The Beauty of Diversity

Papua is a beautiful place. The nature, the people, the cultures, the languages, the traditions are great. No wonder so many people want to visit Papua. After they had visited Papua, they felt in love with Papua and then they decided to settle in Papua. There are many people, many tribes, many cultures, many religions, many traditions in Papua. From the westerner missionaries, Netherland colonialist, miners and traders from Java, Sumatera, Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali, Moluccas and many more.

In Paniai Regency, there are two dominant tribes which are the original tribes from Paniai Regency, namely the Ekari / Mee tribe and Moni tribe. There are other Papuan tribes in here such as, Asmat tribe, Dani tribe, Lani tribe, etc.

I remember clearly, when I was in Paniai Regency, I had so much invitations from wedding invitations, Christmas celebration, Eid al-Fitr celebration, Eid al-Adha celebration, Milad an-Nabi (the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad) celebration, kids birthday party, Aqiqah (celebrate the birth of the newborn and share the joy with family, neighbors and the needy brothers), and more.

In Enarotali city, I used to lived in the pink house. There were many doctors from different islands in Indonesia. Dias, Berton, Melissa, Edith and I come from Java island. Grace Phillip, Grace Catherine, Komet and Hasyrul come from Sulawesi island. Victor, Laswan and Noer come from Sumatera island. We had different religions, different cultures and different traditions in the house but everything was fine. We used to help each other, we prepared our meals together and eating together. Sometimes in my free time, I cut the boys’ hair. In the picture, you can see I was cutting Dias’ hair.

We celebrated the birthday of Victor, Noer, Melissa and Dias in the pink house. We had a party and there were about more than 20 guests in the birthday party. We prepared everything for the birthday party by ourselves. In the picture, you can see the 26^th birthday of Noer and Melissa. I made the rainbow and chocolate cake for them.

I attended two wedding parties in Enarotali city. First one, was the wedding party of the policeman. The second one was the wedding party of my neighbor. It was really fun. I ate so much at the party (like always). There were many traditional food and cakes from Sulawesi that I’ve never ate before.

In Obano, I attended the 4^th birthday party of Nabil. We sang the birthday song out loud. Look at those children, they were so happy, but the birthday boy Nabil (the one with red stripe t-shirt) looked so grim because he was afraid that all the guests will eat his birthday cake. Hahahaha… Kiddo!!!

My friends and I also attended the Toraja tribe Christmas celebration in Enarotali city hall. In the celebration, there was a Christmas mass and then we were served by children candle dance and  Toraja traditional dance. In the picture, you can see women were dancing the Toraja traditional dance. They danced slowly and some people taped the money to the stick and then put the money on the heads’ of the dancers. I guess it was the symbol of prosperity.

In Eid al-Fitr, we used to visit our Muslim neighbors to greet them. Everytime we visit a muslim family, they asked us to eat their traditional food, cakes and cookies. We had to eat the food. If we rejected to eat their food, they will become disappointed and they would think that we didn’t appreciate them, so there was no reason to reject the food.  There were many Indonesian food in this celebration from coto Makasar, sop konro, rendang, chicken satay, goat satay, horse satay, meat gulai, young jackfruit soup, Indonesian meatballs and noodles (mie bakso), buras, jalangkote, barongko, bugis cake, tori cake, coconut pudding, corn pudding, cocoa and milk pudding, palu butung ice and fruit ice. You can see my expression in the picture. I looked so happy whenever I see many food in front of me. Wow… I was in paradise. I remember, my friends and I went to 12 houses in Eid al-Fitr celebration in a day, so it mean that we ate 12 times in a day. Can you imagine how full our stomachs were???

I also attended the Aqiqah of a newborn baby girl. In this event, the parents of the baby slaughtered an animal (goat or sheep) on the occasion of child birth. For the child there should be Aqiqah, on behalf of the child make sacrifice and remove the hair. The purpose of this event is announcing the birth of the baby by inviting family members, neighbors, and friends to celebrate the blessed occasion. They share the meat of the goat to the poor too. When the Muslim start praying in Arabic language, I just listen and look at the baby girl. One by one, the family member and the prayer cut the hair of the baby girl.

In Milad an-Nabi (the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad), I was invited to celebrate the Milad at Al- Mubaroq Mosque in Enarotali city. It was the first time for me to celebrate Milad in the mosque. The event was begun by Arabic pray and then Muslim scholars gave lectures to the people about the meaning of Milad an-Nabi celebration. Every family came with lots of food. They decorate their food in a variety of containers. Before they came back to their home, they exchanged their food with others.  I didn’t bring any food so I had nothing to exchange but I came home with lots of food. I was so blessed. Hehehehe…

Sometimes my friends and I visited the nun’s house in Enarotali city. We are so happy everytime we visit the nun’s house because they serve us with many cakes and sometimes if we were lucky, we could eat their homemade ice cream. FYI, there was no shop that sells ice cream at that moment. We had to take a flight to Nabire or Timika just to buy ice cream. It took 1 million rupiah (100 USD) for one way flight.

I had a chance to see the Bakar Batu (grilled stone) tradition in St. Joseph Church in Enarotali city. This tradition was so awesome. It was great because the priest gave me the Bakar Batu pork for me and then I made the pork into Babi Ketjap (pork with soy sauce) in my kitchen. The only thing missing was the beer. LOL. FYI, it was hard to find beer or any alcohol drink in Paniai Regency because it was illegal. Don’t worry I have a smart tips, just go to the priest and ask for the red wine. The priest always have red wine for the Sacramental wine, but make sure you had become his best friend first or he wouldn’t give you the red wine ;)  

There were so many wonderful and unforgettable things in Paniai, Papua. We lived together happily and peacefully with different cultures, languages, traditions and religions. Living in a place with such diversity, where the people are all dissimilar helps to understand the true meaning of culture. It would be nice if you could meet  new people with different cultures, traditions, languages, religions and share your ideas with them. It’s so amazing. 

“A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest- a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.” Albert Einstein