5. ACICIS Internship / Residency: Merapi and more comes into view …

It was not until this week, my fourth week here that the air cleared and I realised the view from my balcony at Babaran Segaragunung Culture House sees directly to Mount Merapi. Excited, I walked back up the road. It’s a trek worn before, by the morning walk, saying hello and enthusiastically answering questions in my Bahasa Indonesian (born from the terrific intensive language learning stint at Universitas Santa Dharma as part of the ACICIS program) to locals out and curious of my being here. I make it to the rice field views of Merapi and once more, I pose for the obligatory group shots and selfies that I am randomly included in again. Only a few days after this image above was snapped, I woke to the news that Merapi had erupted again.  It was hardly noted by those from these parts.  And I write in my last ACICIS program Reflective Journal, Week 4 submission other impressions too:
 
“Through this internship / residency I have become more attuned to nature and culture and their oneness. Some of my impressions of this place have included the aesthetics of the dragonfly posed on the wall behind Ismoyo as creative process ideas are shared; the chorus of the frogs competing with the layered sermons of the three mosques encompassing; the chirps of the feasting flock of white-bellied munia or pipit padi interrupted by the bells and bellowing of the rice paddy worker; the belly of Mount Merapi under me as the unidentified four explosion like sounds suspend my late night writing; the plop of fish back in the lotus pond below meeting the hooves on the pavement ahead; the wind encountering the windchimes as the nangka, jackfruit crashes to the motorbike ensemble; Pigeon collecting the weave from the basket for the dubious nest balanced on the turtledoves cage roof; the lightning lit sky illuminating the dance of the microbats over the batik clearing; and as the gecko barks loud from the eaves, my sleep takes over readying me for the nongkrong of tomorrow.”