A place like Hamzah opposite the wonderful market was wonderful in its own particular way; but you were completely divorced from the street and the kampung folk there and forced to confront the external and also the in- of this kind of form: Inspired By Fear of Being Average. The graphic in the middle of the tee showed the aspirant couple kool as the former ice at the poles.
Another case of decided reluctance to record the matter. Again, there was nothing in it; the whole thing was all simple and rudimentary. Displays of that kind were common in all the cities of the world; in SE Asia and on the Equator certainly, not excluding Sin’pore. Only it did return to stab the brain, as had been well anticipated. Being so aged—usually these fossickers were rarely under forty—the old nene was particularly striking; in her case 9 - 10 years above the average. Well, upon reflection, perhaps that was more like 20 years above. It was only after the seat on the bench was taken that the KFC opposite was noticed. Arrh! Worse than the gelato shop back a way. The thought of the industrial farming. (One of your earliest teen jobs had been at the Colonel’s, remember, where an older lad named Laurie taught how to steal the succulent segment of the chicken breast. Customers never noticed.) Ten minutes later the heaped refuse bags were noticed, arranged around the lamppost almost touching distance. You would catch snatches of the sour tang when the bags came to be disturbed. Another 10 - 15mins passed watching the evening Malioboro crowd on their tropical promenade: children with their clackers & balloons, girls taking turns capturing friends leaning against lampposts, some oldies arm-in-arm, couples made or still making out. The pavement didn’t cost anything and not everyone felt the need to dress for it. After a couple days of sporadic rain storms there was some soothing evening cool. From behind the old, reed-thin nene rocked up unexpectedly in the midst, far from out of place in her person. Her business was common too, though in this case she arrived without her dirty white poly bag. An old, worn sarong and frayed, nondescript black top. Grey hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Reed more than pencil thin here; luckily there was no wind on the Equator. And there she was, at the bags without further ado. Four or five large black plastic bags. During her work there the Colonel’s man from indoors brought out another 2 - 3 more. There was no need of a bag of her own the nene knew. By picking through the lot, each bag methodically, extracting the recyclable plastic, there would remain a bag for her haul. The articles of value she heaped on the pavement and returned all the rest to the bags. Plastic cups still holding liquid or straws were emptied, the former into the roadside planter box, latter back into the refuse bags. Doing it all properly and thoroughly would need not 10mins. Not 15 or even 20mins would do. The old nene may have kept at her task almost an entire half hour. Working steadily and without hurry, unavoidably getting gunk on her hands and shaking it off, or wiping on the side of a bag. Patiently the nene worked. Being short, unlike in the padi, the nene didn’t need to bend very far. It was mostly drink containers that had value, regular, medium & large. Some chucks of ice remained in some. There were only a few plastic bottles—KFC no doubt refused food and drink from outdoors within their airconned dining room. Straws were mostly fluro yellow; lids were thinner and valueless. None paid the nene any attention. It was all routine. The becak & carriage drivers went about their own business, which during this particular hour of this particular evening proceeded with hardly a single fare. At one point a fellow plastic fossicker, a tall male at the first impression, but possibly female, drawn effortlessly from Dickens or even Chaucer, stopped briefly for an exchange. There appeared a kind of smile from the figure during the course. Off they soon went with their dirty white poly bag over the shoulder. It was a brief pause in the nene’s work. From the distance of little over a metre she could not have heard the snorted wincing beneath the street bustle. The becak drivers that gathered, one taking a seat on the bench a number of times, might have heard and understood, without any reaction. Google Transl was deployed for 20 minutes. (Shameful to admit, 10s, 100s & 1,000s could still be confused even after almost ten full years in the region.) Twenty minutes working, the becak drivers needed to be told, but there came no opportunity to tell them. After 10 - 12mins a Rp2k was pulled from the pocket for when the lady was done. On she went, however. Ten minutes later a second two was added to the first. Jesus God! The notes were folded over and clenched tight. On the nene ploughed, taking no notice of the white guy, no notice of any of the drivers nor the passersby. Mostly she faced the bench, or presented a good part of her profile. A viewer could only avert the gaze so long. Two thirds through her labour at the KFC garbage a lavender Rp10k was extracted in place of the other two. For some reason the pair of twos (2 x $0.20c) were returned to the pocket. The nene needed to be waited out some more. The mental snagging was like flipping war atrocities in the newspapers. The lady here would not be satisfied until she had combed through every single corner of every one of the 6 - 7 bags. One of the becak drivers scored a passenger after having missed out a little while before. Earlier the chap had taken a couple over to his conveyance and it must have been some difference over the price that had the customers decline at the last moment. Still the grannie kept on. One plump, not particularly pretty shopgirl delivered what would in former time, in other circs, have been a stupendously sexy, sly routine on her little stage set, clasping the small of her back where she ached and walking a couple of slow paces with pelvis thrust; a thigh muscle began to twitch and needed attention. When at long last the nene was actually done and began to move off she took a little round, giving the bench a wide berth. Twice or three times she needed to be hailed before she heard and comprehended. Nene. Nene. Very nearly she got away. A wet hand received the note. It was uncertain whether the becak drivers heard or saw.
Yogyakarta
Hour & half after encountering the chap 200m up the road, here he was again almost arrived at the kopi shop. It was a slow crawl, or drag in his case, granted; travelling literally by the seat of his pants. In the Malay quarter of Singapore a white songkok signified a man who had performed the hajj. Well, perhaps someone had paid for this man’s fare and he had somehow, just as here, managed the seven circuits of the Kaaba. No deformation was apparent; the left leg twisted inward, perhaps. A pair of flip flops acted as gloves, which would keep his hands relatively clean. Some kind soul did his laundry, provided / fetched food, helped him in his ablutions & necessaries. Early-mid-fifties. In the 10mins it needed for the man to cross in front of the shop he had received alms 5 - 6 times. As he goes he often mutely raises his eyes to passersby. Many would take him as one of the street people paused beneath the veranda.
In the last 24 hours in Jogja the street spoke something of its former self.
As happens travelling in foreign parts, the particular day & hour had completely slipped. Suddenly arriving back in the middle of the gang with Suze and the Majalengka kids, the crowd of men appeared at the other end, scores of them in their bright attire filling the passage. More men entered as we progressed and when we began to pass pressed close, inevitably resulting in brushes against each other. At the losmen younger lads in some kind of white tunic top, perhaps from one of the hotels, had even come into the eating hall of Adhi's and lay bunched over the tiling, many propped against the wall fixed on their screens. Back in G Serai too it was always awkward walking against the tide Fridays as either the men were going across for the prayer, or leaving afterward. It was an unfortunate, but inevitable division. Head bowed, slowed pace and turning aside like a sail was the best that could be managed.
Mid-eve walking up to see the becak driver Agus an old man seated on the paving called one back for a closer look; called back and detained in order that he might be acknowledged somehow. The coin he used for his amusement seemed smaller than the one rupiah; shinier and smaller, perhaps viewed from standing height. The chap, in his mid and possibly late 70s, had perfected the spinning of the piece across the smooth surface squares. Standing the coin upright with his thumb, it may have been his middle finger giving the flick. How the glinting disk spun on its axis a foot or more, causing the chap to stretch reaching for it after each turn. Marvellous. When the man noticed the admiration he was equally chuffed, bowing modestly a moment, before raising his smiling face and extending a small, brown, leathery hand. Doubly marvellous.
And then the morning’s plastics scavenger he may have been. The action that unfolded there was so impressive, so compelling and overwhelming, that memory of the man’s occupation could not be recalled. Possibly it was drinks he was hawking, or indeed collection of plastics. The man may have walked barefoot, though in the city usually only the odd ancient remained unshod. The becak driver he approached was sitting in his conveyance with others parked in the gutter. That man was well into his 70s, if not pitched beyond. The younger came up to the edge of the path and lent in to the driver, reaching his shoulder and around to his back, patting and caressing. Ten or a dozen touches were made by the brown hand over the blue tee, not including between times the alternating rubbing & squeezing. The words added were inaudible over the distance and would have been mostly unintelligible in any case. Plastics must have been the passerby’s focus, otherwise he would have presented the driver an offering. Very likely the dirty white poly bag over his shoulder had immediately dropped from memory.
