20::Singkang
2.9.97 Sunday, Idul Fitri (end of Ramadan)
Drive from Tana Toraja to Singkang. Sights:
Mountains and rain forest of Toraja yielding to low plain of east coast. Everyone is dressed up and out for the celebration. We leave Toraja for the land of the Buginese (they are seafaring people, pirates -- the original Bugi men).
Polopo: harbor; drove around getting lost. Little kids thought we were funny-looking, an occasion for outright laughter
Singkang: Late afternoon boat trip on the lake to see houses on stilts or floating, water birds, flooded rice paddies. The hotel is run by an old princess. For dinner we were treated to a special Buginese dinner, with the young servers in full traditional dress. We squatted on the ground around the dishes. Perhaps a little too dark and uncomfortable for my taste.
I wish I could write travel shorts but I have no point of view. Middle-aged women are supposed to write "hilarious" travel pieces (Erma Bombeck style). I don’t like the hilarity approach because it draws lines between cultures and usually disrespects the host country (even if ostensibly making fun of yourself). What about a fictional character who can have a different voice? A woman starting out on a quest, with a single question: Are people basically good or bad? How can good people create and sustain corrupt systems? Am I too young to be considered an "elder"? Can elder-ness be separated from domestic roles? It seems that men have a wider range of personas available from literary history, Don Quixote onward.
What about a woman who is interested in the idea of helping "humanity" (quixotic dreams) but who really can’t stand being pecked to death by needy people (transcendent or merely the accidental tourist?)?
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