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‘My Time to Die in This Place Has Come’
Candra Malik & Dessy Sagita | October 28, 2010


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mauriceg
12:28pm Oct 31, 2010

@PemudaGaruda: its the easiest thing in the world to sit and criticise while other people do. Everyone has an opinion. We do try in our various ways to put over our points of view, as is (still), our right. Why don't you jump in and join us? It sounds like you can't wait to enlighten us predictable, laughable people with pearls of wisdom.

SirAnthonyKnown-Bender
9:31am Oct 31, 2010

Completely predictable comment right there, and laughable.

PemudaGaruda
9:27pm Oct 30, 2010

I've been a reader of this site, its articles and its comments for quite a while now and the fights/arguments/debates that you guys consistently provide is amusing, laughable at best and predictable.


peroblanco
3:37pm Oct 30, 2010

That's where you're wrong, dear padt. Plenty Indonesians are dirtying their hands with relief efforts in Mentawai & Merapi, & plenty are also educating their fellow Indonesians. Also for free or little money. Look it up. They are too numerous to mention, although obviously more are needed. There was a Kick Andy special on people who opened free schools some years ago, there's that woman who teaches kids in the Sumatran jungle, & this paper along with other media reported a great number of young Indonesians applying to be teachers in remote corners of the country. In places where there are no malls or even phone signals, can you imagine. *snark*

Roland et al, I do believe padt has every right to say what's on his/her mind. He/she just needs to edit his/her rants. As I said before, this article was about how a man whose selfish act of defiance brought 13 other people to their graves, & yet he/she went off on a tangent to include his/her interactions with pembantus & generalization of Indonesians in general. Hardly lucid, IMO. Maybe the glazed look Indonesians give him/her was the result of being patronized for hours on end on random subjects. But then a few pints over at Jaksa make people feel self important.

I'm also a great believer in not airing my charity. Or my CV! Especially to strangers on a newspaper site. Because really, what does that accomplish? A virtual pat in the back?

Roland
9:31am Oct 30, 2010

While it is normal that not everyone can agree to comments made by padt (and I believe are for sure also not expected), I think that her/his contributions to activate the grey brain cells always have hands and feet, and are, at least in my own opinion neither rude nor racist. Progress can only be made by well founded criticism (or let's call it opinions) and not with a boot-licking and Yes-sayer mentality.

So please padt, while also for me not all your comments are hundred percent agreeable (well that is the free choice of diversity), I am always truly interested, look forward to them and enjoy them, regardless of my final personal opinion. Have a great weekend!

Yogyakarta. His body was bent in prayer, shrouded in gray ash from the mountain he had dedicated his life to guarding.

Search and rescue workers found Mbah Maridjan’s body early on Wednesday morning, inside his home in the decimated remains of Kinahrejo village, on the slope of the mountain where he said he would die.

The fabric of his batik shirt and sarong was fused to his skin by the 1,000-degree Celsius heat clouds that blasted through his home. Around him lay the bodies of those who had tried to save him.

He is survived by his wife, Ponirah, 73, and five children.

Broto Seno, commander of Yogyakarta’s search and rescue team, said the 83-year-old spiritual gatekeeper of Mount Merapi died almost instantly. “There were no signs of pain. His body was prostrated rigidly, not like he suffered from the fire,” he said.

Speaking on behalf of the Yogyakarta Palace, Gusti Prabukusumo, the brother of Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, said they had a premonition of his fate.

“We knew long ago that Mbah Maridjan would be taken by Merapi. Now he’s gone, we have to choose a new gatekeeper soon,” he said.

The successor, he added, could either be a descendant of the previous gatekeeper or one of his surviving assistants.

Mbah Maridjan himself was the son of a Merapi gatekeeper. He replaced his father in 1982, when he was 50. Locals believe that the gatekeeper, usually an elderly person, has the power to speak to the spirits of the volcano.

In a recent interview, Mbah Maridjan said he was appointed by the sultan to “mediate with the spirits of the mountain.”

“My job is to stop lava from flowing down. Let the volcano breathe, but not cough,” he said.

He was known for his dedication and loyalty to the sultan, as well as stubbornness.

During an eruption in 2006, he also refused to leave his village despite the sultan’s orders, saying it was his traditional and spiritual duty to stay.

“If I evacuate when asked I would not be honoring my duty,” he told police, according to an Agence France-Presse reporter there at the time. But he suffered for it.

“I survived, but was burned and the building collapsed on me. I was in the hospital for five months. I had a lot of operations and now my hands, which were seriously burned, look like this,” he said, holding up fingers almost melted together.

In the days leading to Tuesday, the same steadfast stubbornness was witnessed by many who tried to convince him to evacuate.

A close friend and fellow paranormal, Wangsafyudin, also known as Ki Demang, said he visited Mbah Maridjan on Friday, asking him to leave.

“He said he couldn’t because he had a responsibility, and that because ‘my time to die in this place has almost come, I can’t leave,’ ” he said.

In the final minutes before Merapi erupted on Tuesday afternoon, 13 people were still in his home trying to convince him to evacuate.

They were all found dead with him.

Among them were Yuniawan Nugroho, 42, head of news portal Vivanews’s political desk, and Tutur Priyatno, 36, a volunteer for the Yogyakarta branch of the Indonesian Red Cross.