A Friend In Need ("Jaya di Kampung Baru")

 
i was in need

a sour (asin) foreigner (asing)
peckish for durian after a monsoon shower
i wandered down tight lombok lanes
the tiles were wet and slicky

i slipped when dodging a vespa
my foot went in the gunk
the open sewer of human waste
a little more than ankle deep

i pull it from the mud
to lose a flip flop to the blacken
my leg now stank and rank
then three youths pass by, "wassup?"

i say i've lost a "spatu" (shoe) that's all
but they insist to help me stagger
one reaches in to find my aussie thong
i'm feeling quite ashamed but they don't mind

we limp, well i do, to a mosque
where they pass me towel, buy me soap
and wash my filthy sandal

i'm smelling better, let them know
the original pursuit
and so we go to market
to get the prickly fruit

it sells dirt cheap so i get extra;
insist they let me share
and so we head back to their zone
"kampung" shanty of make-shift homes

i'd never seen such urban poor up close
my heart fell to my gut
could hardly eat their hospitality
or hold back my tears

host is so happy, shows me around
this four by six meter space
where gramps and nanna and ma and pa
"kak", "adik-adik" and "keponakan" dwell

it's got a little t.v. corner
he is proud as punch
the kitchen's a rented space
outside with rats and mice

i say i need a toilet
once we'd finished humble lunch
he takes me to an outer wall
but all i see's a bucket tub on floor

above it is a mirror and a hook
a tray for paste and brush and comb
half hidden behind a wicker
"this is where we piss"

a bit confused, obliged inform,
"but i'm in need of number two"
and so i'm taken through hood "gang"
to a prayer centre by gushing canal

"the kids dump while in water play
but we will go the other way"
and so i'm led down stairs below
to communal wash facility

men of the slums to here must come
to bathe and to relieve
i cry, it is so far away, that this
is how my new friend lives

and yet he always wears a smile
and is so proud of his chore
which includes daily emptying
of piss tub into the local sewer

and now we've touched each others' lives
as deepest as it gets
his dignity in my privileged eyes
is far above my own

we've kept in touch throughout the years
despite the strain and strife of life
and in my heart his kampung too
will always have a home