Santi. I’m not sure what Santi does for a living, or where on Samosir Island she lives, but I do know that she was remarkably cheerful for someone who’d just gotten her scarf caught in her motorcycle wheel.
I didn’t have a tourist map to Samosir Island, so apart from Lake Sidihoni (more on that later), I wasn’t sure where to go. Hence I was able to employ one of my favorite travel strategies for a self-contained, not-too-big place like Samosir: Motorcycle around at random, following your instincts until you find something that might qualify as an attraction. It’s a variation on the notion of “walk until your day becomes interesting.”
One principle of this strategy is that if you see something that looks interesting or photogenic or otherwise out of the ordinary, you are obligated to turn around and see what’s it’s all about. That’s how I met Santi, who was tinkering with her motorcycle chain at the side of the road while her friend (and her friend’s infant) looked on. I don’t know a lot about fixing motorcycles, but, in the spirit of the day, I decided to stop and try to help.
Santi spoke great English, but she didn’t go into detail about what had happened with the scarf. She just had me lift the back axle of the motorbike while she sawed at the fabric with a knife she’d borrowed from a farmer. Once she’d cut out a strip we could pull on we set about figuring out the Rubik’s Cube-grade complexity of the scarf’s tangle in the teeth/spokes of the rear wheel.
By the time we’d freed the cloth and reattached the chain a few other Sumatran motorcyclists had stopped to watch and offer advice, and we all celebrated by taking pictures of each other. Indeed, the ubiquity of smartphones in places as remote as Sumatra has broken down the line between who takes photos and who is being photographed when a traveler enters a situation.
Somewhere, I’d like think Santi is showing folks the selfie she took with me. I imagine her saying something like: “Yeah, this was an American guy who stopped to help when got my scarf caught in my wheel. I didn’t really need his help, but you could tell it would make his day to feel useful. So I let him.”
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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