Return of the Swampman

It has been four long years since I added anything to my near-defunct blog.

I have since moved from the swamps of East Borneo to the swamps of the bayous of Louisiana. More on this later but I think I may already be in purgatory as a prelude to my special place in Hell. I hear they reserve a special spot there for someone like me.

A lot has happened since then; not least my three favorite bloggers have upped and gone away (see In Memoriam side-bar), the latest being Unker Bernard aka Zorro this past April. Fortunately I was home for his wake where spirits were downed in an atmosphere of good cheer all around. BTW, it was the late Zorro who had nicknamed me Swampman, so it saddens me that he would never come visit my blog again.

                                                                       Three PAS reps @Zorro's funeral

                                                                                        Me and buddy Ronnie
                                                                 
Four long years is long enough to be in mourning --my Dad had also passed on in August last year...on the very same morning that Kerp had lost his wife to cancer?

Enough. Time to move on.

Lives In The Balance: Good Works Vs Bad

I have always held firm to the belief that we must have some balance in our lives; some sort of yin and yang in equal measure. To do some bad and to do some good, because to see the worst in human nature will make us appreciate the nicer parts of humanity. And I don't mean women's bodies...

I'm sure many of you will disagree but that's just me; seeing bad in good and good in bad. And I'm always grateful to be able to tell one from the other.

Because... how else would I find myself in what once was the largest prostitution area in the whole of South East Asia last Sunday afternoon?

I said, was. Remember the tense, please, was.

It's in north Jakarta, past Tanjung Priok, at a place called Kramat Tunggak.

What once housed close to 4000 rooms in 277 buildings employing hundreds of germos (pimps) is now the Jakarta Islamic Center. I dare not even speculate how many PSK's (Pekerja Seks Komersial) this bustling area once had. Ten, twenty thousand? More?

Anyway, all that was demolished in 1999 and early in the millennium the Jakarta Islamic Center had replaced all that had once brought misery and ecstasy in equal doses.

But don't take my word for it. Go here to Mualaf Center Online for a background on Kramat Tunggak.

So you ask, what the hell was I doing there?

I went there on a self-induced mission to visit a friend who once worked as a radio operator on my rig in Kalimantan.

Pak Aa Gym, fiftyish and obese, suffered a stroke about a year ago in his kost (rented room) in Balikpapan. Workers like Pak Aa Gym don't get to go home during time off like I do because their point-of-hire is in Balikpapan. They see their families perhaps once or twice a year, usually over Lebaran Idul Fitri, and of course, paying out of their own kantong celana. They just don't make enough. Their schedules are usually "two-one" - two weeks on and one off, and it was on one of those "offs" that his neighbor noticed that he had not emerged from his kost for two days running.


So he had suffered a stroke, alone in his kost, with no one giving a damn.

He was hospitalized for a while and when he was able to walk, his kin came to take him home to Jakarta. He had, by then, lost his faculties to speak.

So I promised myself that if I ever spend a day or two in Jakarta, I would hunt him down and pay my dues to a fellow comrade.

But finding him was no easy feat. I had to ask around until I found another offshore worker called Sugeng who could get me his address. So I kept that battered piece of paper with some crude references to Bekas Tempat Prostituisi Terbesar and finally, there I was.


I kept the meter running on the taxi (no need to expound on my getting lost in the maze of Tanjung Priok - the taxi driver had never been there either) which eventually made me poorer by almost RM 150.00 (yes, it's that far). After asking around I found the "Ibu RT" (some sort of neighborhood leader) who finally led me to Pak Aa Gym.

There was no one home except Pak Aa Gym, dressed in a white T-shirt and sarong with a metal cane by his side. He had lost perhaps fifty pounds. He registered surprised, and a pitying 'huummm, huummm' escaped his throat. He grabbed my waist and cried. And so did I.


And so I had come to fulfill my vow.

What struck me was what "Ibu RT" said to me as she left me outside his gate, "Pak, you're the only friend from his workplace that visited".

In reply, I said, "Alah...but my house is just on the way, Bu...", shrugging it off.

She had no idea that my house is in another country.

Celebrating H.U.T. - Dirgahayu R.I. ke 63

DARKENED RAINCLOUDS LOOMED Sunday morning over the vast dreary swamps of Kalimantan Timur where a rig called Yani was temporarily shut down.

Led by Liaison Officer Captain (Mariner) A. Mannan of the Indonesian navy, the crew assembled on the heli-deck to commemorate 'HUT' (pronounced 'hoot'), Indonesia's 63rd birthday, or - Hari Ulang Tahun - as they liked to call it.

Mat Salo ,being the sole Malaysian on board, was given the unenviable position of guest of honor, worthy of a Du-Bes (duta besar).





We quickly got the outdoor part over before the heavens opened (portend of things to come?), commencing to the galley below for a Lucky Draw; the door prizes donated by our respective companies.

By the way, I 'won' a rice-cooker. Now what in heaven's name shall I do with it?

Adjourning to galley below. . .

Drawing Straws for The Lucky Draw

A jubilant crew member - "I won a TV set!"

The Captain & I

©2007-2008 mAtsalo iMages

Bad things come in threes . . .

A pall has descended over Yani.

Yani is the rig I work on and is owned by Ariffin Pinogoro, who appears as # 9 on the latest Forbes list of “40 Richest Indonesians” with a net worth close to 1 Billion gawd-almighty US dollars. This time around, even Liem Soei Liong of the Salim Group had to contend with 10^th place.

The offshore rigs are named after his sons and daughters. Yani’s other “siblings” include Raissa, Raissis, Maera, Raniworo and with the latest one, a super-premium jack-up called Soehannah –sons and daughters of a true blue US dollar billionaire.

Anyway this isn’t the point of the story. My previous post told of an accident that happened on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. At that point the denizens of Yani were still optimistic of the New Year’s rig party. Apparently, a down payment of a million rupiahs was already handed to the ‘electone singing group’. I was mistaken. There were to be four women, not just one; an organ player with the other three singing / dancing and were originally scheduled to be smuggled in on New Years Eve.

Sorry to disappoint you but there was no new New Year’s Party. In fact, I slept through twelve midnight while revelers in Malaysia were gathered watching taxpayers money dissipate via fireworks. The party was canceled on the morning of the December 31^st, and this time everybody was in unanimous agreement.

At 3.OO a.m. on that fateful morning (I was asleep and oblivious to the violence that unfolded) an altercation broke out with a roustabout and his leader, whom we call “headman” (mandor in boleh-speak). The roustabout did the unthinkable: he pulled a knife and chased the poor headman before being restrained by fellow roustabouts. The Major (rig liason officer) had to be called in and within fifteen minutes the marine police had come aboard brandishing side-arms and machine guns.

Pak D---, the perp, was the quiet sort. Even after two years being on the Yani we hardly exchanged words. But he was always glad to accept my occasional gifts of Sampoerna Mild kretek cigarettes though. But I never thought him as someone dangerous. Another myth broken; goes to show Mat Salo’s not such a good judge of character after all. . .

Anyway that violent interlude was the final nail in the coffin and put paid to our New Year’s bash for good. Bosses from town had to descend by slow-boat (choppers weren’t running on the 31^st) to do their damage control. With the police and management folks swarming around you can forget about the party. They’re pissed-off already since this has spoiled their New Year’s holiday…

But again this isn’t the point of the story. The point is our colleague Agus Untung was called to the lord, at 3.00 a.m. this morning in the bosom of his family. He was on his days off. He was 38 years old, married with two children, and with no known ailments. He doesn’t even drink coffee or smoke.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 5^th, would have been his crew change day when we were supposed to trade banter again.

But it was not to be, Pak Agus yah?

So now you know why there’s a pall hanging over Yani like a leaden cloud…

Agus Untung 1969 - 2008

© Matsalo Images 2007 - Photo taken in September 2007.

Berita Duka Cita

INNA LILAIHI WAINA ILAHI ROJI'UN

TELAH BERPULANG KE RAHMATULLAH REKAN KERJA TERCINTA BPK. AGUS UNTUNG - ROUSTABOUT CREW-C RIG YANI.

HARI INI PADA TGL, 04 JANUARI JAM 03:00 W.I.T.

DI DAERAH GUNUNG MALANG, BALIKPAPAN

SEMOGA ARWAHNYA DITERIMA ALLAH S.W.T.

DAN SEMOGA KELUARGA YANG DITINGGALKAN DIBERIKAN KEKUATAN & DITABAHKAN INMANNYA.

KAMI KELUARGA BESAR YANI - RIG IKUT BERDUKA CITA YANG MENDALAM,

TTD,

KELUARGA BESAR YANI RIG YANI - 104.

Post-Christmas Funk 2007

FUNK. IT MEANS "cowering with fear" or a "state of fright", or a feeling of dejection. Yes, that's right and I'm feeling dejected right now. No, I know it's the end of the year when we have a big Christmas party on the rig and everybody gets funky. That's not the funk I meant.

Please look at the sign above. I photographed it this morning just after some numbers in there had "changed". For you non-marine or offshore types out there (which is 99.9999 percent of the world's population anyway) the term LTA means hell of a lot. It stands for "lost time accident" and yes, as of today it is only Day 2. Two days ago the number atood at 1658 --meaning FOUR-AND-A-HALF YEARS since the rig had an accident.

Actually that's not true at all because the rig NEVER had an accident until the day before. Why? Because the rig is so new that there hasn't been an accident since it arrived here four-and-a-half years ago spanking brand new from Keppel-FELS shipyard in Singapore.

The day after Christmas I had just started to spud in a new well. It was five in the morning. This particular well had a rather peculiar charachteristic in that it spewed out lots excessive gumbo which required the crew to clean the lower decks often. Fire hoses were employed and one particular guy did not hold the nozzle of the fire hose steady. When the fire pumps kicked in the hose snaked and caused him to lose control . . . the net result being the nozzle firing the high pressure water with mud and debris . . . into his eye. We're not sure how he's doing yet because he was whisked to the medic's room and a chopper evacuated him two hours later. Our resident Liason Officer, a Major with the TNI Navy had to escort him on the chopper and to the hospital since both eyes were heavily bandaged.

He was operated yesterday and the word was his intra-occular functions remained intact. Probably to remove a blood clot or something.

The reason it's such a big deal because safety is a very serious issue with the oil companies and contractors. The safety record is tied into the contract and for the whole of 2008 the rest of the crew will have to pay the price of not getting any "safety bonuses". It's quite a bit and can amount to 10 - 20 percent of their annual income. I even had a cheap Motorola phone and a toolbox to take home last year. All because of a good safety track record.

Then there is the loss of prestige and reputation. Not to mention nosy investigators that will come in in the next few days to lecture us.

But I have a more serious concern. For the upcoming New Year's Party the client had earlier on insisted I "contribute". By this he meant illicit liquor. In previous blogs I mentioned that alcoholic drinks is strictly prohibited from any offshore installations. But this is a French company and they all like their tipple now and again. We'll, not just the French . . .

So I complied by smuggling a bottle of Pernod and Dewars' White Label past the boat security people. I was actually booked on the chopper but no way I can get whisky past aviation security. So I had to detour and take the long way by speedboat where the marine port people are a little more "friendly".

Then another asshole (someone like me) found an "electone singer". In Indonesia it usually meant lady pub singers that know how to work an organ and has a half-way decent voice but a more-than-decent body. She is scheduled to be smuggled to the rig on New Year's Eve.

A girl at the ready. Intoxicating liquids at the ready. Mat Salo's organ --er, camera --at the ready. With investigators coming and possibly doing a little spot-checking. Not too worry, it's well hidden along with other contraband that other service contractors had contributed. There's crates and crates of Anker Bir too . . .

Just let's hope the investigators and safety officers come after the holiday season is over.

Which reminds me . . . Folks, have a Happy New Year and may 2008 be good to you.

© 2007 MatSalo Images

It's early in the morning . . .

(and in case you’re wondering, I’m not wondering what clothes to wear; same coveralls everyday lah)

BE FOREWARNED: This post is a rambling one and has no discernible beginning, middle or end. With a lot of typical embellishment and hypebole thrown in --but hey --artistic license right?

Got pretty confused as to the goings-on in Bolehland recently, so much to talk about and the pundits having beaten me to it. Just as I start a post about something, and no sooner someone comes out with a brilliant piece and the Delete keys get (over) used again. Well then, in this age of instant messaging and Punditry Inc. I’d better get used to it.

So I let blog commentators trigger me; and see where that takes me.

Case in point is the blog title above, triggered by Chegu's recent post on ‘Guitar God’ Eric Clapton. A raff of associations hit me especially that much abused karaoke fodder ‘Wonderful Tonight’. I remember being in a karaoke joint in Ho Chih Minh City a lifetime ago and the patrons in the adjacent booth, middle-aged and balding Saigon businessmen, were screaming “hotel, hotel!” Hotel? What hotel? This is a karaoke club lah. Aah, they were trying to coax a colleague sing that other much abused karaoke fodder ‘Hotel California’.

What? –Thick-in-the-middle, middle-aged and balding businessmen? And what about yours truly? Yeah, it happens only to the other guy. Right.

Then there was Bung Zawi who ‘suggested’ I host Daphne of Aphysia-Dyphasia on my rig, seeing she was curious in the first place. I started to reply in a comment but it got too long. So I decided to reproduce it here for the benefit of other curious folks.

I'd love to host visitors, but unfortunately it's not up to me, rigs are tightly guarded places. To get on a rig one needs to attend a 3-day approved HUET ('Hooyet') and Basic Sea Survival course with the Helicopter Underwater Escape Training entailing participants being strapped in a helicopter-type carcass and dunked.

Participants come dressed in coveralls. The crane lowers the 'heli' down until everything is submerged (you included, of course) 6 feet under. We're strapped in our seatbelts. Two divers are on standby in-case of difficulties and also to ensure no one cheats. The moment the water gets to your ears you take a deep breath. Five seconds later we're under. The heli rotates 180-degrees so now our feet are up and our heads are down. It's easy to get disoriented but because of training we know which door or window to grasp and kick out. Most people get claustrophobic and panic. It's got to be a controlled underwater exit or else everybody gets tangled and drowns while the damn thing is sinking! So grab on the door or window frame tight (10 seconds would have elapsed - I know it's short but believe me it feels like an eternity) because when you undo the buckle upside down your body floats up to the top of the chopper (in this case, the heli’s "floor"). Watch your colleagues exit, sometimes while disoriented they fail to see the door or window next to them. Kick or push out the window (with everything submerged, pressure has equalized) and the door or window easily falls away. Exit and swim to surface. Don’t worry, your natural buoyancy will also guide you up. But if you pull the cord that fires the pressurized cartridges that blow air in your life-jacket too quick (before surfacing) you fail. The idea is constant training makes you react in rational manner under pressure. But who knows how people react when shit actually hits the fan?

Do this two more times and then you get certified, and after passing a comprehensive medical exam you can now be eligible for a rig visit. This is overkill I know, but training does pay off. Just last a year a chopper carrying rig workers in Terengganu fell into the sea. Only the pilot was killed but the rest survived.

The HUET course needs to be done every three years. I did mine at a rather rigorous facility along with some Singapore’s Israeli-trained air force pilots in Loyang, Singapore. The whole she-bang (as a mandor I needed the extra courses) took five days which included advanced fire-fighting, CPR and all that good stuff.

The chopper thing in Singapore, although scary, pales in comparison to advanced fire-fighting training. Fire-fighters get all my respect. Imagine being in full fire-fighting gear (without a real fire it’s already like a sauna in there): helmet, full faced mask and an oxygen bottle that’s going to last me 15 minutes. The scenario is like this: On the word go I enter a building (in a totally blacked-out warehouse in Loyang stacked with containers). No flashlight. The idea is in a real-life situation there’s so much smoke it is pitch black. My goal is to enter into the container-mazes inside the dark warehouse, crawling makeshift tunnels to find a life-sized dummy and bring it out. We do this in pairs like in a buddy system. After a while you get disoriented and it didn’t help matters that my partner was the claustrophobic sort. At the ten minute mark with impediments, boxes, oil drums here and there, we knew we’re going to fail.

So I cheated. This is where being a smoker comes in handy. I told my buddy to turn the oxygen spigot off. “Screw this,” I said. “Else we’ll never find that blow-up doll”. I pulled my trusty Zippo and lo and behold, in another minute we found our target. Of course, near the exit we don our masks back on and the former Canadian Coast Guard instructor was suitably impressed. But when he checked our oxygen bottles he knew they were air still left in them when other teams usually finish off theirs. I could never look him in the eye after that.

The HUET in Loyang was another matter altogether. Now I was to rub shoulders with elite Israeli-trained crack fighter pilots. What these uber-kiasus didn’t know was I was a pretty decent swimmer. Back in the seventies I represented my school up to state level and even participated in National meets. 400m and 800m ‘kuak dada’ was my specialty. By Form Two I not only had the Bronze Medallion but also the higher Bronze Cross life saving certificates under my belt. To be a pool lifesaver you only need the ‘Medallion’ and I guarantee you only some of the 5-star hotels have these paper-qualified lifeguards.

Because of the kiasu factor in these swaggering SAF pilots, the instructor devised some pretty interesting scenarios for the ‘upside-down’ heli-training. So first we went through the usual as a warm up. These guys were looking at an overweight Melayu who kept sneaking off to smoke cigarettes. They looked at me with pity. Now the instructor added a twist just to see what these wannabees are made of. Instead of four exit points, there will be only one (the rest presumably jammed shut) and we won’t know which in advance. This is the best part: We will all be wearing blacked-out goggles!

Needless to say these super-fit kiasus didn’t even bat an eye-lid. And they looked at my sodden cotton coveralls with glee in their nice water-cum-fireproofed flight suits.

But the proof of pudding is in the eating and they deliberately entered the suspended heli-carcass first. Now they were three frogmen in the water in case serious rescue were required. I entered last. Seems those bastards knew before-hand which window was free so they sat nearest to it while I was furthest away. I suspect one of the frogmen tipped them off. No worries, I just needed to hold my breath longer and mentally mapped the exit. This is where my Bronze Cross training paid-off.

The Bronze Cross Life Savers Certificate is really quite challenging. It’s designed for a lifesaver to get in any closed-water situation (as opposed to open water – the seas, which requires further killer training) like lakes, rivers ponds and pull up to two victims to safety and demonstrate underwater combat skills. The combat skills is designed to knock your victims out, instead of your victim thrashing about that might pull you the lifesaver under -- now instead of just one, you have two casualties. So you knock them out cold first.

You must also tread water while performing mouth-to-mouth. The test is conducted at night and I did mine at Ipoh’s municipal pool. The water must be at least 12 feet deep. You face away from the pool, fully-clothed (baju Melayu in my case) and the instructor throws a ten-kilo brick wrapped in cloth to simulate a drowned victim lying at the bottom of a 12 feet pool. You hear the splash and you mentally map the supposed target. You turn around and the examiner gives you the thumbs up. Your fully-clothed partner is by the pool ready to jump and be ‘the victim’ to be resuscitated and towed for four lengths of the 50m pool (200m). The distance you assume where the brick went down is bout three-fourths of the pool, about the 35m mark. So you dive in, the clothes immediately clinging and offering resistance. Of course we also had our Fung Keong shoes on too. But those days I trained for at least 2 km everyday, so no sweat. About half-way, I jack-knifed in and if don’t bring up the brick-cloth up I would automatically fail. So you flail around the 10, 11, 12 feet depth area at the bottom desperately searching for the brick in the cold murky darkness. 30, 35, 45 seconds pass –yes, got it. Give a kick-up and surface. Thread water with the brick above the water to demonstrate superior water-threading skills. After a minute the instructor tells your partner-victim to jump in so you throw the brick away. Victim pretends to flail and you do some chop here and chop there and he relaxes. Pretend to mouth-to-mouth with your buck-toothed jerawat batu guy partner knowing full well that Michelle Yeoh is nearby in Convent Ipoh (a year younger than me) and would only be a star three decades on –but why am I telling you this? –and start towing.

Now back to Loyang. Black goggles on and the winch drops us in. The world goes dark. I hyperventilate. Everything is in my mental map now. Stay calm, don’t get disoriented. The damn thing turns over, and I count, “one thousand one, one thousand two . . .” I forced myself the urge to quickly undo the buckle. I think I overdid it. Because when I exited (feeling each window to find the opened one) the water felt calm meaning the three Chuck Yeager wannabees had already surfaced. Needless to say I whupped their ass. I was out last but the instructor gave me an approving look and clapped. The three frogmen too gave me a thumbs-up.

The 'winner' in this case is the one that gets out last. Because this is one instance where kiasu-ism defeats the purpose of a controlled exit. Apparently there was a tangle with the second and third SAF pilot. I'm glad to have stuck to my game plan and held out as long as I could. These kaisu buggers can only kill you. Fighter pilot or not.

I tell you man, It felt so great to one-up a Singie... Yeaaaah!

Experts in "Tight" Places

In keeping with the "pro" and "non-pro" blogger stance, of which I am neither, this week I shall pay homage to people whom I am often in awe of - The Rig Movers.

The Two Captains would aprreciate this edition (and so would the rest of you I hope); Ancient, and Not-So-Ancient alike - because it deals with the complex intricacies of navigating in "tight" places.

Normally it takes me 2 - 4 weeks drilling "duals" - two wells on a given location before it's time to move again. I was fortunate this time around because I had my trusty Canon Ixus 850 in my front pocket while boarding the chopper while the rig is being moved by tugboats. The move can take anywhere between 16 to 30 hours (sometimes more, if the tide isn't in our favor because we have to stop and wait - and yes, occasionally we do get marooned on an unexpected sand or mud bar).

Ready to Board

Pre-flight checks. Notice the "legroom" of this French-made Dauphin helicopter?

Goodbye, Sepinggan (Balikpapan's International Bandara).

Some fall asleep . . .

While others contemplate . . .

While some perform "the sholat"

View from 3000 feet: Batu Bara from presumably Tenaga Coal Mines - being towed by barges to the open sea. Ready to electrify the lives of millions of Bolehsians. For more Tenaga Debacles go here.

And what's this is spy in the distance. A rig being towed?

On closer inspection - YES! - it's our rig! But since there are"big trees" flanking the small waterways, the pilot informed on our headsets that he'll have to drop us at "CPU" - a Central Processing Unit - where a boat will take us on board. He can't land the chopper on the rig's helideck lest he clips them branches . . . Aw shucks, that means lugging our bags all over the place again!

At the CPU . . .

And transfer to "sea truck" ( crew boat).

Joining the rig - me rushing up to the helideck - just in time to record this "tight places" business.

The powerful tugboat - pulling us 96 souls and associated drilling equipment on board a rig-cum- barge measuring 30 m X 100 m. Don't worry, after "de-ballasting" - the barge floats higher with an 11 feet draft. Plus these waterways were dredged ages ago . . . err, sure or not?

And the "Experts" who made it all possible? All home grown, mind you. The groups includes marine pilots and survey positioning experts.

Notice how close the fronds are. Sometimes you can put your hand out and touch the leaves!

And finally, we arrive . . .

To our new home for the next couple of weeks . . .

After ballasting (weighing and stabilizing the rig/barge), with the jacks in "up" position, we're ready to "ngebor" . . . To borrow a friend's phrase, "Baiklah murid murid, sekarang buat bulatan besar dan berlari setempat. Satu, dua, tiga . . ."

Up on the helideck, after final positioning, where I normally go for my pre-dinner walks with my 8 GB Nano in my pocket and MX-500 Sennheiser 'buds in my ear. But it rained earlier, so strike that. Now don't want to go slippin' and slidin' here do we?

Tuesday Blooody Tuesday

©Mat Salo Images - Photo Time Stamp 18:19:15, May 1, 2007. Digital Ixus 850.

Labor Day Tuesday

When I began my day this morning my thoughts were drawn to my beloved homeland, Bolehsia. I was wondering what my two boys will be doing today, aside from hogging the PS2 and PC - while testing the patience of my eternally suffering wife - because today, May the 1st , is a public holiday.

And the boys will be at home.

Because it's Labors' Day holiday in Bolehsia.

And I'm on a swamp barge rig, on the eastern edge of swampy Borneo - and it's business as usual, of course.

But Indonesia doesn't recognize any form of Workers' Day, and so my thoughts were then drawn to a brave young woman called Marsinah, now dearly departed, who once walked the earth in a place called Sidoarjo in East Java.

Sidoarjo came into the news recently because of the huge ecological disaster allegedly caused by irresponsible drillng practices by a company called PT Lapindo Brantas, in pursuit of the Holy Black Gold. Overflowing hot mud caused 15,000 families to be displaced; some killed, flooded 600 hectares of land and submerged whole villages.

I'd like to think that the disaster was God's Wrath - a retribution for Marsinah.


Lagu Aku Untuk Marsinah (Dan Jua Sebuah Al-Fatihah)

In case you don't know who Marsinah was, here's an excerpt gleaned from an Amnesty International Report:

" . . . . Marsinah's body was found by a group of children in a shack at the edge of a rice field some 100 kilometres from her home. It was bloodied and covered in bruises. There were strangulation marks on her neck. A blunt instrument had been thrust into her vagina causing terrible injuries. A few days earlier she had been a lively 25-year-old leading a strike at the watch factory where she worked in Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java, in Indonesia. She was brutally murdered, almost certainly by the military, because she was a trade unionist who stood up for workers' rights . . . "

And all that she did in '93, this poor young woman, was to sit down with her employer to demand to be paid as was what was on their wage agreement. No more or no less. To demand what's rightfully hers and for her co-workers.

In '98, Ratna Sarumpaet, the famed Indonesian playwright, was thrown in jail in for daring to stage a play on Marsinah.

To this day, the ban on the play is still in effect.

While I leave you to enjoy Labors' Day holiday with your loved ones, O' my Bolehsian readers, spare a thought with this translated monologue from the play by Ratna - Marsinah Accuses.

Then I heard a door being opened right in front of me.

I don't know whether my head hit the wall

or whether I was hit on the brow with a club

I only know I fell headlong on the floor ...

When I tried to move, feet in heavy boots

quickly restrained me, standing on

my shins, my belly, my chest, my arms ...

I was abused with streams of filthy words

during every torture that followed,

I don't know how many times my body was lifted up,

then smashed down, hard.

Lifted up again, then smashed down again ...

Onto the floor ...

Onto the corner of a table ...

Onto a chair ...

Until at last I was truly helpless ...

Such brutality knows no satisfaction ...

I could no longer even move my fingertips

when they began to wildly grope my whole body...

Ratna Sarumpaet, excerpt from Marsinah Menggugat - A monologue from the banned play.

The Thirteenth Hour

What is Lost May Be Lost Forever (I)

A little update on the 'situation' last week. All that planning came to zilch. Talk about lost opportunities. Building castles in the air, that kind of thing. Man proposes, no need to tell you Who disposes.

I missed by my planned rendezvous with Father by thirteen hours. And whose fault is this? If you prescribe to the maxim, when there's a will...then you already know my answer.

Father's return flight was scheduled on the 27th. So I had a few days, and a few tricks up my sleeve to 'cilok' on that particular day to make a quick exit to town. I didn't tell him then because I wasn't sure at the time if could finish the well quickly ( I had some tool failures remember?).

A day before he was scheduled to leave and with my heart ramped up in maximum anticipation, in comes his frantic SMS saying he has already finished doing what he needed to do and was now already in Balikpapan!

So I immediately walked down from the rig floor to call him from the rear deck. What's the rush? He was already at the airport and was being waitlisted on the next available flight to Jakarta. Couldn't you wait one more day Pa? After all isn't the client picking-up the tab? Yes, but No, he needed to go.

I had already booked for a room for Father at the hotel where I'll be staying so we could have a serious chat - but he quickly cut me off with that 'ol standby -never mind . . . we can always meet in KL.

That's the thing, we can't always meet in KL.

Anyway, the opportunity is gone (for the moment).

The hotel where my dad stayed barely 13 hours prior to the picture being taken from my hotel window.

What is Lost Might Be Forever Lost (II)

I take this opportunity to convey my Takziah (condolences) to my two very two close friends who each lost a parent over the past few days.

Stone's father drew his last breath yesterday morning in Chicago (Kg.Congo, near HUKM) while Kue's mother passed away last Tuesday, just after returning home from Isya' prayers at the mosque in Balik Pulau.

Innalillahi wainna ilahiirrajiun...

Al-Fatihah.

Dawn breaking outside my container office, Rig Yani. Hand-Held, Canon Digital Ixus 850 IS, 1/8 sec., 4.6 mm, F/2.8, -0.33 EV

Now, you can imagine how important it is to put things right . . .

And I still

Haven't Found

What I Was Lookin' For. . .

© Words: Bono, Music: U2 - The Joshua Tree (1987)

Bapa Borek Anak Tak Rintek Ke?

(Father)

It's not time
To make a change
Just relax, take it easy
Youre still young, thats your fault
There's so much
you have to know
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want
you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now,
and I know that it's not easy
To be calm when youve found
Something going on
But take your time,
Think a lot
Why,
Think of everything you've got
For you will still be here tomorrow,
But your dreams may not

(Son)

How can I try to explain
When I do he turns away again.
Its always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk
I was ordered to listen
Now theres a way
and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go...

©Cat Stevens, 1970 Tea for The Tillerman


I had to quickly rush this weeks edition into the blogsphere. A serious piece for a change, a little to let you delve into the irreverent psyche of Mat Salo.

The reason for the rush is that in a day or two I would meet my father out in the boondocks of Eastern Borneo. Yes, you heard that right, Father is in town.

It’s a story of fate, of coincidence, of Father and Son.

Read on, contemplate, but I think it might leave you a bad taste in the mouth, or at the very least, scratching your head.

I was inspired in part by Captain Pandi in his recent blog, and more recently by Kickdefella’s The Long Walk with Bah Part I, and Part Finale (apparently there isn't a Part II) which appeared in RPK’s Malaysia Today. Blogger extraordinaire Kickdefella, the famous screenwriter and filmmaker, is interestingly also Nik Aziz’s grand-nephew something-or-other.

The Rig Life saga ends at the bottom with some pictures meant to be included in last week’s edition. I hope to dispel the myth of some say the ‘glamorous’ off-shore environment, because after all, Rig Life to me is nothing more like your affairs (no pun here) at the office, but minus the office girls with the low-cut blouse and subtle display of flesh.

Now for the story.
==========================================================


Father & Son


The shrill of the hand phone woke me from my slumber.

It wasn’t a call, but the familiar tone of the Nokia SMS beep.

I had just gone to bed, forgetting to brush my teeth even, exhausted from the day’s activities. The spate of tool failures didn’t help either. I pulled the Nokia from its perch above my cabin reading light (the Nokia also doubled as an alarm clock), and felt that faint stab in my heart, expecting some less-than-favorable news.

Hesitant, I stabbed the buttons and the backlit came on. It was an unfamiliar number.

It was Father, saying he was in Jakarta and on his way to Balikpapan. Surprise, surprise - I was mmediately I jerked out of my reverie. I went out to rear deck, smoked a Dunhill, and flicked the half-finished cigarrette into the Mahakam Delta. I couldn't think of a suitable response to sms back, and with that I plopped back into bed.

Although Balikpapan is a mere four hours away by boat and car from the rig, obviously I just couldn’t forsake my workplace and just leave could I? I had a hole to drill.

Father was to arrive on the noon Garuda flight. I called him the following morning to apologize for not being able to meet him at the airport, but if he’d be around for a few days, I might able to squeeze-in a day in town. He said a car’s meeting him and will take him up north to Samarinda and beyond to a place called Sangeta in Kutai Timur. He explained that Uncle Bok, a crony of his from his planters' days with Harrisons & Crossfields and operating a thriving Oil Palm Agro-Consultancy in Jakarta, had his house in Pulo Mas submerged from the recent Jakarta floods.

Presumably Uncle Bok was busy salvaging personal belongings thus contracting the work out to Father, a valuation for an interested buyer on his behalf. It would take at least a couple of days he added, and I mentally tried to factor-in how long before I can leave the rig, which is just days away too. If I'm lucky and pending no more tool failures, Father and Son might just be able to have a reunion.

Samarinda is the seat of the East Kalimantan province and is at least two hours by car from Balikpapan. I have not been there myself, although my passport has - because Samarinda is where my Residency Permit gets endorsed. But now is a good time as any but the opportunity to do so is pretty damn thin. Father also said something about a possible six-hour boat ride from Kutai Timur, so he needs to travel at least a day prior to make his flight back in time from Balikpapan. Ironically, Samarinda being the seat of government has only a small municipal airstrip while Balikpapan has a nice international airport that can land any wide bodied jets short of Jumbos. Thanks to the Black Gold of course.

Hmmm… to find father and son in the same locale, out in the boondocks of Borneo. So why the fuss about a first-born son wanting to rendezvous with his father? I can always see him whenever I go home to Malaysia can’t I? Back in Malaysia, Father’s house is but a fifteen minute drive away.

The answer isn’t quite so simple.

The truth is I never get to see him at all, both by force of circumstance and by design. I might see him two or three times a year – tops – and if I do, it’s mostly behind my mother’s back (you can already guess that they are ‘separated’, but by a quirk in Moslem Family Law, they’re not divorced – the Malays have a term for it – gantung tak bertali).

It pains me to tell you this -because- Father and Son, are estranged.

And that’s also why, if you give me a guitar – anytime anyplace - I can immediately play Yusuf Islam’s classic seventies hit of that name, and never forget a single verse. And that’s why my heartstrings get tugged each time I hear that Mike & The Mechanics’ tune, The Living Years.

It is not my intention to disparage Father at all, because it has been close to thirty years since he took on a second wife. Which is quite alright, many people do I suppose, but in his case he hasn’t been to see Mother for quite some years already. And this is where our views start to diverge.

In the early days there was some ‘rotation’ between Mother's and the Other House, but almost imperceptibly it got less and less, when finally, after my youngest brother (thus all four siblings dah lepas) got hitched, the ‘rotation’ ceased altogether. Oh, the children are welcome to visit him ‘over there’, but who dares break a mother’s heart?

Now this situation makes it doubly bad for me, because I am the first-born, the Keeper of The Flame so to speak. I have an obligation, not from religious point of view - but to my mind, a moral one - to keep both my parents happy. The bridge has long ago burned, and they are going on in years. Father is in his early seventies but still has a strong ticker, working to raise his other children. Of which he has two, a girl (my sister for cryin’ out loud) who is in the final year of medical school in IMU, and the boy in faraway Portland, Oregon.

What else had contributed to the divide?

Father’s sore point with me was my refusal to underwrite my half-sibling’s college bills, simply because he had ceased to support Mother for many years already. My own youngest sibling was still in college then, and I have a family to support. Even if I had wanted to help, and if Mother ever found out, then without a doubt, Hell is a place I shall burn forever.

My sore point with him was he had mortgaged the roof over Mother’s head – reneging an earlier deal to turn the family house over to my siblings and I so Mother has at least something to show for in fifty years of marriage. To Mother’s consternation he had mortgaged the house to finance the other half’s children to college. Now if you were my mother, how would you feel? Why not mortgage the other house for God’s sake? It’s HER children after all – is Mother’s way of thinking.

Really, can you blame her?

Even with his probable good intention of paying back the loan, time is not on Father’s side. He has no proper income except doing piecemeal contract work. I suspect the Bank will foreclose on the house anytime soon, thus Mother will be forced to shuttle between my sister and I. Of course we’d take her in, but to see her broken by circumstances like this? Well, that would be too much to bear.

The sad part is I had seen all this coming. I had even tried to do something about it. Some years ago I made motions by contacting a high-powered divorce lawyer and tried to convince Mother that divorce is the best option for asset protection. Try as I may, Mother would have none of it!

What? To be called a janda? Meruntuhkan Masjid? How I dare propose such a thing?

Ironically, now she would probably be left with nothing. And - under Syaria’ law, if Mother ‘goes’ first, her assets, like her kampong house in the village for instance, will go to Father to do as he pleases. Not only has Father not left her anything, but potentially all her own legacy can go to her ‘rival’.

You can imagine how all this hangs over her head.

He had just arrived and messaged me from a small hotel in town and was waiting for the agent to arrange a car to go north. I immediately called to apologize for not being able to meet him, to which he said was alright, we can meet in Malaysia. No, it's not alright, if he only knew how important it was for us to meet.

Because I see this as the perfect chance for a heart-to-heart.

Back in Malaysia it’s impossible to have an opportunity like this, since the only way to see him is at The Other House, and any heart-to-heart there is a near-impossibility, especially with stepmother hovering in the background.

It’s quite strange that fate had brought us both here, within striking distance, but in all probability there’s nothing I can do. So the conversation that I’ve been rehearsing for the last few years will probably have to wait.

Pray, tell, but who knows for how long?

========================================================

N.B. Although estranged, both Father and Son are actually on very good terms. If not for the -uh - slightly less than desirable situation as pertains to Mother, we could've been best of friends.

Many who have met him found him to be easy-going and friendly. Make no mistake, I do love Father, as with love, sometimes one has trouble seeing the other person's views. My maternal grandmother once quipped that she regretted not giving me a tindeh telinga soon after I was born because Father and I are so physically alike. It's an old wives tale about likes repel and opposites attract that kind of thing, and in my case it's quite true because we never saw eye-to-eye on anything.

* * *


Right. Now to back Rig Life.






The galley where our meals are served.

In the last edition, some were wondering what my failed tool looked like. Well, wonder no more.

© 2007 matsalo images. No Unauthorized Reproduction. The Canon Powershot Digital Ixus 850 (SD 800) was used exclusively for the images above.