Wayan Ketel: Recalling Pre-Independence Days, Bali
I could think of nothing better than living to a ripe old age and still being in good health. Even more, still retaining a good memory!.
In Indonesia there are many elderly people who can recall the events in their lives – those events that affected their way of life, or even those events that were pleasant.
Trisha Sertori found one such person in Bali, an elderly man known as Wayan Ketel. This man’s ability to recall the events of pre-independence in Indonesia is remarkable:
Kakek Wayan Ketel of Sakti village in Bali, daily swings his hand-sharpened axe, splitting firewood for the breakfast cooking fire.
His skin has grown parchment-like with the years, his eyes the clouded blue of cataract blindness, but he still bounds up steps, a grin purpled by years of chewing betel nut, splitting his lips in greeting.
Ketel’s family think he’s around 98 years old, but no one knows for sure.
What is known is that Ketel’s memory spans almost a century and his joy in living and remembering is infectious. He remembers, without bitterness, the days before Indonesia was a free nation.
Rather, the disempowerment caused by Dutch Colonialism, invasion by the Japanese and a revolution or two, highlight his enthusiasm for life, which he says is better now than ever.
“I remember the time of the Dutch when I was growing up. Because we were farmers they did not bother us too much. In some ways they helped us,” Ketel says, adding that the introduction by the Dutch of modern damming systems for rivers had been valuable to rice farmers.
“In the old days we farmers dammed the rivers with coconut tree trunks driven into the riverbed, then we’d throw our rubbish in and that would create a dam.
“From the Dutch we learned to build dams from timber, so we could control the water flow better. That was a good thing they did for farmers,”.
But Ketel says there were times when the people faced starvation and were forced to search for food.
“One year was very bad. The rice crops were diseased and failed. We hunted for frogs, snakes and mice for food — a terrible time,” says Ketel, a slight shadow flickering across his milky eyes.
By the time Ketel was 17 years old he was married and beginning a family that had grown to six by the time of the Japanese invasion of Indonesia in 1942. Like 5,000 other men from his area, Ketel was forced into labor for the Japanese invaders. Ketel left his family and walked the 50 kilometers from Sakti to Jimbaran after being involuntarily indentured to the Japanese army.
“We were working down in Jimbaran, seven days a week. That was a hard time, my family stayed here looking after the farm while I worked there. They paid us 10 US cents a day to carve holes in rocks for dynamite so the Japanese could blast away the rocks and build roads.
“When the dynamite was set a bell would ring and we’d run for cover. It was dangerous, but some of the Japanese officers were not too bad,” says Ketel, forgiving the cruelties of war with an unexpected lightness of view.
The innately optimistic character of Ketel allowed him to make the best, even during the hardship of the forced labor camps, and his memory traces the few good times he shared with his fellow conscripts.
“The Japanese had a game for us. There was low hill and we’d line up and race to the top. Whoever won had the whole day off with no work.
“There was also another Japanese officer whom I got on well with. “He’d give me light duties, like plucking his chin. He was a good guy. That officer also helped me. He showed me how I could carve holes in the rock and fill them up again, so if other officers came over I’d scoop out the soft dust. It made my life much easier and I carved a lot fewer holes.”
The atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively, ended Ketel’s days of forced labor and he was able to return home to his family and rice fields. Ketel’s freedom was mirrored across the nation and within 11 days of Hiroshima Indonesia was declared an independent nation by the country’s first President, Sukarno, following guerilla wars spanning more than three decades.
“When those bombs were dropped, the Japanese soldiers just packed up and went, as though they had never been here.”
Six days after the Japanese evacuation, the Dutch were back, according to Ketel, who says they arrived with Allied Forces. The returnees were deaf and blind to the history soon to overtake them with the speed and force of a tsunami.
“Every night there were parties and dancing for the Dutch and Allies in Alun Alun in Ubud. They danced all night for a week,” Ketel says.
Indonesia’s Day of Independence — Aug. 17, 1945 — arrived like any other day for Ketel. As always he worked his rice fields with his sons, now young adults with families of their own.
“Being farmers and a long way from town, we did not know this was happening. We did not know our country’s independence had been won. I was never a soldier. I was always a farmer,” says Ketel.
“When we heard the news we realized that now we had a choice of where we worked, where we went. We could now choose how our lives would be lived.”
Now, 61 years later, Indonesia is a free and democratic nation and for people such as Ketel, who have witnessed Indonesia’s 100 years of revolution and evolution, the long journey has been worth the struggle.
“Every day is my best day. Let’s face it, I could die tomorrow or next year. I live without worry now, free of worry. I have enough food, enough money, a home and family. Every day of my life is very good,” he said with a broad grin.
Trisha Sertori