"I feel like I am not listened to and that what I say doesn't count." "I feel humiliated for speaking up." "I'm afraid of losing my job if I am critical." "I'm expected to take care of things that are not my responsibility."  "I feel used and taken advantage of."  "My supervisor can't change.  It's just the way it is, and I have to accept it."  "It's hopeless!  I've tried, and nothing changes."  "Every time I do the right thing, it feels like I get punished."  "I can't believe my boss doesn't get how we feel about him and what kind of harm he's causing."  "My therapist says she wants all kinds of feedback, but when I give her negative feedback, she just turns it around on me."  "My feelings and opinions just aren't taken seriously."  "It's just not safe."  "It's really unjust, but it is more peaceful to just let it go." "I feel like it is just hopeless to have an effect, so I don't invest myself."  "I can't believe it.  She just said no.  And she's my friend."  "He's always too busy."  "There's no acknowledgement, no follow-up from what I say."  "She must be right."
 
These are feelings and experiences frequently expressed by people when they are in what I call a down-power role.    Clients, students, supervisees, employees, patients, and parishioners, among others, are in roles that have less power and influence than their up-power therapists, teachers, supervisors, employers, doctors, and clergy.  This greater power is an automatic accompaniment to professional or positional power and, in fact, is embedded in the up-power role.  Role power is earned or assigned.  Role power is an add-on to the personal power that we all have and need in our lives.  Think of it like a scarf or mantle of additional power and responsibility that one puts on when one is in an up-power role.  Often without recognizing it, we may move between up- and down-power roles multiple times in a day.  At the dentist we are down-power.  As a teacher, we are up-power.  With a policeman, we are down-power. This power difference, although it has vital functional and emotional value, creates relational dynamics that, when misused, are reflected in the statements above.
 
Therapist, Supervisor, Teacher, Director, Clergy, Doctor, Policeman:  these are the positional power roles that carry an especially strong power difference.  The stronger the power difference, the greater the vulnerability and risk for those who are down-power:  clients, patients, students, and employees.  The strength of the power differential is directly related to the amount of risk.
 
I use the terminology up-power roles and down-power positions because they are simply directional words, not necessarily evaluative words.  By the way, there are other up-power roles in which the power difference is not very great (although still present), or the power difference is temporary--waiter in a restaurant, committee chair, lecturer, a-v person for a conference.  Virtually all jobs have some up-power responsibilities for assessment and final decision-making.
 
Read the rest of the article here. 

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian. 


squeezed through the doorway
into Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
like toothpaste from a tube
I didn’t know what shape
I would take

now five months later
the paste has shaped itself
and the Kalimantan side of the doorway
to life in America
is wide and vivid with the colorful
essences of Kalimantan

we leave treasures
and we take treasures
from these people
this place

life is simpler, harsher,
more contained
smiles are bigger
life is well-surrendered to the moment
the majestic and glorious rains
clear the air
the clouds and sunsets are
the motion pictures to attend
the heat presses in on everything

most wondrously
we found love, deep and strong
unmediated, uncomplicated, uncluttered
by words
pure and in the moment
revealed in a smile, a gesture, a look

so often their English and my Indonesian
failed to convey a concept
but messages of heart beamed through
“Your heart is soooo nice,” says Endah
Ah yes, and so is yours.
Surya, our housekeeper’s morning smile
woke the day with a sparkle
she and I would delight in new words
she with her English dictionary
I with my Indonesian one
“Ibu Cedar, the name for this is ‘nanas’!”
(pineapple…this word is now associated
with her happy face)
She and Ren then have long conversations in Bahasa
we pay for English lessons with Olivia
after we leave

my beloved teacher of high ceremony,
Elizabeth Cogburn
gave me a meditation practice
hands on heart– saying “take heart”
hands outstretched– saying “give heart”

take heart, give heart
moments that will nourish my soul:
• walking into the school
hearing the children singing a song,
“music alone shall live”
that I gave to Reni, the music teacher
from my Girl Scout song collection
from 1959

take heart, give heart
• “Shila wanted me to give you this card she made.”
Shila’s father hands the card through the window
he has found us literally as we are driving away!
the card from the 6th grader says, “Thank you for teach us English
and make English more fun. You’re never angry
with us and just want to make us happy.”

give heart, take heart
• “Surprise! Surprise!”
the Indonesian women teachers have
rented a karaoke room for a good-bye party
(Ren gets a privileged experience of the women’s world)
they are remarkably lively and loud
dancing and singing exuberantly in their own space
we sing “we all live in a yellow submarine”
they give me some beautiful, silk material as a gift

take heart, give heart
• “I’m curious, what will you remember
about our class?” I ask the 6th graders
“The Ingots Game”
(of course…we made up a whole board game
based on a book we read)
“What else?”
“The good luck charms, Bu. They really helped!”
I had totally forgotten this
before their big national exam
I had given them some clay to make things
it only took five minutes
but it is at the top of the list!
what else?

Give Heart, Take Heart
• Endah gives me an exhilarating ride
on some back roads on her motor bike:
grand view of the flatlands from the top of the bukit (hill),
riding up close on dirt roads past shacks and fields
life eked out of the jungle
raw and real
my heart was full

Take Heart, Give Heart
Karim, the Principal of our school
gives us a card, a gift, and a special thank you
the children and teachers clap
I cry looking out at them–
the hundred of them
whose hearts
are in our hands

The card says things like:
“Gunarjo: I have wonderful time with you both. Your advice like spark of light and it will be brighter and brighter to
develop the school. Acha: Thanks for being such a great friend, teacher, and my inspiration. Endah: Thank you for
everything you have gave to us. Elis: Thank you so much for all the precious knowledge and experiences. Herni: I love
you Ibu Cedar and Pak Ruslan. It’s such a bless to know both of you.”

We are grateful that as elders (ancient ones)
our gifts of experience were received and valued:
parenting and emotional coaching and support
Social Studies and English invented games
Right Use of Power program for community, teachers, and students
foundation for Adult Education Program for the Kalteng
organized and inspired by Ren
Indonesian translation of Ren’s Wising Up book for Youth
done by Ren’s high school students as a fundraiser
big-picture suggestions for the school from our teacher’s-eye view

we have a “give-away” party
and enjoy the enormous pleasure
that our things give
Ren’s hat to Beate who always wanted a hat like this
A colorful belt to Lance who is hard to give to
the Settlers of Catan game that went “viral”
in the last weeks of school
to the girls’ dorm
clothes, books, games
even with oleh, oleh we have bought (souvenirs)
we are one suitcase lighter
Surya takes it as her travel suitcase
I look around at our dear friends
there in our living room
Muslims, Christians, Subuds
twenty-somethings, “ancient ones” like us
Indonesians, Europeans
our special little community
a this-time-only charisma of energy

Take heart, give heart
Take treasures, give treasures
Take wisdom, give wisdom
Plant seeds, water seeds

Bjorn drops by early in the morning
bringing a sacred hornbill feather
Waiting for the BCU car to pick us up for the airport
I hug Surya and walk around the block
memorizing everything

Like the Dayak Jinn that have parallel lives
we had a full parallel life for 5 1/2 months
we had a house that we furbished
we had jobs as primary and high school teachers
we had a social circle
we had projects we were passionate about
we had a daily routine
we embedded ourselves
into another culture and another language
this became our real life
we became this shape
we experienced the essence of love

now we return to our parallel shape
we give heart and we take heart
in leaving our dear ones
heart-wrenched, heart-warmed
we leave stretched, nourished, satisfied
and grateful

(Image: stock.xchng/otjep)

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.


“We’re in the process of finding a new
social studies curriculum that will be
more international in its focus,” writes
the principal of our school. “So, I’d like
to invite you to try some things out.”

Sixteen lively 7th graders, English-speaking volunteer teacher,
bi-lingual school, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia:
make your own curriculum
So, how about this?
“You are explorers from another planet.
You are being dropped off by the Mother Ship
in teams of two on eight different land masses
of this magnificent, colorful planet.
We will be back to pick you up
and hear your reports on your discoveries
in 5 months. Be ready.”

From here we spent 20 weeks, 2 hours per week
and 1 hour per week of homework
exploring and learning

We spent the first hour
learning about a theme
and then the second hour of each week
playing an evolving board game.
It began with learning about exports and imports
and trading in a global market.
After a few minutes of trading,
I would introduce a new situation:
like “Australia has had a terrible wild fire
and has lost half it’s exports.
What do you want to do about that?”
Or “There’s a shortage of textiles,
what will we do about the price?”
For this game we also studied
geography, weather, housing,
global trade routes, and
major civilizations.
That was game number 1.
“Ibu Cedar, are we playing the game today?”
The second game was an around-the-world
board game similar to monopoly connecting
all the countries via a world map
When you landed on a space,
you picked a card with instructions.
The students created the cards that went
with the new topic of the week.
“Ibu Cedar, Segah spoke Bahasa.”
(Segah had to move back five spaces, and this rule
helped the students speak English
more fluently and spontaneously.)
The POWER CARDS said things like:
“Your country has broken an agreement.
Move backwards 15 steps.”
We studied about the current global groups
like the UN, NATO, ASEAN… and their purposes.
The GOOD NEIGHBOR cards were used
to save any other player from a “bad” card.
Another week we studied myths
from each country.
The LESSON cards were positive if you threw an even die
and negative if you threw an uneven die.
“You learned not to be greedy.
Take an extra turn.”
Other themes were:
CHANGE–the students interviewed their grandparents
about their lives. They found that many of them
didn’t go to school, cooked on a wood fire, and
traveled only by a small boat on the river.
We studied the CHARACTERISTICS OF HAPPY, THRIVING COUNTRIES
and made posters about these
for the presentations for the Mother Ship.

The Mother Ship did land right on schedule
and the students gave their reports
to the five esteemed commanders
just in time to be beamed up to the 8th grade.

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.


Well-known proverbs from one language and culture as understood by 12-year-old Indonesian students (from Central Kalimantan) learning English as a second language.

English proverb beginning . . . . Indonesian ending
(cultural interpretation, based on 5 months of experience in Indonesian)

Don’t change horses . . . . don’t change friends.
(Loyalty to family and friends are very important here.)

No news is . . . . a bad sign.
(In a developing country like Indonesia, no news means that telecommunications have broken down again.)

If you lie down with dogs . . . . you’ll feel what dogs feel like.
(This shows the closeness to nature of the local kids.)

The pen is mightier than . . . . the pencil.
(Official documents, signed in pen with multiple signatures, are required for virtually everything.)

Where there’s smoke . . . . there’s pollution.
(Smoke pollution from burning yard waste and peat and forest fires is a major problem here in Central Kalimantan.)

Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and . . . . the whole family cry with you.
(Family units are close and supportive and willing to sacrifice to care for each other.)

Never underestimate the power of . . . . respect.
(Respect is a primary virtue for people of all ages here.)

Don’t bite the hand that . . . . is dirty.
(Cleanliness is important for preventing disease . . . . typhoid is not uncommon here.)

Love all, trust . . . . God.
(Indonesia is a country of strong religious faith–Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Confucian, and Hindu.)

Better late than . . . . early.
(When Indonesians are late (most of the time), they shrug their shoulders and say, “jam karet”–time is rubber.)

Strike while the . . . . thrower throw the ball.
(Sports–especially soccer–are a major form of exercise and social interchange. S’s on verbs, like stoplights, are optional.)

A bird in the hand . . . . sing for you.
(Birds here sing constantly from 4 am until dark, and some real screechers hold sway in the evening.)

When the blind lead the blind . . . . they will get accident.
(Given how people drive here, you wonder why there aren’t more accidents–or blind people.)

If at first you don’t succeed . . . . you should try better.
(Many of our students know the difference between working hard and working smart, a good sign for the future of the country.)

Don’t put off ’til tomorrow what . . . .you want to express.
(This is counter-cultural advice. Most people would rather say nothings than to risk upsetting social harmony, the ultimate Indonesian virtue.)

6/2012, Cedar Barstow and Ren Feldman

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.

“We’re leaving at 4 am?! Wow.
42 of us? 2 buses?”
It’s a National Holiday so school is closed.
Ibu Endah and a few teachers
organize a trip to Banjarmasin,
the biggest city in Central Kalimantan.
The school is paying for buses and meals.

“Send him back here.”
A couple of hours into the journey
Ibu Endah’s littlest son, a 3 year old,
gets handed back to “aunt” Rida and her husband, Hassan
he talks away describing everything he sees.
we pass warung after warung
side by side selling identical items
drinks, snacks, grocery items on open shelves
table and chairs set out under an open air porch
shopkeepers sitting ready
to serve customers who may arrive, or not

Dayak “longhouses” in major desrepair
wooden, on stilts, weathered, a city block long
in the not-too-distant past each longhouse
was occupied by a village of families
a commune/co-housing mix.
We see palm plants, coconut and banana trees,
fields and fields of rice

We see villages built around little waterway roads
boats tied up on the banks
houses on stilts at the very edge of the canal
a woman washing clothes at water’s edge
a man carrying stalks of bananas
in his “klotok” boat with the sound of the motor
trailing behind him

We see Mosques and homes under construction
with thin, lashed poles as scaffolding.
How does this flimsy skeleton actually hold anything up?
“What are these weird concrete square 3 story buildings
with little round holes in the sides?”
“For swallow nest eggs, bu.”
“Are swallows endangered or something?”
“No, for Chinese eating eggs and nest a special thing.”
(Oh yes, I’ve heard of these expensive bird’s nest soups.)

Inside the bus (bis), our teacher friends and their spouses,
other school staff (driver, cooks, handyman, office help)
and their families–kids ranging from 2 to 14, mostly little boys.
This is a family vacation for them.
Many have never been to Banjarmasin, a four-hour drive.
They are pretty excited.
“Gua, Gua, Gua” calls out the “Bus Father,” Pak Baktiar
as he steps over the big spare tire on the floor of the middle of the bus
to pass out water bottles (agua is the brand name),
chocolate cupcakes, and breakfast rice treats wrapped in banana leaves.
Music is loud and jaunty–a Javanese pop group based on
classical Arabic and Javanese rhythms
atmosphere is light, even after two hours
the children are very quiet and easy to be around

the road buffets and bangs us around
the pavement is only wide enough for two narrow cars to pass
the driver moves into the right lane
to see if there is an on-coming car
yes, there is. he moves back behind the truck
he tries again, coast is clear
passes with two wheels in the dirt beside the road
the truck inches away from the car we pass
our driver speeds up as fast as he can
and slides back into left lane
just in time
once again his calculations were good
we speed along
suddenly slow down
pot hole
bump
gravel spot
speed, sudden slow down
jounce, bump, sway, swipe
this is “the way it is” on Indonesian highways

bus slows down and pulls over
the bus ahead has stopped
bus trouble
10 minutes later
changing a tire
Baktiar is directing traffic
30 minutes later
big bus trouble, we guess,
apparently more than a tire is needed
50 minutes later
it’s HOT
no one on the bus complains
not one of the 10 children fusses
no one asks what’s happening,
Ibu Rida hands me a chocolate cupcake

1 hour 10 minutes
“It’s going to take a long time to repair.
Our bus is going to go ahead.
They will send two vans for the people in the other bus.”
Off we go, arriving at noon
4 hour ride becomes 8 hour journey
“Have anything you want. Go up there to order. Sit at tables 6 or 8.”
“Saya mau udang bakar.” “Satu? Dua?” “Satu.”
“I’ll have one large barbecued shrimp.”
open air barbecue restaurant–”Fauzan 2,” it’s called.
All you can eat: chicken, shrimp, fish–all with rice (of course)
soup, baked tofu, corn fritters, sprouts, home made hot sauce (sambal)
long, long picnic tables
good food, happy conversation, but
even the Indonesians are sweating with the heat
hey, we’re eating lunch in the oven!
this is where we find out that our teacher friends
refer to us lovingly as “our ancient ones”
we are indeed ancient in this culture to be 67 and 72
and this active and lively
I try to explain that I am going to my 50th high school reunion
and that my mother is going to her 70th college reunion,
but this is a bridge too far
“50….5 and an 0? 1962? 70….7 and an 0? Your mother is still alive???”
right now I am happy and honored to be one of their ancient ones

We drive around the city
for many, their first view of buildings higher than 3 stories
then go to the mall
for many, this 5 story, modern mall is astonishing
for us, familiar…Kentucky Fried Chicken, big box grocery, Pizza Hut, Body Shop,
A & W that they call “ah way” “Too much effort to say ‘A and double u,’” says Kris.
The A & W motto in Indonesian is “restoran khas Amerika”
(authentic American restaurant).
the furniture warehouse has fancy upholstered living room sets –
Victorian gold wooden swirls with several fabric patterns on each piece

We don’t go to museums, or monuments–I don’t think there are any.
we spend our remaining 4 hours in Banjarmasin
exploring the mall–where everyone goes for a taste of luxury,
a bite of western food, and a respite from the heat
There’s something for everyone at the mall
children’s play area, inexpensive interesting food
luxury window shopping and budget purchase opportunities
eye candy galore
and escalators and decks and spacious open areas–all free

we set out for home at 6
we should be back by 10
children settle down on laps to sleep
the spare tire is converted to a bed for Anon
with a little mattress that appears out of nowhere
Surya puts her hand around him
to keep him from rolling off into the door-well

7:30, the bus pulls over and the driver gets out
we try to sleep
20 minutes later, he gets back in and we take off
the LOUD music returns
our friends are unperturbed
the children sleep
30 minutes later we pull over again
“Do we know what is happening? I ask Ibu Ellis
“The driver is sleepy and needs to rest and smoke.”
40 minutes later, the driver returns and we move again
The bus father goes up to sit in the front with him
Two more stops to check on the broken bus–still where it was left
and help a guy with a broken motorcycle.
We finally arrive back in front of the school at 1 am
what a day!

No one questions, no one demands, no one gets angry
this is “the way it is”
this is the best of Indonesia, where life itself is a gift
and you accept and express gratitude for whatever you are given–
sickness, low paying job, days off, food, broken bus, sleepy bus driver,
why complain? wasted energy…just be grateful

we Westerners could benefit from a gentle and strong infusion
of acceptance, surrender, and gratitude
At the end of the day, Surya, our housekeeper, says, “I’m very, very happy, Pak.”
And she is. Always smiling. Smart, bright, grateful.
Perhaps this infusion could bring a relaxation, appreciation, and happiness
that we long for

the Indonesians could benefit from a gentle and strong infusion
of energy to create, to change, to move ahead
We have a lot to offer each other
There’s a “zone” along the continuum from extreme surrender to extreme willfulness
where we could all be happier and healthier
and where the most lively question is:
when to accept what is and when to change what is
and where the most lively process is that of
growing into the wisdom of knowing the difference

(Image: stock.xchng/johnnyberg)

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.



we’re back on the river
in the boat
this time for an overnight
more orangutans
more little motorized river boats (klotok)
we stop at a remote village
still only reachable by boat
we are welcomed by a ceremony
Ren, as the elder among us
is invited to break the egg with his foot
he is symbolically breaking the barrier between us
then each of us is asked our name
and our purpose and where we are from
and receive some white paste on each cheek–
our passport to the village
teenage girls in matching yellow whirl
and smile demurely in their Dyak dance of welcome
one comes to get me to dance
and the others draw Ren in
the steps are easy to get
and impossible to keep

the midwife and the head men lead us
down the one street in town
past the mosque, the hindu temple,
and the church with one member
we easily engage with the villagers
especially, of course, the children
we stop and play hand games
and sing and dance and ask their names
and meet their pet cats
and collect rubber seeds like marbles

no electricity or running water
but generators and satellite dishes
provide a bit of light and black and white TV
virtually all the houses are plain, simple, and humble
people on the porches readily laugh and joke
we visit the school
fine buildings for a small town
return to bigger places on the weekend
Indonesia is a remarkably literate country

we are shown how to drain latex from a rubber tree
(cut slit in bark and hold tin can under the drip)
we see how coffee is roasted (2 1/2 hours over an open flame)
and ground in a wooden mortar and strained through a sieve
straight from the beans picked in the back yard
one meter from the house
we each have a cup
sitting in the front room of the midwife’s house
she has a painting of The Last Supper on the wall
and a guest book for us to sign
the coffee is strong and sugary
I sit on the floor with a gaggle of sweet little girls
I’m dripping with sweat and happy

on the boat with us are
two NASA scientists who are
studying the complex interactions of particles
in the atmosphere in twenty international locations
“The A-train of satellites crosses directly above us
every noon taking measurements gathering data
to help us understand climate change so we can
figure out how to mitigate it in whatever ways we still can.”

Jon, another passenger, is a 21 year old Dutchman
who is visiting remote villages trying to bring some
increased and dependable income to them.
His company has developed a machine that can
instantly make rubber seeds
(which haven’t been used for much of anything until now)
into bio fuel (a remarkable 60% of the seed is used).
The villagers collect the rubber seeds,
bring them to the truck that puts them through the machine.
The villagers instantly get paid back in whatever combination
they want of bio fuel and cash.
The truck then goes on to another village
and returns again periodically.
The idea is for the company to just break even
and as soon as possible pass the business on
to the villagers as a franchise.

food and conversation on the boat are rich and nourishing
the day cools down
the movement of the boat brings a breeze
and then the bats come out
big bats, streams of bats
suddenly it’s like going down the river
in Lord of the Rings….enchanting
stars are clear
no light pollution here
peace
I remember the Girl Scout song
“Peace I ask of thee oh river
peace, peace, peace
When I learn to live serenely
cares will cease.”

A tepid, sweaty night
turns into early morning
glorious on the prow of the boat
sweet coffee in hand
occasional excitement of orangutans
swinging in the trees
by the river’s edge

now passing river villages and
bone houses for the ancestors
back to our boat landing

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian


I hold the kaleidoscope to my eye
do a tiny twist with my hand
and a new image appears
I look, twist again
and another image crystallizes:

a selamaton (ceremony) marking 1000 days
after the death of Pak Boesch’s mother
the men get out the mats
we women sit with the children off to the side
men chant and pray sacred text
prostrating, standing, kneeling

then women and children join the men
sitting opposite on the rattan mats
the children are suddenly very quiet
the imam offers special prayers for the dead mother
we intone some parts of the prayers too

we are individually invited to
a feast cooked by Pak’s wife
silahkan (please, come, enjoy)
delicious

some of the women are covered
others not
I inquire, “What does this mean for you?
I hear most often, a sincere, “It helps me feel closer to God
because it is a constant reminder.”
the Muslim head coverings are quite beautiful here
with jeweled pins and color coordinated with clothes
lovely fashion statements actually

other conversations bring in other points of view:
“She says it’s her choice, but really
she’s responding to her husband’s request.”
another: “My fiancé and I talk about
everything and we make decisions together.
I like being covered. I made this decision on my own.
No, I don’t know how common this is
for Muslim men and women to talk equally.
In the city it is more common than the country.
I wonder if anything will be different when I get married.
Was it different for you?”
another: “I had a good job in the city
and my Korean employer would have given
us a car and my fiancé a job…anything, for me to stay
but a woman must follow her husband
so right after we were married
I went to his work in a rural village
with no running water or electricity. I cried.
Now we live in town and have three beautiful boys.”
another, a white woman: “From my sense of it,
these women would find it
very hard to stop wearing head covering.
I think it is a kind of protection for them.
They imagine that it keeps them safe
from all their faults showing. They hide behind it.”

The seventh graders interview parents
or grandparents about their lives.
Adella says, “My grandmother said, ‘You have
a teacher who wants to know about ME?’”
Sean writes: “If my mother [named Larissa, age 39] wanted to go from one place to another, she rode a horse. Her favorite food was fried rice. If she was sick she ate soup [and got a massage].” Alsha writes: ” When [my father] he was a child, he just had a radio, a watch, and a traditional toilet called ‘jambon.’ They used fire and wood for cooking. When they were on holiday, they just went to the forest. They used boats to get from one place to another.” Adella writes: “I have someone to interview. She is Tati Kena Laba, my grandmother. . . now she is 74 years old. . . .I live with her. When she was six year old, she could cook for her parents. Tati’s favorite food was manghahai soup, a traditional food from Central Kalimantan.” Segah says that his grandma Ranti Batus who is 65 “played with dolls with her sister and was scared of the dark. . . . She didn’t go to school because there was no school.”
Most of the children in our school come by bus, have cell phones, access to computers, and their families have motorbikes and houses with electricity and running water.

In Janny Scott’s wonderful biography of Ann Dunham, Obama’s Mother
who spent 20 plus years in Indonesia, I read: “Like pretty much everyone is Indonesia in those years [she arrived in 1971], they had no running water, no plumbing, no telephone service. To brush their teeth, they pumped water from a well, boiled it on a single kerosene burner, and spat it off the front porch. . . .They had fenced a five-foot pit in the yard for use as a toilet. Bushes served as a clothesline.” (Scott, chapter 4) In rural villages that we have visited, things are much the same, with the additions of a few generators and dish satellites.

The sixth graders love to use new American expressions like
“It’s a bummer.” “Piece a cake.” “Holy moly”
Reading together “The Phantom Tollbooth”
they buy some words at the word market:
quagmire and flabbergasted
we look up the meaning in the dictionary
the next day, one of the buses is late
Bagus says “The bus is in a quagmire.”
and laughs
“People will be flabbergasted
when you use these words,” I tell them

“You wrote really great stories for homework!
I want to read a few excellent sentences.
Here’s one from Syifa’s story
‘Suddenly, the Princess heard a small voice saying,
You can make some money by dancing in the street,
and I will sing a song to make it more colorful.’
What I like about this sentence is that it uses dialogue
and suspense to keep us interested and curious.
She could have said, ‘Then the bird told the Princess
that she could make money by dancing.’
That would have been kind of boring, right?”

Ibu invites me on a motorcycle ride
to some off road places.
“Will you come?” “Sure, I’d love to.”
“But I have to ask your husband for permission to take you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I am going into ask him.”
she drops me off at our cottage
and formally asks Ren’s permission
he smiles and says, “Yes, she has my permission.”

Education Day
a national holiday
the students
have practiced well
they line up at attention
while the Indonesian flag is raised
and a formal declaration is read
teachers on the other, salute
the students sing several patriotic songs
the co-principal speaks
this is a very formal event
as different as it could be
from our Monday morning assemblies
the students do both equally well

5 pm swim
Ahhhhh, a delight
water like getting into a lukewarm bath
refreshing anyway, deeply refreshing
floating on our noodles
looking up at the amazing cumulus clouds
like living sky creatures
horse (kuda), dog (anjing), cat (kucing)
sky darkens and bright, bright Venus emerges
other swimmers join us sometimes
palm trees surround the pool
this is an Indonesian loveliness
the magrib Muslim prayer
coats and blesses our ears

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.

We meet our guide, Rom, after lunch at the hotel
He too has the Fren(ch) English pronunciations
so it takes a few hours to understand clearly

it is hot, very hot
after our long drive
surrounded by peasant life
and jungle foliage
we are inside a journey
the temples emerge from the jungle
all the more grand for being in some degree of ruin
Rom says, “Root quake and plunder.”
In many places the roots have won and
the enormous stones give way to the persistently, silently growing
mass of tree life
built with rocks from quarries far distant
brought in by elephants and put in place
with pulleys and ropes and
masses of men
laborers and stone carvers
Hindu temples in the 8th century
modified to Buddhist temples in the 12th century
four directions, four walkways, each for specific persons
the highway for the kings–the grandest
the kings retinue
the common people
the generals and soldiers

In Indonesia, my friend Hermia handed me a book:
“You’re going to Cambodia, here take this one,”
The Gentleman in the Parlour by Somerset Maugham–
about his 1920s trip through Southeast Asia
I immerse myself in the book and through Maugham’s eyes
I can feel the place from an earlier time before thousands of tourists
when the jungle had truly taken it over

To quote Maugham from page 136
“If indeed you are curious to know what this stupendous monument looked like before the restorer set to work upon it…., you can get a very good impression by taking a narrow path through the forest when you will come presently upon a huge grey gateway covered with lichen and moss….Entering you find yourself in a vast courtyard strewn with fragments of trees, towering above you, shrubs of all kinds and dank weeds; they grow among the crumbling masonry, forcing it apart, and their roots writhe like snakes upon the surfaces of the stony soil. The courtyard is surrounded by ruined corridors and you climb hazardously up steep, slippery and broken stairs, threading your way through passages and vaulted chambers dripping with wet and heavy with the stink of bats….Here and there great pieces of carved stone hang perilously. Here and there on a bas-relief still miraculously in place stand the dancing-girls veiled with lichen, mockingly, in their everlasting gestures of abandonment.”

In 2012, the grand arched entrance is made even more grand
by elephants carrying tourists across the moat
monkeys, thought to be the souls of monks come back to guard the temples,
make the place their home and are not shy
even when carrying their tiny black-furred babies

For me, the visual images here are inscribed
with heat, sweat, and the physical effort of clambering
through doorways, over fallen rock,
through courtyards, into dark alleys
now, I come upon this one carving,
this one lovely woman in formal design
carved in this very corner
100s of years ago by an ordinary laborer.
through a tunnel my view opens
to an enormously tall tree
its roots like a giant’s fingers
holding an entire wall in its hand

endless and intricate bas-reliefs
“Here you have princes on elephants with the state umbrellas open over their heads making a progress among graceful trees; they form a pleasing pattern which is repeated along the length of a wall like the pattern of a paper. There you have long lines of soldiers marching into battle, and the gestures of their arms and the movements of their legs follow the same formal design as that of the dancers in a Cambodian dance. But they join battle and break into frenzied movement; even the dying and the dead are contorted into violent attitudes. Above them the chieftains advance on their elephants and in their chariots, brandishing swords and lances. And you get a feeling of unbridled action, of the turmoil and stress of battle, a breathlessness….only the chariot wheels rest the eye in the chaos.” Maugham, p. 140

In the center of the great 5 towered mass
are very steep steps up to the top level
Ren’s knees are a bit tenuous
so Reatrey, Ren, Rom, and I
hold hands and help him up
counting aloud each step … 6, 7….
we get there…32…together

The view out to the jungle in three directions
and the vast courtyard and pool in the fourth direction
is potent with triumph
of both nature and human skill and ingenuity

at a turn in the tower
in a nook built into the walls
I’m astonished to see
a consummately peaceful reclining Buddha
the orange scarf wrapped around him
is magically lit by a ray of sun at just this one moment in the day
he radiates golden light almost too bright to bear
he is immersed in incense and prayers
and worshippers on their knees
there are many more Buddhas
some left alone, some sitting, some standing
some draped in orange and attended by incense

one of the seven wonders of the world
centuries of heinous war, killing, and death
millions of suffering enslaved laborers
gave their lives to make a place for the Buddha
who wanted tranquility and equanimity.
In the remains of this costly ancient pillaged temple
lies a Buddha in eternal peaceful repose
visited by thousands of respectful and peaceful people
from multitudes of cultures speaking multitudes of languages

at days end we emerge from the temple complex
to walk the grand passageway of the kings
as wide as a highway
built of 1000s of great light stone blocks
surrounded by a vast moat
reflecting the five towers
in the softer colors that evening brings
and, ahhhhh, there, right there is the rising full moon!!

the amount of attention and creativity involved
in communicating with Rom and Chan and Reatrey
has created a magical feeling of cross-cultural intimacy
Ren has been calling Reatrey our granddaughter
and she sweetly uses a fan
to cool off “grandma”
Rom has one last thing to show us
in a remote corner of the last gate
“the only smiling figure”

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.


“Madame, there are no flights available to Siem Riep and the Temples?
So, I can arrange something really good for you.
You take the bus, leaving this afternoon in an hour.
A.C. and comfortable.”
We wait for the lovely and friendly hotel manager, Sambath, to check on this.
She returns. “Bus has only 1 seat left. I have another idea.
A taxi with a driver. It is a 5 hour ride. A.C. of course,
and the driver speaks English. A little more expensive,
but then you go whenever you want and come back whenever you want.
Leave maybe 6 am and get there by noon. Then a tour guide for the temples.
And I have a boutique hotel for $44 US for the night.
Okay? It will be good. I will make arrangements for you?”
Khmer is her first language, French is her second.
We sit by the pool and wait.
“Yes, Madame et Monsieur, it is arranged for you.
And is it okay if I send along one of the young women
who works here with you. This is a new trip and I want her to
tell me how it goes. Is it okay?”

Thus begins one of the most memorable adventures of our lives…
“My name Chan,” says the driver.
“My name Reatrey (Re-try),” says our hotel companion
Chan is 25 and Reatrey is 22. She attends university and is studying
hospitality. She can speak good enough English that we can get along.
Chan has been studying English for a month or so at home with a CD.
When he has money, he takes a lesson.
He is shy to speak and when he does and we understand,
his smile lights up the whole car.
we learn two Khmer words: chup meaning stop, okun meaning thanks

Soon they are chattering away in Khmer in the front seat
with plenty of youthful energy
while we in the back seat
become totally absorbed in what we are seeing
5 hours each way of country life
for me, the scenes are compelling
I am taking thousands of eye photos

A mere 40 years ago, ALL the educated people in this area
were killed. Wearing glasses was enough of a sign.
The US laid down more bombs in Cambodia than in all of WW 2!
And today we Americans are treated with respect and warmth
The remains of war are invisible landmines and some bomb craters
that are now re-vegetated and look like water holes
And the people, the people carry on their lives
as they have for 1000s of years with a few upgrades
“My home is right up this road 40 kilometers.
I am going home on my motorbike next weekend for Khmer New Years.”
“What happens at Khmer New Years?”
“We clean out the house and wash the Buddha and make everything
clean for the new year. Everyone comes home to see family and for parties.
We give presents to grandmother and grandfather and parents.”
Chan adds, “If I have money, I give money. If I don’t have money,
I give a shirt or a dress.”
“And we visit the temple and leave a gift for the Buddha, and we drink and dance.”

Driving, as I now know it to be in developing countries,
is a combination of art, skill, luck, grace, and kindness of others.
Our driver is calm and steady and weaves in and out of other cars,
trucks, motorbikes, pedestrians, tuk tuks.
I try not to look, but hold my breath
as he moves around a truck head on into an oncoming car
that slows down just enough for a few feet of leeway
The a.c. doesn’t work very well in the back seat
It’s takes about an hour and a half before we get to a place
where we can get breakfast…thick coffee with condensed milk and noodle soup
in an open air market where we are the only white people in sight
Chan and Reatrey take good care of us.

From my window view of the passing world I see
a man with a big fat pig in a basket on the back of his motor bike
two orange-robed monks on a motorcycle
a man with an armload of palm sugar branches
ready to be juiced
a woman selling all kinds of exotic fruit
from her stand made of sticks lashed together
we stop and Reatrey buys a few things
we taste “lotus” (lowtuce, accent on the tuce) fruit…nutty
we don’t taste the crunchy black beetles that she loves
we pass a man balancing a ladder on his bicycle
a van with UN Human Rights painted on the side
a lexus
white Brahma cattle literally amble across the road
no one honks, they just slow down and let them pass
water buffalo are staked in the fields
Chan’s cell phone rings
men walk behind wooden plows in the fields
while Chan talks on the cell phone

During my 10 hours of viewing
I looked into thousands of little wooden homes
ranging from really, really poor with palm branch walls
to kind of middle-class
For a composite:
wooden posts in cement footings
hold up a square wooden structure
a story above the ground
there is a blue painted and decorated
stairway leading straight up to an open door
in the middle of the structure.
One small window on one side, open also
Walls are painted in a light blue
with the window frames a darker blue
a Buddhist orange cloth hangs at the top of the doorway
the roof is sheets of metal with 2 peaks to add length to the house
flowers are in pots at the base of the stairs
inside it is dark

“What is inside the house, Reatrey?
Are these like the house you grew up in?”
“Yes, just like this. Two rooms, no walls.
On one side we sleep. No, no beds.
We sleep on the floor. We have a pillow
made of cotton (cot-tone, accent on the tone) from a tree here.
No, no counters. In the kitchen we squat down and cook.
We cook with a fire. We make a fire with a lighter.
No, no grill. We have a piece of cement on the floor.
We put rubber on the cement. Yes, rubber from the rubber tree.
Then we light it and put little sticks on to make a fire
and then we put the rice in the pot on the fire.
No running water. Electricity for a black and white tv
comes from and old car battery (bat-tree, emphasis on tree).”

Underneath the house
is where most daily life happens
always a big table in the middle of the space
under the house
people sit or squat on the table,
boxes and bags of rice are arranged on the ground
a bicycle, a neat pile of wood
a hammock with a sleeper in it
red plastic chairs
people squatting
things in plastic bags hang from the posts
clothes hang on a wooden rack
lots of things in the space
all neatly arranged

a lashed, wide open weave wooden fence surrounds
a brahma cow although the fence would never hold a cow that didn’t want to be there
a 15 foot high haystack organized around a center pole
a dug out water hole the size of a swimming pool
to store water from the rainy season
a very large round pot or three to hold water from the village well
a tarp on the ground holds unhusked rice drying out
a woman pushes the rice around with a little broom
a richly painted gold and yellow and orange family shrine

“How did you decide you wanted to go to university?”
“When I was very little, my mother asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I said I wanted to be a doctor and go to university. She said, ‘okay.’
Yes, I’m the first one in the family to go to university. I just always knew it.
My parents are rice farmers. I don’t want to be a rice farmer.
It is very hard work, all the time. My mother also has a little store.
I changed my mind about doctor.
Now I want to run a hotel. Yes, my Dad is very proud of me.
I like going home.”
I am very interested in Reatrey’s life and her family life.
The information from these conversations
come together like the pieces of a patchwork quilt
made of tender persistence and careful listening
for example, when I asked her how the fire didn’t burn the floor,
Reatrey looked amazed that I didn’t know about the cement slab
I am reminded of the south sea islanders who purportedly
couldn’t see a clipper ship because they didn’t know about ships
She did well, translating her world to me

Cambodia is 95% Buddhist.
Every few kilometers we pass a glittering temple
gold, orange, yellow, red and ornate
plain, high walls and very richly decorated roof edgings
in towns, they are the center of town
in the country
we see a fancy arch
and then my eye traces down a long, long dirt road
a highway of my imagination as I consider what temple, what town,
what ordinary extraordinary things might be down this road
so open and yet so clearly leading somewhere as yet unseen

This is another installment of Cedar’s Digest, a series of poetic stories about the experiences my husband, Ren Ruslan Feldman, and I are having living for six months in Central Borneo. We are volunteer teachers in a small, innovative Indonesian school. The school is child-centered with a focus on hands-on learning and character development. Classes are taught in English and Indonesian.

INTERVIEWS with the 12th graders

6th graders interviewed the 12th graders
they were very nervous at first–
interviewing the 12th graders–their heroes!
we made up interview questions
they did the interviews
and had a good time
surprise!

they edited each other’s stories
with a red editing pen I gave each one
“Everyone needs an editor,” I said
“You should have seen how many red marks
from my editor that there were on my book.
I didn’t like it at all. Then I found out
that the changes made it a better book.”

Ren and I discovered that there are
typical Indonesian English mistakes
representing differences in
grammatical structure
we have names and symbols for these:
snake mistakes (under and over use of plural s)
skyscraper mistakes (capitalization)
clock mistakes (lack of agreement of verb tenses in a sentence)
envelope mistakes (other kinds)
we use the symbols and then they make the correction
they learned about the publishing process

it was a proud and exciting moment
when they delivered a copy
of their interviews to each class
as if it were a real newspaper

Here are two of the interviews

Kak Noko, by Journalist Syifa

Kak Noko’s full name is Tri Andi Sunoko, be we often call him Kak Noko. He was born on the 22nd of June 1994 in Central Kalimantan and his zodiac sign is Cancer. Kak Noko is living in Sukamulya that is located in front of Rungan Sari. His hobby is skateboarding and his favourite movie is Harry Potter because he said that Harry Potter’s story is adventurous. At school, Kak Noko’s favourite lesson is physics because physics is easy to understand. He also had a favourite teacher named Pak Gunardjo. In recess time, Kak Noko likes to play guitar and he wants to be a successful singer like Bruno Mars. Kak Noko said that being 12th graders is hard because the lessons are complicated. Kak Noko also said that when we are in 12th grade we should study hard to pass the National Exam. His dream after passing the national exam is going to the university called ITB (Institut Teknologi Bandung). Besides all this, Kak Noko can also speak French. He wants to learn French because the French language is awesome. I like interviewing Kak Noko because he is funny and friendly. I’m not nervous to interview him because he’s an easy going person.

Kak Hengky, by Journalist Shila

Hengky Susilo is his full name. He lives in Sukamulya on Tjilik Riwut Street. He was born in Pulang Pisau between Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan. His birthday is on the 2nd of November 1993. He will continue studying or working after 12th grade. “12th grade is cool and awesome, “he said. His favourite foreign countries are Australia, America, and Japan. He wants to go to Australia because he wants to take a picture of him with a koala. He wants to go to America because he wants to see the biggest museum, and he wants to go to Japan because he wants to study there. A time he felt scared was when he was about 5 years old and there was a big thunderstorm. He respects people who are younger than him. He has a big wish and it is to be a successful person. Something that makes him sad is that he lost a person he really loved. A time he felt angry was when he got a toothache and there were people disturbing him. He wants to be a doctor and a singer because he likes to study those lessons. He has a “girlfriend” but we don’t know who she is because he doesn’t want to say it. Now he is teaching primary students in public school every Saturday. He feels happy because he’s only 18 years old but he is already teaching and he said he is the youngest teacher. He was thinking about 12th grade and he thinks it is hard to be in 12th grade because he will get a National Exam. “I will feel successful if my dreams come true,” he said.