It was such a bad trip that I wondered if I had uttered the words “What could possibly go wrong?” before I departed. It should have been simple; a quick twenty four hour return trip to Malaysia to renew my visa. Unfortunately it was not to be.
Gaining a work visa in Indonesia is an introduction into a Kafka-esque nightmare. Due to a hopelessly antiquated and corrupt bureaucracy, the process takes at least six weeks (last year it took five months, but that’s another story) and means that, should you already be residing in the country, you must work illegally on a tourist visa which lasts for only thirty days. The consequence of this is that you must leave the country every month and return under the pretense that you’re an Indonesia holiday fanatic while your passport fills up with pages and pages of these over-large, twenty five dollar permits to enter a country that is suffering from a lack of much-needed tourism.
Of course your school pays for these trips and it works out as an all-expenses booze-up if you are friendly with the proprietors of the bars you frequent who will provide you with bloated, alcohol-free receipts for your evening’s imbibery. It’s also a good chance to stock up on some reading material in this ex-British colony. And so, with a bag laden with books to swap at my favourite second-hand bookshop and little all else, I climbed aboard Lion Air flight JT-289 to Penang and settled myself down to some quality stewardess oggling.
By the time I arrived, thirty minutes later, it appeared that I had a very painful left ear. Well, Penang is a good place to be ill in as it has far superior hospitals to Medan, and so the following morning, before I caught my flight back, I visited the Penang Adventists Hospital (“God Heals We Help”) to have myself checked out. It appeared that I had an ear-infection and possible permanent damage to my middle-ear. Mulling this information over, I stuffed my medication into my bag and headed for the airport. Bad news indeed.
At immigration in Medan my passport was inspected and deemed suspect due to the many (nine) tourist visas populating the pages. In the immigration office I was interrogated by an officer who had apparently watched too many Gestapo movies.
“WHY YOU DON’T HAVE A RETURN TICKET!!!?” He screamed.
“I didn’t know that I needed one.” This was true. Despite popular rumours, the Indonesian embassy will tell you that you don’t need a return ticket to enter the country.
“YOU SHOULD FIND OUT!!”
“I didn’t know if I was going to leave from Jakarta or Medan. I don’t know what my plans are yet.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW?!?!?” Utter incredulity. “IF I GO SOMEWHERE, I MAKE PLANS AND KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I AM DOING!!!” Somehow I didn’t doubt this little insight into my interrogator’s life but also had my suspicions that this Nazi had never left Medan let alone the country.
“What would you like me to do?”
There was a long silence while Goebbels flicked randomly through my passport saying nothing. I knew that this was the moment when I should be offering a contribution to his favourite charity but I had no cash on me at all. The silence continued for a while until it was obvious that I was not going to proffer anything.
“Well. I will call the airline and get you on the next flight to Penang.”
Pause.
“OK. If you must.”
Pause.
“Very well.”
I have to say that if you ever want to fast-track through the palaver of getting on a plane in Indonesia then I can’t recommend deportation enough. My feet barely touched the floor before I was back on board Lion Air Flight JT-289 and preparing for my third take-off in two days.
2008 is Visit Indonesia Year.
On returning to Penang I did what any other self-respecting deportee would do and went and found a pub and a friend to whinge at about Indonesia’s immigration department. Having vented and imbibed, I tottered off to my hotel in a state of righteous moral indignation. I awoke in the morning with a terrible headache and nausea; I was a little surprised, as my regular intake of alcohol usually inoculates me against hangovers, but my suffering was so bad that I stayed in bed all day and barely managed to get out of it the next. Flu, I decided.
Instead of waiting in Penang for my vaguely imminent work-visa, my school decided I should try re-entering Indonesia with an open-return ticket; the logic being that it would be enough to get me through immigration and that I would have to go back to Penang some time soon anyway, to collect my visa. It’s just a pity that immigration didn’t see it that way.
“OPEN-RETURN NO GOOD!!!” the pleasant official yelled at me. “MUST HAVE DATE OF WHEN YOU LEAVING!!”
It’s just as well that she was distracted by a colleague at this point, as she only caught the last couple of words of abuse that I croaked at her, her brethren and her country.
“What?!” she asked dangerously.
“Nothing,” I answered weakly. I was feeling very ill and the thought of being deported again did not appeal in the slightest.
Thankfully, a representative from my school had come to meet me in case there should be any problems and after a rapid exchange of Indonesian with the immigration official it was decided that I could change my ticket with the airline and enter the country. My saviour’s phone rang just as we left the terminal building; my work-visa had arrived in Penang.
I went home and straight to bed. Novi came to see me and decided she would cook. It was the first time she had ever prepared a meal for me and I promptly vomited it into the toilet after only two mouthfuls. I wasn’t well. The next day I hauled myself to the doctor who diagnosed me with Dengue Fever and sent me to hospital.
Dengue Fever is another mosquito-borne disease alongside malaria which can be fatal if left untreated; there is no known cure and all you can do is wait it out while being pumped full of fluids, electrolytes and vitamins. The symptoms are severe headache, especially behind the eyes, dizziness, faintness, nausea, loss of appetite, weakness, vomiting and muscle and joint pain; it is often called break-bone fever or bone crusher disease. But the worst part of it for me was the itchy rash that spread itself around my body as the disease began to wane; it drove me to distraction even more than the loud, ever-present TVs in my ward. At least it took my mind off my ear-infection. After four days I was deemed safe and so I begged the doctors to let me go home where I could suffer in peace. They agreed, probably just to shut me up.
I spent another few days at home convalescing before I was stuck on a plane to good-old Penang for the third time in two weeks to fetch my work-visa. While there I popped in to the Adventists hospital where my ear-infection had been diagnosed; I wanted to make sure all was well. It wasn’t. The doctor discovered that I had a tenacious fungus embedding itself onto my middle ear. The only cure, he informed me, was to scrape it off with a large, pointed needle. It was one of the most loud, uncomfortable and thoroughly unpleasant experiences of my life and should I ever be put in the unlikely position of choosing between that and Dengue Fever, I would be hard-pushed to make a choice.
You are on a sinking ship and there is only one lifeboat. Apart from you there is room for six other passengers. You must choose between the following sixteen people:
A retired builder. A female history student.
A homosexual doctor. A male zoo-keeper.
A tribal chief. A male English teacher.
A pregnant woman. A young female news reporter.
A religious man. A policeman with a gun.
A 20 year old female singer. An alcoholic agricultural biologist.
An old female gardener. An African warrior.
Your grandmother. A man in a wheelchair.
This is the dilemma that I’ve asked several of my classes to discuss and come to a decision about. They also have to choose some items of equipment that will be useful on the desert island upon which they will be stranded for an indefinite amount of time; possibly forever. The point being that they will have to think about who and what would benefit them in their struggle for long-term survival.
Surprising then, that a religious man is always chosen. When asked why, the students invariably say that they need somebody to pray for them to be saved. Can’t you pray for yourselves, I ask, to which there is much indistinct mumbling and shaking of heads. A prayer-mat is always an item of essential equipment, as is a Koran; often at the expense of other such vital items as an axe, a flint or medicne. God will provide.
Once they’ve come to a final decision, I get them into their lifeboat and tell them that the boat is too full; it’s sinking and they must choose somebody to throw overboard. There is much debate: should they keep the doctor even though he is homosexual? The agriculturalist would be very useful but he drinks alcohol which is a sin. What about the religious man, I always ask, what use would he be? You have a Koran so you can pray for yourselves. Oh no, they reply, a holy man is very important, he will help them to be close to God. Hmmmmm…. Did I mention that the religious man is a rabbi?
Overboard every time. So much for being close to God.
