Rindu

News of the pandemic reached Indonesia slowly, meaning that the sense of overwhelming panic which was gripping Europe, was not shared by my friends in Sumatra.

In March, the fear in my boyfriend’s voice forced me to tune back into British news for the first time in months and with horror I realised a little late that the world was changing.

I’m sure many Europeans watched the same footage in those early days. The military trucks driving the coffins out of towns in Italy. The heartbroken widows gasping for breath outside of hospitals, not yet ill enough to be admitted due to the lack of beds. It was truly apocalyptic.

Yet there seemed to be no sense of panic in Sumatra, although the government quietly closed schools with no prior warning – in fact I believe before England took this action. I spent my last day with my students without realising it, without even saying goodbye to the children and the families who had lit up my life for the past 8 months. Corona still remained a bit of a superstitious joke in Indonesia, as many Europeans had felt when the virus was only affecting China. The problem was elsewhere, and in rural villages, there is very little which cannot be cured with a strong ginger Tea.

After the school closed, borders shut and the UK slipped into lock-down, I spent a painful week or so in total disarray, unsure of my next step. Never before have I felt so utterly lost. Time passed abnormally and daily rituals like eating and sleeping disappeared.

My first weeks back in the UK, life seemed frustratingly still. Gone was the constant noise of the motorbikes, of the animals, gone was the smoke from the ever-burning piles of rubbish, gone was the heat, the gushing rivers and the electric downpours of rain. Gone was everything which made me feel so alive in Indonesia. It felt like the whole world had died.

I’ve been homesick before. But after a month in England, the first time I opened an Indonesian book, I cried. The familiarity of the words on the page before me was sickening. Even now, 2 months on, every time I call my Indonesian friends, I have to mentally prepare myself for the ache which hearing their voices, their language and their laughter causes.

I’m not by any means the only person who had their plans this year cut short by COVID-19, nor have I suffered as a result of this virus. I chose to leave Indonesia. And yet I am shocked by the sheer emotion I feel towards the island which I have left behind, an island which I only spent 8 months inhabiting. I found an unexpected sense of home on the edge of the Jungle.

There will always be a crack in my heart, in the shape of Sumatra, but I’m trying now to learn how to enjoy the sweetness of those memories, without being overwhelmed by the bitterness of such a sudden parting.