I wonder ;-)?

Anyway, it was different this time. I so enjoyed this trip to Misool. I even sat on the deck enjoying the view of the beautiful Raja Ampat. It took us more than 5 hours to get to Misool because we also visited some kampongs in other islands like Batanta, Limalas, and Folei before we got to Tomolol, our final destination. It was actually a pastoral visit. Together with some church leaders, Fr Lewi was scheduled to visit his congregations in The Islands of Raja Ampat Regency which included the employees of a pearl farm near Tomolol.

We spent the nights in a compound that belongs to that farm. It was built on the sea. The farm also has other compounds in 5 different locations. The compound functions as the office and houses all of the employees in each location. Every morning, the speedboat takes the employees to the sea around the compound where they nucleate and tend the oysters and to the floating huts where they do their work (I don't know exactly what they do in there).

So the employees basically work and live in that compound. Once a month, they’ve got some days off when they could go to Sorong to finally set foot on the land and see other people besides their co-workers ;-). But the rest of the time, they are stuck with each other in that place. Thus, romance is obviously almost unavoidable. Two couples got married when we were there. They had been waiting for Fr Lewi to hold the wedding ceremony for them.

And it was such a modest ceremony. Ehm, maybe it’s a little bit too modest. They still went to work on the day they got married. One of the brides didn’t even have or bring her own lipstick. So, she used mine. No fancy gown. No parents. No extended family. No parties. No cakes. No drinks. No dancing. And … no wedding ring! It was just like another day. So casual. All they needed was the priest. "The worse the wedding, the better the marriage", says Carrie Bradshow from Sex and the City. Sounds like a good idea for your wedding? ;-)