Tales of a Female Nomad

by Rita Golden Gelman

  So, when our captain explains that Tower Island is too far and too flat (too easy to miss without radar), I am disappointed. He tells us that the last times he tried to get there, the island was fogged in and he missed it completely. The group lost two days of their tour and never made it to Tower. None of us is willing to risk losing two of our ten days.

  Then, one evening, three days into our journey, the captain sends for me. “You have a call.” A call? How exciting! This was before cell phones.

  It’s José. He was part of the crew on my second Tigris trip, and he’s gone on to captain a very posh yacht. I happened to meet him in Santa Cruz a couple of days ago and I told him that my daughter and I would be touring on this boat. José tells me that he is moored just across the harbor from us. Would Jan and I like to come over for a drink? He’ll send someone to pick us up.

  I have no idea what his daily rate is, but the boat is gorgeous: the wood paneling in the parlor is polished to a mirror finish, the staterooms are spacious, and the equipment is state of the art. While the passengers watch a movie on the VCR, the three of us talk and drink. José and I reminisce about his dalliance with one of the passengers on our last trip. When we leave, I ask José where he’s headed next. “We’re leaving for Tower in a couple of hours.”

  His luxury craft is navigating by radar, he says, and he’d be happy to have us follow him.

  I wake up our captain when I get back to our boat. He’s not too happy, but he gets on the line to José, and in a couple of hours, we’re off to Tower, following José. Most boats do the long distances at night while the passengers sleep. The islands are far apart and we’d miss too much if the traveling were done during the day. You get used to sleeping to the rumble of the motor, and when you wake up, you’re moored off another island.

  Our pick-up trip is wonderful for everyone. The amazing experiences with the animals, the camaraderie, the sea. The singing and games and snorkeling. The fresh fish every day for dinner. When the trip is over, Jan and I are closer than we’ve ever been. Sharing friends and experiences, watching and enjoying each other in a new and intriguing setting, has brought our relationship to another level. We’ve become good friends.

  When her three weeks are over, I return to the library for another week of research; and then, there’s one last experience I need in order to finish the book.

  I want to write about the lives of the animals . . . around the clock. I’ve observed them during the daylight hours, but I’ve never been on an island at night. It isn’t allowed . . . except for scientists. My only chance is to get permission from the National Park Service. I go see them.

  “No way,” they say, closing the subject before it is even opened.

  There’s got to be a way, I think, and I go talk to some of the scientists. Turns out there’s a group of four Germans—three men and a woman— who are about to go off to one of the islands for several weeks to study marine iguana hatchlings that will emerge soon from white leathery eggs that were buried three months ago. I ask if I can join them for a week. It’s no problem for them.

  I’m called in to talk to the head of the National Park Service. Under the sponsorship of the German iguana team, I’m given permission to go with them to the island and to stay for a week, not a minute longer. I promise— on my life—to be off the island after seven days. I don’t know at the time, but it’s a promise that will be almost impossible to fulfill.

  Felipe makes arrangements for the interisland boat to pick me up after a week. He gives me a number to call via the scientists’ shortwave radio so I can confirm the day before. My return trip is set before I leave—day, time, and place.

  The bay where we debark is on the side of the island where tourists never come. The team has been here before, when the iguanas were laying the eggs. One of the scientists gives me a little tour. He shows me a deep crevasse in the rocky cliff, about fifty yards away from where we set up camp. “Here’s where we shit,” I’m told. I peer down the crack, which is an opening in the rocks about three feet long, eight inches wide, and probably thirty feet deep. The roar of the ocean echoes from the depths.

  The group sets up tents, including one for me, and they take out a grill and a tank of gas. We have meat that first night and rice and salad. I wander around looking for animals to observe. I want to know what the boobies do at night, what time they wake up, what noises they make. It’s a long walk to the booby colony. Maybe it’ll be enough to write about their early morning rituals, stretching and combing their feathers, and doing whatever else they do.

  Close by camp, about a hundred yards away, is a sea lion colony. I’ll definitely spend a night watching and listening and sleeping with them.

  One of the scientists and I talk until we go to sleep. He’s a hang glider back home, and he offers, if I come to Germany, to take me hang gliding. I like the idea.

  It’s peaceful snuggled in my sleeping bag, listening to the waves crash into the rocks and to the bull sea lion honking every five minutes to let the world know that his harem is well protected. There’s an owl nearby and her hoot pierces the waves. I sleep soundly.

  By the time I get out of my tent in the morning, there is a yeast bread cooking on the fire. Breakfast is bread, melted butter, and sliced, raw garlic. I try, but raw garlic in the morning makes me vomit. That’s something I never knew until now.

  The next night I take my sleeping bag and spread it on the rocks next to the sea lions. The sky is flooded with stars; the moon is dark. I have my flashlight with me. There is a mother and her baby less than three feet away from me. They don’t seem to care at all that I am sleeping with them. They don’t even mind that every fifteen minutes I scan the area with my flashlight. The bull’s honking goes on all night long. Every now and then I hear a splash as one of the females dives into the water. A few minutes later, she waddles back up.

  Another day, with the sun’s earliest rays, I wander over to watch the blue-footed boobies waking up. Seabirds, the boobies dive for their food, so they have to spend a lot of time waterproofing their feathers. At all times, in all booby colonies, birds are oiling their beaks by rubbing a gland just under their tailfeathers and spreading the oil onto their body feathers. In the early morning, every bird in the colony is oiling and combing. Frigates are seabirds too, but they don’t dive. They catch flying fish in the air, surface-swimming fish with their long beaks, and from time to time they do their pirate trick of stealing from the divers; but they don’t dive because their feathers are not sufficiently oily.

  The week goes quickly. Then, the day before I’m supposed to leave, I get a call on the radio. The boat that is supposed to pick me up has broken down. It can’t pick me up for at least five days. I tell the person at the other end that I promised the National Park Service I’d be off this island tomorrow. He apologizes, but there’s nothing he can do.

  I confer with the scientists and they tell me that tour boats stop in the bay on the other side of the island. They decide that we should all walk across in the morning. Hopefully I’ll be able to hitch a ride.

  Everyone comes for the walk. I’m flattered because it’s a long, hot walk in the early morning sun, and we have to climb two big, rocky hills. After a two-hour trek, we get there, but there’s no one in sight. We wait in the hot sun.

  Then, an hour after we arrive, a boat comes into the bay and the passengers are brought to shore.

  The guide, the passengers, and Enrico, the crew member who is ferrying everybody, are surprised to see people on the island without a boat. I explain my predicament and ask if I can hitch a ride back to Santa Cruz.

  “We have another three days,” says the guide, “before we go to Santa Cruz. We do have an empty bunk, but you’ll have to ask the captain.”

  Enrico ferries me to the boat. The captain is OK with my joining the tour, but he is worried that the passengers might object. He tells me that they are a group from Canada. I promise the captain, if I get their OK, that I will entertain them with stories of m
y adventures in Mexico and Guatemala and Nicaragua.

  “If they agree, it’s OK with you?” I ask.

  “Por supuesto. Cómo no?” Sure, why not?

  So I am ferried back to the island to pitch my proposal to the passengers. And that’s how I end up a hitchhiker on a twenty-person luxury cruise ship.

  When I get back to Santa Cruz, I feel explosively free. I have slept with sea lions, sailed with strangers, cooked bread on a fire in the middle of nowhere. I feel as though the ties that have forever bound me to a place, a culture, a way of life, have finally been cut, and I am free to be me in the world.

  I love this place and the way it makes me feel. When the book is completed, I get a brilliant idea: I’ll become a Galápagos guide and live here.

  Every boat that takes tourists around the island has to have a registered guide. I’ll take the course, which is given here on Santa Cruz. Guides have to be bilingual; I’m almost there. I like the sound of the academic part . . . studying the geology of the islands, animal behavior, weather, marine biology. All subjects I love, a lot of which I already know from my research. I’m a very good swimmer and a former lifeguard, which would be useful skills on a boat. I also like the laid-back life of the guides, hanging out with the locals, going out on yachts, lecturing to groups of tourists. I could get used to that.

  I have to admit that part of the appeal of becoming a guide is thinking about telling people in the States that I’m a guide in the Galápagos Islands. I love the idea. It would be fun, safe, and healthy. Cómo no?

  I actually fill out the application and talk to some guides and the National Park Service, but in the end, I decide to wait and think about it. I never officially apply. Waiting and thinking is not a good strategy for making decisions; all sorts of practical matters get added into the process. Spontaneity is better. For me. But, hey, just the thought that I was considering becoming a guide in the Galápagos is exhilarating.

  Indonesia

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE FORESTS OF BORNEO

  By the time I leave the Galápagos Islands, I feel ready to conquer the world. But I don’t know where to go. The answer comes to me at my college reunion in Waltham, Massachusetts.

  It’s been thirty years since I’ve seen my Brandeis classmates, and my eyes keep flipping from the familiar names on the tags everyone is wearing to the less familiar faces. We were a small, coed class of around 217 and the ambiance at the Friday night cocktail hour is friendly and easy. Yet, it is here in this warm and accepting setting, while I am sipping my red wine and smiling a lot, that I realize for the first time that I am a threat to tenuous marriages.

  David L. was a friend when we were both students. I remember vividly the many lazy afternoons when we’d sat in our jeans and turtleneck shirts under a tree on the hill overlooking the library, talking about things like the existential meaning of life, and arguing about which was the best pizza at Saldi’s. Now, thirty years later, we both sneak a look at the other’s name tag before we commit to a hug.

  Today, David is a successful, distinguished, graying lawyer, sharply dressed in creased khaki pants, a navy blazer, a silk tie, and a crisp white shirt that has flown in a suitcase from the West Coast without getting a wrinkle. He introduces me to his wife, who, like most spouses at reunions, is standing a half step behind her mate. As I talk about my three years in Central America, and my idyllic stay in the Galápagos, I notice a tightening around David’s mouth and a simultaneous widening of his wife’s eyes.

  “You’re doing this alone?” she asks.

  Their physical positions have altered. She is leaning toward me, animatedly asking questions, and he is a half step back. It happens three more times that night and many times over the next years. Usually it’s the women who identify with me and ask the questions. It isn’t the details of my travels that intrigue them; it’s the fact that I am living a rich, fulfilling life. And I’m doing it without a man. For many women, my story awakens buried dreams or stimulates new ones. I can tell by reading eyes and body language when I’ve touched a sensitive nerve.

  The second day of the reunion there’s an informal session where we are asked to talk about our lives, our thoughts, whatever. So I tell my story. I conclude by saying that I don’t know where I’ll be going next.

  “If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to talk.”

  Only one former classmate has a suggestion about where I might go.

  “I’ve heard Indonesia is fascinating,” she says.

  As soon as she mentions Indonesia, I remember a conversation I had with a Norwegian man from UNICEF when I was in Guatemala.

  “Indonesian is an easy language to learn,” he told me more than a year ago. He suggested I start out in Yogyakarta, where there are more than fifty schools of higher learning and plenty of classes to choose from.

  That’s it! I make up my mind before I ever leave the campus. I’m going to Indonesia. The minute I get back to my mother’s house, where I’ve been staying, I locate Indonesia in her atlas. It’s a country of islands, including most of Borneo, half of New Guinea, and all of Bali. I know nothing about its politics, its history, or its culture. I can’t wait to learn.

  Two days later I walk into the Indonesian Consulate in New York and I’m directed to the office of Soehardjono, the man in charge of the press.

  Soehardjono, Jono for short, is in his late twenties. A small, sturdy man with a warm crooked smile. I have brought him one of my books as proof that I’m a legitimate writer. He tells me that his wife collects children’s books.

  Jono and I talk about our families, our background, and the difficulty of being a foreigner in the United States. He and his wife have been in New York for nearly a year and they’ve never been invited to an American home.

  I tell him that I will be house-sitting in a beautiful area of Pennsylvania when I return from Indonesia in four months. I invite him and his wife to visit me for a weekend. (They do come and we have a great time, barbecuing, talking, and tubing down a river.)

  Finally, we get to business. I tell him that I would like to know his country and that I am planning to begin by studying the Indonesian language in Yogyakarta.

  Jono looks pleased. “I am from Yogya. How can I help you?”

  There are two things I’m hoping he will help me with. I’d like him to talk to me about appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The customs are very different and I don’t want to insult anyone by mistake. And second, I’m hoping he can give me some hints about how I can arrange to live with a family.

  He tells me to come back in a week.

  The following week, Jono greets me like an old friend. Then he gets down to business.

  “The first thing that you must never forget is you cannot give or receive with your left hand. It is considered rude and dirty.

  “Another important thing to remember is that ours is a culture that has a great deal of respect for older people. If you are walking by an elderly person, you should lower your head and shoulder as you pass.”

  Jono gets up from behind his desk and walks by me, bending his knees, and lowering the shoulder that is closest to me. His head too is lowered.

  “Years ago, servants would crawl on the floor so that their heads would be lower than the person they were respecting. Today it is more symbolic, but still expected.”

  “And you don’t think it would look as if I am mocking the custom if I do it?”

  “Don’t crawl on the floor. But lowering your head and shoulder would be seen as a sign of respect. You don’t have to exaggerate; just show your respect. Also, never point your feet at anyone or rub a child’s head. Feet are dirty and the head is sacred.”

  This is going to be interesting. I cannot imagine myself lowering my body before anyone. Will I do it or will I use the exemption that is given to foreigners?

  “And now about a place to stay in Yogya. I have sent a letter in our diplomatic pouch to an old friend of mine from school. He owns a travel agency. I have asked him
to find two families who might be interested in having you as a guest in their homes. Here is his name and the address of his agency. He will be expecting you. Good luck.”

  Jono’s friend has done his homework. His agency is off the lobby of a starred hotel and he greets me warmly.

  “As Jono suggested,” he tells me, “I have found two families who would like very much to have you. One is a retired couple who live in the center of Yogya, near everything. One of them speaks a little bit of English. The other family is a young couple, English teachers, who live in a suburb about fifteen minutes away from town. They work every day and have a baby who is cared for by a maid, so you would not be alone. You may stay with whichever family you want. The choice is up to you.”

  I choose the English teachers. My first priority is learning Indonesian, and it seems to me that learning a language from scratch might be easier if I could ask questions and get answers from English speakers.

  Jono’s friend drives me to the house, which is compact and immaculate. All the rooms are through doors off the living room: three small bedrooms and a kitchen. The couple is formal, in their early thirties, and a bit stiff compared to the effusiveness of the Hispanic families I have been living with. There is no question that I have entered another culture. I tell them that I am hoping to study Indonesian while I am with them.

  “Bambang and I leave for work at eight each day,” says Diana. “We return at four. Didi is the maid. She will be happy to help you. Our baby is one and a half years old. He is also learning Indonesian. Didi will be a teacher to both of you.”