From My Little Corner of Aceh
By Yana Levy ‘24, Syiah Kuala University Fellow 2024-2026
I’m sitting with the cool kids. Hijabs over band tee shirts over baggy cargo pants, chain smoking, huddled around a small table in one of the cafes that hosts ‘frequency bahwa kota’ (underground) musical performances. The show has just ended. An intimate session with a singer-songwriter duo from the community celebrating the release of their new album. I felt grateful to the friend who invited me, but awkward as I struggle to adapt to the norms of the space which does not resemble any concert I’ve ever been to. The performers casually banter with the audience, half of whom are clustered on a large rug at their feet. Lyric sheets alternately printed on pink and blue paper are handed out to the audience—pick pink if you feel happy, blue if you feel sad. Everyone around me already seems to know the words. They sing along so loudly that the voice of the singer is drowned out and all you can hear is the happy cacophony bouncing around the peeling paint walls of this cafe backroom.
Taigu Fellows Haley and Tiffany visiting Sabang, holding hands like little otters (so cute)
The show ends, and in typical Indonesian fashion, we all gather for what seems like an interminable photo-session–which at this point in my fellowship I have learned to grit my teeth and smile through. Gifts are exchanged: stickers, candy, and at some point I start to feel like I’m at a birthday party rather than a concert. My attempt to chat with the singers falls flat, so I resign myself to follow the momentum of the crowd out to the tables outside where people smoke and sip strong coffee. They are all babbling away in Indonesian, using slang I don’t understand, speaking faster than my brain can comprehend. I catch a word here and there, but lag too far behind to know what's funny when they all burst out laughing. I give a tight smile, fidget with my hands, try to project a relaxed energy, and fail. “Why are you being so silent?” someone asks me. My friend, the one who invited me here, saves me from having to explain myself in clunky Indonesian, “She’s just observing” he replies, shooting me a knowing look.
Drawings that me and my pal Keke did of each other!
To be a foreigner in Aceh is to be perpetually an outsider looking in, hoping to pick up on some small detail that might hint at the larger picture. My friend and I have this running joke that I'm conducting research, that my long hours watching people in coffee shops are part of a very serious and very legitimate scholarly project. I share my findings with him for analysis during our weekly trips to the beach where we drink coconuts and watch the sunset. A man biking with a cat strapped to his chest: “People in Aceh love their cats.” The way that everything always seems to happen at least an hour later than it's scheduled: “Aceh Time.” Why, despite our wholesome platonic relationship, older people come up to us when we are together and ask if I am “in the family yet”—that one… is a bit harder to explain.
Walking along the rocks at the closest beach: Pantai Naga
Aceh is famous for several things: a violent separatist conflict, a devastating tsunami, the strictest Islamic law in the country. Yet is a place that remains, in all substantive ways, unknown by those outside it.
I arrived in Aceh for my two year stint with one suitcase and a stubbornly optimistic attitude. My quixotic outlook only growing in strength with each deflection of the ‘why Aceh’ question with my preloaded laundry list of positive attributes: unspoiled beaches, world famous coffee, relaxed pace of life. I was determined to make the most of these two years, through my own force of will, enacting projects and making lifelong friends. I had above all a strong urge to participate, to make some kind of lasting impact.
My students requested a selfie
Overcoming the slowness with which things happen in Aceh takes a herculean effort. It became immediately clear upon arrival that my teaching schedule was the bottom of everyone's priority list, so for that first month, without any institutional responsibilities, my only duties were to keep myself fed, watered, and generally entertained. So I participated in events, an international food festival, attended daily Bahasa classes, got involved in the small community of international students, went out of my way to make coffee dates with new people, started to run every day. Yet I remained dogged by a feeling of restlessness, like everything is coming together too slowly, like filling an empty day was the hardest thing imaginable.
Papaya dragonfruit and mango, restocked at the beginning of each week from my fruit guy and frozen for smoothies. I love my fruit guy because he's the only fruit vender who doesn't give me the bule (gringo) tax, and when I ask him to choose me the ones that are ‘yang paling manis’ (the most sweet), he carefully and lovingly studies each fruit until he finds the one that is most satisfying—and I’ve never been disappointed. Thank you fruit guy<3
In the absence of high-highs and low-lows, I spend my time carving out concentric circles of increasing capability. Small wins and an ever expanding comfort zone. Like a duckling taking those first tentative steps away from its mother, I wobble and weave my motorbike around the relatively empty pedestrian roads near my house, eventually swallowing my fear and following the flow of traffic to the main road. By the end of the semester I am able to take Ari to the good beach, which is approximately 40 minutes away. Our empty schedules mean that we can spend the entire day there, walking up and down the shore, ordering fruit juices and watching the truly unmatched sunset over the Indian ocean.
Going places and watching things; this may be the extent of what I am capable of at the moment. Although I desperately want to be a part of something, to be accepted into a community. Is it enough simply to observe that chasm of difference rather than overextending myself trying to breach it?
A candid, natural, unposed photo of me and a pal watching the last of a sunset at Lampuuk beach.
Nobody directly tells you what you are meant to do with a Shansi Fellowship. Live in Asia for two years, sure. Teach English, of course. But beyond that, it's open ended to a point that can feel negligent, especially in periods of time where there are no classes to teach, and you have an entire empty day staring you down, demanding you to fill it. But my outlook on this fellowship has changed as curiosity has proven itself to be the worthier quality over ambition. I think my role, at least for now, is just to observe, to get to know this place that is so deeply misunderstood. It's a different kind of being present. I’ll be the awkward silent foreigner sitting in the corner of the coffee shop, observing how the colorful sachets of instant coffee sway in the wind like Tibetan prayer flags, how fruiting trees give shade to veiled women hawking plastic baggies filled with fiery sambal. And I will try, despite my every instinct, to see Aceh’s slowness as something to embrace rather than overcome.
An early morning swim at Pasir Putih beach, interrupted by an encroaching storm.