And some more things about Jakarta:
The difference between the rich and the poor is palpable. Completely different worlds coexist (or struggle) within the one tangled city –- different economies, different temperatures.
When the rich are rich they are obscenely so. They make their way from large houses to shiny mega-malls in chauffeured SUVs, air-conditioned, cool, barely needing to step outside into the sweat.
Some people hide from Jakarta. Estates complete with apartments, malls, restaurants, gyms and offices are bursting about. They are cities contained within a sprawling city simply too big to handle.
It costs the same to buy a cup of coffee inside a mall as it does to buy approximately two meals and two iced teas from a street vendor outside.
They are two neighboring worlds –- the inside and the outside.
This is the second part of “Collecting words in a complicated city” originally published in gang re:Publik (2008).
Some things about the place I have recently been:
Jakarta is a series of choked arteries, tangled. Motorbikes weave around stuck SUVs and taxis, while the roads collapse under the weight, potholed and vulnerable.
The city is manic and gasping for fresh air. Smog traps the heat and they swirl together, suffocating the millions below.
But as the city stresses and heaves, its people appear relentlessly laid-back. No one walks, they stroll. Time is fluid; it is rare to find two clocks set to the same time.
It is night when I arrive in Jakarta. In the taxi from the airport I daze in and out, trying desperately to take in my surroundings, but I am tired from built-up anticipation. Back when my naive mind imagined Indonesia, I imagined plentiful weekends away to beaches and forests. Jakarta, in comparison, is post-apocalyptic. Flyovers, massive billboards and skyscrapers clutter my periphery. Orange lights dissipate through the haze. Shanties cluster on canal beds.
We are trapped in traffic and already I long to see green, to see more trees. In two months time I will become even fussier and long not only for green, but for the sea, for open spaces and for crisp air.
The driver turns to me, smiles and says, ‘Macet’ (traffic jam) – my first Indonesian word.
This is the first part of a four-part story called “Collecting words in a complicated city” originally published in gang re:Publik (2008).
My brain wanders, looking for direction
Where ojeks once darted past the Hello Misters of children,
The streets are silent and the pubs are full.
My lungs rejoice.
My liver braces.
My heart slumps.
