A tiny tourist island… with no tourists

Gili Meno, the tropical island that’s been my home for the last five years, is tiny. I often walk around the whole island, barefoot-in-the-sand-at-sunset, and my phone shows me it’s 5.8km around.

Even in non-pandemic times, it’s peaceful here. That’s why I came here. During high season (European summer holidays) the restaurants along the beaches have some tourists, but that’s only for a few months of the year. In the off-season, many restaurants can be empty. But now, since the world closed down, I often don’t see anyone. And I mean literally, not a single soul. Unless it’s very low tide when many islanders are out in the shallows foraging for marine treats.

Gili Meno doesn’t have a long history. Until about 35 years ago there were no inhabitants here. People came and went from Lombok and other islands on small boats, for fishing and some basic farming of cassava, peanuts and coconut trees. But people didn’t settle here because there’s no freshwater, and there used to be lots of scrub and lots of snakes.

It wasn’t until the first western travellers started coming in the late 1980s that Indonesian people built and settled here. At first, a few bungalows were built along the beach, and a trickle of tourists started staying overnight. My cousin from Holland came here in 1990 on a day trip, and remembers there being no electricity and just a couple of dwellings on the beach, where she could buy ikan bakar (grilled fish), nasi campur (mixed rice) and a kopi (coffee).

So the island’s population and economy grew almost entirely on the back of tourism.

There are about 300 local residents scattered in four villages on Meno. All of them rely directly or indirectly on tourism. Families own bungalows or a warung (small local restaurant or shop selling a mishmash of groceries). They work as snorkelling guides or cidomo (horse cart) drivers, do housekeeping or cooking in hotels, or do laundry, or sell fruit or give massages to tourists on the beach. There is a kindy, a small primary school, and a very basic local clinic with a smiling midwife. The school hasn’t reopened yet, and the small overpriced tourist clinic at the beach also closed at the start of the pandemic.

For the tourists, there’s not much to do here apart from snorkelling, diving and enjoying the beach and local culture. There’s four small dive centres, a few large resorts and many small ones. Normally there’s a handful of men that come each day on the boat from the mainland (Lombok) to sell sarongs and jewellery. There’s also a couple of souvenir stands that sell wood carvings, coconut-shell bowls and shell ornaments. That’s about it. There’s no bank, no post office, no mall, no supermarket, no police-station. And apart from a handful of electric scooters, there’s no motorised transport here. Everything, from vegetables to building materials, is carried on top of local’s heads or across their shoulders. Or by horse cart or bicycle.

In high season there are hundreds of extra Indonesians employed in hotels and restaurants, mostly they come from Lombok, some from Java, Sumbawa or Flores. When the lockdown began, I’d say 99% of them lost their jobs and they all went back to their home villages.

Local Meno residents are simple people. Most of the older people don’t have high-school education – the island and tourism are all they know. They learn about the world from the visitors, most of whom come from Europe. Some of the locals that interact directly with tourists speak enough English to get by, and some of the beach staff speak a few words of Dutch, German, French, Italian and Japanese as well. Local dive guides and barmen are often precocious, but nothing like you’ll see on our neighbouring “party island”, Gili Trawangan. And the Meno residents who work in the background in kitchens or housekeeping are usually quite shy and speak no English.

Recently a bar opened with regular live music from local bands, and of course the history here (before mobile phones) is of locals sitting around playing the guitar on the beach. There’s no other nightlife.

Meno is sedate. 

As a whole, locals are grateful and positive people. They live day by day. Before coronavirus, hardly a day went by that I didn’t hear the words, ‘Don’t worry, be happy,’ or ‘Slowly-slowly, enjoy’. Big smiles all round.

And whenever I asked a local how their day was, their responses would always be something like ‘Oh only a couple of customers today’ from the sarong seller. Or ‘I only sold two pineapples’ by the fruit lady. Or ‘We’ve got 2 rooms’ (from 10) by the bungalow owner…  locals love crying, but the responses were ALWAYS followed by a wide smile and a cheerful, optimistic “Maybe tomorrow?!”. 

During the quiet season, when most locals and businesses struggle to make a rupiah, locals never seem to fret and worry. They trust things will improve, keep their very strong faith, and have hope. They know that maybe tomorrow will be better (ie better means making enough money to buy food or pay the bills or support their business).

But this year, when in March all the tourists were frantically called back by their home countries and Gili Meno went into lockdown, the locals went into a bit of shock.

At first, they all thought ‘Only two weeks, ya?’. Just like in developed countries when people shared those memes on social media that said things like… “Our grandfathers went to war for years to fight for our country, surely the least we can do for our country is STAY HOME FOR JUST 2 WEEKS!”. Well here too, many locals believed that tourists would all just magically reappear in two weeks. No problemo.

But the realisation soon hit home that this was going to be one heck of a long haul.

The locals went into a daze. Probably even more so than when they all lost their homes in the earthquake recently. Because this time, there was no support coming in from around the world. People sat for hours a day and looked listlessly across the ocean to the horizon, or gazed worriedly down their deserted street. They had blank eyes and sad mouths. An unfamiliar sight appeared on their smooth-skinned foreheads: creases.

One of my first memories of that time was when a lady who rents out bicycles looked at me with tears in her eyes. Her toddler hid behind her sarong, and she rocked her six-month-old baby in her arms.

“How will I get food for my babies if I have no money?” she asked me.

When I rode my bike around the island, it was very disheartening to see the locals just sitting or lying around on their berugaks. The island mood was very sombre.

I don’t think any of the locals were scared of the actual virus, and most still aren’t (even though the official numbers of deaths eventually started to climb in Lombok when they started testing there in June). People here are more worried they’ll starve, or that they can’t afford to pay for their kids to go to school.

Some locals with no money have left the island, and are staying in Lombok with relatives who still have jobs there.

Made and I and a couple of good friends of ours started buying rice, eggs, fish and vegetables every couple of weeks to give to a handful of elderly widows and couples who are – literally – going hungry. It is heart-wrenching; we are greeted by tears, and each time they take our hands in theirs and bow their head in humble gratitude.

Thankfully in the last couple of months the government has sent over sambako (food parcels) to the villagers here. Unfortunately, the fairness of the distribution is questionable, and the old widows we sometimes help are still struggling.

Thankfully also, from the beginning of the pandemic Indonesian banks suspended loan repayments (eg for house, building, school & motorbike loans) which has been a huge relief to everyone, because a lot of locals are in debt.

There is still a big question that hovers (mostly discussed in hushed voices or behind closed doors), that some people have been sick and been too scared to go to the mainland hospital because they are scared of the virus being in the hospitals there, or they are intimidated by the bureaucratic coronavirus kerfuffle they’d have to deal with.

But despite all the doom and gloom over the last month or so the islanders have really rediscovered their energy and enthusiasm and perhaps even enjoyment in this new world without tourists. They seem to have moved into a rhythm… and, most importantly, they seem to have shaken off their despondency, and rediscovered their faith and hope and innate optimism.

Most of the men started playing a popular game I haven’t seen for a few years. They make beautiful solid wood spinning tops, called gasing. They carve and sand them to perfection, so they can spin for a long time; the good ones, incredibly, can even spin up to 10 minutes. It’s beautiful and mesmerising to watch. But the game the men play isn’t completely placid. Players throw their gasing fiercely, from a rope wound around its base, spinning them out to topple their opponent’s. Sometimes the impact breaks the opponent’s gasing, and shards and clumps of wood fly out. It can be dangerous.

Families have also been playing marbles (klereng). I don’t know the rules, but it’s cool to see whole families and neighbours playing together on patches of dirt in front of their houses, with what looks like elaborate and complex games using many marbles.

Many times in the cool of the late afternoon, I’ve seen big groups of families all playing a local style of baseball. While they play they listen to loud music and laugh a lot.

Every afternoon a big group of women and girls join a free Zumba class held outside at the school. Also to very loud, thumping music.

A very popular activity is kite flying. Toddlers fly kites metres above their heads. Little boys a lot higher. People make their own kites out of bits of wood and plastic and tape. They usually have a single string. It is beautiful to watch the simplicity of the kites just dipping and diving. Almost every day I spot a handful of kites in the sky, and we see little kids climbing up crazy heights to rescue them from trees. Some days they let them fly really high to catch the wind – it looks like hundreds of metres up! Not surprisingly, there are kite skeletons stuck in the tops of coconut trees all around the island.

On the beach, little children play for hours with bits of rubbish in the sand, or climb into boats and jump happily into the water.

The mood on the island is palpably cheerful. Maybe the saying should be: the families that play together, stay healthy together.

Thankfully, so far, it seems most of the families who’ve stayed on Meno are surviving, even without tourists. Many islanders have been fishing since the start of the pandemic. There are serious concerns about this because the reefs around Meno are protected marine territory, but what can you do. People need to eat. During the heat of the day I often see older men sitting on their porches in the shade, repairing and making nets. Each evening after the sun sets and I return from my walk, groups of young guys carrying spearguns head out into the black ocean with their powerful flashlights.

Some families also grow a few vegetables in their gardens (it’s not easy in sandy soil with no freshwater), and I’ve noticed the last few weeks some of the empty lands have been planted with cassava. Old women collect seeds that fall from the island’s beautiful big tamarind trees, and always they collect the old coconuts that fall down everywhere. They use the flesh to make curries, cakes and coconut oil.

Since the start of lockdown all the horsemen hand-cut grass on empty land spaces and the gardens of empty resorts. But that’s almost stopped now because it’s dry season and the grass is dying off.

There is one lady who sews and repairs clothes. She says that her mum taught her to sew because no matter what happens in her life or in the world, she will always get by if she can sew. I dropped some pants to her yesterday and she said she’s been busy sewing school uniforms because school is scheduled to restart soon. Since the start of the pandemic she’s been able to earn a small income to feed her family.

Before coronavirus, a couple of foreign investors had started construction projects here. I guess they’ve been lucky enough that the pandemic didn’t affect their plans too much because they continued building. The Head of our island told them they had to stop using labourers from Lombok or Java, and instead they must employ local guys on rolling shifts. This gave local dive instructors, snorkelling guides and horse-cart drivers some work – a little bit of cash to provide for their families or give to their parents.

Local friends of ours made a small warung (cafe) on the beach, out of recycled materials left behind from a resort that completely collapsed during the earthquake in 2018. It’s the only beachside warung that’s been open during the four months since the pandemic started. It’s been a treat for the few remaining expats on the island to be able to buy a drink or a bit of lunch while chilling at the beach; a nice way to support a local family.

At the start of lockdown there were about 30 expats hanging on. And about 5 tourists chose to hunker down here to weather the pandemic storm rather than going home. One couple from South America literally couldn’t get back to their country. Several westerners have since left; money runs out. Also a few western dive instructors and resort managers that hung on here waiting for work to resume – without any income – have had to leave, as the end of this pandemic is sadly not yet in sight, and their employers can’t afford to renew their expensive work visas when there is still no prospect in sight of tourists coming.

There was a young French guy who stayed on here for ages, but sadly he had to leave last month when he ran out of money. When he returned to France he raised some funds and sent money to Meno to buy enough big bags of rice for all the families on the entire island. He gave a small proviso, that anyone wanting a bag of rice had to help with a clean-up. One Saturday morning the whole island was abuzz with men, women and children picking up rubbish, sweeping the streets and cutting back the weeds that were growing over the empty streets.

My friend Tina from Atta’s Travel spends hours each day riding her bike around the island to feed wild and village cats, and give catfood to the locals. There are hundreds of cats on Meno. Normally many of them survive well on leftover scraps from tourists’ meals, as well as rubbish and scraps from the villages. Now they’re going hungry. There are no farms here to supply them with rats. Thank god for the amazing charity, Cats of Gili, that sends big bags of cat food to Tina from time to time.

Many tonnes of horse food have been sent over from Lombok thanks to Horses of Gili, and its continued hard work in fundraising. This has literally been a life-saver for the horses as well as the families on Meno that own them.

On June 20th the islands were declared “officially open” by the local government. It was an effort to stimulate domestic tourism. The locals got excited and thought it meant international tourists would come. But nothing changed. Then the government held a bit of a campaign about the ‘new normal’ procedures everyone had to implement to prepare for tourists ‘coming back’. The locals again got excited, put their signs up, tables and chairs out. But nothing changed. It’s hard to explain the reality to some of them; when you’ve never been off Gili Meno or Lombok it’s hard to understand the complicated, completely alien world of visas, border closures and travel restrictions.

I don’t know how long the locals here can keep going if international tourism doesn’t restart soon. Because the domestic tourists that the government are trying to encourage aren’t normally keen on ocean activities on tiny sedate islands. Indonesians that can afford to travel generally prefer destinations with more glitter and action.

But, as a testament to the Meno locals’ tough resilience and eternal optimism, they seem to be getting used to the disappointments. With all the time in the world to enjoy their hobbies and sports, and with the return to some of their traditional lifestyle activities, the creases from their brows have softened. 

Now, whenever I ask a local how they are doing, they say, ‘Zero money’, or ‘No guests yet’. But they no longer say ‘Maybe tomorrow’. Instead, with a grin and a shrug, and accepting eyes, they have a new favourite saying:

“Maybe next month… or maybe next year?”