Powering along! …a quarterly report

We’re at the 3 week mark! 1/4 of the way into the anticipated 3 months – and the building project is powering on!

Today I sit in our new berugak, and really feel the surreal quality of the days that I’m living.

In front of me stretches a small block of land, every millimeter of which I’ve come to know intimately thanks to all the weeding I’ve been doing.

I’ve sunk a lot of my savings into buying this land. Like most of us, I’ve never before known the feeling of owning land outright. It feels strange but good.

And apart from our little lego kitchen we built 18 months ago, I’ve never built or even renovated anything before. It, too, feels strange but good. I used to believe building projects and renovations were divorce material. But so far all is good on that front.

At the moment there are 17 Indonesian men working on this land. Here they are called tukangs (tradesman). A group of 6 are building the kitchen cafe, 2 small rooms for staff, laundry and toilet.

Another group is making the foundations and bathrooms for the bungalows. A third group arrived today and they’re putting together the bungalows.

Yesterday a tonne of timber was delivered here by the little island horses and carts. It’s the only way to transport stuff from the harbour to the land. The little horses are cute to see, and almost all of them on Meno are in good condition. But it’s still hard to watch them carrying heavy loads. On some of them the leather straps strangled their chests, due to the weight of their loads. Made can’t bear to see any animals suffering and he helped reduce their discomfort by pulling down on the front of the carts while the men unloaded the timber.

Apart from the difficulties of watching these horses struggling, the vibe on the land is positive, productive and sometimes fun. The tukangs work well together, rest a little in the middle of the day, and in the evenings they go fishing. Some of them catch little fish in the saltwater lake nearby, which they dry in the sun and then fry up to eat with their rice, and some walk to the sea and catch fish or shrimp.

Their rice cooker takes pride of place in the middle of the building site. This is Asia after all, and most locals believe they will not survive if they don’t eat rice with every meal.

The tukang’s boss, our builder Saeun, has rented a home 50 metres away from the land, and at night they all hang out there, play chess, cards, and sleep on the floor.

Aca, one of the young trade assistants, was busy talking animatedly on his mobile phone with one of his many lady friends the other night. Aca spends most of his spare time chatting to girls he hasn’t necessarily met yet. On this day he was so engrossed in his chat that he put his cigarette into his mouth backwards! This, in front of the rest of the gang. They all laughed hysterically for days about that.

Ah, the simple things.

I have no disaster stories to tell you (fingers crossed on that one).

But yesterday was a bit of a heart-stopper.

We decided a while ago that we want to do everything by the book, and that includes getting a building permit. We couldn’t apply earlier, because we didn’t have all the paperwork yet from the land sale (remember the three month buso?), and we couldn’t wait as time is now money.

To explain, it seems quite the norm here to start building before a building permit has been approved, or even applied for.

We could do the application by ourselves, but that would entail multiple visits and revisits to various government offices, which is time consuming given they are all on the mainland. It would most likely involve a lot of stress.

We could also get our notaris or an agent to do it on our behalf, for a not-so-small fortune!

We’ve taken the middle road. Luck was on our side again as a friend of Made’s is experienced with the whole convoluted process, and is doing it all for us.

Yesterday he came to the island with government department officials to survey our land and the building. There were 11 men in the possie! They arrived in 3 cidomos (the little horse and carriages), all carrying backpacks and document folders.

They didn’t say hello to me. This is unusual; mostly all the men treat me with respect. But if people don’t speak English they often are too shy to say hello, and to avoid being seen as rude, they will also avoid eye contact.

Their leader, a grim-faced man, asked for Pak Wangiarsa (Made). They went together to examine the septik tanks, and they looked up and down the land.

Then they walked back to the front of the land. Lots of bla-bla-bla in Indonesian and my heart didn’t know whether to stop or to race. It became clear to me by their body language and my limited understanding of Indonesian that they had a problem with the distance between the fence and the first building. I tried not to show the panic that was building in my chest.

Visions of the tukangs pulling it all down and having to rebuild came into my mind… we’d have to squash all our buildings together. Oh no… my needed space! Made’s gardens!

Made went and spoke with them and sure enough they were trying to tell him the building needed to be a minimum of 8 metres from the road! This, when there are many places just up the road built right alongside the road! Some are just mere millilitres from the edge.

The boss man had such a stern face, and all the bla-bla-bla was quite animated. One of the men looked over at me and gave me a friendly nod. Bad guy good guy routine?

Made stood his ground and said ‘no way, here we are trying to do the right thing by getting a permit…’ (unlike a lot of accommodation places here and possibly ALL the locals’ buildings). And he said ‘have a look around the island to see if ANYBODY has complied with such an “8 metres rule”…’.

Next thing they looked up at our partly built café and asked Made if it would be a walled-in or an open design. Made said ‘open’ and instantly there was smiles and refrains of ‘tidak apa apa!’ (no problem!). Bad guy good guy routine continued and the good guy came over to me and gave me a high five!

Then he said goodbye and they all picked up their backpacks. I said ‘that was fast’ (the whole visit had taken maybe 20 minutes) and good guy said ‘yep, 4-5 days only and you’ll have your permit’! Hmmm, we’ll see if that turns into three months. They all filed out and got back in the little carriages and off they went. Just like that.

My heart started beating at a normal rhythm once again. The tukangs had all stopped to watch the high drama, and we laughed together with relief at the absurdity of it all, with much gesticulation and several re-enactments of the events.

Perhaps the permit men wanted to scare us? Perhaps they thought they could get a bit of extra cash from us? I haven’t been able to make sense of it, but that’s ok. That happens often here.

Everyone went back to work and calm prevailed on our little building site once again.

Today Saeun and his right hand man Halis – the project architect and supervisor – came to inspect proceedings, and discuss some interior layouts with me. We had to change the height of some of the windows in the café to ensure our kitchen benches aren’t dwarf height, but all else was fine ;).

It is very exciting. It feels strange, but good. It feels completely surreal, and yet right.