Boymen. After gazing at Danau Sidihoni (Sumatra’s lake-on-an-island-on-a-lake-on-an-island) for 20 or so minutes one starts to get antsy. Boymen and his friends were smoking cigarettes near their motorbikes on the far shore of the lake, so I went over to talk to them.
Back home in the U.S. I probably wouldn’t randomly approach a group of teenage tough-guys and start asking them questions – but being an outsider gives you a free pass in these situations. I went up to the teens, pointed at a ceremonial-looking concrete platform on the shore, and asked them what it was. Most of the guys sneered or giggled, but Boymen – by far the most charismatic of the group – stubbed out his cigarette, took out his smartphone, and started Googling a translation.
Boymen wasn’t able to get a signal, so – in a nod to an older travel technology – I took out my Lonely Planet Indonesian phrasebook and we set out to find an answer. Curiosity got the best of the other boys, and we all sat there and took selfies (their idea) and had a stilted, charming conversation on the shore of the lake-on-an-island-on-a-lake-on-an-island.
I never did find out what the concrete platform was for, but I did learn that Boymen is 19 years old, that FC Barcelona is his favorite soccer club, that he lives just up the road Sindambur Village, that his job is “unemployed.” (I’m not worried about Boymen’s future prospects, as he is a quintessential cool-guy – from his confidence and charisma and easy smile, right down to his picture-perfect hipster messenger bag and vintage Honda motorcycle.)
Boymen used the phrasebook to ask me if I was hungry, and when I said I was, he invited me to follow him to his village for lunch. His aunt, a woman named Tiarula, fed me rice, instant noodles, and spicy pang-gang chicken. Phrasebook in hand, Boymen passed me around Sindambur for an hour, having very slow conversations with his extended family.
When I finished lunch and prepared to leave, Boymen’s aunt took me by the arm and spoke the first un-phrasebooked English of the afternoon. “Don’t forget about me,” she intoned. I won’t!
Note: “Dispatches” are short vignettes, profiles, and mini-essays written and posted from the road, often in tandem with my Instagram account. For more full-formed writing, check out my book Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, or the Essays or Stories archives on this site. I don’t host a “comments” section, but I’m happy to hear your thoughts via my Contact page.
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