"The Lord's Prayer" in Sangirese Language

The entire Google search turns up with zero result on the Sangirese language version of this most widely-known Christian prayer, so I've decided to post it here to give it a permanent link for everyone to use it freely. I obtained the entire text from the Manganitu Catholic church in Sangihe Besar Island, North Sulawesi, hence the copyright fully belongs to Vatican.

BAPA KAMI

Amang i kami su sorga, bebatugang areng
Detako kararatuangu, penata elangu

Kebi ku seng naghuanting, kere ikekapulunu
Su sorga lai su dunia, mawu ma kawasa

Alamate elo ini, ampunge dosang kami
Ikami manga lai mengampung dosang sendinganeng

Dorong sirungeng i kami, bou patiku silaka
Kariang kamang su tengonu, mawu dengele i kami

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Day 3: The travel to Tomohon

~This is part of the Minahasa-Sangihe Chronicle, a journey by Toshi and Uncle R in their ancestors' homeland in North Sulawesi, which is located just on the Indonesian border facing southern Phillipines. Date of journal: Sunday, 9 March 2008 ~

Seriously, even till this day I still couldn’t believe meeting an old schoolfriend from SD Don Bosco (Pondok Indah, Jakarta)…. in Manado. The world is indeed a small place.

Hence on the Sunday morning, Uncle R and I went for the morning mass at the newly-built Manado Cathedral (which ended at 9 AM) and from 9 onwards I parted with Uncle R as he chose to stay in the hotel room.

Then I went with Cecep –who had been waiting in front of the chapel across the street— for the walk around the town.

We walked from Cathedral to the Manado Boulevard (which wasn’t located far away) and walked for as many kilometres as I could recall. But since the Boulevard itself was a seaside road, I kinda enjoy it because it reminded me of my walk in Sanur, Bali (and the memories there, gee-hee).

Cecep and I chatted about a lot of things, which were unfortunately, private enough that I couldn’t write them down here. But there were several things I could disclose though, such as when we reminisced our good old days together; playing pranks to our teachers, talking about girls and TV dramas and WTC attack (2002 was the year when I left that school), how I helped saving him from his bad grades, and how much pains he went thru knowing that I moved to Bali for my second year of SMP (Secondary School).

Enough of that, it’s getting kinda gay here already.

Haha… And so Cecep told me that he was now majoring Anthropology in Sam Ratulangi University (said to be the public university with the most affordable tuition fee in Indonesia), and how he had outlined a plan for the next several years for him to take a Master’s degree in Connecticut, and then work as a documenter for TV stations like Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel.

I could recall very well that Cecep failed his History exams during our SMP years, and I asked him how he could overturn that malaise into strength, as he now majored in Anthropology (which is a branch of the History discipline).

He told me in length about how he enjoyed majoring in Anthropology as it helped him to gain a new insight to the world around him. I really couldn’t believe that this was the Cecep I knew several years back. He had changed.

Before we took the mikrolet to the bus terminal, we stopped by at the Manado Town Square (locally called Mentos) as Cecep had to withdraw some money from the ATM.

There was a security guard standing by the mall entrance with a bag scanner on his hand, but strangely enough, he did not use the item to scan the visitors’ bags. He just let Cecep and I passed thru him without checking our satchels. Oh dear, Manado would be too easy to be targeted by the terrorists, then.

Taking a look inside, I felt that somehow the inner architecture is bloody familiar.

“The developer of Mentos is the same with Citos (Cilandak Town Square, in South Jakarta),” Cecep told me.

Oh, of course! No wonder they look the same!

Don’t those people have any spark of creativity or something, building their malls’ inner architecture to be exactly the copies of each other, I asked myself.

One thing I soon learned to love about Minahasan people was that they frequently used the word “Terima kasih” to customers, a thing rarely found in Jakarta.

After two days there, I made an assumption to myself that in comparison to Javanese cities, Manado was as hot as Surabaya, as ancient as Yogyakarta, and as “beachy” as Anyer.

From Boulevard we took Mikro (which is the shortened form of Mikrolet, and the equivalent of Angkot in Jakarta), as I agreed to went along with him to his uncle’s hotel in Tomohon, a high-altitude city located 40 km southwest of Manado.

The Mikro cost each of us Rp1,750 when we alighted at the Manado suburb terminal. From that terminal we took the sardine -like bus that heads for Tomohon.

I was astounded to know that the trip from Manado to Tomohon only cost us Rp 5,000!

“Surprised?” Cecep grinned, “Manado has a hell lot more surprises than you could manage to handle”

It was a very enjoyable ride thru the mountain; with all the greeneries seen as far as I could remember which was a recompense for the scorching hot atmosphere inside the bus. Then Cecep told me about two of the most “indigenous” things to Manado, which are RW and Cap Tikus.

RW (read: Air-Way), which is the local term for Roasted Dogs (I choose to call it the acronym for “Roasted Woof”), is the most favoured local dish. He told me that he loved eating RW, despite the warm, tingling sensation it brings to the throat of the eater.

“Didn’t you pity those dogs, Cep?” I asked.

“Of course I pitied them at first,” he said, “but the thing is when you see people around you have no problem in eating them, you’ll soon catch up with their mindset too.”

Apart from RW alone, the other odd culinary of Manado is roasted cat.

He then told me about how some of his Muslim friends in Manado have also deliberately eaten pork, cat, and RW (!).

Wow.

I’ve heard about how my Muslim friends in Bali deliberately eating pork, but that was the first time ever I heard about Muslims eating cat. It’s a very curious thing though, because cats are well-known to be the favourite animal of Prophet Muhammad SAW.

If I had stayed in Manado longer, I knew I myself would’ve eaten RW. It all had to do with one’s mindset.

Along the way, I saw a Citraland complex where it adorns a Jesus statue with his arms wide open (comparably the miniature version of the famous one seen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

I was supposed to be impressed seeing that Jesus statue, but I wasn’t. Citraland is well-known everywhere to be making their own sensational statues in their complex. And if you couldn’t imagine what the Manado Citraland looks like, just visualise those Citralands you’ve seen in Outer Jakarta. It doesn’t look very much different apart from them anyway.

Entering Tomohon, we went straight to the Lokon Boutique Resort which was owned by Cecep’s uncle who was a famed economist during the New Order era. The resort was located in Kakaskasen Satu, near the Masehi Injili Kakaskasen Church.

We took one or two pictures there before finally decided that we were hungry enough to head for a lunch at Tomohon KFC. I’ve promised myself that day that I wasn’t going to taste Manado’s food again.

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel by using a mikrolet. That was the first time I saw with my own eyes how the passengers were literally being delivered to their own preferred destinations! Really, in North Sulawesi, mikrolets are known to be the equivalent of semi-taxis, because people could order the driver to go to any part of the city at will.

~to be continued~

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Day 2: A bump into an old friend

~This is part of the Minahasa-Sangihe Chronicle, a journey by Toshi and Uncle R in their ancestors' homeland in North Sulawesi, which is located just on the Indonesian border facing southern Phillipines. Date of journal: Saturday, 8 March 2008 ~

When I woke up at 8 the next morning, I hurriedly opened our room curtain and I was fascinated to find a bustling city under my feet, but two mountains at the direction of 000º and 090º each.

Wow. My first impression of Manado was how green and tidy it was. And it has an amazing vista on its suburbs, which aroused my curiosity even further.

After having Nasi kuning (yellow-rice fried in kunyit) for breakfast; Uncle R and I headed out to look for Oma Tr’s house.

Oma Tr was apparently a quite well-known figure in Manado since she was the wife of a late acquaintance of a famed General.

Due to her fame, Uncle R was able to locate the house (which was very close to the Jengki fish market) simply by asking at a nearby police station. When we arrived at her home, she was very surprised to see us and gave us a very warm welcome. She wasn’t expecting us at all in the least bit (since we came to North Sulawesi unannounced). Indeed, that was the first time ever that I met any of my paternal grandma’s cousin and I was startled at the striking similarity she bore with my grandma.

She then had a lengthy chit-chat with Uncle R for around two hours. Having never been a skilled conversant, I was mostly left out as I kept on writing stuff they discussed on my worn journal.

Well, although my MP3 player was able to record stuff, it was only able to hold up 512 MB (or about 1 hour of .wav file) and moreover, 90% of it was filled with my fave Jack Johnson and John Mayer songs. Hence my opting for the traditional method of journal-writing (and I had no PDA!)

From that conversation we discovered that some of our known relatives (especially the one in Bitung, a Muslim-dominant city 40 km southeastern of Manado) have been deceased over the last few years, considerably making our family-tree completion more difficult.

I also learned that Manado has recently been urbanized by Gorontalonese migrants, an apparent fact that has been miffing the city mayor over the last few years.

At 11, we bade farewell to Oma Tr then we had an estimated 3 km walk to the Manado to look for lunch. It had been a while till Uncle R realised that he had forgotten to give the Batik souvenir he had bought for Oma Tr. Oh dear.

It wasn’t really sunny that time, the sky had a cloudy overcast that day, which was presumably the reason we could enjoy our 3 km walk to the seaside Boulevard that took us around 45 minutes or so.

I remembered very well about the warnings I heard from Dad (and a couple of Manadonese friends) that dogs (yes, those bone-lover canines) were displayed on the streets as roasted dogs.

I was indeed puzzled as I was unable to spot any of the “roasted dogs”, and Uncle R confirmed my doubts when he told me that such facts were merely exaggerated. Roasted dogs could only be found “deep” in the markets only when you look for them. Haha, no wonder…

In any case, Uncle R just advised me to ask the ingredients of whatever food that they served, just to confirm the facts right.

Trying the local food was something I was very eager to do but apparently, it turned out later that my expectations were too high. Uncle R and I ordered the same menu: a tuna (they call it cakalang) portion and a plate of bitter papaya leaves, and two other Manado-specialty lauk (side dish)…. and I was left with a not-very-good impression of Manado food.

They’re all spicy!! Truly I tell you, the waiters claimed that they weren’t, but it was a matter of fact that was readily available to the highly sensitive tongues of Uncle R and me; which was why Uncle R ordered an extremely sweet es kacang to counter the spiciness. I myself ordered 3 bottles of Tehbotol (a bottled tea brand).

I then decided that it would be my last encounter with Manado food: I was thinking of going to KFC for dinner.

After lunch, we brought some pastries and headed back to Hotel Wisata for a quick nap.

At around 4 PM, we went to Sam Ratulangi’s Gramedia bookstore to have a quick look at what stock of books did they have there. Not that much, really. Comparably, half of the Bintaro Plaza’s stock. And the books there are more pricey! An average comic in Jakarta would cost Rp 12,000 while the same one in Manado cost me a pocket-sucking Rp 13,500.

That’s still a small difference to another book Uncle R found, which had a much wider price gap ratio of 59:74!

We then headed to the cathedral to look for tomorrow’s Sunday Mass schedule and *gasp* I found my old schoolfriend Cecep there!

It actually happened quite funny. He bumped to me as I was entering the chapel door.

Then I heard someone calling, “Toshi!”

I continued walking.

Then he called my name again, a lot of ppl in Manado are named Toshi anyway (my real name is a Christian-sounding one), hence I ignored that call.

When I glanced onto my back, I was surprised to find my old matey Cecep waving his hand to me!

I gaped in amazement, having bumped to an old schoolfriend thousands of kilometers away from Jakarta.

We used to go to the same Catholic primary school of SD Don Bosco in the elite Pondok Indah district of South Jakarta together, and hence I was very surprised to find him in Manado by chance. We chatted for a while and I found out that he had moved to the reputed Sam Ratulangi University of Manado –said to be the most affordable in Indonesia in terms of tuition fee— because he loved his hometown of Manado.

I wasn’t really enjoying Manado that time, despite having been a quite clean and safe city (it was presumably because of my bad encounter with the food) so I was surprised to find out that Cecep loved his hometown!

Well, everyone has their own sense of belongings, don’t they?

Cecep and I agreed to traverse the city on the next day (Sunday), and hence I was delighted to find that Uncle R had no obliging schedule on that day.

Cecep and I parted as he went for his scheduled Saturday evening chapel and I went for a dinner with Uncle R.

“It really is a small world, isn’t it?” Uncle R commented, having seen me encountering Cecep.

“It is,” I grinned.

We went to the beach to see the sunset (which was… *unfortunately* partially blocked by the bloody clouds). I actually expected Manado to resemble Anyer, you know, the typical Jamaican-typical coastal city with the sandy beaches and coconut trees aplenty? But it wasn’t.

Manado was getting more and more urbanised these days; and the proof itself was prevalent in the Boulevard area.

Uncle R noticed a seaside restaurant he had gone to 12 years ago, and now, that so-called seaside restaurant is 500 metres away from the sea!

(In case you don’t get it, my last sentence above meant that 99% of the Boulevard area was reclaimed.)

Such a pity, really. The city developers must have had something like a Kuta-Bali typical street on their minds when developing this Boulevard district of Manado. Yep, I noticed the resemblance… Not a really bad idea honestly, except for the fact that they were too money-oriented (and not people-oriented) when planning this particular part of the city

Both me and Uncle R stuck to our unspoken agreement of not having another dish of Manado speciality as we went to Es Teler to have some baso-dumpling noodles for dinner before heading straight back to the hotel at 8:30.

~to be continued tomorrow~

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Day 1: The flight to Manado

~This is part of the Minahasa-Sangihe Chronicle, a journey by Toshi and Uncle R in their ancestors' homeland in North Sulawesi, which is located just on the Indonesian border facing southern Phillipines. Date of journal: Friday, 7 March 2008 ~

So I was wrong back then when I wrote here that Manadonese have reverted their city name’s spelling from “Manado” to “Menado”. I found out that the correct spelling was still "Manado" because the plane ticket still spelled it that way. Hence my use of the correct spelling now.

Uncle R and I arrived at the Soekarno-Hatta airport at 14:00 while we were supposed to be having a 19:00 flight. That meant that we had plenty of time to burn. Great. I started to regret not bringing my “Eldest” novel. It was a five-hour wait spent by reading the newspaper(s!), some printed Wikipedia stuff I brought along, and Jack Johnson on my mp3 player.

If you wanna have some grub for your hours-long flight to any part of Indonesia, I strongly advise you against taking a Lion Air flight. Before Uncle R and I board the airplane, we had some meal because Uncle R had forewarned me that the Lion Air flight we were going to take was a meal-less one, i.e. The Lion Air flight does not provide any free food to Economy-class passengers!

At around 19:15 (I checked my wristwatch that time), the Lion Air plane took off from Soekarno-Hatta, bound for Sam Ratulangi International Airport in Manado.

Lion Air Prayer Booklet

Uncle R was right: they only provided a flimsy glass of Aqua. How cheapskate of them, eh?

At 22:15 WIB (23:15 WITA), we arrived at Sam Ratulangi International Airport which was located on the outskirts of the North Sulawesi capital.

First picture I took in Manado

In the airport, I saw this, which should be set as an example for other international airports across Indonesia (esp. Jakarta) to follow

Elevator for the handicapped

From there, we took a Dian taxi to the most inexpensive hotel we could find. Uncle R was originally inclined for Gran Puri Hotel, but the taxi driver recommended us to a newly-built Wisata Hotel which was strategically located in the centre of the city. I was honestly surprised to find out that Uncle R was quite adept in the Manado dialect. Haha... He had been here before, 12 years ago.

Note: From here onwards I use the WITA (GMT+8) timing system.

One thing I first noticed in the Manado taxi was that they use a Kijang taxi that looks like this:

Dian Taxi in Manado

Instead of the sedan-type taxi that Jakarta has. They also don’t use the fare-metre in their taxis, but negotiate the price instead with the passenger.

At around midnight we arrived in Wisata Hotel, where we bathed straightaway.

I was starving that time, and Uncle R and I tried to look for some meal to no avail. All the stores were closed after 10 PM: a thing definitely nonexistent in Jakarta! I was then forced to sleep with an empty stomach. Poor me…

~to be continued tomorrow~

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A gentle reminder: In my strict self-adherence to the anonymous-blogging-policy, I wouldn’t upload any images that show me or any of my family members; hence this whole Minahasa-Sangihe Chronicle will lack any facial pictures of me or Uncle R. The individual names that I am going to post on this blog, with exception to those who aren’t related to me by blood, are going to be altered for pseudonyms or initials. However, all events, happenings, and place names are still going to be recounted exactly as they were.

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Cheers of tranquility

If only Nin (my grandma) were alive today, she would be 72 by now. How I sorely miss her...

My bags are up and now I’m ready for a first-time flight to Menado city of North Sulawesi tomorrow morning (they used to call it Manado before reverting it to the original name), and from there I’ll be taking a trip to one or two islands by the infamous ship that most cynics like to call kaleng kerupuk (cracker jar).

So the Balinese Hindus (and everyone else in Bali) are having their monstrous ogoh-ogoh papier-mache dolls burnt this evening, and it is unfortunate that I couldn’t be there this time round. I had enjoyed the days off (and the pitch darkness too) during my two years of stay there in 2002 and 2003.

In my Singapore days, Nyepi went unnoticed, and even my Balinese roommate chose to go to school despite their religions’ strict law. He told me that Nyepi only forbids Hindus against leaving their home, and since the hostel where we lived was on the same complex with the school campus, he concluded that he wasn’t breaking any Hindu rules by doing that. Yeah, right. I remember very well that he had the lights on our room lit up, and I wondered whether that is also included in “not breaking any Hindu rules”. Haha (^o^)

Tasa Nugraza Barley, a frequent contributor to The Jakarta Post opinions, has posted an interesting essay to show how proud he is to identify himself as an Indonesian. I’ll consider making a similar post in the near future, about how proud I am to have Indonesian blood amongst the other ethnicities I inherit.

The last Weekender supplement by The Jakarta Post had a very green article that had inspired me deeply that nowadays I choose to refuse having plastic bags during my errands to supermarkets and warungs. I guess it has a down side to it though, because people always see me like a looter: carrying the bread, ice cream, cooking oils, etc. all bundled together without a wrapper in my arms.

If you’re a Balinese blogger, or you happen to be in Bali during/to join the Nyepi meditations, just riposte below, and I’ll be happy to have a look at any blogs that has this year’s ogoh-ogoh burning festival and the subsequent serenity that follows.

An excellent day to practice yoga, I say. And don’t forget to turn your lights off.

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