My parents met in graduate school in Pittsburgh while pursuing their doctorates in anthropology, and in the early 70s took off for northern Sumatra to do their fieldwork. Their first lengthy stint was spent in a village called Payung, at the base of a volcano in the heart of Karoland. And while my father eventually left academia to raise our family, my mother continued to focus her research on that small corner of the world. The house I grew up in reflected their livelihood - through the food we ate, the art that hung from our walls, and the stories that we’d hear after every jaunt in Southeast Asia. I used to sit in our living room and stare at a large batik wallhanging of the Indonesian archipelago - the islands became etched in my mind - but until last year I’d never had the chance to visit.
I spent last summer in Borneo, and before heading to New York to start grad school, I decided to visit northern Sumatra and retrace my parents anthropological footsteps. My friend Susan was teaching English in Korea and decided to join me in Indonesia after she finished for the semester. So after a wonderful four months in Borneo with Charlie and friends, I caught a flight from Kota Kinabalu to Jakarta. Susan arrived later that evening, the next afternoon we took a flight north to Medan, and the following morning we boarded a bus to Berastagi.
There’s not a word about Payung in the guidebooks - it was midday by the time we got to Berastagi, and everyone I’d asked up to that point hadn’t a clue about the tiny village. We found a guesthouse up the road from the bus stop and after checking in I asked the innkeeper if he knew about Payung. He did! And was curious as to why I was interested. It wasn’t too far away, and since it was still early afternoon, he offered to call up a friend who could drive us there. As soon as we put down our bags we were off to Payung.
Outside of Berastagi the pastoral Karo highlands seemed to be stuck in time, and I wondered how much had changed in the forty years since my parents had lived there. A half hour later we turned off the main road onto a bumpy dirt track towards the village. I’m not sure when the last foreigners visited Payung - for all I know it could’ve been my parents - but when Susan and I stepped out of the car people were quick to notice. Payung is tiny. The village center faces a small concrete square, a few depleted shops and a cafe line the perimeter, and a simple network of hard-packed dirt paths branch out to make up the village grid. Some houses are clapboard with tin roofs, others are basic concrete structures. I had no plans upon arrival, and while I’d picked up a little Malay in Borneo (Indonesian is basically the same language), I knew nothing of the local Karo Batak dialect. All I had was the Karo family name that my father took while he lived there - Bangun.
A handful of children approached with candid curiosity, and a few ran off to get the village chief. A few minutes later he appeared, and I stood there while our driver explained to him what little he knew about us. All I needed to say was, “Richard and Rita.... Bangun”, and he knew. He introduced himself as Riswan, and I later found out from my father that he was the nephew of my father’s ‘brother’ at the time, the village chief forty years ago. Riswan was barely a teen then, but remembered my parents, and was delighted that I’d come to visit.
Excitement grew, along with the crowd of curious villagers, and Susan and I were soon swept into a nearby home for a meal. We ate and they watched. Around twenty people, mostly kids, crowded around the door for the prandial viewing. When we finished, Riswan took us around to a couple burial sites around the village, most of the older people who had known my parents had already passed, and he showed me the family graves where they lay.
After that Susan and I broke free from Riswan to explore. With cameras in hand we walked the village paths, people poked their heads out as we strolled along, and like Pied Pipers, we drew a mob of children in our wake. The kids took us across a river, down a hill, and out of the village. We followed a road to some hot springs and walked out into the fields where we could look up at the volcano that laid watch over the village. We turned back after a while and returned to the square. The throng of children had gotten a little overwhelming, so we ducked into the cafe for a drink. A few old men sat around smoking clove cigarettes and we sat with them and smiled as the kids lined the outside of the cafe. Riswan found us, and invited us to stay the night. I would have, but we hadn’t come prepared. Plus, we had a volcano to hike the next morning. As we got in the car to leave, the villagers and children crowded around to see us off and stuffed our hands and pockets with passion fruits.
I want to go back with my father. After years and years of hearing about it, I followed my parents footsteps, but I want to return with the storyteller. At least now I’ve actualized what used to be a myth in my mind. I’ve since inherited the batik map of Indonesia from my parents, the one I used to stare at as a kid. It hangs on the wall in my apartment, and it means more to me now than it ever has.
