Earlier that day we had traveled for two hours upriver with our
guide and translator Yen, a relative of the tribes people, from his
home village Muara to our rendezvous with Kapik. He appeared
from nowhere from behind a tree in dense jungle wearing only a
loincloth, bow and arrow, machete clasped in hand. Kapik loves
that machete. It never leaves his side. He’s 69 years old and a
prankster. He danced around us as we arduously trudged through
knee-deep mud, waded through rivers, tightrope-walked log
bridges, and picked and fought our way through the jungle in a race
against darkness. He would disappear only to emerge a moment
later, bursting into song, shaking his hips and motioning
seductively to Eszter. I liked him immediately.
Kapik is incredibly hard working, despite his age. Daily chores
include tending his pigs and chickens that live under his longhouse,
known as an uma, hacking down sago trees, fishing, and foraging.
He smokes constantly. They have few pleasures here in the jungle
and are heavily addicted to nicotine and sugar—gifts that you must
come bearing in order to be granted shelter. Our host family—
Kapik and his wife, Kapik Sikalabai, along with their middle-aged
son Petrus Sekaliou, his wife and their two children, who came
from their own home to meet us—is mischievous, loud, flirtatious
and hard, but also affectionately hospitable. Kapik is a keen kisser.
Both Eszter and I received frequent kisses on the cheek from him.
Over a dinner of plain rice and noodles, Yen intermediates our
chat about life. I’m keen to learn everything I can, but also for them
to know a little about us, too. Kapik’s four sons are all married and
living nearby—but on the outskirts of the forest, where they
eschew tattoos and now wear western clothes. I tell them I’m from
Scotland and that we too have tribes, called clans, and tribal wear.
He’s amused. I show them a photo of a Highlands cow I keep on my
phone, and I think Kapik Sikalabai looks impressed. I ask Yen,
“Have they ever seen a horse?” When they say no, I pull up a photo
of horses I took in the caldera of Bromo Volcano. “Java horses,” I say.
Kapik Sikalabai asks Yen where it is, he tells her Indonesia, and
she looks surprised.
LATER THAT NIGHT, ESZTER AND I
duck outside the hut for some air and are
sucked into a night sky alive with stars, which
swallows the jungle, our small hut and both of
us in a mesmerizing star-spangled indigo
blanket. On the stoop of that shack far from
home, amid the snorts and smells of pigs, we
stare skyward in wonder until we both laugh
out loud.
I shouldn’t be surprised when that
dreamlike serenity is shattered at 3:37 a.m. We
are asleep on the wood floor of Kapik’s uma
when the screaming starts. It’s the pigs. In the
pale moonlight that slices through the open-air
hut I see the naked figure of Kapik carrying his
machete and striding into the darkness. A
second later there’s a sickening clang of metal,
a dull thud and what sounds like splintering
bone. I really hope it’s not the pigs.
I slip under the mosquito net, flick on my
torch and head towards the light coming from
the back of the hut. I hear laughter and another
clang of a machete followed by a thud, more
splinters and a nasty squelching sound. I see
them now huddled around a flame torch, all six82 MAY 2017 / TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM
AFTER DRIFTING around Sipora AND VENTURING into
the heart OF SIBERUT, I come away knowing THAT, LEFT
UNBURDENED, nature is VIBRANT, VIVID and unafraid
Paddling back to
shore. BELOW:
Fruit salad of a
sunset in Sipora.>>