rooftop reading, or pagan fire babies

A common lament of mine about living in Gresik is that there is just nowhere to read outside of my room. Quiet public spaces do not exist; there are no patches of grass reminiscent of the Mounds, no coffee shops that would invite a reader, there are no places at all that i have happened upon where there are not food vendors, motorcycles or talkative Indonesians.

To be outside my house is to constantly inspire conversation, a solitary act like reading is simply not possible. Even at my school, at my own desk in the teachers office I am not permitted to read more than a few pages of a magazine before fellow teachers or students peer over my shoulder and begin talking, and i would have really be quite rude before they would stop trying to talk and let me read because in my experience they just do not do that. in fact I have never seen anyone, ever, in Gresik reading a book. (I am not trying to judge- this is just what i have experienced in my social circles here. there are probably many exceptions)

Also, to be outside my house for long is to be hot and sweaty- and oppressed because the sweat slides down underneath all the “modest” clothes i have to wear as a (obviously frighteningly powerful) woman.

So... after having read in bed (the depressing but brilliant Forty Stories by Anton Chekhov sprinkled with some Timequake by Vonnegut to brighten the mood) for hours today, like so many days, I jumped up (a slight exaggeration) and put one of my long baggy short-sleeved mumu - the kind all the old ibus around here wear when at the traditional market or bending under both babies and balanced baskets- and lugged a big plastic chair up onto the rooftop where we hang out laundry to dry, sat down, legs resting on neighbors rooftop, and started to read. After about 5 minutes i went downstairs, took a cold shower in my mumu and returned, dripping but happy. Like hoola-hooping, a new ritual in my life.



In the view from my chair there are many mosques and two towering smokestacks with fires violently burning atop. at least one of them is part of the cement factory and the last time i was hanging up some laundry with my host sister she told me that it has exploded at least 3 different times in her memory, killing factory workers.

as i read, i looked up and instead saw before me huge marble pillars with eternal fires ablaze in honor of the pagan earth mother, this was emphasized by the unearthly (and deafening!) song of worship flowing towards me from all directions at once.