WOMAN OF ASMAT
(The Picture of Life’s Dimension)
CHAPTER 1
Ahead to Teenager
Ahead to the
Soul Mate
That young
lady, Andriani, was not yet 20 years old. But her face looked older with sharp textures and dim eyes. Passionate
puberty had gone in a blink of an eyes. The foot, staps on the dance floor
along with the sound of stereo tape were only echoes of the past, and fades away
slowly until they are gone completely. She would never again have a chance to
be gathered in the partying crowds. Frederikus, the child who had been born for
less than 1 year, laid weakly in a bad fever. The child suffered from a kind of
respiratory disease --respiratory tract infections after suffering a long-life diarrhoea. Andriani was
watching her son in worry: her bumpy eyes showed that she cried all night to
the and of the last teardrop. Together with her husband, Paulus, they had
brought their son to the local health centre to get some medication. The
tablets they received from the pharmacy would react after several times she
gave to her son. In front of the hearth, the young lady was wondering. The rain
that poured last night had blown cold air, Andriani needed to fire the firewood
to warm her house standing on stilts. She had done her utmost to collect the
firewood last day, and then she was taking the result.
The
atmosphere in that house was immediately filled up with smoke which started to
roll. In slow motion, the smoke rose upward, slipped through the tearing roof
made coarse grass, meanwhile, Frederikus could not avoid the smoke. The innocent
baby undeliberately breathed it in, as what has happened since the day was
born. Even a long time before he was born. Adriani used to smoking ‘lampion’
since she was a child. Her habit of smoking is intense, that she could not help losing it as she was pregnant. So she did when she gives her baby suck and
when she takes care of her baby all the time. Adriani will not be bothered that
smoke of cigarettes affects badly to the development and the wealth of the
embryo. At the same time, the beliefs of, that ghost and bad spirits will
enter the house through the windows and
ventilation, cause the houses in Syuru2), which include Adriani’s, are not
equipped with windows and ventilation. People refuse to be sick and deal
because of the ghost and bad spirit.
No one who
lives in the house on stilts realizes, that the smoke of cigarettes and hearths
and that there is no window and ventilation, that have caused Frederikus to be
sick. So did not Andriani and Paulus, as his parents. In this palm-fronds-made
house there are three hearths, meaning that there are three family live in this
house, including Andriani’s as a new family. Two other families are Paulus
parent’s and in-law relatives living there. The only room in that house is
crowded by 20 people living there. The only room in that house has no borders.
There is no segment or even a little cabin, use for a couple to do their most
private intercourse.
Under their
house there lies stiff mud with rising water all days, throughout the year. There
is no house that has a water duct used to flow householding wastes in the
district. They are thrown away recklessly under the wooden floor, among the
stilts, which opens the opportunity for mosquitoes breeding place. In this
house Adriani ended her solitude. Before her marriage, she was a female
teenager who lived with her sister who had married. In the little house, there
lives her father who is a widower together with her two younger brothers and
sister. As other Asmat teenagers, Adriani should follow her parents or other
relatives to collect sago in the jungle or to do web-fishing in the sea. She just spent a few while in a
local elementary school and got her reading and writing skills. After that, the
little schooling time was only a memory. There are other more important work to
do than schooling: collecting palm’s products –sago—and web-fishing, to fulfil
the need to eat. As other Asmat teenagers, Adriani has no choice. She did
rowing, clearing away the forest, collecting sago, and is even hardened by thorns sticking, mosquitoes and big
horseflies which alight and fly then sultry weather, sun’s heat, and rain. She
made it normally; there was nothing wrong with it, because everyone lives such
daily life.
Coming close
to the end of 1997, Adriani accepted the offer to work as a baby-sitter. She did
not go to the forest again. She lives with the family to whom she worked in Bis
Agats village. At about six o’clock of local timing, she woke up to wash
dishes, to boil water then she would take care of the child until the midday.
She also did the rice cooking, washing clothes, and ironing after the electricity
was turned on at about 18.00 fo local timing. First, the job was exciting,
Adriani got a room with a lather
mattress as the sleeping-ground, three-time meals in each day, proper clothes,
soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, genital sanitary napkin, and monthly salary she
usually used to buy some clothes. Every day she bathed with proper rainwater
retained in a container. Before she work there, a bath is not daily activities. In
her house, there not enough containers to intercept the falling water. She can
only take a bath when it was raining heavily, so there would be enough water to
drink.
In a month,
Adriani had turned into a girl who appears properly fine, wearing proper
clothes, even brand new ones. She is good in doing householding work.
Meanwhile, she goes to the church every Sunday. However, she got slowly bored.
She got sick of all her daily job; obeying whatever her master told her. It
was night. When she finished all her works, Adriani ask to permission to go
to visit her parents at her hometown. In that particular night, when she got
home, Adriani joined her friends to hold a dancing party in the village office
Syuru. When the music turned on, she got in Paulus’s embrace; dancing is
compelling joy until the night broke its silence, turning into the morning.
This kind of occasion had continued in every week for months. Finally, Adriani
felt really bored of working as a housekeeper and decided to run away with Paulus. She got so dependent on that man and did not want to go distant
anymore.
As other
earlier parents and the teenagers in this village, Adriani started her marriage
life by staying in Paulus’s house. She grilled sago for Paulus and they acted
normally as husband and wife. Sacrament of the church never happened until the
child was born. Paulus never talk about it. Soon after the family paid Adriani
with noken --bag os sago; bride and broom’s night had gone. Paulus real characters
started to reveal themselves. Dancing party never fire the passion for the
woman to whom he is married. She was considered as a mature woman because of
the marriage. That means that she had to start making a living for herself.
Paulus did not have a permanent job, and any kind of salary. An elementary
education he got years ago, never ended with a certificate. As a husband,
Paulus did not achieve to make a living for his wife. In his family and his
social environment, he did get any os such responsibility and never felt
responsible for it. Preparing foods and all needs of the family were obligatory
for the wife. He could only understand that everything was fine and that his
family could eat sago whenever he wanted.
Adriani had
no choice anymore, she had to row the boat to the forest, collect sago, fish,
and slice the firewood, that she could eat every day. She re-found the life’s
freedom in the middle of the woods and the water without being tided to the
master to whom she worked. But she realize that her freedom was still felt
awkward. She did her best efforts not only for the shake of herself, but for,
particularly, the man who tided her in same strange marriage. The dance party
was all over, and now she had to carry the burden of a horse. Paulus would
shout at her and beat her if she could not serve fish and grilled sago for him.
She could simply but them is she had a job, but she did not work anymore.
Neither did Paulus. The only way to get foods was to make the best effort
alone.
That is how
Adriani lives then. When working as a house-keeper, she did all of whatever her
master told and sometimes, she was reprimanded, but all her needs are
well-fulfilled. She tired or sick at times, but never she did felt hungry.
Lately, Adriani understands that hunger is more horrible than any other kinds
of tiredness or sickness. For weeks after she started to collect sago, fish,
and slice woods, Adriani suffered from quite bad rheumatic. Her skin was
yellowish pale, her body went skinny, and her legs bone’s size turned smaller
than the medically normal size. Adriani could only lie down on her bed for
days, restrain from the pain and the broken heart. Paulus always wanted for
more foods though she was being sick. That pathetic husband never really
intended to bring her to the local health centre. Elisabeth, her older sister,
was the one who carried her for about two kilometres, walking on a wooden bridge, to get her some medication in the local health centre. The examining
nurse said that Adriani suffered from rheumatic because of had work and bad
nutrition. There were no better cures
except good rest and proper foods.
After taking
medicine and then cured, Adriani lived a similar life, which gave her pain.
She wanted to go working as a housekeeper again, but her former master and her
children, have left. Adriani remembered the advice she heard before she ran
away, that she better gets married with a working man who gets a permanent
salary, and is responsible, that she had not to carry all burdens in life. At
that time, she was completely clarified, why such advice should be heard well.
If only she had ever thought and got not charmed too soon by Paulus, she would
not have to suffer as she has then. But, the clarity came too late, that she
reluctantly lived in a life that every Asmat woman in this village lives;
carrying all the weight of the family as the husband commands.
Adriani really
felt glad when the woman who has the children came back to Agats. She went working again; sitting the children, washing dishes and clothes, cooking rice,
and frying fish. She was no longer feeling too tired to hungry. Paulus was
coming every day to the house where Adriani worked, asked for food, and went
back home as he had been fed. When Adriani received a piece of five-thousand,
he immediately grabbed it to buy some cigarettes. So he did, when Adriani
received a fifty-thousand piece. Adriani went down again; she did not get
anything for all of her efforts. She quitted and went back to the forest;
living her former pathetic life. Adriani took the same kind of leaf which is
usually taken by Asmat women to avoid pregnancy, but it went unsuccessful. A few
months later, she got pregnant. Nine months after the pregnancy came; she gave
a birth, gave her son suck, raised her child, and took all complications of
life that was getting harder and harder.
Health
assurance and dad nutrition cause Frederikus to be in poor health. Adriani
know that in the village, there is
always the death of children or barbies every month. That young lady does fear.
Her misery has reached a very bad state. She does not have to talk, however,
her skinny body, her awful face, and her dim eyes are enough to say that she
could not do all alone.
Meanwhile,
her friends of the age and other young woman have the same misery as she has.
Margaretha, her younger sister, had even ‘escaped’. Few month after she got
menarche. When the man’s parents gave Margaretha back to her family, as
considered too young to build a household, she went back to the men’s home. So
she did for several time, until finally, the man’s family let her grill sago
for Donatus –Margaretha’s man’s name—they live together as husband and wife
then, in young age, with nothing to do to make their own living for permanence.
Margaretha and other young woman live the closely similar life to Adriani’s.
after some passionate puberty in a dancing party, an escape, and living
together, women are obliged to carry all burdens in family. Teenage, which
represents fun life, simply lasts for a very little while and turns immediately
into a whole life’s misery.
The children
born, such as Frederikus and other babies are the first victim of early
marriage and parents unreadiness in giving proper health and education to the
children, as the next generation. The kids born from the early marriage without
planning, trouble us an issue of quality development of human resources in
Asmat area. Without any guarantee of health and education, children will not be
professional, reaching an important position or getting a good job and will not
gain any prosperity in their life.
A teen-aged
kid had tried to go hitching a motored ship of Tegud Mulia2) in the middle June
2001 following an officer to Merauke. The kid’s parents got freaked out and
cried to death, making all efforts to get their kids back via SSB –a kind of
radio used for communication or publication—However, until the ship went back
again to Agats two week after the kid’s escape, the kid had not returned yet. The
mother really felt sorry for her manner. She went back a few days before Teguh
Mulia got in from Timika. It was mid-day when she was washing someone’s
clothes just to get some money. Jer kid was hungry, cried loudly for a piece of
one-thousand to buy some rice to eat. She grumbled at the kid because she had
no money to give. That poor kid ran away to live with an older brother-in-law
in the village of Syuru. Unfortunately, the kid received some worse treatment
from the older brother. That kid could not take how people treated him anymore,
he hitched Teguh Mulia on its trip to Merauke, hoping that in a new place, he
could get some better life. No one knows he lives now. Would Merauke’s life
would ever be healing from disappointment to the family or unexpectedly, it
would give him harder circumstance. Family with provides the smaller social
unit in a community is the environment for a child to grow and to develop, that
at the particular time the kids can be a properly resourced human being, behaving good behaviour, and be a social component moving forward along in the
particular community. Asmat kids, as Frederikus suffering from some respiratory
disease and as the kid running away with Teguh Mulia and also as the parents
who gave birth them, are all born without planning. The parents started their
household-life at the time puberty, when sexual appeal starts working, when
sexual organs have reached its maturity. Unfortunately, there is no readiness
to retain their children’s life, especially, in health assurance and in
education. This kind of situation has been inherited traditionally from a
generation to the next generation, forming hard to brake causality, except
there is a seriously conceptual problem-solving which runs continually held by
the authority which is responsible for the Asmat’s life’s preservation.
Asmat kids
who have the chance to study formally in Elementary Level, Junior High Level,
and University Level are the generation which is hoped to be the reformatted
generation. Responsibility and the learning activities as the long as the
process of studying runs directly or indirectly will take the students to the
phase of understanding of the proper marital age and the understanding of responsibility
in living a householding-life along how to take care of the born children as
the next generation. Transferring knowledge of proper marital age,
responsibility in the family, and taking care of children in order to encourage
changes in society, are not easy tasks. Such efforts need support from the
government the district and from elements in it. Without the
knowledge-transferring about the proper marital age in Asmatcommunity, of all
levels, the development of human resources would be very hard to be done.
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