Every Day Is Equinox

It's kind of cool living here on the equator.  Every day is equinox.  The only seasonal differences have to do with the amount of rainfall and where the Sun rises and sets against the sky.

The monsoon season is drawing to a close now.  Back in October, everyone was preparing for the worst, since conventional wisdom has it that every five years, there's a major flood in Jakarta (this being the fifth since the last biggie).  We seemed to have dodged the bullet.  Sure, there were some heavy rains and high water, but being a native Houstonian, I didn't find them to be exceptional.

Right now, we're enjoying the two weeks in between Wet and Dry seasons, where there's a pleasant breeze as the winds shift to the south, the skies clear and Jakarta is almost pleasant for a moment.

The Sun is shifting from the southern sky to the northern, which is nice since my porch faces the north and my plants can get some badly needed light for the next six months.  If I stand facing the sunset, then to my right is Spring and to my left is Fall.

The other difference is that in the coming six months, the Sun will rise and set a little after 6 o'clock.  During the other half of the year, it's a little before.  Regardless, every day is 12 hours, come hell or high water, which incidently is a pretty good description of the seasons here.

Monsoon season is rather interesting.  Many Westerners think of it as non-stop rain for six months, which is not true.  In fact, the normal cycle is to have moments when the sky gets dark and foreboding.  Then the sky literally splits asunder and water falls so fast it doesn't even bother to form drops.  This normally lasts about 10 or 15 minutes, and usually occurs just before sunrise or just after sunset.

There are some days where it's rainy all day, but it comes in blasts rather than unending rainfall, like Houston. The storms are sometimes accompanied by strong winds and even tornado-like destruction, though no one claims to have ever seen a funnel cloud.  It's almost like the wind gets channeled into a strong tube that levels everything in its path.

If you get out of the city and find some relatively dark skies, you can see Orion and the Magellanic Clouds in the same night, not to mention the Southern Cross and Microscopium, and other southern asterisms.

Right now, the fruit trees are busting with goodies.  My apple tree on the porch is offering up some delicious little pink apples that are about half-way between sweet and sour.  The markets are overflowing with fruit.  My wife just bought a bunch of manggisan (mangosteen) and some pisang raja (king bananas).  Until I came here, I had no idea there were so many kinds of bananas.  I've counted as many as 15, ranging from thumb-sized sweet boogers up to mean green gnarly suckers as long as my arm.

There's rambutan and salak and kelapa and apulkat, and these cool little oranges about the size of a shooter marble, and limes that are so sour they turn your face inside out, but make hellacious margaritas!  My favorite are the buah naga, or dragon fruit.  They are about the size of a football, pink with yellow curly things all over them, and the flesh and taste are kind of like a pear with little black seeds sprinkled throughout.

The most unusual tropical fruit, which is saying a lot since they are all rather strange, is the durien.  This fruit has a near cult following in Southeast Asia.  From Thailand to the Archipelago, people build statues and have laws and even have entire restaurants devoted to this fruit.

It's about the size of a football (again), with a hard shell covered with formidable spines.  Flung hard enough, they would make useful weapons.  When they are ripe, the shell splits, which is about the only way you can get into the suckers.  The smell is, well, rather unique.  I've heard it described as rotten onions tucked inside year-old gym socks, and that's about as accurate as I've found.  Most Westerners won't go near the stuff, which is fine by me.  All the more for us brave ones.

When you open the shell, there are about four fleshy, pale yellow slugs.  They look a lot like stuffed chicken gut sausage, really.  The slugs are the part you eat.  Each one has a massive seed in the center.  Now this is the best part...the texture is like tapioca pudding and the flavor is indescribable.  There is nothing else like on Earth, that I've ever experienced.  It is wholly and completely unique.  And for those not brave enough to try it, there are pastries, cookies and even ice cream made from it.

In Singapore, it's against the law to take durien on the subway, and most hotels won't let you bring it inside, because Westerners find the smell highly offensive.  In Medan, there's a street restaurant only open at night that is famous for serving several varieties of the fruit.  If you find yourself in Medan and would like to try it, just follow your nose.  You can smell the place for about a half-mile around.  In Thailand there are festivals.  In Surabaya, you can find literally piles of it along the coast road.

An interesting note about durien is that as it ripens, the alcohol content rises in the fruit.  If you eat enough of it, you will get a hangover.  In some places, it is unseemly for unmarried couples to be seen eating it together.  It really is a unique phenomenon, and one that every Westerner visiting Southeast Asia should try.  Just hold your nose and be brave.

So today we celebrate the Equinox with a Hindu holiday called Nyepi.  It's basically a day of purification when Hindus (and anyone living in Bali) may not use any technology AT ALL.  Everything shuts down.  No traffic, no pedestrians, no home appliances, no TeeVee, and no one leaves the house.  The Hindus spend outrageous amounts of money on something called ogoh-ogoh.  These are elaborate constructs designed to entice and trap various spirits that 'pollute' the realm of the living throughout the rest of the year.  Folks place them in front of their homes and groups get together and erect huge ones in public areas.

The ogoh-ogoh cost anywhere from $100 to thousands of dollars, and can range anywhere from discrete displays in front of the house, to the size of a house.  And while these clean the spiritual environment, folks clean out their houses, the streets get swept and everything is polished up for the holiday.  Kind of like spring cleaning back home, but taken to the extreme.

Seems that even without seasons, there are seasons.  Many parts of the world have some kind of ritual surrounding this moment in time.  Even astronomers and astrologers calibrate equipment and measurements on the Vernal Equinox.  My ancestors built enormous bonfires and got ripped to the gills to celebrate, which I find a rather attractive way to observe this moment.

However you choose to celebrate your turning, just remember that for half the world, it's the Autumnal Equinox.  There's such a bias in common culture to the Northern and Western Hemispheres.  And us equatorial dwellers are always left out, either way.  Enjoy your Spring/Fall/Dry!

Equatorial Monotony

It's June and we should be well into Dry Season by now. But we ain't. It's been raining nearly every afternoon and today I had to slog, yet again, through flooded streets in cataclysmic downpours on the back of an ojek (motorcycle taxi). It's strange to say the least. Folks are talking about it because the typical Rain Season is around October to April. By mid-June, it should be blazing hot and dry as a bone here in the Ciliwang river basin.

Rain is not unusual here. In the mountains, it rains nearly every day of the year, but in the plains, the Rain Season is normally about six months, followed by the Dry Season. Rain Season equates to summer in the temperate latitudes. The trees blossom and fruit appears and rice grows like crazy (we're having a bumper crop this year). The Dry Season is like winter: everything dies, the leaves drop and by October, things look pretty bleak. The late rains are enough to get the old folks jawbonin' about weather, which is normally not a topic of great debate, since it hardly changes year 'round, save for the ralative increase and decrease in precipitation.

Life on the equator is maddeningly regular. If you are a freak about routine and you don't live on the equator, then you are out of your element. The length of the day varies little more than half an hour the entire year. The sun comes up roughly 6am and goes down roughly 6pm every day, 365 days a year. The temperature rarely ventures outside 25-33C, or 75-90F. About the only thing that varies at all is the amount of precipitation. People just don't discuss the weather here. Under normal circumstances, that topic would only be surpassed in dullness by the weather itself. When things change, even a little, it makes for quite a stir.

It causes me to reflect on a few things, like a cool, crisp fall morning. I miss those days when the air is clean, dry and cool. You feel compelled to throw open the doors and windows and air out the house. The very light seems to have a shimmering quality and a silvery cast to it. The light breeze stirs the leaves around and it feels as if the world is holding its collective breath, waiting for the Big Blow of winter. I miss those weekend afternoons on a day like that, where you lie in the cool, freshly mowed grass and stare up at the infinite blue, not a single cloud in sight.

I miss a crackling fire on a cold winter's morning: the smell of the burning wood and the occasional pops and snaps. I miss the cozy feeling of walking into a warm house from the bleak outdoors and shedding the layers of clothes that kept you alive. I miss having a hot cup of coffee or cocoa to warm your core, not to keep you from sweating. I actually miss those times of the year when the night is longer than the day.

I miss the long summer days, when the sun rises early and sets well after 8pm. The days seems to last forever. You fight your way home and still have a couple of hours of daylight left for playing with the kids in the yard.

To be sure, there is a certain advantage to living on the equator. The growing season is year-round, so food is cheap and plentiful. You don't need two separate wardrobes. Your toes and fingers are never numb, nor do your face and lips get chapped and wind-burnt. But the lack of variety can be as much a curse as a blessing, like the sound of rain on a tin roof; at first it's pleasing and refreshing, but after several hours, it can drive you to the brink.

Perhaps there is a correlation between weather and food. It seems that the more monotonous the weather, the spicier the food. The correlation does seem to have some validity. Indonesian and Mexican food are spicy, while German and British food are bland beyond tolerance. In my experience, and granted this is only anecdotal, the farther you move from the equator, the less spice appears in the native cuisine. Maybe I'll apply for a grant and travel the world sampling food to see if my theory is valid.

I've seen less worthy topics...

The most bothersome part of an extended rainy season is that I have to carry dry clothes and shoes all the time. I'm beginning to feel like a turtle, both for the amphibious context and for the fact that I carry my net worth on my back all the time.

I am happy that the old folks have more to talk about than just my whereabouts and doin's though. For that, let us give thanks.