Dodgy Dudes (part 1)

We live in a world of dishonesty. It’s awful but true. I wish I had thicker skin to cope with it.

Sadly, three of the most significant men in my life – my father, my husband (who I was with for 22 years), and my boss/friend/mentor of 11 years – all turned out to be chronic liars. So it’s probably not surprising I have trust issues.

And then there was Harley’s tragic story.

I guess I have enough fodder to fill a few blogs on dishonesty, disappointment and heartache. Future blogs. Or, perhaps one day, it’ll become material for a book.

All my life I’ve hung on to the edge of that cliff of truth, with my blunt fingernails. The cliff men have tried to push me off, repeatedly.

They say adversity makes you stronger. It’s character building. Sure we can learn from adversity, and hopefully we become wiser from it.

On the positive side I think I’ve become stronger in choosing who I let into my world. And deciding who’s not welcome in it. Honesty is one of the top pre-requisites.

And these days when a man lies to me, I know I don’t need to question my sanity or my worth.

But dishonesty often hides very well behind an open smiling face. It can be bloody hard to weed out the wheat from the chaff. I’ve been duped many a time.

I think adversity can also weaken you. Sometimes, it can even break.

I hope I won’t ever get tested in a heartbreaking way again. I’m not sure I could survive it.

The dearth of truth in my life has turned into a deeply painful spot in my psyche. Truth be known, I am still sensitive to people lying to me, particularly men. These days I even find myself getting emotional when a guy tells a fib when they are just joking around. I’ve lost my sense of humour when boys cry wolf.

I don’t watch TV shows or even follow the news much anymore as the amount of dishonesty and bullshit in this world is just too much. But it’s not possible to escape completely from dishonesty.

Dishonesty on its own is bad enough, but it does not live in isolation. When people lie and cheat they also behave badly in other ways. Have you noticed? They may lie even more to cover their lies, and dig themselves into a hole. They may show a charismatic and charming front. They may try to manipulate, assert dominance in an aggressive way, abuse, abandon or neglect. Narcissism comes to mind. Sometimes they doth protest too much, and too loudly. Often, they slander you.

These behaviours can have just as much of a negative impact on the lives and health of loved ones as the original lies do. I’ve lived with all of them and I know they have damaged me.

Despite all this, I’ve chosen to live in a country not particularly well known for honesty.

A country where cultural differences mean dishonesty has a different shadow under the usual broad smile and sparkly-eyed face that liars and cheats often have.

Perhaps that shadow is a need to ‘save face’, so important in eastern cultures. Perhaps it is fear, due to lack of education. Or poverty. Or desperation. Perhaps that shadow turns into theft by a hungry person or an addict. These shadows can be more powerful than honesty. And sometimes the perpetrator feels the shadows justify their dishonesty.

There’s the every day stuff, which is easy enough for me to deal with. Like the dishonesty about prices. Anyone who’s a savvy traveller in poorer countries will know that local sellers often try to rip off tourists. But who can blame a local for trying to get a couple of extra dollars from a tourist who spends more on a single cocktail than what he needs to provide the daily food, schooling and housing for his whole family.

Indonesians also don’t like to displease. They prefer to avoid conflict and even don’t like conflicting opinions. If they don’t understand a question, or if they disagree with something, they will still nod and say yes, just because they think it’s what you want to hear.

That’s how our first building team nearly made our kitchen without windows, because they didn’t understand the half hour discussion we’d had about it, even though they nodded their heads repeatedly.

I’ve seen tourists nearly miss their boat when they walk in completely the wrong direction to the harbour, because some guy who doesn’t understand English nodded and said “yaaa” when they asked him if the harbour was straight ahead.

All those sorts of cultural differences I am learning about, and I can handle… I think. They can be very frustrating, but over time you learn to navigate them… I hope.

But some locals are capable of more serious lies. Just like men all over the world. I’ve come across serious upsetting dishonesty a couple of times here, but it was from strangers, and so did not stab me in my weak spot.

I figured our first internet suppliers were cheating us big time, but I couldn’t work out how. Thanks to the help of our lovely tech-wizz guest, we found irrefutable proof. I stopped using them immediately, without saying a thing.

During one of our earlier attempts at buying land that I was particularly keen on, the seller reneged on a handshake about the agreed price. He claimed it had always been higher, even though the handshake had been in front of many witnesses. I quietly walked away from that weasel’s berugak without further discussion or a backward glance. I felt strong!

But there have been three more incidents just recently with Dodgy Dudes that have really got my goat and are threatening to undermine my psyche once again.

Dodgy Dude No 1

We still sleep in our friend’s place from time to time when we have guests in our bungalow. When her house was partly finished, she insisted we graduate from sleeping on her berugak to sleeping (on our mattress) in her bedroom. There is an ensuite with a toilet, so it just means my mornings are a wee bit more comfortable ;).

Her gardener, when he is happy, has a smile even broader than Made’s smile. But to me it has always looked a little unreal, like one of those Laughing Clowns you always see at the show or town fair.

When he is not happy his face is very black. And it seems he is not happy about our graduation.

Three times this gardener has tried to sabotage our sleeps there.

First he turned the electricity off, which also means the water pump doesn’t work and we couldn’t have a shower or use the toilet. The room is a concrete, closed in space with no screens, and we soon learnt it gets unbearably hot.

The second time he emptied the water tank, leaving the water pump to run hot. He also turned off the lever on the pipe going to the ensuite. I was worried the pump would burn out. It was very late at night and I had to call our friend (in Europe) to find out how to sort out the problem, but we couldn’t work out how to open the pipes to the bathroom. So again we couldn’t have a shower or use the toilet.

Instead, we took our soap and shampoo into the garden and washed under a hose, under the stars. It would have been romantic and funny if we hadn’t been so tired.

Did the gardener think we’d get blamed if her pump burnt out? Did he want us to fall out with her? Or was his intent merely to cause discomfort to us?

The third time, again when we were both super tired, the air-conditioner remote control wasn’t in its holder on the wall, when we arrived late at night. It was nowhere to be seen, so we had to go home and get our fan.

A couple of days later I found the remote, hidden in a box in the other room.

Given we only go there late at night to sleep, he’s certainly trying to try our patience.

Made is dreadfully uncomfortable about it, but to me it has become almost laughable. It’s like I’ve been living in a comedy sketch, and I was wondering what he’ll get up to next!

But that was until we found out about the slandering.

Sadly, he’s told people in the village that we are sleeping in our friend’s room and using her water and electricity, without her permission. This has really upset Made, because integrity is important to him also. Made is very well respected throughout his village in Lombok, and he doesn’t want the locals here on the island thinking ill of him.

But worse was to come. During a phone conversation with our friend, I told her about incident number three, and we then discovered the gardener had also been lying about us to her.

He’d told her we’d been sleeping in her room every single night since she left Indonesia (about 6 weeks at the time) when in fact it’d only been 14 nights. I’d been in Australia for two weeks and Made refuses to sleep there when I’m away. Also it was mostly quiet season so our bungalow hadn’t been busy. Anyway, I had the dates listed.

He had also told her that he’d had to clean the room and bathroom each morning after us, which was total nonsense.

His lies were getting ridiculous.

What is his reason?

Given that our sleeping there has no tangible impact on his life or job whatsoever, we think the shadow in his face is probably something as simple and pathetic as jealousy. Or a fierce displeasure of anyone being in what he considers to be his territory.

But, perhaps it is more sinister. Like, is he trying to get our friend to pay him more? Or worse, has he been cheating her somehow with her electricity bills, which he prepays? The mind begins to wander when boys cry wolf.

I wonder if he can justify his behavior to himself? Does he sleep well at night?

But, my friends, if I had a dollar for every time I have asked that question throughout my life, I would be a very rich woman indeed.

 

to be continued, soon, with Dodgy Dude No 2…