And at the Hour of Death, I feel grief got hold of me. But also release, the gladness that comes for the fact that he is released from all of his pain. The man, the boy, who taught me to be charming. The old soul who taught me how to harness empathy; the simple fact that we all want an acknowledgement of existence. That we can provide such need just by a simple smile and attentive listening. That if we have the courage to greet first, we would have the initiative in relationships.
He was an overt Bollywood aficionado in a time before Slum Dog Millionaire. Risked ridicule in 1999-2002 South Jakarta high school scene, when only anything Western pop culture was deemed cool. But conformists can never be charming.
We lost contact for years. He was a little lost after high school. We were in a gang. Lived our lives being a collective, bulging with hormones and no adult responsibility. That carefree teenage years attitude where you resolve life issues with laughters, substances, or violence is not suitable for growing up.
With a classic “Boys Don’t Cry” attitude, he preferred contact on his own terms: you don’t find him, he finds you. He contacted me again last month, announcing his terminal illness: liver cancer. I showed up. People showed up. The high school gang, old friends whom he ghosted. He was that charming that we looked past that.
We reconnected. In the impeding death, we caught up on our lives. Everything is good again. We found the children, the teenagers, we were once before (sans the need to prove ourselves to be the Man).
He kept his religion. I am liberated. We talked of after life, his views and mine. The Resurrection Day and the Nothing. Faith is relative, but Death is absolute. We knew that was a goodbye conversation.
Farewell and good night, Teuku Syafriansah aka Habil aka Baralig (the Mad Arab).
Teuku Syafriansah, 2002/2003, borrowed a Canon SLR with kit lens, Ilford BW film
I am a writer even before I am a photographer. I prepared a note, a report, an essay on my subject for ‘Asih itu Hening’. It feels important, at least for me, to have a textual story of her. I know I am at risk of polluting my visual story, but here goes.
Suriani Nasution—Ibu Ani—fulfils the stereotype of ‘Ibu-Ibu’ Indonesia (Indonesian moms). At the first glance, Ibu Ani and family can be the poster girl of ‘Happy Indonesian Family’ of Orba (Orde Baru, the New Order–General Soeharto’s dictatorship regime)’s Keluarga Berencana (Planned Parenthood) programme: his husband Saipul is a civil servant, a staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; she is a housewife active in her neighbourhood initiatives. They have two children: a son and a daughter.
She wears a hijab, her daughters too. Symbolising observance to religious values. They are homeowners in Bojong Pondok Terong, Citayam.
No one can live an idealised version of an ideology. A domesticated suburban life swings from oppressive idleness to a cycle of unending chores.As a woman, you are expected to be a nest defender; juggling so many responsibilities with personal needs and wants.
Like everyone, she has to negotiate her priorities.
For her, volunteering activities as a cadre take precedent. Ani gleamed with pride when she told me how she championed the construction of Posyandu (integrated community services office) building, public toilets, and communal septic tanks–with and without government support.
When her son was three year old, the neighbours reported to her husband that their son was crying home alone. The reports made Saipul unable to focus at work. They lost their first born before. Nevertheless, Saipul knows and understands that volunteering is important for Ani.
So he let her be.
Ibu Ani’s son just graduated from a private institute, majoring in transportation and logistics. She said he didn’t bother to try the public universities entrance exam.
I asked why. In Indonesia, public universities are where you can get relatively good education at the cheapest costs (I know because I graduated from one; it has opened so many doors, including this photography scholarship).
Ibu Ani just said, ‘He’s the one who has to study. So I let him choose. It’s his life.’
Then I asked why he chose the major.
‘I think he just followed his friends.’
When asked about her daughter, Ibu Ani said that her daughter always stays in her room after school. She does not know what she’s doing, locked up in there. But she’s glad that her daughter does not go anywhere, as good girls shouldn’t be.
Ibu Ani is pretty laissez-faire to her children.
Saipul was elected as Ketua RW (neighbourhood chief) in 2000. Because of his day job, he was rarely involved in the neighbourhood affairs. He only visited Kelurahan (Borough) Office twice during his office. Ibu Ani as Ibu RW (the First Lady of the Neighbourhood) was the virtual Ketua RW. She handled all the affairs. Her husband’s title gave her the legitimacy she needed.
Having a husband who works a government job means Ibu Ani’s family has a steady income. From Saipul’s salary and remunerations, they managed to buy several properties in Citayam and rent them off.
Such a financial position gives Ani more power in her roles in the neighbourhoods.
Witnessing Ani’s daily lives, I learned that these volunteering Ibu-ibu are the nervous system of the neighbourhood. No public policy, governmental or non-governmental, can be implemented without them.
Cadres are direct action operators. They assisted locals in accessing public healthcare, conducted surveys and census for infrastructure development, and resolved local social conflicts.
They have to be agile, patient, and persuasive. Persuading denizens of densely populated areas such as Bojong Pondok Terong–who are mostly short on cash and lack higher education–requires those soft skills.
But they should not outshine the official neighbourhood organs. A Ketua RW complained that his cadres make him look bad because they are so smart, i.e smarter than him.
I asked if there was ever a female Ketua RW.
‘No. There’s no shortage of male candidates,’ Ibu Ani looked at me as if I asked something so obvious.
I attended a coordination meeting at the Kelurahan office with Ibu Ani. She let me piggy back on her Scoopy moped. She was baffled that I can’t drive motorcycles–so unmanly. The main agenda was to train the cadres in conducting surveys on the local families’ living conditions.
Despite the training being facilitated by Ibu Ani and a female official of Kelurahan, the meeting has to be opened and closed by Pak Lurah (President of the Borough). The presence and blessing of a man is needed to make everything legitimate.
In his opening speech, Pak Lurah said that he is hoping that Depok is transferred to DKI Jakarta administration from West Java. Especially because of the Citayam Fashion Week.
‘People who live in Depok are mostly Jakartans, who migrated due to gentrification. Many of them still work in Jakarta,’ said Pak Lurah.
Such a Jakarta centric attitude feels like a relic from the New Order regime’s centralism. But the Jakarta administration, as the capital, has better access to public funding.
These Ibu-Ibu were so enthusiastic in the coordination meeting, donning their green kebaya uniforms. Ibu Ani said the best part of volunteering is to hangout with her friends, her squad.
Ibu Ani came from Medan to Jakarta after finishing high school. She wanted to go to medical school, but failed the public universities entrance exam. So, in 1989, she took the ALS bus (interprovinces coach, notorious for aggressive driving). Arrived at Kalideres Bus Terminal. From there the bus driver took her to her uncle’s address in Kebayoran.
She stayed with and worked for her uncle, who was a contractor for the Directorate General of Tax. She would drive around Bekasi-Tangerang area to photograph billboards which have not paid the billboard tax.
Saipul was a neighbour. When he asked her out, through her uncle, Ibu Ani’s first question was ‘Does he have a job?’
She did not want her life to be harder.
They dated for a year and got married in 1993. At first they rented a house in Kebon Jeruk. When Saipul’s brother told them the land plots in Citayam were affordable, they used their savings and bought one. Moved there in 1997.
She said it was an easier time, the Suharto Era. ‘Now everything is so expensive.’
When she first lived here, the surroundings were mostly banana plantations. Her neighbours had no septic tank so their blackwater was channelled to the open sewers. She persuaded the neighbours to crowdfund the construction of communal septic tanks and other infrastructures. There was no government support at that time.
Now, there is more government fundings. Ibu Ani’s main role in caregiving the sick locals is helping with the admission process to the hospitals. Many of her neighbours are scared and confused with the daunting administrative tasks.
Ibu Ani helps them with the paperwork, including with the bureaucracy of accessing the public healthcare benefits. She gave a tip: if the patient does not have BPJS or Kartu Indonesia Sehat (KIS), they can apply for social welfare funding from the municipal government.
She pays for her own transport. She often covers the photocopying costs and provides meals for the patient’s family. Sometimes those expenses outspend the incentives she received. However, she believes Allah would return her kindness.
Sometimes, the patient’s family gives her money although she never asks for anything.
Ibu Ani’s charitable acts and activism grant her access to many important people. She knows all the heads of Puskesmas (public clinic), past and present. She owns and runs a clothing shop business. Her activism brings businesses, as many volunteering and local events require ‘uniforms’.
She is influential. Once she intervened in domestic violence. A wife confided in her that her husband physically abused her. She threatened the husband with a formal criminal complaint (she knows the local police). She also advised the wife to listen to her husband when he talks. Their source of disputes: money.
It’s true that the poorer you are the more charitable you’d likely to be. I saw in Bojong Pondok Terong people give money to beggars and buskers–despite the fact that they are also strapped for cash.
They don’t think about how charity alleviates the pain of the working class; how it prevents class consciousness, therefore, the revolution. Or how charity would make people lazy and complacent, therefore preventing the creation of self-reliant and empowered individuals contributing to a society free of freeloaders.
These Marxist and Randian extremes are outliers. A functioning society is something in between. Altruism is not necessarily selfless. We have the interests not just to compete but also to collaborate.
From the moment I arrived at Citayam Station, I knew you’d need to rely on each other to live in an environment like this. The road can only fit one car. Space is a premium. Most, if almost all, people ride motorcycles.
I had to receive a call from a client (for my day job as a lawyer). I realised how noisy the neighbourhood is. The mopeds, the chatters, the blaring mosque speakers.
When money is scarce. You negotiate with other social currencies: time, space, and privacy. Your neighbours, your community, are your main safety net. If not careful, you’d give up your individuality.
For low income families who can’t afford private or even public healthcare, these volunteers are godsend. They are mothers.
As with mothers, they can be overbearing. They would intrude into your lives.
When a new couple moved in, the locals demanded that they show their marriage certificate. The couple didn’t have one, but insisted they have been married under Sharia law. The husband is a mualaf (a convert).
The locals can accept non-state sanctioned marriage. But the ‘under-the-hand’ marriage was conducted without the presence of the bride’s father. Therefore, under Sharia Law, the father has not given away his daughter. The legitimacy of their Islamic marriage was questioned.
The couple admitted that they eloped. Saipul, as Ketua RW then, and Ibu Ani managed to mediate. The father of the wife was invited to the renewal of their marriage ceremony. This time legitimised under the laws of the state too.
Ibu Ani and Saipul took pride that they have ‘cleansed’ the couple’s relationship. They have successfully prevented adultery (in Islamic terms) in their neighbourhood. Many Indonesian muslims believe that adultery will invoke the wrath of Allah on the entire community.
Overbearing, but with good intentions.
Ibu Ani’s plan for the next 5 years: she hopes to live in Saudi Arabia. Her husband is entering his final years of service before retirement. He will be posted abroad for his last 3 years. Ibu Ani wants to do the Hajj pilgrimages thrice–once each year.
She finds solace in prayers. She feels close to Allah whenever she prays. She has gone umroh twice. In Mecca, she felt much closer to God.
On worldly matters, she likes watching Western action films when she’s alone. However, Ibu Ani looks the happiest when she’s hanging out with her friends. After organising a monthly immunisation programme, we had lunch together. Those Ibu-ibu fed me with nasi padang for lunch.
It is hard to imagine them in their hijabs as sexual entities, but they are. Some of their jokes directed to me are borderline sexual harrasments.
‘Do you want to drink? Milk, but expired! Hahaha.’
They gossiped about neighbourhood sex scandal. A woman whose husband is paralysed by a stroke had an affair with a hansip (neighbourhood watch). They fucked in the room next where the husband was lying powerless.
‘How cruel the woman was! Her husband must have been so dishonoured for being that impotent.’
The local mob raided the home, beat up the hansip.
Extra-marital affairs are not uncommon in Jakarta. But if you are richer, you can at least do your business at a hotel.
Ibu Ani asked if my wife would question what I am doing. I told her that my wife knows I’m on assignment. I assume her underlying question is whether my wife is jealous or suspicious. In Citayam (like elsewhere), some people mistake love with entanglement. Jealousy is seen as a manifestation of love.
Well fed, she and other cadres used the PA machine–linked with YouTube–for impromptu karaoke. Dangdut songs: love songs with lyrics on heartbreaks, guilt-ridden by the sins of pre- or extra-marital sex; and grassroot financial struggles.
Ibu Ani is not much of a singer. Her singing was off key. Like mine. But karaoke is about having fun with her girls. They apologised for being loud and for disturbing their neighbours’ siesta. Then carried on singing.
If working moms get their dose of social life at their office–and rich Mentari moms at their kids’s [private] international school, these Citayam moms volunteer.
Yes, my day (and night) job is a dispute resolution lawyer. And yes, I am passionate about that—not just to make a living.
I’m human. I’m multifaceted. I am more than one thing, to quote David Whyte’s ‘Istanbul’.
Photography is one of my long-time other passions. While I am not a professional, I am no dilettante. I hope this exhibition serves as evidence to support such claim.
I was paid, ‘on assignment’ arrangement, for my expenses in this documentary photography scholarship. 12 photographers were assigned to cover the stories of health volunteers in Depok, Bekasi, and Bandung.
These invisible health workers implement the public health policies and initiatives at grass root level: identifying Covid infections in their neighbourhood, assisting underprivileged patients with the paperworks for accessing public healthcare. They are working closely with public clinics and hospitals and local government apparatus.
Observing them and representing them in a visual story have been an exercise of the Good Life. To understand people outside my socio-economic bubble.
September memberi saya banyak hadiah, antara lain: lensa antik buatan tahun 1958 dan pertemuan dengan salah satu pengarang Indonesia favorit saya. Malam minggu itu, di toko buku independen kesayangan Post Santa, saya nongkrong di pasar (Santa) bersama para kutu buku. Saya menempelkan lensa antik di kamera digital sensor monokrom untuk mengetes sekaligus mendokumentasikan.
Saya berkenalan dengan Cak Mahfud dengan Aku dan Film India Melawan Dunia. Kemudian Dawuk–yang membuat saya ingin membuat novel grafisnya. Lalu Cerita, Bualan, Kebenaran; Belajar Mencintai Kambing.
Cak Mahfud itu, bisa dibilang pengarang ‘one trick pony’. Motif ceritanya selalu kemiskinan di pedesaan Jawa, buruh migran Malaysia, gembala kambing, Musholla, santri, Muhammadiyah dan NU, sepakbola dan film India. Apabila ada [Haruki] Murakami Bingo, seharusnya bisa kita buat Mahfud Bingo.
Sebagian yang hadir malam itu memiliki kedekatan emosional dengan kehidupan desa di Jawa. ‘Seperti mendengar dongeng eyang.’
Namun bagi saya yang berlatar belakang Jakarta, cerita Cak Mahfud juga tetap memukau. Gaya berceritanya Orwellian–jauh dari glorifikasi atau mengibakan kemiskinan–dicampur dengan realisme magis ala Salman Rushdie.
Orangnya mengaku sebagai penulis yang malas, tapi bukunya yang sudah terbit ada 10 (yang saya tahu, 2009-2022; tiga di antaranye menang penghargaan). Sebagaimana pengarang ulung, karakter-karakter rekaannya merupakan tribut yang terinspirasi tokoh nyata. Sebagai pengarang bertanggungjawab, ia melakukan riset keras untuk membangun realisme fiksinya (salah satunya tentang pengangkutan kayu jati di Jawa pada akhir abad ke-19 dan awal abad ke-20).
Ia juga membatasi diri hanya menceritakan subyek yang dekat dengan dirinya; ia takut meliyankan subyek yang mana ia tidak memiliki kedekatan psikologis.Saat menceritakan soal pengalaman buruh migran di Dawuk, ia sengaja meminjam mulut pembual di warung kopi. Agar pembaca waspada: ini bualan kemplung, jangan dipercaya mentah-mentah. Menghibur, tapi bisa jadi hiperbola.
Sebagai orang yang mencintai seninya, dia patah hati atas kegagalan buku pertamanya Ulid. Edisi pertama bukan saja tidak laku, tapi diterbitkan dengan desain sampul tema Ayat-ayat Cinta. Tapi toh ia tetap menulis; membuat blog tentang film India dan sepak bola, meski tak berharap ada pembaca.
Akhir sesi, kami antri meminta tanda tangan beliau. Meski sudah jam 9 malam, Cak Mahfud masih minum kopi hitam. Post merupakan ruang ber-AC, kalau tidak bisa jadi dirinya merokok sigaret kretek. Di depan mesin tik.
Lulusan Sastra Indonesia yang benar-benar jadi sastrawan. Beberapa orang memanggilnya Dawuk. ‘Padahal saya Warto,’ ujarnya. Saat batas identitas penulis dengan tokoh ciptaannya sudah kabur, di situlah bukti kedigdayaan seorang penulis fiksi.
I travelled to Sri Lanka in 2018. It was a difficult time for me. While I did not suffer any financial hardship, it was the first time after 11 years of seemingly unstoppable career in private practice I became unemployed.
It was a debilitating experience. In this consumer capitalist society, we take our identity from how we make a living. Our self worth is measured by how productive we are. The main metric is how much money we make.
I clung to my identity as a lawyer like a flotation device. When I had to let it go, I sank. The profession which demanded much of me and given much to me was lost.
I travelled with this hanging anxiety. A blurry sense of self.
It’s true that you can’t escape your thoughts no matter where you go. At Ella’s Rock, I stepped closer to the edge. I was thinking of jumping. The idea of ending the mental sufferings in beautiful vistas seemed romantic.
But my self-preservation instinct kicked in despite bouts of nihilism.
Sri Lanka, a Buddhist country, is also a prime centre for meditation retreats. I had been thinking of starting meditation, but at that moment I knew it was urgent to start. Just like a serendipity, I found a copy of Hermann Hesse’s Siddartha in the bookshelf of Highest Peak Bungalow guest house in Nuwara Eliya.
South Asia is photogenic. However, I was not ready to brave the intensity of the second most populated country in the world. A friend recommended Sri Lanka. Smaller in size and population density.
India Lite.
The two South Asian countries, being neighbours, have had a rather tense relationship since ancient times. In the Ramayana myth, Lanka is the kingdom of giants. King Ravana kidnapped Queen Sita of Ayodiya (India). His husband, King Rama, waged war to reclaim her.
In modern times, tension between the ‘native’ Sinhaleses and the Tamil minorities–brought by the English colonists to work on tea plantations–is still present. Unlike their Commonwealth peer Singapore, which adopted English as lingua franca, the modern Ceylon insisted on Sinhalese to assert cultural primacy of the majority population.
The Sri Lankan people are not camera shy. In convention with the stereotype of South Asians, they were happy to pose. I may be guilty of voyeuristic exoticism, but I am genuinely interested in my subjects. Their willingness to trust me in recording a piece of their soul is something I do not take for granted. Some of them lend a helping hand to me as a traveller. I try to be a mirror when I am photographing: a magic mirror, reflecting with my sentiency–connecting, sharing a brief moment of shared time space.
I am sure that my subjects have their woes. Most of them are not as well off as me, economically. But in our interactions, we were both happy. Just to smile at each other. Maybe we distract each other’s miseries with our foreignness.
I read the news that Sri Lanka is bankrupt–the government is bankrupt. The economic collapse led to institutional collapse. I wonder how my subjects are now. I hope they are persevering.
Arkademy Project is a photography collective focusing on critical and reflective photography with an interdisciplinary approach. Translation: documentary, street, travel–human interest photography. My kind of genres.
I browsed their website, the mentors’ portofolio. I knew instantly that I wanted to join their tribe. These are the photographs I am drawn to; the photographs I want to make: not just aesthetically pleasing but also meditations on human experience.
To be a photographer as an intellectual and an artist.
I only had one day to curate and submit my photo series. I got the information two days before the deadline (from an Instagram post, sponsored). I was not sure if I’d get the award. I have made entries to photography competitions before. Never successful (rightfully, when I saw the winners).
I am not a professional photographer, but I am no dilettante. I am always wary of using the word ‘passion’. They have been overused by us, millennials. But I am passionate about photography.
I may not turn this into a profession. I don’t need to make money from it. Maybe I’d progress faster if I choose to make a living from photography. But this financial detachment makes me unencumbered by the ‘market demand’. Of course, I risk being too self indulgent.
I am glad that I decided to stay alive back in Sri Lanka. ‘To live the question’, as Rilke said. The photography scholarship is a tangible answer.
I have not yet been able to love myself in the way people without a complex PTSD can. I still feel the need to attach an identifier, labels, to myself. I just realised that those labels are not fixed and I can use more than one. I chose identities which are relevant to the situation present.
I would do photography despite not getting any award. But getting the photography scholarship, an external affirmation and recognition, feels nice.
The impostor syndrome within me asks: ‘Did I get the scholarship because I am good or because the other applicants are bad?’ I did ask how many applicants applied out of the selected 12 photographers: only 50.
However, when life gives you an opportunity you must seize it. It does not matter if the opportunity is a dumb luck.
When I met the other awardees and saw their submissions, I realised how competitive the selection was. I felt more inadequate. Most of them are younger than I yet their photographs show immense depths, which require maturity.
I knew that I’d learn a lot not just from the mentors, but also from fellow participants.
La Bernerie-en-Retz, Brittany, France. Summer 2022.
I first heard of the happy news in May 2021, when Indonesia was the epicentre of the pandemic in Asia. I lost a dear friend to Covid-19. Many of us did. We lost our freedom. I know some of us had it harder: death, deteriorating health, financial hardship. If you did, and you are still here, I congratulate you for surviving.
The wedding invitation was something to look forward to after one year of social–physical–distancing. The 21st century global exile, mitigated by advanced medical science and information technology.
We met Meggan and Fabi in 2014. 2010s was a decade of immense growth. 2014-2015, the LLM year, was still the best year of my life so far. 2020 gave a surprise closure (not really, if we observe the cycles of history).
They were postgraduate students in London–Queen Mary and LSE–looking for affordable accommodation. They met on Facebook group, became flatmates in a council house in East London.
Meggan had a boyfriend, but they confided in each other. Bound by London’s student life and housing crisis.
The Greatest City in the World asks for overpriced rent. Living room was converted to bedrooms to maximise space; the walls are so thin you could hear the neighbours shouting; their almost feral chihuahua barking.
In return, London swallows you whole. Entertains and amuses you in a way inexhaustible within two lifetimes. You’d meet people from all around the world. Heard of countries you were ignorant about before. Shown forms of cultural expressions imaginable by our species; ideas, innovations, and traditions.
London is a place where ‘such stuff dreams are made on’.
Meg and Fab moved in together when they became steady–to a much better flat, with a Big Ben view. Celebrated Meggan’s twenty-fourth birthday there.
Then life after the insulated post-grad world happened. They love London, but found opportunities elsewhere. Fabi got a good job in Frankfurt. Meggan in Paris. Thus began their long distance relationship.
Fabi did not ask Meggan to move to Frankfurt because he did not want her to sacrifice her career. But they want to be together.
Everything falls into place, eventually. Meggan got a job in Frankfurt. Fabi proposed in London, after dinner at Dishoom–their favourite Indian restaurant, under the rain.
Like the Officiant of their wedding said, ‘Their story is straight out of romcom.’
I am glad that I can catch up on so much of their life just by attending their wedding.
It was also my first time attending secular wedding vows. Something illegitimate in Indonesia. I wish I could have that: the freedom to opt-out from religion in one of life’s greatest social events.
Marriage is not a life goal, but Meggan wanted to be married. With the right person.
The Europeans have moved forward from seeing marriage as a means of procreation and prostelysation. This is not a destruction of an institution, but an evolution–a progression. We are now richer than mediaeval kings. Our lives are more complex. Traditional social contracts need to be reconstructed to fit modern life.
We knew their wedding would be a special day in our lives, even without ever going through a pandemic. A beautiful intimate wedding in Bretagne under the summer sun. Gathered, reunited, in our elements as ultrasocial animals.
Meggan and Fabian organised the event themselves. The amount of thoughts and efforts dedicated to their wedding represent how much they are willing to work on their relationship.
‘Soulmates are made, not found.’
It has always been a privilege to feast. But when we have been fasting, the wine and butter taste even better.
We arrived in Bretagne, in Pornic, by train. Late because our Paris-Nantes train was delayed for more than two and half hours. ‘French trains, pfftt…’ they said. We missed the apero, but we were greeted by the Atlantic Ocean at Creperie de la Source.
And our friends, chosen family from the other sides of the globe.
By Toutatis, I was on the extreme end of joy. We were at the great here and now.
We stayed in Hotel Le Grand Large, a family owned and run accommodation. Anais the proprietor reminded us, repeatedly, not to be noisy. She seems to be traumatised by wedding guests. Glad that we could prove that we are not some twenty-something stag/hen party crowd.
Swam in the Atlantic. Sunkissed by the Galian sun. Had oysters and beers at Les Tontons bar, where the waitress is your typical French belle–the grace of imperfect beauty: freckles, gap teeth, wide forehead–with a shojo manga character tattoo on her left thigh. Ice creams from La Fraiseraie; fish of the day from Le Sud, the only restaurant open on Sunday evening (I was expecting a compromise on food quality, but this is France: service may be limited, yet food is an obsession). We walked at night from the wedding party and gazed at the starry sky.
La Bernerie-en-Retz is not the stereotypical beach town I am used to, i.e. loud; full of drunken tourists looking to get laid or creating social media content. It’s family friendly. It may not be drop dead gorgeous like the tropical beaches in South East Asia, but it feels homey.
By using an analogue camera, the M-trois, I took the risk of failed photographs. But it helped me to let go and to be intentional. I couldn’t review the images on the back LCD screen; I only have 36 shots or less (the first exposures always suffer from light leaks).
Now I am rewarded. As Fede told me: ‘Il sole bacia i belli.’
P.S. If only Cassio brought a partner and a black person was in attendance, the wedding would have been a model for a diversity event.
We were walking back to the hotel. There was this commotion in front of a government building (I assume so since it was guarded by heavily armed soldiers).
It seemed to be a typical Italian local festival. People carrying a shrine on a platform, bearing the image of a saint. Complete with a band. The main actors—the shrine bearers, the musicians and the dancers—wore wreaths of roses.
Yet, instead of the solemnity of a Catholic procession, it has the merriness of a Dionysean festival. The band (or should I say, mariachi?) played familiar tunes. Green Hornet, I think. People were dancing, clapping and singing in ecstatic abandon fueled by wine (and maybe other substances).
The revered Saint is a woman with many hands sitting on rose petals. Her image is modern and sensual. A syncretism of Guan Yin and Mary (or Kali and Magdalene). She does not shy away from nakedness, projecting sexuality. A profane woman by Catholic standards.
There were two young ladies who were the main dancers. One is red haired, she was wearing a normal modern day outfit—sleeveless black shirt and jeans—but with a metal armband that gave a touch of ancient divinity. The other is black haired but with blue eyes. She was wearing white dress typical of European pagan goddesses. Like in the paintings and sculptures of Greco-Roman Mythology.
When they danced, they were gorgeous. Their beauty is not of ‘lifestyle magazine commercial grade’. Not size zero and/or round American titties, but with imperfections that made them real. Their realness sent an aura of nymphs. To me, they seemed to be European ancient myth personified.
Madonna de Rose. A festival by fine art students. For me, a street performance represents Apollo’s desire to Daphne.
