“I’ll never forget the tears coming out of his eyes,” Made says. “Pleading he was. Pleading for me to help him.”
Made has told me this story many times. The story of the day he found a sea turtle crying at a friend’s place in his village.
“He was crying. I seen him was crying. It made me so sad.”
At the time Made had a little warung (restaurant) on a special beach in North Lombok, about 15 minutes from his home village. This beach is on an arc of land jutting out from the mainland, where Lombok’s only golf course stretches its grassy green fingers right to the edge of the beach. There are a few luxurious private villas and a couple of fancy hotels nestled there, and right behind them is a small very poor rural village. I think it’s a bit of a surreal spot. A place where high-end holiday makers stay in pristine poolside, beachfront luxury, and yet metres behind them are cow-poo covered dirt roads with shanty shack homes and mangy street dogs, and where the average local person earns less in two whole months, than a tourist who comes there pays for one single night.
It just so happened that a distant uncle of Made owned a vacant block right next door to Tugu Hotel, one of the 5-star hotels there. Made saw the potential, and set up a bamboo and wood hut where he could ‘capture’ the guests if they happened to venture out from their private spaces and stroll along the beach for a bit. It was the only warung in the whole Sire Beach area.
It was hard for the tourists to miss Made. His warung was decorated in reggae green, gold and red, with big coral sculptures out the front and shell necklaces dangling everywhere. Made himself would sit on a stump out the front of it, his dreadlocks falling down to his guitar as he strummed away, ostensibly in his own little world; but he’d look up at any visitors walking by and give them one of his huge smiles.
Russians, French, American… they’d be curious and often they’d walk up to say hello. Even if they spoke no English, Made would sing for them in the universal language of music, and invite them to purchase a drink. Many were interested in trying his food. Sire Beach isn’t exactly a thriving tourist spot (in the dozens of times I’ve been there over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to hardly see another soul on the beach or in any of the hotels), so he usually didn’t have a lot of fresh produce on hand, but would take their order for later that night or the next.
He’d then head off to the market or a nearby fishing village to buy whatever he needed to cook up a storm. For the type of guests staying in Tugu Hotel, it was often their only experience of truly authentic food cooked in the local style – fresh fish grilled over burning coconut husks, green leafy vegetables covered in spicy Balinese sauce – and it included a pretty cool interaction with a jolly Indonesian guy (perhaps the only local they’d meet during their stay, apart from hotel staff and drivers).
On this particular day Made was heading back to his village just to catch up with friends, hang out for a bit. As a bonus, he had a little money in his pocket from selling some beers that week.
But as he walked through to the back of a friend’s house, he was stopped in his tracks.
Tied up to a tree by a rope around one of its legs, was an adult hawksbill sea turtle. It was about 80cm long. There was no water bowl in sight, the bare earth was bone dry and hot. Like a stressed chicken, the turtle had its dehydrated mouth hanging open.
Locals have traditionally caught and eaten turtles. Just like people in other Asian countries, and also aboriginal people still do in parts of northern Australia, turtles have long been part of the Indonesian diet.
But Made was shocked. He’s an animal lover and a marshmallow; his eyes can not see suffering (he can’t even watch National Geographic videos). Seeing the turtle crying really did him in.
He knew the law had changed and turtles weren’t allowed to be eaten anymore, but the locals still followed their traditional ways and caught them in the sea, for food to share amongst the families.
Made asked who owned the turtle and it turned out he knew the man (he knows almost everyone in the village). He knew the man was a gambler and not well liked, even by his family.
“Normally people in the village don’t like this type of turtle cos the meat smells very strong. But this man had it cos it was cheap. He’d bought it from the fish man who caught it with the net from fishing,” Made says.
“But someone still would eat it. Maybe sate, or soup, whatever. The man who bought the turtle, Mohammed, was poor. He got it cos he wanted to sell it on and make a profit.”
Made didn’t admonish the man. He just said to him, “Ok, I will buy this turtle”.
The man asked how much, because he’d bought it for 100,000 rupiah (today that’s equal to approximately $10AUD). But Made suspected he probably bought it for 50,000.
Bargaining is part of the culture, so Made negotiated a bit.
“But soon I just say, ok I pay you 150,000 and he’s agree. He was happy with the 150.”
Mohammed helped Made find a rice bag and they put the turtle in it and strapped him to the back of Made’s motorbike.
“At that time I feel sad and happy too. I was a little bit crying,” Made said.
“Because I guess from Tanjung Village to Sire is quite a long time. I worry he not be fine till I get to the beach. I had to tie him with string so he couldn’t move, but I still hold on, I just drive with one hand and he has a bit hurt on his back and little bit bleeding when I found him, but not a lot. So I just check again and again to see he’s ok.
“The man already had him around three days. So I think he was crying because he can not eat something because he was tied. And when I just arrived there he just look at me straight away.”
Made closes his eyes and shakes his head, “Oh god.” He always tears up when he tells this story.
“I took him to Sire cos I wanted to let him go in my right place,” he said.
When Made carried the turtle down to the sand, there were three couples in front of Tugu Hotel nearby. Made hadn’t met them before, and they were intrigued with what he was doing.
“I put him in the sand first and took the string away. The people were looking at me and didn’t realise what I was doing so I just call them over. And then they asking about how can you get this turtle, and then I told them the story.”
He let the turtle go at the top of the sand, as he wanted to check it was ok.
“Finally he walked alright and he walked fine down to the water. Yea, a little bit slow, but ok. And the people stay and talk to me.
“And then they appreciate and then all of them give me five hundred thousand each. And then I didn’t want to accept this money but they said I had to. They said don’t thinking to it. You have to accept this money from us, they said.”
Three million is more than a month’s salary for someone with a very good job. But Made had rescued the turtle to save its life, not to get attention or charity.
“I just feel I didn’t want to take the money but they said it’s ok Made, this is because we respect you did something nice to the animals. Maybe if you don’t feel ok about the money, maybe you can use it to buy something for your other animals.”
In fact, Made’s dogs Blondie and Sweetie, his cat Manis and his rooster Inky were all around at this time, also intrigued with the activity surrounding the turtle.
“They just smell the turtle. The turtle wasn’t scared, not, because he just want to take himself down to the ocean. I think he just feeling right in that place so he doesn’t care,” Made says.
“When he got in the water, when he was swim around two metres he come up and with his head he turned it back to the beach and then he just look straight at me, he look at us.
“And then he just swim away. It was low tide and the water was calm, so we could see him swim a long way.”
The kind tourists stayed and chatted for a while, and one couple came back the next day to have drinks and dinner at Made’s warung.
The money enabled Made to buy sardines and fresh fish and rice to feed all his animals for quite some time (there was no commercial pet food available anywhere in North Lombok).
Made loved his time living on the beach at Sire. For three years he had the entire beach almost to himself, but would chat with the fisherman as they came down in the evenings, and sometimes the local families if they walked down from the village for a swim with their children. Friends and cousins would visit him there and sometimes join him to play music to entertain guests.
He enjoyed sharing stories and songs with the tourists that stopped by. And he loved cooking for them. But mostly he loved the peaceful solitude with just his little menagerie of animals. Perhaps I will write more stories from his time there, but really, they are best heard from the lips of the man himself.
NB: All pictures, except the turtle, are of Sire Beach (& Tugu Hotel). Middle two pics are Made in front of his warung and a friend with one of his coral sculptures.
The hawksbill turtle is one I photographed on Gili Meno 🙂