Bebek, Bebek, Angsa....

So yesterday I took the liberty of scrubbing my sidewalk. Not because it isn't pretty, or because I needed something to do, but because after years of wet season, then dry season, then wet season again it has become a traitorous 4x4 piece of concrete to walk across covered with layers upon layers of moss.  NOBODY does this in Indonesia, the law of the jungle is to let the jungle take back whatever it wants. 

Numerous people walked or rode by and snapped their necks around to see the crazy foreigner with his children's bath tub out on the front driveway on his hands and knees scrubbing....of all things the ground.  Indonesians have a word for crazy, "gila" and I may have earned it on Saturday.  But as I sat there scrubbing, exchanging pleasantries and explaining to the occasional passer-by what and why I was doing what I was doing, I was interrupted by two children who stood and waited for me to look up at them.  I took a deep breath composing myself to explain, now to children, that I wasn't crazy and I just didn't want anyone to slip and fall on the moss.  As I looked up at them they said something to me that I completely missed.  As I asked them to repeat what they said, one of the children blurted out:  "DUKUH, in Yard".  I then quickly realized that they were asking permission to go collect the little sweet fruits that had fallen from the tree into our back yard and eat it.  "Sure!"  I replied, and was astonished as eight other children laying in wait came running out from behind a banana tree. 

Eating after the harvest

I quickly put away my baby bath and scrub brush to go manage the situation taking place in my back yard.  By the time I emptied the bath, rinsed my hands off and went to the back I counted no less than 23 kids scavenging the dukuh that had missed the basket in the course of being harvested by our back neighbors climbing in the oak-sized dukuh tree and fallen on the green ground of our back yard.  After they picked all the fruit off the ground they quickly realized that the "Foreigners" had grass to play in.   I never realized that beyond the perimeter of our back yard lies ground, not for playing but for working, harvesting, and surviving.  Riddled with the castoffs of bamboo used for building and trees used for nourishment the backyards of most Indonesians isn't suited for children.  Here no one has space for silly things like grass for playing....well-except for the foreigners who don't know what good ground is for.   And so as the silly foreigners we are, we opened up our back yard to children who rarely get to play on such amenities as grass for an afternoon of tag, wrestling, "goat" back riding and my personal favorite.... Bebek, Bebek, Angsa (Duck, Duck, Goose). 

What a blessing to be able to provide -even just for an afternoon- a playground, in the most literal sense of the word, for our neighborhood kids!

Bebek, Bebek, Angsa

Playing "Goat Rides"

Enjoying Dukuh!

The Wrestling Ring