Buka Puasa

Got back to Aceh Saturday evening. Was quite disappointed that I wasn’t able to do the midnight climb up Mt. Merapi with my 2 friends from language school because my flight was moved up to 8am. But it may have been a bless in disguise, as I woke up with a pretty bad cold Saturday morning, and later found out that the climb was “the climb from hell,” but the sunrise was suppose to be stunning.

Anyway, it’s still Ramadan (kind of forgot about that being away from Aceh). Sunday night, we went to one of our staff’s house for buka puasa (breaking of the fast, literally meaning opening fast). Tonight we went out to our favorite village – Lamteungoh – for buka puasa. We arrived at the village a little before sunset and chatted a little with the villagers before entering a temporary shelter – made of wooden planks with a tin roof – for dinner. In Achenese fashion, we sat on the ground and ate with our hands. As we ate, the rain and the wind picked up. The house was shaking a bit and the rain made conversing hard. The tin was chiming up a tune as the rain drops started beating down harder and faster. I can’t even imagine living in a place like that day after day for nearly a year.

Most of you know that I don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that. On our way home, we were driving through this field that was a densely populated village. We drove through tall grass that had grown over where houses used to be. Our headlights created strange silhouettes from the tall grass bowing in the wind. It was hard not to feel like I was surrounded by spirits of those taken in such an untimely manner.