Life in Ayawasi – Part III

It’s so damn quiet here! It is quiet in its truest sense of the word. You hear nothing in the morning … nothing in the afternoon … and absolutely nothing in the evening. No phone calls to make. No web to browse. And one has to put up with 4 hours electricity per day. Well yeah, it’s a kampong in Papua. What do you expect Lian, I asked myself. I can be very stupid sometimes, can’t I? ;-).

Everyday I kept on saying the same thing to Fr Buce about how quiet the place was as if it was a new discovery of the day. In addition to Fr Buce, there are 4 others who currently live in the parish pastor’s residence namely Brother Wempi, Frater Felix and Frater Adri and Theo, the postulant. They are really nice folks! They cook their own food and do all of the chores themselves. Independent men, huh!

The isolation of the place adds up to the quietness though it is actually not as isolated as other kampongs like Fef or Seya, the place that I visited last Christmas. At least one doesn’t have to hike up for hours to come to Ayawasi. But since there is no public transport available it is pretty hard and expensive to go from one place to another. What available here is the transport (cars) run by individuals who charge the unbelievable prices which I had discussed earlier.

Thanks goodness I got myself busy helping Fr Buce with his research. Otherwise, I can’t imagine how I would survive my life here. I don’t understand how Fr Buce could stand living here for almost 6 years now. He looks like he enjoys his time here. So do the others. I guess one has to be very, very creative in creating jobs for him/herself here. There aren’t many things to do except for some church activities during Easter. In a few days I had already finished visiting most of the nearest kampongs that were accessible by motorbike. And we even rode to Teminabuan (about 4.5 hours ride). It was the longest time I’ve ever sat on a motorbike. Phew!

But that’s about it. And I had to spend 12 days here. The original plan was to head back to Sorong in March 24th. But we were stranded! Since 24th, there was no flight came in to this kampong. Probably it’s because of the holiday. It was hard to get a car (that L200) either. But we finally managed to get one on 26th. Aha, do you know how to order a car without telephone? Well, tell the whole kampong that you need a car and you wait.

Anyway, Ayawasi is actually rather nice and spacious. It’s quite cool in the evening and it rains a lot during the day. It’s a good place to get fat because you will tend to get hungry and sleepy all the time. There’s only problem though. There is no market here. So, fresh food is not always available. Sometimes some people sell vegetables but sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they have chicken to sell, but other times they have nothing. If you are lucky someone may bring some pork or fish from Teminabuan or other kampongs. But you really never know when they will do that. So you cannot plan on what you are going to eat tomorrow or even today. What you would have in your table tomorrow will remain a mystery until just a few hours before lunch time. I find it amusing to guess what we would have for lunch.

Funny though that when you finally have got some food you have to cook it right away for there is no fridge (no use with limited electricity). So there are times when you have to eat pork for 4 or 5 days in a row. Therefore, Fr Buce and his households have to stock up some preserved food, be it instant noodle, canned food, or salted fish. Again, creativity would help a lot here. In spite of this situation, I actually gained weight during my stay in Ayawasi. Thanks to Frater Adri!