too young...

One of my earliest childhood memories is of overhearing stories about how the preteen son of a family friend died in a catastrophic ATV accident. Morbid, I know, but it’s something that’s stuck with me over the years. I don’t think I’d ever met him, but I would have been too young to remember anyway. In any case, it was just a story, and until this week I felt detached from it in the same way that people feel detached from any other fable with a sad ending…it touches something inside, but I simply couldn’t relate to it. I was too little to understand how tragic it is to lose someone young and in such a violent manner.

In the months leading up to my departure for Indonesia, I was once more confronted with horror stories of ATV and motorcycle accidents; this time as an EMT trainee, yet still as an objective 3^rd party. Of course our lecturer tried to prepare us for the gruesome reality associated with these types of collisions: explicit images projected on the front wall, personal stories from the scene, and tales of attending more than one funeral. But in the mock scenarios, we were trained to look at a situation using a methodical approach; not to regard the individual as a person, but as a very delicate prop in the implementation of a detailed life-or-death procedure: check the ABCs, stabilize the neck and spine…the rest blurs together at the moment as I reflect on recent events here in Mojokerto. Rarely, if ever, did those mock scenarios involve an adolescent. We have too many laws and safety regulations protecting our children in the U.S. This week I was reminded of the impact those strict parameters have; one may not realize it until they leave the U.S., but the system there is far more advanced, or, at a minimum, better respected. Clearly, grisly accidents still happen on the seemingly safe streets of Colorado, but, by comparison, they happen infinitely more often here in Indonesia.

This past Friday evening I received a shockingly painful message from one of my students: ‘Dwi Effendi was killed in a motorcycle accident’- my student had lost her best friend. That in itself is heartbreaking, but I just so happen to be texting buddies with Effendi, a promising student from another school. As the only native speaker in a fairly large radius, my working with students extends far beyond my immediate workplace. Effendi was an optimistic, talented kid at the vocational school my host mother teaches at in a neighboring town. As a member of their English Debate team, Effendi and I had a number of interactions via SMS, debate prep at my house, or when I’d join my host mom at events at her school. Periodic interactions…not enough. I should have responded quicker to his messages, made more of an effort to reorganize my time so that I could meet him and his friends more often, or at least praised him one more time on his ever-improving English. But I didn’t. And I can’t, because now he’s gone.

Gone in such a graphic way that it makes my blood boil and my stomach turn all at the same time. Anyone who’s visited Indonesia understands the chaos on the streets, and it’s no wonder that PC bans volunteers from riding motorcycles in any part of the developing world. But here, it’s a necessity for one’s livelihood and education. Yes motorcycles are the main form of transportation, and kids start driving at an early age; even my 11-year old neighbor who helps at his father’s mechanic shop after school is sporadically seen cruising around town unaccompanied. And yes, more often than not people do not wear helmets even though required by law. And yes, any distance within 1 km of one’s house seems like a relatively safe length to go without any serious mishaps. But no, none of those things make it easy to accept the fact that a 17 year-old boy was instantly, and pointlessly, killed within shouting distance of his home by a hit-and-run driver at 8:00 in the morning. His family couldn’t even identify the body because his face was so badly smashed in and bloodied.

It’s just not fair! Hearing this story was like a punch to the stomach. But what’s equally distressing is that by now I should have grown impervious to it, right? This accident was just one in a long string of ill-fated events that have plagued the lives and thoughts of my community, and now me. My host sister was in a life-threatening accident within months of me first arriving at my permanent site. Just weeks after her 17^th birthday she was run off the road by a sleepy truck driver while she was coming home from studying Al Qur’an with her friends. Thank goodness she was wearing a helmet! But the malicious scars that cover half of her body, paired with the memories of seeing her unconscious in the hospital for days on end, are a reminder that not everyone is so lucky. And then there’s her best friend who was killed days after their high school graduation. She wasn’t a student of mine, but she was constantly over at the house studying with my sister or choreographing aerobic routines for their sports class. 18 years is simply not long enough to experience everything one’s supposed to experience in life!

These are probably the most horrific stories from my time here. Of young life lost and loved ones left behind without reasonable explanation. The promise for Indonesia’s future is being needlessly picked apart left and right in such a horrific way, that I don’t know how I can sit by and watch it keep happening. But I also don’t know what I can do to change it. In my seemingly short 24 months here, I’ve had 2 students die, visited another half-dozen in the hospital for critical injuries (most of the treatments their families are unable to pay for), and had countless others who miss one or two days of school, then miraculously show up limping into class, badly bruised or scratched up…all because of motorcycle accidents.

If I were a better volunteer I would have started a Helmet Awareness Program or had my students sign some type of pledge vowing to wear a helmet every time they hop on the back of a bike. But I can’t even get my neighbor to throw trash in a trash bin. With only three months left I’m starting to lose the enthusiasm that once drew me to Peace Corps…if I had done something earlier would it have made a difference? Would Effendi still be with us?

On an less related note, it’s recently been brought to my attention that some people believe that PC blogs are ‘romanticized,’ highlighting only the positives or dramatizing other aspects to make the 2 years seem like more of an adventure. Although I enjoy colorful language and the occasional hyperbole, I feel like I’ve been fairly honest in my writing, with only minor censoring on behalf of PC staff. This story is nothing more or nothing less than how I honestly feel at this moment in time. I wish I had even the slightest hint of poetic genius to leave you all with a more polished ending. But alas, I don’t.

A response to my condolence message to another member of Effendy’s Debate Team:

“Until now I still not believe about it…I’m very shock when hear it…But that is fate of god…We just can pray to effendi…Effendy is good boy…We hope god forgive his sins…aNd I believe god give him good place in there.”